2026-09-07 14:34:51
Anonymous:
DES106 r2 (Campaign r11): section 0 placed on the Visionary's World Below (Brief 342043): the three layers become the roof to the first credits (heat cell, furnace, first Choir Cascade), the lift to the answering settlement, the descent to the real ending (the plate reread as seven settlements' lifts; competing accounts of the sealing; a standing decision about people and passage, never the Flood's supply) and optional deepest secrets; REV106-4 answered; Combat's Cascade ruling adopted with the lead's decision that the origin cap is the tuned landmarks the player prepared, authored per place (mirrored on the contract r8); the arc-through-water row withdrawn for the Relay; Colony's project loop accepted as the refuge's systems shape; content assumptions restated for layers and places; the Campaign designer's three questions from Districts r14 answered (layers replace districts; a place is the unit; the spine is descent). Placeholders bracketed for the Visionary.
hold the flood/campaign.md ..
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## 0. Under the owner's direction: what the design keeps, what it loses, and a three-ending progression (DES106 r1, a proposal)
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**DES106 r1, on the Campaign page at r10 · 2026-09-07 · Lead Game and Systems Designer · In review · Answers the Lead row of the [current priority on Tasks](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks#current-priority-apply-the-owners-discovery-first-direction): the impact of the [owner's answers](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision) on the existing design, and a high-level progression from the apparent first ending to the real ending and the optional deepest secrets, with the content each layer assumes.** Read against the Brief at 44aab7, Tasks 2ca16c, the Hub 329623, PM Reviews 2f20db, Colony bf1d83, Equipment 95a133, Districts 3f4d70, the contract afa7b4, REV106 r1, the External Critique r19 and the project room through message 28. The Visionary owns the replacement premise: every noun of fiction below is a placeholder, written in brackets so the shape can be judged, and the Visionary may replace all of them. The Campaign designer places whatever survives in geography; this section picks no districts. Nothing here is an owner approval, a measured duration, a count, or permission to develop.
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**DES106 r2, on the Campaign page at r11 · 2026-09-07 · Lead Game and Systems Designer · In review · Answers the Lead row of the [current priority on Tasks](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks#current-priority-apply-the-owners-discovery-first-direction): the impact of the [owner's answers](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision) on the existing design, and a high-level progression from the apparent first ending to the real ending and the optional deepest secrets, with the content each layer assumes. r2 places the layers on the Visionary's replacement proposal, [The World Below](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#visionary-replacement-proposal-the-world-below), supplies the stretch the proposal leaves to the lead, from the answering settlement to the real ending and the deepest secrets, answers REV106-4 and the critic's link caution, records Combat's Choir Cascade ruling with the lead's decision on the cap (mirrored on the contract at r8), accepts Colony's project loop as the refuge's systems shape, and answers the Campaign designer's three questions from Districts r14. r1 (fb24be) was written before the premise existed and is in history.** Read against Brief 342043, Tasks b2d9ea, World 5deede (WLD105), Colony cf90ad (COL103), Equipment f8b2fb and Echo Relay e3ffcf (E9), Combat r13 600893 (section 12), Enemies r12 0a56ba, Districts r14 90ded2, Design Review REV106 r2 786435, Clarity r28 3e1da4, the register's TRL-AS1 r3, and the project room through message 43. The Visionary owns the premise and World and Colony own its people and clues; where a bracket remains below it is a placeholder for them. The Campaign designer places whatever survives in geography; this section picks no places. Nothing here is an owner approval, a measured duration, a count, or permission to develop.
