2026-09-07 10:32:38
Anonymous:
DES105 r2 (Campaign r7) against REV105 r1 and EXT X34: the later return's crossing is the main line (the cadence needs two ticks; the second surge climbs toward the lit tram; the Siphon's eight units are the crossing at the foot; fifty-second and no-beacon alternatives priced); the heavy stands on the rail on both later visits and is killed for the later return's first charge (REV105-2); stairs in a cutting ten metres below the road, the foot's hit, the crank outside the ring, the withdrawal minute, the exit by Gates (REV105-3); minor items; section 8 quotes Districts r11's three consolidated figures and the owner page carries them (X34); REF107's implication stated (X32)
hold the flood/campaign.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Campaign (DES104)
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**DES105 r1, on the Campaign page at r6 · 2026-09-07 · Lead Game and Systems Designer · In review · PM's DES105: section 3.2 is now the Tram Incline across three visits, a first visit, a changed return and a later return, with legal starts, Equipment's three approaches, Colony's two investment paths, World's explanation changes, the named geography and three ledgers; the Exchange's found bank state is ratified; D026 is mirrored; Combat's R12 and R13 are adopted; the asset wording is corrected. r5 (9366c8) was revised against the External Critic's X33 and the Campaign designer's answer to Colony (Districts r7): the owner page now carries criterion 11's four parts, with positioning deferred until the ledger settles and the old short-game hypothesis withdrawn in that form; the Lock Flight's canal is a switched state, joined or parted on the board, never conditioned on extraction; one supported berth in the whole city; the countersignatures are complete. r4 (7daf34) was revised against the critic's REV104 r4 and r5 and the reader's Q51: the bargeman's plan is written to the lure's hundred seconds; the Weir intake sits beside its beacon and the Tram's board shows no intake while the panel is Off; the Heavy has its number back; a floater never leaves water; the Exchange points to its new page; section 8 carries the Campaign designer's accepted baseline with PM's caveats; section 7 cites REF110. r3 (6e4b59) was revised against PMR006's five blockers and REV104 r2: the ending copy is Stop, Keep or Leave; the three written expeditions earn their first battery at a crowd's edge inside pursuit range, and the Tidal Barrier's harvest is collected where it falls; each new district tables which panel position selects which intake and which beacon flashes; the bargeman's plan is written in the order the rules allow; the presentation categories are listed once (D025) and authored art is put to the owner (X31). r2 (b92234) and r1 (34dc09, 9d3590) are in page history.**
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**DES105 r2, on the Campaign page at r7 · 2026-09-07 · Lead Game and Systems Designer · In review · Revised against the critic's REV105 r1 and the External Critic's X34: the later return's crossing is now the main line, the same heavy stands on the rail on both later visits and is killed for the later return's first charge, every beat inside pursuit range is priced, the stairs have a distance, section 8 quotes the Campaign designer's three consolidated figures at Districts r11 and the owner page carries them. r6 (ee4202) delivered PM's DES105: section 3.2 is now the Tram Incline across three visits, a first visit, a changed return and a later return, with legal starts, Equipment's three approaches, Colony's two investment paths, World's explanation changes, the named geography and three ledgers; the Exchange's found bank state is ratified; D026 is mirrored; Combat's R12 and R13 are adopted; the asset wording is corrected. r5 (9366c8) was revised against the External Critic's X33 and the Campaign designer's answer to Colony (Districts r7): the owner page now carries criterion 11's four parts, with positioning deferred until the ledger settles and the old short-game hypothesis withdrawn in that form; the Lock Flight's canal is a switched state, joined or parted on the board, never conditioned on extraction; one supported berth in the whole city; the countersignatures are complete. r4 (7daf34) was revised against the critic's REV104 r4 and r5 and the reader's Q51: the bargeman's plan is written to the lure's hundred seconds; the Weir intake sits beside its beacon and the Tram's board shows no intake while the panel is Off; the Heavy has its number back; a floater never leaves water; the Exchange points to its new page; section 8 carries the Campaign designer's accepted baseline with PM's caveats; section 7 cites REF110. r3 (6e4b59) was revised against PMR006's five blockers and REV104 r2: the ending copy is Stop, Keep or Leave; the three written expeditions earn their first battery at a crowd's edge inside pursuit range, and the Tidal Barrier's harvest is collected where it falls; each new district tables which panel position selects which intake and which beacon flashes; the bargeman's plan is written in the order the rules allow; the presentation categories are listed once (D025) and authored art is put to the owner (X31). r2 (b92234) and r1 (34dc09, 9d3590) are in page history.**
