2026-09-07 14:59:07
Anonymous:
WLD106 r30: the plate's second chain for the descent (seven shafts, seven settlements, who sealed whom: the sealing collar and its wheel side, fair the way the relief's chain is), the rule for how settlements carry competing accounts, the mystery's side of the early-opened lift (PMR011); the Visionary's three WLD105 edits adopted, nothing reverted
hold the flood/world and mystery.md ..
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**Superseded premise — owner direction, 2026-09-07:** the harvest-dependence revelation and its ending are rejected for now; this page preserves earlier design material, not the active pitch. Setting and retained mechanics await the [replacement vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision). Follow [current assignments](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks); do not expand or polish incompatible material merely to close old tickets.
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**What this page is, in plain words.** This is the mystery of Hold the Flood: the questions the world asks the player, the evidence that answers them, and the rules that keep every answer fair, visible and reachable in more than one way. The premise is being replaced. On 2026-09-07 the owner rejected the earlier answer, that the drowned city ran on charge harvested from the Flood, and asked for a game led by discovery: clues that mean something new with new context, places unexpectedly larger than they seemed, history found while looking for power, and a refuge with people worth going home to. The Visionary's replacement proposal, [The World Below](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#visionary-replacement-proposal-the-world-below), gives the refuge a name, Hearth, three people, a first errand (a heat cell from the Bell House before the next cold night), a clue seen since childhood (a crowned figure under seven dots) that turns out to be a plan of the lifts below, and a children's song that keeps the order in which the old doors answer. The first section below is this page's contribution to that premise: what the three people are for, how the relief's reinterpretation is made fair, which songs are keys and which are history, and what the Flood is when it is not the revelation. Everything after that heading is the earlier drowned-city material, preserved as design the retained scenes may still draw on, not the active pitch. Detailed mechanics live on the [shared rules page](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction); the campaign on [Campaign](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign); the refuge on [Colony](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony); the working direction on the [Brief](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision).
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**What this page is, in plain words.** This is the mystery of Hold the Flood: the questions the world asks the player, the evidence that answers them, and the rules that keep every answer fair, visible and reachable in more than one way. The premise is being replaced. On 2026-09-07 the owner rejected the earlier answer, that the drowned city ran on charge harvested from the Flood, and asked for a game led by discovery: clues that mean something new with new context, places unexpectedly larger than they seemed, history found while looking for power, and a refuge with people worth going home to. The Visionary's replacement proposal, [The World Below](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#visionary-replacement-proposal-the-world-below), gives the refuge a name, Hearth, three people, a first errand (a heat cell from the Bell House before the next cold night), a clue seen since childhood (a crowned figure under seven dots) that turns out to be a plan of the lifts below, and a children's song that keeps the order in which the old doors answer. The first campaign goal is the sanctuary's central furnace, restarted before winter; lighting it is the first credits. After them the song opens a lift onto an inhabited world below, and the next task is to reach the nearest settlement whose lights answer. The first section below is this page's contribution to that premise: what the three people are for, how the relief's reinterpretation is made fair, which songs are keys and which are history, what the Flood is when it is not the revelation, and, for the descent, a second chain in which the plate's seven shafts are read again as seven sealed lifts, and the rule by which the settlements below disagree about who sealed whom. Everything after that heading is the earlier drowned-city material, preserved as design the retained scenes may still draw on, not the active pitch. Detailed mechanics live on the [shared rules page](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction); the campaign on [Campaign](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign); the refuge on [Colony](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony); the working direction on the [Brief](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision).
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**WLD105 · r29 · 2026-09-07 10:52 UTC · In review** — first contribution to the replacement premise, under the Tasks row "World + Colony designers: a small core cast and one concrete reason to care, help or defend them; link one practical expedition goal to a clue that later changes its meaning or exposes a larger world; not every historical discovery a key." Written jointly with [Colony](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony) (Hearth and its people) against the Visionary's proposal; proposals, not owner-approved fiction; designer spoilers marked. r29 also makes PM's bounded correction to r28 (both routes to the junction gate restored in the map description; doubled names removed).
