I do not recall seeing any restriction of that kind on Skimming. You do not have to be 'very familiar' with the place you are going to - you just have to know where you want to go.
Yeah, didn't Rand skim to Illian, where he had never been before? I can't recall what method he used, and I don't have the books handy.
Also, the Kin could have skimmed either way. i.e. they could have opened the gate in the house to a place they knew, or they could have skimmed from a place they knew to the house.
Rand travelled to Illian with a regular gateway.
Neither Skimming or Traveling require you to know where you are going well.
Traveling requires you to know where you are leaving from so that you have a starting point to match the one side of the pattern to the other(whether to bore a hole or make similar)
Skimming doesn't require much of anything because you are stepping into the void(T'A'R most likely) and you don't have to decide where you are going until you are there.
An annoying gateway error.
- 24/12/2010 04:52:54 AM
2289 Views
Re: An annoying gateway error.
- 24/12/2010 10:23:23 AM
1411 Views
Re: An annoying gateway error.
- 24/12/2010 03:41:10 PM
1234 Views
I dissagree
- 24/12/2010 07:09:41 PM
1215 Views
Yes, RJ confirmed that Shadowspawn can't survive gateways. *NM*
- 24/12/2010 07:39:02 PM
539 Views
And then BS confirmed that gholam are "more perfected" Shadowspawn which can. 
*NM*
- 24/12/2010 08:35:34 PM
539 Views
*NM*
- 24/12/2010 08:35:34 PM
539 Views
Re: An annoying gateway error.
- 24/12/2010 11:29:33 AM
1138 Views
"They had not known where-or if-the gholam would attack him"
- 25/12/2010 12:27:02 AM
1148 Views
Re: "They had not known where-or if-the gholam would attack him"
- 25/12/2010 02:05:07 AM
1078 Views
They prepared a place, and it just happened to be within walking distance of the attack?
- 25/12/2010 09:44:34 AM
1100 Views
Please re-read the chapter. It expalins a lot.
- 25/12/2010 04:05:50 PM
1103 Views
Your quote shows what happened.
- 26/12/2010 05:33:44 AM
1067 Views
Likely picked from a handful of pre-determined locations based on where and when the attack occurred
- 31/12/2010 08:47:20 PM
1074 Views
Perhaps, but I don't think so.
- 01/01/2011 01:19:12 AM
927 Views
Not realty. Caemlyn is huge by the standards of the time but realistically it's tiny
- 01/01/2011 06:05:06 AM
943 Views
The sizes I proposed are not huge (well, they would be by standards in the middle ages but not now)
- 04/01/2011 06:37:50 AM
873 Views
I believe Caemlyn is less than 300k people .... That's what .05% the size of London?
- 30/01/2011 06:02:50 PM
929 Views
You aren't seriously comparing modern population densities to medieval ones, are you? *NM*
- 30/01/2011 09:23:57 PM
509 Views
That would be an error if it hadn't been Skimming (the platform and what not) they were using.
- 25/12/2010 02:29:39 AM
1021 Views
It is an error because they opened a skimming gateway to the house (from the skimming place)
- 25/12/2010 09:47:08 AM
1063 Views
I'm confused now as to what you're arguing. They knew the location of the house.
- 26/12/2010 08:54:17 PM
994 Views
You need to know more than just where you are going
- 27/12/2010 06:59:21 AM
1063 Views
Please find me a supporting quote in one of the books.
- 27/12/2010 12:48:45 PM
1044 Views
Re: Please find me a supporting quote in one of the books.
- 27/12/2010 03:11:26 PM
912 Views
Skimming
- 27/12/2010 06:24:12 PM
979 Views
Well, from Encyclopaedia WOT, and aCoS
- 28/12/2010 01:02:42 AM
1184 Views
I stand corrected. Though I will say that the uses in the books don't match the definition.
- 28/12/2010 02:17:43 PM
1041 Views
Re: An annoying gateway error.
- 24/12/2010 12:22:38 PM
1134 Views