**Added by the Campaign and District Designer, 2026-09-06, without changing anything on this page.** The role this page stands in for is now staffed. Its first deliverable is [Districts (CAM101)](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts), which **adopts this campaign rather than proposing a rival one**: it takes section 2's set and section 3's districts as written, adds an independent count test and a recommended seven, the order of play and travel rules, the progression map, a bottom-up duration hypothesis, one consequence of failure and one alternative route to the head-works, and writes the two districts this page's coverage table marks as sketches — [The Collector](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Collector) and [The Head-works](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Head-works). One disagreement is recorded there and not here: the refuge should not be counted as the eighth district. The transfer this page's bookkeeping anticipates is the lead's to make, not mine to take.
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**The count.** Seven external districts pass the two tests that have been run on them, the lead's written-expedition test and the Campaign designer's lever ladder: the Pumping District, the Lock Flight, the Tram Incline, the Exchange, the Collector, the Tidal Barrier and the Head-works. The refuge is not an eighth; it is where the levers land. The Salt Pans are deferred, not banned. PM records this as D022, provisional.
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**What is designed and what is a hypothesis.** Three districts are in depth on this page, with written expeditions and charge ledgers that close under the rules as now ruled; three more, the Collector, the Head-works and the Exchange, are in depth on the Campaign designer's pages; the pumping district is the Design Document. The enemy roster, the equipment catalogue and the colony loop are the specialists' proposals, linked below, with the lead's dispositions recorded in the bookkeeping. The length is the Campaign designer's bottom-up hypothesis, which PM accepts as a content-backed drafting hypothesis and not as measured playtime: about thirty-five expeditions and eight and a half hours of authored expedition beats, with optional visits separate; section 8 carries it with its caveats.
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**What is designed and what is a hypothesis.** Three districts are in depth on this page, with written expeditions and charge ledgers that close under the rules as now ruled; three more, the Collector, the Head-works and the Exchange, are in depth on the Campaign designer's pages; the pumping district is the Design Document. The enemy roster, the equipment catalogue and the colony loop are the specialists' proposals, linked below, with the lead's dispositions recorded in the bookkeeping. The length is the Campaign designer's bottom-up hypothesis, which PM accepts as a content-backed drafting hypothesis and not as measured playtime: about eight hours of authored beats on the baseline path, ten to eleven for a player who does that path with the dock time between trips, and about thirteen for one who does everything designed, with none of the three measured; section 8 carries them with their caveats.
**What happens if you say yes.** Nothing is built. This is a design gate, not a development gate. Saying yes means the team finishes the remaining districts to the standard in section 3, the critic reviews the whole, and you assess it.
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**The refuge, at stake.** The colony's dock is where outcomes land: a district outcome can leave its dock wet, its beacon drawing or its board dark, and the answer is a lever elsewhere. When an outcome threatens the refuge's approach, the player may choose a defence expedition at home, under the same rules and the same fifteen minutes, with the inner dry dock always a shelter and the threatened landing outside it; it is never forced, its preview names the affected route before the original district action, and losing it costs that expedition's cargo and leaves the approach unresolved, never banked salvage, notes, facilities or people (Colony's COL-I6, adopted; D022). This replaces r1's eighth district.