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**WLD106 · r30 · 2026-09-07 11:59 UTC · WLD105 accepted as a working contribution (PMR011); r30 In review** — the item the Lead hands this page on [Campaign, DES106 r4 §0.6](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#06-handoffs-and-the-leads-answer-to-the-campaign-designer): "World: the plate's second chain, made fair the way the relief's is, and the settlements' competing accounts." r30 adds that chain for the descent, built on the Lead's proposed resolution and in the same form as the relief's; a rule for how the settlements carry their accounts and how their disagreement is something the player can see and check before anyone argues it; and the mystery's side of the early-opened lift, which PMR011 asks to be preserved and which the Lead specifies on the campaign side. r30 also takes the Visionary's three edits to WLD105 ([4796cb3](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=4796cb3), [5deedec](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=5deedec), [6725076](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=6725076)) as the text of this page, nothing reverted: the song quota removed, Senn's authored defence delayed until Hearth reopens travel, the plate after the furnace with the flooded stair's early reading, the Flood's presence below stated, and the Choir network in the central furnace hall in place of the retired Echo Relay. r29 was the first contribution to the replacement premise, under the Tasks row "World + Colony designers: a small core cast and one concrete reason to care, help or defend them; link one practical expedition goal to a clue that later changes its meaning or exposes a larger world; not every historical discovery a key." Written jointly with [Colony](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony) (Hearth and its people) against the Visionary's proposal; proposals, not owner-approved fiction; designer spoilers marked. r29 also makes PM's bounded correction to r28 (both routes to the junction gate restored in the map description; doubled names removed).
## The World Below — the people, the clue that changes meaning, and what the Flood is (WLD105; proposals)
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**Standing.** The Visionary's proposal supplies the premise: Hearth on the dry roof of a flooded sanctuary; Mara, Senn and Tavi; the Bell House across the square; the crowned relief under seven dots; the children's song; the glass survey plate; the lift; the inhabited layers below. Colony owns Hearth's structure and growth; this page owns the clue logic and the Flood's fiction, and shares the cast's reasons with Colony. Nothing here is a lock unless it says so.
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**Standing.** The Visionary's proposal supplies the premise: Hearth on the dry roof of a flooded sanctuary; Mara, Senn and Tavi; the Bell House across the square; the crowned relief under seven dots; the children's song; the glass survey plate; the lift; the inhabited layers below. Colony owns Hearth's structure and growth; this page owns the clue logic and the Flood's fiction, and shares the cast's reasons with Colony. The Lead's [DES106 r4](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#02-the-three-endings-placed-on-the-world-below) supplies the descent's shape and a proposed resolution, which the second chain below is built on. Nothing here is a lock unless it says so.
### The three people, and one concrete reason to care about each
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**Fairness.** Redundancy: the relief in three places, the song in two forms, and the plate repeats visible geometry rather than manufacturing it. Early inference: the flooded-stair orientation can reveal the depth reading before the plate. Recovery: Tavi copies the archive comparison onto the nursery relief that evening, so a missed field inference remains legible at home. Replay: once known, reliefs are read on sight; the skill persists, the surprise does not. No item gates the reading or action: anyone who recognizes the song's sequence can try the handles, and the doors answer before opening.
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**If the lift is opened before the furnace** (PMR011: preserve the early solution, no invisible credits flag; the Lead's [DES106 r4](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#02-the-three-endings-placed-on-the-world-below) specifies the campaign side; this is the mystery's side). The doors answer the song's order from the first visit and answer nothing else: no door, lift or archive checks whether the furnace is lit or the plate found, and this page asks for no flag. A player who reads the flooded stair upside down, or simply tries the song on the handles, opens the lift early, and the reward is what it looks like, time and wonder: the first landing's scale and the answering lights arrive before the credits; Mara is wrong about the rooftops earlier; Tavi wants to go down earlier; Senn's need is unchanged and said aloud (the room still needs the furnace, and nobody from below can be received into a cold Hearth), which is a reason, not a gate. The plate, when the archive is reached, confirms a reading already made, which is what it is for the observant in any order; Tavi's copy onto the nursery relief happens the evening the reading is made, whichever evening that is. Answering the lights remains Hearth's choice, made knowingly (Colony), and nothing follows from the early opening that does not follow from the late one. What the early solver finds below without the Choir technique, and what the crossing costs, is Campaign's: slow and costly, never locked.
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### Which songs are keys, and which are history (the owner's relaxed rule, applied)
Only a song with an unmistakably actionable **sequence** may be a key: the order the doors answer; the safe way to wake a relic. Songs that preserve **people** are history: grief, loyalties, and competing accounts of why the ancestors sealed the layers and why they left ordinary families songs that could reopen them. History changes what the player believes, and later whose account they trust when the settlements below disagree; it never locks a door. Do not set a song-to-key quota: the point is that keys are a rare consequence of the fiction, not a content ratio to fill. A discovery earns its place by changing what the player understands, what they do, or whom they trust.