### 0.1 What the owner's answers do to the existing design
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| Attraction: the signal chooses the intake, light draws the crowd (contract section 3); the precedence stack; the switch-and-tow trick | The central science, and the main way a build mattered | A supporting tool, as the owner says. It still gives the survivorlike its readable pressure and a way to bring a crowd to where a build is waiting. It is no longer what a district is about | **Keep as support.** No district may earn its place by a new routing lever alone |
| Dispatch, permission and supply: the drum and the trunk, arrivals need supply, the empty flash | The mystery's ladder toward the harvest | The schedule and its forecast are still good survivorlike pacing, and a fair hidden rule whose signs were visible all along. What the schedule is for is now an open slot | **Keep the mechanism, withdraw its meaning.** The relay, the Exchange's bank and the Collector's basins are material for the Visionary, not requirements |
| The revelation that the city depends on the creatures; Answer A; Stop, Keep or Leave; Stop as the brake on time; the cascade; the refuge circuit dying | The revelation and the ending | Rejected by the owner. The shape, one standing state of the world chosen by the player with its cost visible at home, is worth keeping for whatever the real ending becomes; the content is not | **Withdrawn.** Contract section 9's Stop rows, World's endings, this page's section 10 and the Design Document's sections 9 and 11 are superseded, not deleted |
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| The caps: charge once per organism; a discharge stuns for eight seconds and spends a battery; the arc chains to at most three bodies (R10 declined); a Spark's death is hazard only; fixed power in a lit branch's water is hazard only | So that fighting never paid twice and the coil stayed the only stun: routing, not killing, was to be the science | These are the fixed-power and tool-only assumptions Tasks says may be challenged, and they should be. Under them the obvious ridiculous build, draw a surge into a wet yard and switch the yard's power on, does nothing to the crowd by rule. The arc's ceiling removes the genre's screen-wipe on purpose | **Challenge.** Kept on the contract until Equipment and Combat's combination exists; section 0.4 lists the clauses opened and the price the lead would ask |
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| The caps: charge once per organism; a discharge stuns for eight seconds and spends a battery; the arc chains to at most three bodies (R10 declined); a Spark's death is hazard only; fixed power in a lit branch's water is hazard only | So that fighting never paid twice and the coil stayed the only stun: routing, not killing, was to be the science | These are the fixed-power and tool-only assumptions Tasks says may be challenged, and they should be. Under them the obvious ridiculous build, draw a surge into a wet yard and switch the yard's power on, does nothing to the crowd by rule. The arc's ceiling removes the genre's screen-wipe on purpose | **Challenged, and now answered in part.** Equipment's Echo Relay and Combat's ruling give the combination, and the contract mirrors them at r8 with the lead's decision on the cap (section 0.4); the other rows stay open |
| The eight-cell rack, collection priority, links, wet leakage, the Siphon, shelter-only fitting; the twelve-entry catalogue in three families | Salvage against space; three plans for one objective | Confirmed enthusiasm for the tradeoff. The catalogue is too small and too routing-shaped to produce "I made a ridiculous build work": its families mostly change where a crowd goes. Build expression needs parts that interact, discovered rather than listed | **Keep the rack rules; the catalogue is provisional.** Equipment and Combat's one combination is the test, and the number of interactions is the measure, not the number of items |
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| The refuge: workshop, receiver, dock fittings, the purchase order, the support assembly with both services (the Visionary's judgment); no upkeep, no population | Investments that change the next trip; a refuge that never sends a bill | The owner wants a settlement that grows, with authored people the player helps and defends. The investment loop is the "improve their capabilities" half and survives as written. The no-people, no-management boundary was a choice made to avoid a colony simulation; growth and people can be shown without one | **Keep the loop; reopen the boundary.** The cast is World and Colony's; section 0.3 says what the systems side needs from it |
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| Seven districts and the refuge; three visits to a deep district; the expedition count | The complete-game scope | Superseded as scope by the owner. The three-visit grammar (a first visit, a return because the objective changed, a return because the world changed) is the owner's own list of what makes a return worthwhile, and is kept as the return grammar. The districts as written are candidate content | **Keep the grammar; scope follows the premise.** Districts' count test and duration hypothesis are withdrawn as evidence of sufficiency |
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| The refuge: workshop, receiver, dock fittings, the purchase order, the support assembly with both services (the Visionary's judgment); no upkeep, no population | Investments that change the next trip; a refuge that never sends a bill | The owner wants a settlement that grows, with authored people the player helps and defends. The investment loop is the "improve their capabilities" half and survives as written. The no-people, no-management boundary was a choice made to avoid a colony simulation; growth and people can be shown without one | **Keep the loop; the boundary is reopened.** Hearth, its three people and its authored-project loop are now proposed (World r29, Colony COL103); section 0.3 takes the loop as the refuge's systems shape |
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| Seven districts and the refuge; three visits to a deep district; the expedition count | The complete-game scope | Superseded as scope by the owner. The three-visit grammar (a first visit, a return because the objective changed, a return because the world changed) is the owner's own list of what makes a return worthwhile, and is kept as the return grammar. The districts as written are candidate content | **Keep the grammar; scope follows the premise.** The Campaign designer's own assessment (Districts r14, section 0) withdraws the hour figures outright and holds the district pages; section 0.6 answers their three questions |
| World's rule that every clue must change what the player does next; two places for every essential clue; a safe way to investigate | To keep the mystery from becoming lore-reading | The owner relaxes the first: history and mythology may be discoveries in themselves. The other two are UX rules | **Relax the first, keep the rest** |
| The persistence rule (temporary effects, switched state, authored commitments, carried things) and the board | The world changes between visits | Exactly what the owner asks a return to have | **Keep unchanged** |
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| The surveyor, and the fifteen-minute expedition to a district | The player identity and the frame | The Visionary retires the surveyor for a refuge-raised scavenger-inventor; the frame, one trip out from home with a rack and back to the people who needed it, is what The World Below's loop is | **Identity retired; frame kept** |
| The Design Document's pitch, one district and three tiers; this page's owner page and section 10 | The owner-facing argument | The wrong argument now. The rules sections remain the reference for what is kept | **Superseded**, labelled on both pages; a new owner page waits for the premise |
In one sentence: the machine survives as a thing to experiment with and a supporting way to move the crowd; the ending and its revelation go; the rack and the refuge loop stay and grow; and the caps that kept the game from being about killing are opened so that a build can be spectacular at a price.
