Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Skills
Primary skills are areas of specialization for that unit. These are intended to be the unit’s main set of skills, and the unit’s power (outside of the ordinary) is defined by this set of skills.
Secondary skills are important but general skills. Abilities most everyone has, and that are useful in varied/general circumstances.
Tertiary are miscellaneous, small skills—dark elixir spells—that are very minor and specific in their effects. So they usually don’t matter, but it can be fun to find ways they do. (So, maybe more like an artifact in Pixel Dungeon.)
Table 6.1: Common Tertiary Skills Weapons
| Voice |
2 |
A Human’s weight in Human-made decisions |
| Recon |
2 |
Not just used in combat—honest |
Primary Skills
Unit’s Primary skills start at their degree. So, simply saying that a unit as a Primary Ambush skill means that whatever degree (and order) that unit is, that’s the starting degree for that skill.
Primary skills are also relatively easy to develop further in game. Something like they gain levels with fewer (or more varied) points. Or that these are ones that can gain level during a scenario (as well as outside like other skill levels.) Anyway, somehow better than Secondary in this way.
Secondary Skills
The start value of these skills is also that of the unit. These are lacking in whatever makes Primary ones better….
Attack Skills
Ambush
Ambush skill can be used in two ways in battle scenarios:
- As a modifier to the initial location of units, if the ambushing unit both attacks first and makes a successful ambush roll
- The degree of success of the roll is the number of distances between opposing units that the ambushing unit can decide for themself
- E.g., A unit ambushes a group of four opposing units and succeeds with a roll of five
Voice
No, not that kind of voice. No Gom Jabbar here. Just being heard.
Human society is strongly meritocratic. It is democratic—the ecosystem is inherently Human now, every Human that is part of the ecosystem has a vote. But the weight of that vote varies. By magnitudes
- The Substrate. Those who subsist on the detritus of society. Who must feed themselves. Walkers, etc.
- The Dejected. Typically those demoted from Normal society, e.g., as punishment, but also increasingly inter-generationally.
- The Normal. The default level, the amount any, well, normal Human exerts on decisions
- The Advanced. The quick, the gifted, and the driven.
- The Experts. The first level were specialization is possible, one is automatically (at no cost) chosen by a Human of this degree. Any time a decision is made ambiently that their specialization pertains to, they gain +1 (making their effective Voice 6° fir those actually at 5, etc.)
- The Applicants. Those dedicated to learning about an area of knowledge. Gain +2 when deciding on an area related to one of their 2 specializations
- ?
- The Messengers. Those who ferry information to and decisions from the Deciders.
- The Deciders.
Uses of Voice rolls include:
- One unit trying to stop an other from carrying out an action
- One unit removing Suppression effects from other units (any ambient, for distant a unit can either spend an additional AP or an Entangled Point to try to do so on a distant unit)
- Adjusting the enviro level of Anthropic spaces
Reconnaissance
Not just for combat. Who am I kidding, it’s mostly for combat, but you can use it other times.
Evasion
Nearly anyone can duck.
Tertiary Skills
Always lower than Primary and Secondary.
Maybe also harder to develop, too, like points have to come from very specific situations.