Skill Law
Otherwise known as the practiced-abilities handbook. Where players learn how skills work in Nilgiri the Forgotten World — fundamentals, martial and other practicals, and utile skills — and how they sit on the shared skills tree.
Spells live on the same graph; casting and spell-side practice are covered under Spell Law.
The Skills Tree Graph
Nilgiri is classless. Natural stats rolled at character creation set how far fundamentals can grow; fundamentals gate primary practicals; those gate tertiary practicals. Practice caps follow prerequisites on the Skills Tree Graph (Graphviz skills.png from ant SkillTreeGraph / skills.dat).
- See: Skills Tree Graph — full dependency image
- See: Skills Tree — in-depth reading of stats → fundamentals → practicals
What a skill is
A skill is a practiced ability. Until you invest practice sessions it sits at 0; fundamentals and primary practicals may be raised toward a maximum set by weighted prerequisites (up to 100 where the tree allows). Tertiary practicals unlock once prior practicals meet category minima.
Kinds of ability on the tree:
- Fundamentals — bases of knowledge (for example martialism, spellcraft, perception). Their ceilings come from weighted natural stats.
- Primary practicals — skills (and spells) applied directly in the world; ceilings average connecting fundamentals.
- Tertiary practicals — further practicals gated by category thresholds on prior practicals.
- Utile skills — utilitarian practicals; typically not dependent on other skills.
Practice and the graph
The practice command is informative: alone it lists what you can train and sessions remaining; with a skill name it shows qualifiers or pre-requisites, the calculated maximum, and post-requisites. Investing sessions uses learn under a master (apprenticeship). You can only practice as far as the graph and your natural stats allow.
Point to Practicing for the full command sessions, and to Skills Tree for the weighted-average math and category gates.
Skills inventory
Complete inventory of skills on the Skills Tree Graph. Classification follows SkillTree / skills.dat: entries under [APPLIED_STATS] are fundamentals; practicals whose first parent is a fundamental are primary; practicals whose first parent is another practical are tertiary. Spells share this graph but are listed on Spell Law.
The graph legend also names utile skills (green). The generated Skills enum encodes only fundamental / primary / tertiary (types 0 / 1 / 2); utile is not a separate type field. Utilitarian primary practicals authored with every profession level at -1 (weapon, device, and similar) are called out below among the primary practicals.
Counts: 6 fundamentals, 22 primary skill practicals, 20 tertiary skill practicals (48 skills total).
Fundamentals
From [APPLIED_STATS] — ceilings from weighted natural stats.
Primary practical skills
From practicals whose parents are fundamentals (Skills type 1).
Utile-style (all-profession)
Weapon, vessel, search, riding, and magical-device practicals authored with every profession level -1.
Other primary practicals
Tertiary practical skills
From practicals whose parents are other practicals (Skills type 2); category minima on those parents gate practice.