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**Candidate, deferred: the Salt Pans.** Brine basins that conduct as one body change the cost of a known action, not the action; they return only with a lever cell none of the seven occupies.
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**Candidate, deferred: the Salt Pans.** Brine basins that conduct as one body change the cost of a known action, not the action; they return only with a lever cell none of the seven occupies. The Reference Researcher's REF107 records that two shipped survivorlikes carry five and six distinct environments with their variety inside each, as current rather than launch content and as an observation, not a norm; its implication for this design is the one this page acts on: the district count is close to what comparable games carry, and the depth the owner asked for has to come from choices within a district, which is why section 3.2 now writes one district three ways and why the Equipment and Combat pages, not more districts, are where the next content goes.
**Order, travel and return.** The order of play, the travel rules, the progression map with its optional branch and the later discovery that changes an earlier return, one consequence of failure and one alternative route to the head-works are on the [Districts](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts) page (sections 3, 4, 6 and 7), which this page adopts. Returns are caused, not scheduled: the Exchange's bank changes a district's forecast, the Tidal Barrier's gates change the refuge and starve the Collector, the Lock Flight's upper canal makes the Tram's summit berth supportable, and each district's campaign clue is legible only with evidence from another. Repeated hauling to pay a price is not a return reason and is not used as one.
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### 3.2 The Tram Incline: a first visit, a changed return, and a later return (DES105)
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This is the campaign's worked example of one district across three visits, as PM's DES105 asks: what the player believed, what they learn, what they prepare differently, what they try, what they give up, and what they change for good. The district is the lead's; the three preparations are the Equipment designer's EQP102, the two investment paths are the Colony designer's COL102, the explanations are the World designer's WLD104, and the geography named below is the lead's, offered to the Campaign designer for attribution. Nothing here has been played; the ledgers close on paper.
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This is the campaign's worked example of one district across three visits, as PM's DES105 asks: what the player believed, what they learn, what they prepare differently, what they try, what they give up, and what they change for good. The district is the lead's; the three preparations are the Equipment designer's EQP102, the two investment paths are the Colony designer's COL102, the explanations are the World designer's WLD104, and the geography named below is the lead's, offered to the Campaign designer for attribution. Nothing here has been played; the ledgers close on paper, and every beat inside pursuit range is priced.
**The problem, unchanged.** A beacon that moves. The incline's tram runs while its rail is powered, and its headlamp is a beacon while lit; a crowd holding at a lit beacon follows it when it moves, so the tram tows. Powering the rail is the depot panel's Rail position, which darkens the depot's gates, so the surveyor who tows a crowd has given up the gates as the easy way home.
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**The ground.** The depot at the foot, ankle-deep across its yard, with the depot dock (the baseline held dock), the yard beacon, the depot gates to the dock road, and the panel (Rail, Gates, Off). **The loading apron:** a raised dry platform beside the depot road, about ten metres off the boarding path, where the depot's carts were loaded, with room for a planted crowd's ring to sit off the road. The incline road and the rail climb side by side to the summit station, a shelter, with the pass gate to the Exchange, the summit berth on the upper canal, the timetable board, and **the summit stores:** one loose bundle, and an offer of a Siphon or a Kit, either inspectable and one of them takeable per visit. **The stairs** beside the rail are the walking route, about a minute each way. The rail is a metal channel that carries current along its length while the panel is on Rail, and glows faintly to show it. The tram has one lever, up or down, and a lamp switch; it moves only while the rail is powered; the pass gate is on the rail's circuit. **The free manual return:** the depot gates have a hand crank, like every hatch, ten seconds to open without power, so Rail never traps the surveyor; switching Gates locally at the panel is the quicker way and closes the pass.
