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 gate ("Mentor"). Each one has its own colour and icon, and most carry a short description — hover a skill chip on someone's profile to read it.
You hold a level in each Skill. That level is simply a count: one Bloom received in a Skill equals one level in it. No weighting, no decay, no complicated formula. Twenty Blooms in Resilience means level 20 in Resilience.
Your highest Skill is your master skill, and it sets your node's colour in the Garden. If two Skills are tied at the top, you choose which one represents you from your own profile drawer.
Blooms
Blooms are recognition made countable. A Bloom is never abstract — it's always awarded in a specific Skill, which is why receiving them builds a real picture of what you're known for rather than a single meaningless score.
Blooms reach you from several directions:
- From other players — endorsements and gifts (see Giving Blooms)
- From the Journey — milestones and achievements can be configured to award Skills on completion
- From Garden Missions — relational goals pay out in Blooms
- From your Game Master — direct grants, for recognising things the system can't see by itself
Every single grant is recorded permanently, with its source and who sent it. Nothing about your Skill level is guesswork.
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 — and it makes the Garden's colours mean something real rather than being a palette.