Skills

More so than almost any other single mechanic, skills define the knowledge and competency of a character in Kiga. While rings represent a samurai’s general outlook and natural inclination, skills represent the more concrete knowledge they have accrued throughout the course of their entire lifetime. As such, skills allow them to accomplish a tremendous amount, giving them access to areas of competency—particular bodies of knowledge and practical experience, essentially.
A skilled character not only is more likely to succeed than an unskilled character, but also has a much better ability to create useful opportunities or complete a task effortlessly.

Skills and Checks

When making a check, a player first states what their character wants to accomplish, which determines the skill group used for the check. Then, based on the body of knowledge that is most relevant, the GM and player determine which skill is the most fitting for the task. Finally, the player describes the method their character employs, from which the GM determines their approach. Each skill group has five approaches (one for each element) that reflect the various methods a character might use to leverage a skill to that end. Each of these approaches encompasses a number of concrete ways of using the competency that a skill reflects to achieve various goals. Many approaches have additional examples in individual skill entries found in this chapter, but these obey the general principles set out in each skill group overview.
Thus, when assessing a character’s ability to perform a given task, one must examine both their skill ranks (their expertise in the field of study) and the ring the character will use for the end they want to accomplish (their core aptitude at that sort of approach). This means that two characters with the same number of ranks in a skill might actually have radically different probabilities of completing a given approach to a skill, based on their natural aptitudes for the skill’s various approaches (reflected by their rings).

Skill Groups

Skills in the Kiga are divided into five categories based on their primary uses and role in society:

• Artisan skills: The high arts of Kiga have a powerful influence on society. While commoners produce most items in Kiga, artisans produce influential, sometimes even supernatural works that can alter the course of history. Artisan skills allow characters to engage in the process of creating art.
• Martial skills: Samurai were originally warriors, and while members of this societal strata fill many roles in Kiga now, it is still steeped in martial traditions. As such, Martial skills are seen as being of utmost importance. Martial skills allow characters to fight in duels or battles, defeat physical challenges, successfully wage war, and overcome their own mental limits.
• Scholar skills: Information is power, and Scholar skills give a character access to information about society, the world, and other people. Scholar skills allow characters to recall information, identify things related to an area of expertise, observe their environment, and draw conclusions.
• Social skills: Courtiers hold incredible sway in Kiga, negotiating the agreements by which wars are waged and averted and influencing marriages, trade, and other events of great import in the lives of samurai. Thus, Social skills are at least somewhat important to almost all samurai, from the most silver-tongued denizens of ruling courts to the roughest of field soldiers. Social skills allow characters to affect the emotions and thoughts of others through rhetoric, behaviour, and body language.
• Trade skills: These are skills most commonly practised by occupants of the bottom tiers of Kiga’s stratified society. Trade skills allow characters to procure resources from their environment and perform work.