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**The ground.** The depot at the foot, ankle-deep across its yard, forty metres from the intake end, where the yard beacon stands, to the dock end, where the depot gates open onto the dock road; the depot dock beyond them is the baseline held dock; the panel (Rail, Gates, Off) stands at the yard's dock end, before the gates. **The loading apron:** a raised dry platform beside the road at the foot of the incline, about ten metres off the boarding path, where the depot's carts were loaded, with room for a planted crowd's ring to sit off the road. The incline road and the rail climb side by side to the summit station, a shelter, with the pass gate to the Exchange, the summit berth on the upper canal, the timetable board, and **the summit stores:** one loose bundle, and an offer of a Siphon or a Kit, either inspectable and one of them takeable per visit. **The stairs** run in a cutting on the rail's far side, ten metres below the road and out of pursuit range of it except at the two ends, the summit platform and the depot foot; about a minute each way. The rail is a metal channel that carries current along its length while the panel is on Rail, and glows faintly to show it. The tram has one lever, up or down, and a lamp switch; it moves only while the rail is powered; the pass gate is on the rail's circuit. **The free manual return:** the depot gates have a hand crank, like every hatch, ten seconds to open without power, so Rail never traps the surveyor; switching Gates at the panel is the quicker way and closes the pass.
| Panel position | Powered branch | Intake selected | Beacon that flashes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| Rail | The rail, the tram's lamp and the pass gate | The yard | The yard beacon, dark under Rail: it flashes at the dispatch and is dark again after it |
| Off | Nothing | No dispatch: the shut regime, trickles down the incline road from the upper city | None |
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The panel is found on Gates. The tram's lamp is a lure only: it draws entered crowds as a lit beacon and never flashes, never selects an intake and never dispatches. Pursuit range here is the tram's length: a body a car-length behind the step is not chased. A crowd with no reachable lit beacon spreads from where it stands, so a crowd that followed the lamp uphill spreads on the incline road when the lamp goes out (Combat's R12, adopted).
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The panel is found on Gates. The tram's lamp is a lure only: it draws entered crowds as a lit beacon and never flashes, never selects an intake and never dispatches. Pursuit range here is the tram's length: a body a car-length behind the step is not chased. A crowd with no reachable lit beacon spreads from where it stands, so a crowd that followed the lamp uphill spreads on the incline road when the lamp goes out (Combat's R12, adopted). Heavies gather where the tram was left, and a heavy on the rail stays on the rail until something kills it.
**Shared-rule diff.**
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| Changed return | The forward berth: with both crane parts banked and the assembly commissioned, the one city-wide extra berth is assigned to the surveyed summit, provided the board shows the upper canal joined; departs basic and uses the tram | Tooling: issues the four-cell Coil, battery and insulation record if it was assembled and recorded in a shelter; the depot is the only exit |
| Later return | The workshop: a known Coil with the empty battery, berth support kept | The outlet refit: tooling kept, the baseline dock chosen for the job; the summit is not a second exit |
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The written visits below follow path B on the changed return and path A's berth as its alternative; the reverse is equally legal and the board shows which is in force before launch.
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The written visits below follow path B on the changed return and path A's berth as its alternative; the reverse is equally legal and the board shows which is in force before launch. In the racks, `Q` is the Siphon and `S` a salvage bundle.
#### First visit: ride and cut (early; the player believes the Flood is weather and the rail is transport)
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**Prepared.** The colony has repaired the workshop; the starting module is a Kit. The surveyor declines the default battery, because nothing yet says charge is worth a cell here: `. . . K / . . . .`, the cutter outside the rack, seven cells free (Equipment's approach A). Objective: reach the summit, copy the timetable, inspect the pass, extract at the depot.
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**Prepared.** The colony has repaired the workshop; the starting module is a Kit. The surveyor declines the default battery, because nothing yet says charge is worth a cell here: `. . . K / . . . .`, the cutter outside the rack, seven cells free (Equipment's approach A). The free cells are for cargo, and this district holds one bundle, so on this visit A's real advantage is the kit and empty hands, not room. Objective: reach the summit, copy the timetable, inspect the pass, extract at the depot.
