Skills and Blooms are the two ideas the whole Garden rests on. They're simpler than they first look, because they're really the same thing seen from two directions.
Skills
Every adventure has its own catalogue of skills, set up by your Game Master. A skill can be a broad competency ("Communication and Listening", "Problem Solving") or a narrow capability ("Mentor"). Each has its own colour, and many have an icon or image and a short description. Hover a skill chip in the Garden to read what it means.
You hold a level in each skill, and that level is simply a count: one Bloom in a skill is one level in it. No weighting, no decay, no formula. Twenty Blooms in Resilience is level 20 in Resilience. Each skill has a maximum level set by your Game Master, and Blooms past it don't raise it any further.
Your highest skill is your master skill, and it sets your hexagon's colour in the Garden. If two skills are tied at the top, the app picks one consistently.
Blooms
Blooms are recognition made countable. A Bloom is always awarded in a specific skill, which is why receiving them builds a real picture of what you're known for rather than one meaningless score.
Blooms reach you in several ways:
- Endorsements from other players: 2 Blooms in the skill they choose. See Giving Blooms.
- Gifts from other players: 1 Bloom each.
- Asking for help: 1 Bloom in the skill you ask about, once per skill every 24 hours. See Help Requests.
- Helping someone: 2 Blooms in the request's skill when the person you helped approves your reply.
- Missions: whatever your Game Master set for that Mission.
- Tasks: a Task can pay Blooms in one skill.
- The Journey: a milestone or achievement can award a Bloom in a skill when you complete or earn it.
- Your Game Master: a direct award for something the system can't see by itself, or an award to a whole group at once.
Instant or Claimed
Most Blooms land the moment they're earned. Three kinds wait for you instead: Mission rewards, approved help, and group awards from your Game Master. They arrive in Rewards in the Garden dock, each with a button such as Claim 2 Blooms. Your skill level only goes up when you press it.
Seeing Your Skills
- Your Journal opens on a Skills tab when your adventure has a skill catalogue: a chart with each skill in its own colour, a card per skill showing where its points came from, and every skill's description. The Skill History tab lists every Bloom you've ever received: when, what it was for, and who gave it. See My Work: Your Journal.
- Your profile box has a Garden section: Blooms earned, where that stands against the adventure (see The Backdrop), your strongest skill, your connections and your Blooms left to give.
- Anyone's drawer in the Garden shows the skills they hold and their level in each.
Every grant is recorded permanently with its source. Nothing about your skill levels is guesswork.
What Blooms Can Unlock
Your Game Master can use Blooms as a requirement elsewhere in the adventure: an achievement that's granted once you reach a level in a skill, a Task that completes when you do, or a chapter of the Journey whose artwork grows with your Blooms.
Why It's Built This Way
Because it's the honest version. A generic points score tells you someone is active. A skill level tells you what they're actually good at, who thought so, and when. It also makes the Garden's colours mean something real rather than being a palette.