Commit 1ac116

2026-09-06 20:08:06 Anonymous: CMB101 r1: Drifter role page - the existing single enemy type re-specified as the roster baseline. No behaviour changed; forecast as telegraph, six counterplays with their costs, and two open questions (drop size variants under the no-damage-numbers rule; pursuit range is unstated and load-bearing for the precedence stack).

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+	# Hold the Flood — Drifter
+
+	**CMB101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**
+	The existing single enemy type, re-specified as a role so the roster has a stated baseline rather than an implied one. **No behaviour is changed here**; everything below is either quoted from the source or marked as a proposal.
+	Source: [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–6, and [Power and Attraction](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction). Shared grammar: [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).
+	[Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) · [Design Index](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Index) · [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief) · [Glossary](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Glossary)
+
+	**Name is a functional placeholder.** [World and Mystery](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery) owns the Flood's identity and fiction; rename freely.
+
+	## What it is
+
+	The Flood itself — the mass. It is 85% or more of every surge by the [composition budget](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), and it is the medium the other five roles deform. **It deletes no assumption, because it *is* the assumption:** everything answers the light.
+
+	## Trigger, action, threat
+
+	| | |
+	| --- | --- |
+	| **Trigger** | A dispatch releases it at the intake the panel selected. After entry, any lit beacon it can reach |
+	| **Action** | Precedence line 3: walk to the nearest reachable lit beacon, re-evaluated continuously; hold there on arrival; never leave a held beacon for a farther light. With none reachable, line 4: spread along the entry branch, both ways. Within pursuit range of the surveyor, line 1: break off, chase, drift back |
+	| **Threat** | Volume. 40 to 140 per surge over half a minute, three surges an expedition, each larger. Contact costs one health of five, with a moment of immunity after |
+	| **Hit count** | Three cutter hits, at roughly two hits a second — so a little over a second and a half each, against a surge you cannot out-kill. Adopted, GDD §3 |
+	| **Charge** | Killed: drops a 1-unit mote. Stunned in water: sheds its share of one 5-unit large mote per complete ten stunned. **Once per expedition**, then spent and no longer glowing ([R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)) |
+	| **Conducts?** | Yes. It is the body the coil, the arc and energised water all act through |
+
+	## Telegraph
+
+	The **forecast** is the telegraph, and it is the design's best readability decision: the countdown, the map marker at the next intake, a locked marker for a surge already dispatched, and each entered crowd's current target beacon (GDD §3). [R2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) adds one ring per crowd showing its current extent, so a player can see how much of a branch is full before crossing it. At the dispatch itself the relay's pulse is visible travelling the thin signal cable from the panel to the beacon before it flashes — the observable the whole attraction rule's fairness rests on.
+
+	## Counterplay, and what each costs
+
+	| Counterplay | Cost |
+	| --- | --- |
+	| Route it with the panel: light the branch you want it on | **Lighting a branch is what brings it there.** That is the design's central price, and it also decides where the next surge enters |
+	| Hold a chokepoint where it comes a few at a time | You are inside pursuit range for as long as you hold, and you are not exploring |
+	| Thin an edge with the cutter to shrink a ring and buy road home | Time, and standing in pursuit range. Under R2 the shrink is visible, which is what makes it worth doing |
+	| Stun a mass standing in connected water with the coil | A whole battery, and you must be standing in the water you electrify |
+	| Spend an arc burst through a packed crowd | A whole battery, ten seconds, and it returns nothing if the crowd has already shed |
+	| Walk away | Surge time, which is the expedition's real currency |
+
+	## Machinery and equipment
+
+	Everything. The Drifter is what makes the panel a weapon, the beacon a lure, the coil a harvest and the arc a payoff. Its one economic rule — **each organism sheds once** — is what stops the harvest loop becoming a farm and is why the arc is a spend rather than an engine (GDD §6).
+
+	## Placement (for Campaign)
+
+	No constraints beyond the budget floor: at least 85% of every surge. A district that wants a harder surge should change **where** the Drifters can go, not how many hits they take ([R8](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)).
+
+	## Asset note
+
+	The one enemy body. GDD §14 records it as the project's first likely approval request and states the reason honestly: the bioelectric organism proposed is not humanoid, and free packs are unlikely to supply it. **No asset has been located, inspected or created by this role.** Under [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) it needs exactly two glow states — unshed and spent — and no tint variants are required by the roster.
+
+	## Open questions
+
+	- **Size and tint variants.** GDD §15's minimum scope is "one enemy type with size and tint variants". Under R8 there are no stats for a size variant to change, so a larger Drifter would be decoration. **My position: drop size variants and spend the readability budget on the five role silhouettes instead.** Raised for the Lead; not acted on unilaterally.
+	- **Pursuit range as a number.** Unstated in the source and load-bearing for [R1](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat): if it is generous, every role reads the same near the player. A tuning bound, not a rule, and unverified.