- **0:00.** The depot dock. Panel found on Gates: the yard beacon lit, the gates open, the yard's water energised. Forecast: first surge at 3:00, intake yard; second at 8:00, intake yard. The tram stands at the depot.
- **1:00.** The panel to Rail: the rail glows, the tram's lamp lights, the pass gate above opens, and the gates go dark. The surveyor boards and waits.
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- **4:30.** The stop cost the lead. The crowd's front reaches the standing tram; the surveyor holds the roadbed beside the step inside pursuit range for the seconds it takes to step up, six kills, six motes fading where they fall, three hits taken; then the lever up, and the tram pulls away on the flat above the heavy's stretch. The Kit is spent at the next quiet moment: health restored, the cell freed.
- **5:30.** The summit station. The lamp off and the lever down: the tram rolls back dark, and the crowd on the slope, with no lit beacon to reach, spreads on the incline road where it stands.
- **6:00.** The timetable board, read and copied: trams ran full downhill and empty up, on the dispatch schedule. The pass gate is open; the Exchange's hall is visible beyond it, and the surveyor does not go in. The summit stores: the bundle taken into a free cell; the Siphon and the Kit inspected, the Siphon's rule recorded, neither taken this time.
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- **7:00.** Down the stairs, behind the spread crowd's edge on the road, watching its ring.
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- **8:00.** Surge two, yard: eighty walkers enter a dark yard, no lit beacon reachable, and spread across it.
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- **8:20.** The depot. Rail is still selected, so the gates are dark: the surveyor cranks the gate open in ten seconds and reaches the dock road; the alternative, switching Gates at the panel, would have closed the pass for the next visit. Extraction at 8:40 with one bundle, no charge, one hit still showing.
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- **7:00.** Down the stairs in the cutting, ten metres below the road where sixty bodies are spread; nothing on the road reaches the cutting. At the foot the stairs come up beside the road's end, inside pursuit range of the spread crowd's near edge: one hit taken passing it.
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- **8:00.** Surge two, yard: eighty walkers enter a dark yard at its intake end, no lit beacon reachable, and spread from where they stand.
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- **8:20.** The depot's dock end. Rail is still selected, so the gates are dark. The crowd's ring, drawn on the overlay, has spread twenty metres from the intake end and stands twenty metres short of the gates; the surveyor cranks the gate open in ten seconds outside it and reaches the dock road. The alternative, switching Gates at the panel, would have closed the pass for the next visit. Extraction at 8:40 with one bundle, no charge, four health of five, the foot's hit still showing.
**Newly learned, and written down:** the lamp tows, and putting it out drops the crowd where it stands; Rail opens the pass and closes the gates, and the crank is the price of leaving it so; a heavy on the rail costs the lead; the board keeps the network's time, the second form of the Lock Flight's gauges. **Given up:** every mote that fell, because the surveyor carried no battery. **Changed for good:** the tram left at the depot, the panel left on Rail, both on the refuge's board.
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#### Changed return: the wet-yard breach (middle; the player now believes the Flood is supplied, because the Exchange's bank showed this district permitted)
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**What changed in the world.** The Lock Flight's L2 stands open and the board shows the upper canal joined. The Exchange has been visited: its bank was found with three clutches engaged, Pumping, the Lock Flight and this district, so the surges here were never weather; they were permitted deliveries. Both crane parts are banked and the assembly commissioned. The tram stands at the depot where it was left, with a heavy beside it, because heavies gather where the tram was left.
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**What changed in the world.** The Lock Flight's L2 stands open and the board shows the upper canal joined. The Exchange has been visited: its bank was found with three clutches engaged, Pumping, the Lock Flight and this district, so the surges here were never weather; they were permitted deliveries. Both crane parts are banked and the assembly commissioned. The tram stands at the depot where it was left, and a heavy now stands on the rail in front of it, because heavies gather where the tram was left; the coil cannot stun a dry rail, so the tram is not an option on this visit.