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**On the two things the owner left undecided.** The lead's recommendation to the Visionary is to keep the physics whether or not the drowned city and its machinery stay, for two reasons that do not depend on the fiction: it is the only system on the wiki that already produces all three kinds of discovery the owner named (section 0.2 gives one existing example of each), and it prices a build without a currency, because charge is found, carried in cells that could have carried salvage, and spent once. Keep the machinery's redirecting of the crowd only as a tool. The city itself is the Visionary's to keep or replace.
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**On the two things the owner left undecided.** The lead's recommendation to the Visionary is to keep the physics whether or not the drowned city and its machinery stay, for two reasons that do not depend on the fiction: it is the only system on the wiki that already produces all three kinds of discovery the owner named (section 0.2 gives one existing example of each), and it prices a build without a currency, because charge is found, carried in cells that could have carried salvage, and spent once. Keep the machinery's redirecting of the crowd only as a tool. The city itself is the Visionary's to keep or replace. *(r2: the Visionary kept the physics and replaced the city: the drowned industrial city becomes a flooded sanctuary with inhabited layers below, and the machinery that redirected hordes becomes tuned landmarks a build fires through. The recommendation stands answered.)*
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### 0.2 The three endings, and what moves the player between them
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**The contract's standing.** The proposal says the fixed-power, dispatch and attraction rules are reusable only where a retained scene earns them and are not a universal contract the replacement must obey. The lead accepts that as the contract's new standing: from r8 the [contract](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) is the one statement of the retained rules the World Below's scenes use; the rows that belonged to the harvest, fixed power's source, the trunk, the Collector's supply, Stop and the cascade, are marked superseded and kept; and a scene that needs a rule not on the page publishes it as a diff, as before. What does not change is that a rule stated once means the same thing in every scene that uses it. That is what a contract is for, and it is what keeps the Cascade's preview honest.
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The owner asks for a goal the player can state at any moment and a mystery that keeps deepening. The structure below does that with one question per layer and one kind of discovery that ends each layer. It does not say how long any layer is.
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### 0.2 The three endings, placed on The World Below
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**Layer one: the goal you were given. Ends at the first credits.** The refuge's people need one concrete thing, and the player is told so in the first minutes, on screen, and can always see how far off it is [placeholder: a working water supply; a safe road out; someone to be brought back]. Play is the survivorlike loop as it exists: go out, survive the surges, bring home salvage and one more piece of the map. The discovery that dominates is the second kind on the owner's list, the world is larger than it looked: each place opened shows that the map is bigger than the last one implied. The existing example is the Exchange's bank, seven clutches on one shaft seen by a player who knows two districts; it says the network has seven arms before any of them is visited, and it says that whatever the network is for. Builds: the player learns the parts and their first interactions, and the first ridiculous build is possible from found parts before the first credits. The world: standing states accumulate on the board and at home, and the settlement grows visibly. The credits roll when the given goal is fulfilled. They are real credits, and a player may stop there satisfied. They are apparent because the notebook is full of things seen and not explained, and because the thing that fulfilled the goal is itself a clue [placeholder: the part that made the pump run carries a mark the player has seen in three other places].
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The Visionary's proposal places the first credits and the task after the lift; it leaves to the lead and the Campaign designer the progression from the answering settlement to the real ending and the deepest secrets. This is that, as a shape with placeholder beats in brackets; the Visionary may replace every bracket, and World and Colony own the people and the clues. REV106-4 is answered where it applies to the lead at the end of this section.
