Cultivation

The Cultivation skill is a Knowledge Specialization skill characters can earn XP in. A character’s Cultivation skill represents their ability to tend to various flora either on a small or large scale. Characters with high Cultivation typically are skilled farmers, gardeners, or herbalists who can provide for the needs of even the most difficult of plants.

Cultivation includes a variety of activities such as: tilling the soil and providing soil aeration, creating irrigation, planting seeds, fertilizing the soil, pruning plants, and rotating fields. Cultivation does not include breeding plants and creating hybrids nor studying the uses or biological structures of flora as that would be under the Botany skill.

Skill Levels

Apprentice 1-25

Apprentices in the Cultivation skill are more akin to hobby gardeners than farmers. Their skill is low and so they can only manage to take care of a couple of plants at a time, with great effort and time involved. Apprentices must constantly be checking in on their plants to make sure they are water just enough and over or underwatering can be an easy mistake. Apprentices find it easiest to start with amateur or mature plants, rather than seeds. 

Journeyman 26-50

Journeyman in the Cultivation skill are able to more easily understand the needs of any given plant. Watering is probably their most understood skill, but they are also now skilled enough to dive into the intricacies of soil types, seed starts, and weather temperatures. However, these are all still in their learning stage, and experimenting with these will result in many plant deaths. Journeyman can reliably take care of a handful of crops or houseplants.

Expert 51-75

Expert cultivators tend to choose between mass farming or expertly cultivated ornate plants. Experts can juggle numerous plants of the same kind or between 20-50 different plants in their household. While plants certainly still fail and die in an Expert’s care, this is much rarer than the lower levels. Watering is second nature, seed starting is easier and results in many more successes compared to a Journeyman and Experts can now experiment in what types of plant food result in the largest gains for specific plant types. Experts, too, are less likely to lose plants due to weather faults. 

Master 76-100

The Master cultivator understands plants as living beings, equal to animals and sentients. They are able to interpret a plant’s needs from just its body language. Plants rarely die in the care of a high-level Master, and their knowledge of a plant’s needs such as water levels, soil types, climates, and favorite foods are vast and accurate. Masters can take care of a huge number of plants all at once and tend to have sprawling schedules for care times of each.