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**Prepared, path B.** Tooling issues the four-cell record the surveyor assembled and recorded at the Lock Flight's lock house: `. C C B / . . . I`, battery linked to the coil, four cells free (Equipment's approach B). Objective: through the pass this time, to read the Exchange's drums from its door and confirm which clutch is this district's, then home. The insulation is the entry fee: the yard under Gates is energised water.
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**Prepared, path B.** Tooling issues the four-cell record the surveyor assembled and recorded at the Lock Flight's quay dock, a shelter: `. C C B / . . . I`, battery linked to the coil, four cells free (Equipment's approach B). Objective: through the pass this time, to read the Exchange's drums from its door and confirm which clutch is this district's, then home. The insulation is the entry fee: the yard under Gates is energised water.
- **0:00.** The depot dock, panel on Rail as left; the surveyor throws it to Gates: the yard beacon lights, the gates open, the tram's lamp dies and the pass shuts. Forecast: first surge at 3:00, intake yard.
- **3:00.** Surge one: sixty walkers enter the yard and hold at the yard beacon, in its water.
- **3:30.** The surveyor wades to the crowd's edge in insulation and works it with the cutter inside pursuit range: ten kills, ten motes walked over as they fall; two hits taken. Battery ten.
- **4:00.** Standing in the yard's water at the crowd's edge, the surveyor discharges: the fifty organisms in it are stunned for eight seconds and shed five large motes; the surveyor walks over the two nearest, ten units back into the emptied battery, and the other three fade. The yard's water was already energised by Gates, so the two seconds added no hazard; the stun is what the battery bought.
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- **4:10.** The panel to Rail: the pass opens, the yard beacon dies, and the recovering crowd, its beacon gone and the tram's lamp off, spreads in the yard. The surveyor takes the stairs, not the tram, which stands blocked by its heavy; the heavy is not on the road and is left alone.
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- **5:30.** The summit. Through the pass to the Exchange's door: seven drums on one shaft, three clutches engaged, one of them this district's. The surveyor does not walk the floor; that is the Exchange's own visit. Back at the stores: the bundle taken; the Siphon taken this time, forgoing the Kit, and fitted at the summit shelter with its feed set into the battery, for a later trip; two cells free.
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- **7:00.** Down the stairs.
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- **8:00.** Surge two: eighty walkers enter the yard, the yard beacon dark under Rail and the tram's lamp off, and spread.
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- **8:10.** The crank at the gates, ten seconds, and the dock road. Extraction at 8:30: one bundle, the Siphon, a full battery lost at the dock, two hits.
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- **4:08.** The stun ends as the surveyor is wading away toward the dock end with the two motes taken; the recovering edge chases for the first ten metres and lands one hit before the surveyor is out of range. The walk through knee-deep water to the panel takes the rest of the minute.
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- **4:30.** The panel to Rail: the pass opens, the yard beacon dies, and the recovered crowd, its beacon gone and the tram's lamp off, spreads in the yard from where it stands. The surveyor takes the stairs, not the tram, which stands blocked by its heavy; the heavy is not on the road and is left alone.
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- **5:45.** The summit. Through the pass to the Exchange's door: seven drums on one shaft, three clutches engaged, one of them this district's. The surveyor does not walk the floor; that is the Exchange's own visit. Back at the stores: the bundle taken; the Siphon taken this time, forgoing the Kit, and fitted at the summit shelter with its feed set into the battery, for a later trip; two cells free.
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- **6:45.** Down the stairs in the cutting, past nothing.
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- **7:30.** The depot foot. The fifty have spread across the yard in the three minutes since 4:30 and their ring reaches the gates: the crank would be worked inside it. The surveyor throws the panel to Gates instead: the yard beacon lights, the fifty retarget to it and walk back toward the intake end, and the gates open on their own power; the nearest bodies pass within range as they turn, one hit. The pass shuts above, which costs nothing now.