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**Layer two: what the goal was really part of. Ends at the real credits.** The entry is a reinterpretation of the first kind on the owner's list, a clue that was visible all along: something the player saw in layer one, and probably wrote down, means something else now. The existing example is the empty flash, a lamp that calls and nothing comes, first read as a fault and later understood as a call that was permitted and not answered; that reading works under any account of what the calls are for. The reinterpretation reframes the given goal as one piece of a larger and older purpose, and it hands the player a new goal they can state. Play is the same districts with a different purpose, which is the owner's return because the objective changed, and new areas beyond what looked like the edge, the second larger-world step. Builds: the deep combinations, with the environment as an ingredient and the grown settlement's services making them possible; the screen-wipe payoff belongs here at the latest. The world: the player's intervention at scale, and the standing state chosen for the ending, with its cost visible at home and among the people. The credits roll again, and this time the world is closed. Two constraints from the owner: the revelation must not be the creature-dependence under any name, and the new goal must be as plain as the first one was.
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**The roof, to the first credits.** The goal the player can state is Senn's: the heat cell from the Bell House before the cold night, then the central furnace before winter. Play is the loop as the proposal writes it: a rack with two cells reserved for the cell; the Coil's pulse through the seven wet bells as the bounded first lesson; the upper sanctuary's trips restoring routes, bringing furnace parts home and following the seven-bell marks; the Echo Relay found on those marks; the first Choir Cascade clearing the furnace hall long enough to restart it. The discoveries here are the small reinterpretation, a family song heard as technical memory when the old doors answer it in order, and the first larger-world hints, the marks that lead somewhere and the flooded-stair relief seen upside down. Builds grow from the Coil and one Battery to the six-cell chassis, and the first ridiculous build lands before the credits. At home, Senn's room warms, Mara's bench shows the casing and the bell spacing, Tavi's map turns, and Hearth's projects begin. What ends it is the furnace lit: Senn's stated need is met and the credits are real. Two structural rules the lead adds: the furnace hall is the first place the wipe is possible and the only place it is required before the credits, and the Relay lies on the marked route so that it cannot be missed by a player following the marks; a player who reaches the hall without it needs a slower way to restart the furnace [placeholder: drain the hall's ring and fight the remainder dry], stated as a recovery, not as a second main line.
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**Layer three: what happened here, and what it was for. Optional, after the real ending.** History and mythology found while looking for power, the third kind on the owner's list; the existing example is the head-works' shaft that keeps time, a source of power that is also the oldest thing in the city. No gate on either credits depends on this layer. Its content is authored secrets answered only by cross-referencing the notebook across districts; a few places reachable only with mastered builds, which is acceptable here and only here, because a build as a key is then a reward for expression rather than a substitute for it; and the settlement's final state, the people the player kept. Nothing procedural.
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**The lift, to the first landing and the answering settlement.** After the credits the archive plate gives the crowned relief its second reading, the song opens the lift, and the goal the player can state is the proposal's: reach the nearest answering settlement, establish a safe two-way route and bring its message home. The discovery is the larger world, the owner's second kind, delivered as places: the first landing's scale, the garden, the lights. The first descent crosses a flooded ring where the Flood gathers between layers, and the Relay meets a second landmark network that is not bells [placeholder: a tuned cistern ring], so the player learns that the Cascade generalises and that a longer route sharpens cargo against equipment. The route is a standing state with a cost at home: the reopened shaft is one the Flood can follow, which is what makes Senn's later authored defence and the receiving alcove real rather than scheduled. The first landing is a supported shelter, the retained one-supported-shelter rule moved below. What ends it is the message received and carried home.
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| Layer | The goal the player can state | The discovery that ends it | What builds do | What changes in the world and at home | What must exist for it |
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**The descent, to the real ending.** The message changes the goal [placeholder: the settlement below has answered Hearth's signal for generations; its songs hold the verses Hearth lost; it knows the way further down is sealed and its people disagree about why]. That is the campaign-wide reinterpretation, the owner's first kind at full size: the seven descending shafts on the plate are seven settlements' lifts, each sealed from below, and the crown is Hearth's own lift head. Hearth is the top of a chain, not the roof of a ruin, and the songs were left so that the chain could be reopened from the top. The goal the player can state at each step is a task, not a question [placeholder: reopen the chain one settlement at a time; reach the layer that was sealed first]. The discovery kind is the owner's third, history and mythology found while seeking power and passage: each settlement kept a different account of the sealing, and whose account the player trusts changes the route they take and whom they help, without opening a door, as World's key-or-history rule says. Builds grow by new landmark networks and by parts the settlements below kept, which Equipment owns; the measure remains new interactions, not items, and the Cascade at a place's full landmark count is the player's own preparation made spectacular. The world change is the intervention at scale and the standing decision the real ending turns on [placeholder: whether to reopen the chain fully, joining the settlements and letting the Flood migrate between layers, or to keep the layers apart with controlled routes; the settlements disagree, and so do Mara and Tavi]. What ends it is the reason for the sealing learned and Hearth's decision made and lived with, at home and below; the real credits. Two constraints from the owner: the decision is about people and passage, never about the Flood's supply, and the reinterpretation must be fair the way the relief's is, seen in three places, testable safely, recoverable at home.