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### The larger world as discovery, staged
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The discoveries are now separated across the progression. Before the first credits, the Bell House proves a family song carries technical memory and the player learns that a tuned Choir network can turn that lesson into the furnace-hall build. Restoring the central furnace fulfills Senn's winter goal. After those credits, the archive plate supplies context for the crowned relief; the song opens the lift; the first landing establishes physical scale; distant lights establish people. The immediate post-lift task is to reach the nearest answering settlement, establish a safe two-way route and bring its message home. The longer question—why the layers were sealed and why ordinary families kept the songs—guides later history without replacing that task.
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The discoveries are now separated across the progression. Before the first credits, the Bell House proves a family song carries technical memory and the player learns that a tuned Choir network can turn that lesson into the furnace-hall build. Restoring the central furnace fulfills Senn's winter goal. After those credits, the archive plate supplies context for the crowned relief; the song opens the lift; the first landing establishes physical scale; distant lights establish people. The immediate post-lift task is to reach the nearest answering settlement, establish a safe two-way route and bring its message home. The longer question—why the layers were sealed and why ordinary families kept the songs—guides later history without replacing that task. The descent's own reinterpretation, the plate's seven shafts read again as seven sealed lifts and the accounts that disagree about who sealed whom, is the second chain below.
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### The plate's second chain: seven shafts, seven settlements, and who sealed whom (WLD106; proposal on the Lead's proposed descent; designer spoilers)
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**What it must do.** The Lead's descent ([DES106 r4 §0.2](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#02-the-three-endings-placed-on-the-world-below)) proposes the campaign-wide reinterpretation: the plate's seven descending shafts are seven settlements' lifts, the crown is Hearth's own lift head, the layers were sealed one settlement at a time in the song's order, the settlements disagree about who sealed whom, and at the layer sealed first the seal turns out to have been both things at once, a hold on the Flood's migration through the rings and a hold on the power. The Lead asks this page to make that fair the way the relief's chain is: seen in three places, testable safely, recoverable at home. The chain below does it with one prop, a sealing collar on every lift, and one fact about it that anyone can see: which side its wheel is on. If the Visionary replaces the resolution, the two-sided seal in the Discover row changes with it and the rest stands.
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| Step | Evidence, inference, consequence |
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| --- | --- |
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| Notice | The plate, in hand since the furnace archive, or Tavi's copy of it: seven shafts, and across each a short bar, drawn to one side of the shaft or the other, never centred. Harmless draughtsman's marks; the reading that opened the lift needed none of them. Hearth's own lift, once open: a heavy iron collar in the shaft wall at the first landing, and on it a hand-wheel, on the landing's side. The plate's bar for Hearth's shaft is drawn on that same side. |
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| Compare | The answering settlement's lift head, reached on the first task below: the same collar, its wheel on the settlement's own upper side, and the plate's bar for that shaft drawn there too. Tavi's recording of the song and the settlement's, side by side: the same verse, one word apart. Hearth sings *the doors that answer in their turn*; below they sing *the doors we shut in turn*. Two collars and two verses say the seals were closed by hand, from one side, by particular people. |
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| The wrong reading it invites | Hearth's: the layers below were lost to the water and the doors were shut to keep it out. The settlement's: the roof sealed them in to keep the warmth and the power. Each is reasonable, and each is exactly what the people who hold it can see from their own side of one door. |
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| Understand | The wheel is on the side of whoever closed the seal. Hearth's lift was closed from below: the first settlement shut itself in. That settlement's next lift down was closed from above: it shut the layer beneath it out. The plate's bars, reread, are a survey of which side every seal was worked from, so the plate now says, before the player descends, which settlements chose to close and which were closed upon. Neither account is whole; both are true of different doors. |
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| A safe way to test it | Every collar is visible from the landing's dry side before any crossing, and its wheel gives a quarter-turn and a bell tone from the side it was made for and nothing from the other, without opening anything: the grammar of the doors' answer, reused. A player can test which side a seal answers from with no Flood in the shaft and lose nothing but time. |
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| Discover | At the layer sealed first: a collar with a wheel on both sides, both chained shut. Closed from above and from below at once, the only seal that was. That is the last account made visible rather than told: a hold on the Flood's migration through the rings and a hold on the power, by agreement, by people on both sides. |
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| Change later play | The accounts stop being stories and become a map of trust. A settlement that shut itself in has reasons the player can ask about and a route it will open; one that was shut out has a grievance and a different route. Which account to trust decides which shaft to open next and whose people help, and never opens a door (the key-or-history rule). Hearth's decision at the end, reopen the chain or keep the layers apart with controlled routes, is made knowing what the seal held. |
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**Fairness, the same three ways.** Redundancy: the wheel side is on the plate, on the collar and in the verse's one word, and any one of the three carries the chain. Recovery: Tavi's turning map takes the wheel sides as the player sees them, and the plate's bars can be compared at the table for a shaft not yet reached, so a misread collar is corrected at home and free (Colony's map project adds context, never a fee, as PMR011 says). Replay: once a player knows what a bar means, every plate and every collar is read on sight; the skill persists, the surprise does not. No item gates any step: the plate was context for the first chain and is context for this one, the collars are walked past on the route, and the verses are sung.