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- **7:50.** Through the powered gates to the dock road. Extraction at 8:10, before the second dispatch: one bundle, the Siphon, a full battery lost at the dock, four hits taken.
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**The alternative on this return, path A with Equipment's approach C.** Instead of tooling, the berth: the surveyor departs basic with a portable beacon, a battery and the Kit (`. . L B / . . K .`), earns ten motes at the dry edge under Gates without wading, plants the beacon dark on the loading apron, arms it, and throws Rail: the yard beacon dies and the crowd retargets to the lure on the apron, off the road, for a hundred seconds; the surveyor rides the dark tram up, clears the heavy in the five seconds the cutter needs with no crowd behind, and extracts at the summit berth without retracing the yard. The price is the beacon and its battery left where the crowd stood, the assembly spent on the berth instead of tooling, and no control window in the yard. Both plans reach the pass; they differ in whether the surveyor buys a stun or a destination.
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**The alternative on this return, path A with Equipment's approach C.** Instead of tooling, the berth: the surveyor departs basic with a portable beacon, a battery and the Kit (`. . L B / . . K .`), earns ten motes at the dry edge under Gates without wading, plants the beacon dark on the loading apron, arms it, and throws Rail: the yard beacon dies and the crowd retargets to the lure on the apron, off the road, for a hundred seconds; the surveyor rides the dark tram up, clears the heavy from the rail in the five seconds the cutter needs with no crowd behind, and extracts at the summit berth without retracing the yard. The price is the beacon and its battery left where the crowd stood, the assembly spent on the berth instead of tooling, and no control window in the yard. Both plans reach the pass; they differ in whether the surveyor buys a stun or a destination, and neither can ride past the heavy without paying for it.
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**Newly learned:** a flash is a call the bank permits; the yard's water under Gates is a hazard the insulation pays for and a resource the coil turns into charge; the Siphon's rule. **Given up:** the Kit, for the Siphon; the tram's speed, for the walk. **Changed for good:** the Siphon fitted and its recipe known; the tram still at the depot, the panel on Rail.
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**Newly learned:** a flash is a call the bank permits; the yard's water under Gates is a hazard the insulation pays for and a resource the coil turns into charge; a lit beacon moves a spread crowd off the gates; the Siphon's rule. **Given up:** the Kit, for the Siphon; the tram's speed, for the walk; the pass, shut again by the exit. **Changed for good:** the Siphon fitted and its recipe known; the tram still at the depot behind its heavy, the panel on Gates.
**Ledger, changed return.** One battery, capacity ten.
| 8:10 | extracted; charge lost at the dock | | | 0 | 10, dock | |
Dropped thirty-five; collected twenty; spent ten; fifteen lost to fade and ten at the dock.
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#### Later return: the empty flash and the lure that salvage pays for (late; the player now believes the Flood is harvested, and comes to set the district's standing state for the head-works approach)
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#### Later return: the empty flash, and the crossing that salvage pays for (late; the player now believes the Flood is harvested, and comes to set the district's standing state for the head-works approach)
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**What changed in the world.** At the Collector the surveyor held one basin's gate, withholding this district's first supply while leaving it permitted. The board shows the hold and the tram at the depot.
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**What changed in the world.** At the Collector the surveyor held one basin's gate, withholding this district's first supply while leaving it permitted: a one-surge buffer, which buys the ride up and not the trip. The board shows the hold, the panel on Gates, and the tram at the depot with its heavy still on the rail.
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**Prepared.** The small circuit set: `. . S B / . . L .`, the Siphon's feed into the battery, the battery linked to the beacon, the Kit not carried; four cells free. Objective: take the tram to the summit and leave it there with its lamp lit, so that the next surge climbs away from the depot road the colony now uses, and be home before that surge comes. This is not a trip to watch a flash; the flash is what the surveyor will see on the way.