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**The deepest secrets, optional after the real credits.** What the Flood is and where it came from, which World keeps for the lower layers; who wrote the songs and why they trusted children with them; the layer that was sealed first [placeholder: the sealed bottom]. Nothing on either credits depends on this layer. Its content is authored secrets answered only by cross-referencing the notebook across settlements; a few places reachable only with mastered builds, acceptable here and only here, because a build as a key is then a reward for expression rather than a substitute for it; and Hearth's final state, the people who arrived and the people the player kept. Nothing procedural.
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| Stage | The goal the player can state | What ends it | The discovery kind | What builds do | What changes below and at home |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| One, the apparent ending | [The people need one thing; get it] | The larger world: the map keeps proving bigger than it looked | Parts and first interactions; one ridiculous build reachable from found parts | Standing states on the board; the settlement grows; the notebook fills | A given goal that is one person's need; at least one larger-world place; a clue in the goal's fulfilment |
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| Two, the real ending | [The thing we needed was part of something older; find what it was] | The clue visible all along that now means something else | Deep combinations; the environment as an ingredient; the refuge's services as the enabler | The player's intervention at scale; a standing state chosen for the ending with a cost at home | One campaign-wide reinterpretation; the same districts with a new purpose; a boundary that opens |
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| Three, the deepest secrets | [What was this place, and what was it for] | History and mythology found while seeking power | Mastered builds as the key to a few places | The settlement's final state; the notebook closed | Authored cross-district secrets; no gate on the credits |
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| The roof, to the first credits | The heat cell; then the furnace, for Senn | The furnace lit; real credits | A song as technical memory; hints of a larger world | Coil and Battery to the six-cell Cascade; the first wipe in the furnace hall | Hearth warm for good; the bench, the map, the projects |
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| The lift, to the answering settlement | Reach the settlement; a safe two-way route; its message home | The message received | The larger world, as places | The Cascade generalised to a second network; cargo against equipment on a longer route | The first landing supported; a shaft the Flood can follow; the alcove; the first authored defence |
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| The descent, to the real ending | [Reopen the chain one settlement at a time; reach the layer sealed first] | The sealing understood; Hearth's decision made | History and mythology from settlements that disagree; the plate reread as seven lifts | New networks and parts from below; the Cascade at a place's full count | The chain's standing state; who moved where; Hearth's people changed |
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| The deepest secrets | [What the Flood is; who wrote the songs] | Never gated | History as itself | Mastered builds as the key to a few places | Hearth's final state; the notebook closed |
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**What connects the layers is one notebook.** The owner would be delighted to finish with a notebook full of notes, so the lead proposes it as a system rather than a hope, and Colony's persistent information and Tavi's turning map are the same system seen from home: an entry is a thing seen, in the game's own words only for what the player has actually seen; an entry never solves itself; when a later context changes what an entry means, the game marks it changed and lets the player read both readings, which is the relief's second reading and the plate's third made playable. The owner's UX line binds it: the notebook helps deduction and never stands in for a clear control, a visible current goal, or feedback on a basic interaction.
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**What connects the layers is one notebook.** The owner would be delighted to finish with a notebook full of notes, so the lead proposes it as a system rather than a hope: an entry is a thing seen, in the game's own words only for what the player has actually seen; an entry never solves itself; when a later context changes what an entry means, the game marks it changed and lets the player read both readings. That is the layer-two entry made playable. The owner's UX line binds it: the notebook helps deduction and never stands in for a clear control, a visible current goal, or feedback on a basic interaction.
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**REV106-4, as it applies to the lead.** The critic found the apparent ending unplaced in both documents and the goal after the lift a question. Brief 342043 places the first credits at the furnace and makes the post-lift goal a task; this revision places the layers on that and supplies the stretch the proposal leaves to the lead, with the goal stated as a task at every step and the bracketed content marked as the Visionary's to fill. The critic's second point, that the proposal's one discovery was all three kinds in one beat, is met by the Visionary's staging on World and by the layering above: the song as memory before the credits, the world as places after the lift, history in the descent.