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**The order of the sealing, as evidence rather than a told fact (second form; optional; a shape borrowed from REF114).** The song's order is the order the doors answer, and the Lead's descent makes it the order of the sealing. The second form: each settlement's verse names where the water stood when its door was shut (*when the water took the fourth step we shut the door*; Hearth's verse has no such line, because Hearth shut nothing), every landing's flooded stair is cut with the same numbered steps as Hearth's, and so the verses can be put in order against the steps, and a verse that names a step the water never reached is a verse someone changed. This is the method in [REF114](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Reference/Oral%20Memory) as a shape only, a song plus a water level yields a place and a time: that page validates nothing and records that the method is contested, and here it is offered as a discovery the player can check and get wrong, not a note that explains itself. The song's order alone closes the chain; this form is for the player who wants to know it is true.
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### How the settlements carry their accounts, and how their disagreement is something the player can see (WLD106; proposal)
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A rule that extends the key-or-history rule: an account is history, and history is carried by people and by things people made, never by a document that explains itself. Each settlement keeps three things. Its form of the verse: the one changed word or the added line, audible when Tavi records it beside Hearth's. One carving at its lift head: the same crowned figure, with the crown's shafts cut only to the depth that settlement knows, so each carving is a map of that settlement's world and stops where its knowledge stopped. One map, which shows the layers it knows and marks Hearth's roof as lost, exactly as Tavi's map marked them. The disagreement is therefore visible before anyone argues it: two maps that each call the other side lost, two verses one word apart, two carvings that stop at different depths. What a person says adds the reason and the grievance, and reasons are what the player weighs. The first account to reach Hearth is carried in person: the injured arrival Colony's receiving alcove is for, after Hearth answers the lights, brings the settlement's verse and its version of the shutting, and Hearth's people hear it at their own table (Colony owns the alcove and the scene; this page owns what the arrival knows and what they get wrong). Constraints: at least two accounts that disagree, the Lead's content assumption, and none opens a door; no account is simply false, each is true of the door its people can see; how many settlements there are and where they sit is Campaign's; the plate's bars, the collars and the verses are three props and one rule, and this page proposes no others.
### Handoff
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Colony: the three situations above as Hearth grows, and who else lives there. Lead and Campaign: the layered progression from the lift down. Equipment and Combat: the Bell House pulse and Choir Cascade's legal rack and finite-footprint exception. **Visionary disposition:** retain the three relationship threads and fair clue chain; use the qualitative key/history rule above, and let the lift reveal breathe before the later authored defence. PM disposes. What follows on this page is the drowned-city material, superseded as the active pitch and preserved as design. The superseded quota and earlier defence timing remain in [World r29 / 8d03e80](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=8d03e80).
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Colony: the three situations above as Hearth grows, and who else lives there. Lead and Campaign: the layered progression from the lift down. Equipment and Combat: the Bell House pulse and Choir Cascade's legal rack and finite-footprint exception. **Visionary disposition:** retain the three relationship threads and fair clue chain; use the qualitative key/history rule above, and let the lift reveal breathe before the later authored defence. PM disposes. What follows on this page is the drowned-city material, superseded as the active pitch and preserved as design. The superseded quota and earlier defence timing remain in [World r29 / 8d03e80](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=8d03e80). **r30 handoffs.** Visionary: the second chain and the accounts rule, to accept or replace; the Lead's resolution is their frame. Lead: DES106's placeholder for the layer sealed first now has a prop, the two-sided collar. Campaign: a collar at every lift, visible from the landing's dry side; the same numbered steps on every landing's stair; the settlements' count and places. Colony: the arrival as the first account's carrier; the map project takes wheel sides and the plate's bars free. Equipment and Combat: nothing new; a collar is not a device and no rule of the rack changes. Critic: REV106-4's point that the post-lift goal was a question is met, if it is, by each step of the descent being a task; whether the wheel side reads on sight is theirs to doubt and play to settle. PM disposes; nothing here is owner-approved fiction.