### 0.3 What the refuge needs from the systems side
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A lead's note for World and Colony, who own the cast; nothing here proposes a character, a cast size or a line of dialogue. The people are where the goals come from: layer one's given goal is one person's need, said in that person's words, and layer two's new goal comes from what the people make of the reinterpretation. Growth is visible in stages tied to the layers, people arriving and places opening, without a population number, a jobs screen or a food clock; the existing investment loop, the workshop, the receiver, the dock fittings and the support assembly, remains the way the player improves the people's capabilities, and a repair made for a named person is an authored commitment under the persistence rule, so it stays made. Defence, if the premise wants it, stays player-chosen and never scheduled; the owner has approved no defence schedule, upkeep loop or relationship subsystem, and neither does this section. What the systems side asks of the cast is only this: that the player can always say who needs the current goal met and can see, at home, what the last trip changed for them.
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A lead's note for World and Colony, who own the cast; nothing here proposes a character, a cast size or a line of dialogue. Colony's authored-project loop (COL103) is the refuge's systems shape as the lead reads it: three kinds of result, with ordinary salvage the only currency, named cargo never priced and information never spent; the promise resolved before any shopping; at most three projects on the table; ordered, persistent completion; nothing that worsens while the player is away. The lead owes the prices and will set them when the projects' field actions exist, on one principle: payable by purposeful expeditions, never by repeated hauling. The people are where the goals come from: layer one's given goal is one person's need, said in that person's words, and layer two's new goal comes from what the people make of the reinterpretation. Growth is visible in stages tied to the layers, people arriving and places opening, without a population number, a jobs screen or a food clock; the existing investment loop, the workshop, the receiver, the dock fittings and the support assembly, remains the way the player improves the people's capabilities, and a repair made for a named person is an authored commitment under the persistence rule, so it stays made. Defence, if the premise wants it, stays player-chosen and never scheduled; the owner has approved no defence schedule, upkeep loop or relationship subsystem, and neither does this section. What the systems side asks of the cast is only this: that the player can always say who needs the current goal met and can see, at home, what the last trip changed for them.
### 0.4 The clauses opened, and the price the lead would ask
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| Dispatch needs the drum and the trunk; arrivals need supply (section 3) | Nothing | **Keep as mechanism**; its meaning is the Visionary's |
| Stop as the brake on time; the cascade; the refuge circuit dying (sections 3 and 9) | Nothing now | **Withdrawn** with the ending |
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**What Equipment and Combat have since answered, and the lead's decision (r2).** Equipment's [Echo Relay](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment/Echo%20Relay) (E9) and Combat's [section 12](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) are the combination this section asked for, and they answer the arc row above better than the row did: the Relay seeds an ordinary arc chain from every tuned wet landmark in a Coil-energised footprint, so the wipe comes from origins the player prepared rather than from unbounded propagation, and the chain still never travels through energised water. The row proposing an arc chain through energised water is withdrawn in the Relay's favour; R10 stays declined. Combat's four rulings are adopted as the working rule: a chained hit kills a stunned ordinary body outright, so the stun is what makes the arc lethal and the combination is more than its parts; stunned bodies are eligible and the Crust is neither origin, target nor hop; origins resolve nearest the surveyor first and a body belongs to one origin; a Heavy is ten hits and survives. The critic's caution is accepted: the chassis spends one bank per module, two banks, and "every linked battery" above meant that. **The one thing Combat leaves to the lead is the cap, and the lead reopens it deliberately.** Combat proposes four origins, at most sixteen bodies, a quarter of a small surge, and says plainly that this is a broad earned clear and not the screen-wipe the owner's example named, that the cap is the dial, and that raising it costs legibility. The lead's ruling: the cap is not a fixed number; every tuned landmark the player prepared and can see in the footprint is an origin, and the count is authored per place, seven at the Bell House and, in the furnace hall, enough for the hall's crowd. The reason is that the clear then scales with the player's own preparation, which is the reaction the owner named, and stays legible because each origin is a landmark the player tuned by hand and the preview numbers them. The price is unchanged: both banks, six cells, the Relay spent until shelter, Heavies and the second wave surviving. Combat's four is recorded as the alternative on the contract, damage numbers stay closed, and nothing on any page says what a given count feels like. Mirrored on the [contract](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) at r8, for Combat and Equipment to countersign and PM to dispose.
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### 0.5 Content assumptions, stated so they can be tested
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These are the things that must exist for section 0.2 to be a game, as kinds and as the smallest number of distinct things, never as hours. A district count is not among them; how many districts the premise needs follows from how many distinct reinterpretations and larger-world steps it can honestly supply, and that number is the Campaign designer's to place and the Visionary's to fill. Neither is asked to reach any hour figure by repetition.
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These are the things that must exist for section 0.2 to be a game, as kinds and as the smallest number of distinct things, never as hours. A layer count and a place count are not among them; how many places the descent needs follows from how many distinct reinterpretations, settlements with their own accounts, and landmark networks the premise can honestly supply, and that number is the Campaign designer's to place and the Visionary's to fill. Neither is asked to reach any hour figure by repetition.
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- **Three larger-world moments**, each a place the player walks into and not a message: the first landing after the lift, [the layer sealed first] in the descent, and one hidden for the deepest secrets. The upper sanctuary supplies hints before the credits, not the moment.
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- **Two campaign-wide reinterpretations**, the relief's (placed) and the plate's as seven lifts (proposed), each fair the same way: seen in three places, testable safely, recoverable at home. For every place retained below, **one clue whose meaning changes once**; a place with none is not worth a return on knowledge alone and should be merged or cut.
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- **At least two accounts of the sealing that disagree**, held by settlements the player can reach, such that trusting one changes a route or an ally; none of them opens a door.
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- **The return grammar in every place below**: a first visit, a return because the objective changed, a return because the world changed, and optionally a mastery return; the Campaign designer's revisit test applies. A place that supports only the first is a corridor.
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- **Build interactions, not items**: the Relay generalises to at least one network that is not bells before the descent ends, and parts from below add interactions, with preparation at Hearth needed to attempt them. The measure is how many interactions the player can discover, not the catalogue's length.
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- **The furnace hall's recovery**: the Relay on the marked route, and a slower way to restart the furnace for a player who reaches the hall without it.
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- **Two credits sequences, both real**, and the apparent one honest: the furnace stays lit.
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- **The notebook as a system** with the changed-meaning state, shared with Tavi's map, and a current goal always visible outside it.
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- **Hearth's growth in at least three stages** tied to the layers, by authored projects and arrivals with a relationship and a decision, never a population number.
+
- **The UX floor**: every basic interaction gives feedback, nothing essential sits behind a purchase, every essential clue exists in two places, a safe way to investigate exists for every dangerous one, and the cold night is a reason and not a countdown.
+
- **Not assumed:** any number of hours, any layer or place count, any procedural content, or that any district as written survives. Whether the content this list names fills the owner's ambition cannot be claimed until the descent is designed; the list is what would have to be checked.
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- **Three larger-world moments**, each a place the player walks into and not a message: one in the first hours, one at the boundary into layer two, one hidden for layer three.
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- **One campaign-wide reinterpretation** as the entry to layer two, and, for every district retained, **one clue whose meaning changes once**. A district with no reinterpretable clue is not worth a return on knowledge alone and should be merged or cut.
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- **The return grammar in every retained district**: a first visit, a return because the objective changed, a return because the world changed, and optionally a mastery return. A district that supports only the first is a corridor.
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- **Build interactions**, not items: at least one surprising interaction between each module family and the environment, and combinations that need preparation at the refuge to attempt. The measure is how many interactions the player can discover, not the catalogue's length.
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- **Two credits sequences, both real**, and the apparent one honest: the given goal is fulfilled, not faked.
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- **The notebook as a system** with the changed-meaning state, and a current goal always visible outside it.
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- **An authored cast and visible settlement growth in at least three stages**, tied to the layers, with no procedural personalities.
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- **The UX floor**: every basic interaction gives feedback, nothing essential sits behind a purchase, every essential clue exists in two places, and a safe way to investigate exists for every dangerous one.
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- **Not assumed:** any number of hours, any district count, any procedural content, or that the seven districts as written survive. Whether the content this list names fills the owner's ambition cannot be claimed until the premise exists; the list is what would have to be checked.
+
### 0.6 Handoffs, and the lead's answer to the Campaign designer
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### 0.6 Handoffs
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**To the Campaign designer, answering the three questions in Districts r14, section 0** (the lead's proposal; PM and the Visionary to confirm). First, the layered sanctuary replaces the surface districts; the surface is the upper sanctuary around Hearth, and the old districts do not sit beside it. Their ideas travel as places, not as districts: the Exchange's room where a choice lands somewhere the player is not standing, the Collector's withheld wave that makes a call flash empty, the pumping district's lesson that joined water carries power and attraction. Second, a layer holds several places; the unit that replaces a district is a place reachable in one expedition from Hearth or a landing, and a layer is the unit in which the map grows. Third, the spine is descent, and every expedition still begins and ends at Hearth or at a supported landing, so travel between places becomes travel between landings, and the two-way route the post-lift goal establishes is the first standing one. Your five premise-independent rules survive as you list them, with one renaming: one held dock plus one supported shelter becomes Hearth plus one supported landing below. Hold the district pages as you propose; the Lock Flight, the Tram and the Tidal Barrier stay on this page as superseded material and no transfer is needed. Your withdrawal of the hour figures is the right call and this section makes none.
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The Visionary: the premise, the given goal in one person's words, the revelation that is not creature-dependence, and a verdict on the recommendation in 0.1 to keep the physics. The Campaign designer: once the premise exists, place the return grammar and the three larger-world places in geography, and retire the count test and the duration hypothesis as evidence. Equipment and Combat: the one combination, and which row of 0.4 it needs opened. World and Colony: the cast, the reason to care, the given goal as a need, and one clue that changes meaning. The critics, the reader and the Troll: whether the first goal in 0.2 can be stated plainly, whether each layer's discovery kind is distinct from the others', and whether 0.4 opens builds beyond routing without reopening farming. PM: whether this is the shape to take to the owner, and D022 and D024 marked superseded in the decision log.
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**The rest.** The Visionary: the descent's shape, the second reinterpretation and the ending's decision, accepted or replaced; the furnace hall's recovery. The Campaign designer: once the Visionary rules, place the first descent, the first landing and the answering settlement, and run the revisit test on the descent. Equipment and Combat: countersign the contract's r8 row on the Relay, the stun-kill and the landmark cap, or contest the cap there; Equipment's wording on Crust and Heavies as Combat offers it. World: the plate's second chain, made fair the way the relief's is, and the settlements' competing accounts. Colony: the prices when the projects' field actions exist, on the principle in 0.3, and the landing as a supported shelter. The critics, the reader and the Troll: REV106-4 against this revision; whether the descent's goal is a task at every step; whether the cap ruling keeps the moment legible. PM: disposition of DES106 r2 and contract r8; D022 and D024 marked superseded in the decision log; whether the layered shape goes to the owner together with the Visionary's premise.
---
@@ 560,7 574,7 @@
## Bookkeeping
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**Rule ownership after this revision** (PMR004 4: the lead records which definitions now own the rule). Section 0's assessment and progression: this page, the lead; its handoffs are in 0.6 and nothing in it changes a rule today. The four clauses, the dispatch condition, the state table and readable state: the shared rule contract. Precedence, press, targeting, damage and status grammar: Combat Rules. The roster: Enemies and its role pages, the Floater included. Rack, links, leakage, collection priority, field handling and accounting: Inventory and Charge, with the catalogue on Equipment and its item pages and acquisition on Build Paths. The colony loop, services, refits and the defence option: Colony. District order, travel, the progression map, the count test, the duration hypothesis, the Collector and the Head-works: Districts and its pages. The Lock Flight, the Tram Incline, the Tidal Barrier and the Exchange outline: this page, until the Campaign designer and the lead cut them to district pages in one agreed edit. The mystery, the campaign question and the clues: World and Mystery. The pumping district's rules and examples: the Design Document, until the editor's transfer.
+
**Rule ownership after this revision** (PMR004 4: the lead records which definitions now own the rule). Section 0's assessment and progression: this page, the lead; its handoffs are in 0.6; the Choir Cascade's rows are the contract's from r8, with Equipment owning the Relay and Combat its damage, order and eligibility. The four clauses, the dispatch condition, the state table and readable state: the shared rule contract. Precedence, press, targeting, damage and status grammar: Combat Rules. The roster: Enemies and its role pages, the Floater included. Rack, links, leakage, collection priority, field handling and accounting: Inventory and Charge, with the catalogue on Equipment and its item pages and acquisition on Build Paths. The colony loop, services, refits and the defence option: Colony. District order, travel, the progression map, the count test, the duration hypothesis, the Collector and the Head-works: Districts and its pages. The Lock Flight, the Tram Incline, the Tidal Barrier and the Exchange outline: this page, until the Campaign designer and the lead cut them to district pages in one agreed edit. The mystery, the campaign question and the clues: World and Mystery. The pumping district's rules and examples: the Design Document, until the editor's transfer.
**Sources read for r9 (DES105 r4).** PM Reviews PMR009 262856 and checkpoints 55b3a8, 38a6d3; Tasks 888ac1 (the PMR009 rows; the owner's workflow); Brief 6d869e (the vision's return in plain language; the Siphon simplification; the theme's mastery sentence); Team 0bff49 (chat for discussion, articles for design; the reviewer model change); Chat Rooms 441178 and the hold-the-flood room read to message 16; Design Review REV105 r3 265a09; External Critique r17 2de127 (X37); Clarity CLR102 r25 f9b0fd; Colony r7 c56634 (the refuge answer; the berth issue); Equipment 122d38, Build Paths f6f8ef, Utility Modules 4ffa18 (the Siphon rule and the issue boundary); the Exchange r4 17dca3; World and Mystery r27 7b8ad1; Design Document 125528 (the Visionary's siphon sentence, kept).