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**Prepared.** The small circuit set: `. . Q B / . . L .`, the Siphon's feed into the battery, the battery linked to the beacon, the Kit not carried; four cells free. Objective: copy the network's cadence from the summit board, which shows it only across two ticks, and leave the tram at the summit with its lamp lit, so that the next surge climbs away from the depot road the colony now uses. The first tick will be an empty flash; the second brings a surge, and the surveyor will still be at the summit when it does. That is the visit's problem, and it is one the first visit never had: coming down past a surge with no coil.
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- **0:00.** The depot dock, panel on Rail as left; the heavy stands beside the tram, not on the rail; the surveyor boards from the far step and it cannot reach the moving car.
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- **0:00.** The depot dock, panel on Gates as left, the yard beacon lit, the tram behind its heavy. No surge is due for three minutes and the first is withheld. The surveyor kills the heavy on the rail in ten hits, about five seconds, and walks over its large mote: five units into the battery, the visit's first charge and the tram's clearance.
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- **0:30.** The panel to Rail: the yard beacon dies, the rail glows, the tram's lamp lights, the pass opens, the gates go dark. The lamp is lit from here, so the standing state is set at the depot and carried up. The surveyor boards.
- **1:00 to 3:00.** The tram climbs, no crowd behind it, no heavy ahead: an empty ride.
-
- **3:00.** From the slope the surveyor watches the yard beacon flash below and nothing come. The empty flash: the dispatch happened and the arrival did not, because the Collector is holding what would have been sent. A flash never promised a crowd; it promised a call.
-
- **3:30.** The summit. The lever left up, the lamp left lit: the standing state. The bundle from the stores into the cell beside the Siphon, touching it and not the battery; at the shelter the Siphon consumes the bundle and itself: three units in the battery, two cells freed. The board copied again for the Head-works' cadence.
-
- **4:30.** Down the stairs.
-
- **5:30.** The depot. Rail is on, the gates are dark. The surveyor cranks the gate and crosses the dock road: the yard is empty, and the lure is not needed. Extraction at 6:00 with nothing carried and three units lost at the dock.
-
- **The contingency, priced.** If the descent runs late and the second surge is pouring into the yard at 8:00, the road from the stairs' foot to the gates crosses the entering bodies' path. The three units buy thirty lit seconds: five to plant and arm the beacon on the loading apron and step back out of range, twenty for the crossing to the crank and through the gates, five spare; the entered bodies walk to the lure on the apron, off the road, and at expiry spread from the apron. If the crowd's ring already lies across the road, the lure buys nothing and the surveyor waits on the stairs for the crowd to follow the lit tram uphill, then crosses behind it. The Kit would have healed one mistake; the Siphon bought a way not to make it.
+
- **3:00.** From the slope the surveyor watches the yard beacon flash below and nothing come. The empty flash: the dispatch happened and the arrival did not, because the Collector is holding what would have been sent. A flash never promised a crowd; it promised a call. The first tick is on the board.
+
- **3:30.** The summit. The lever left up, the lamp left lit. The bundle from the stores into the cell beside the Siphon, touching it and not the battery; at the shelter the Siphon consumes the bundle and itself: three units more, eight in the battery, two cells freed. The surveyor waits in the shelter for the second tick.
+
- **8:00.** The second tick, and the cadence copied. Surge two: eighty walkers enter the yard at its intake end; the yard beacon is dark under Rail and the tram's lamp at the summit is the only lit beacon they can reach, so they turn onto the incline road and climb toward it. The surveyor starts down the stairs in the cutting, ten metres below the road, passing the climbing crowd out of range.
+
- **9:00.** The depot foot. The crowd's tail is still turning off the yard onto the road, and the way from the stairs' foot to the dark gates crosses its path; the ring is drawn across the road. The surveyor plants the beacon on the loading apron and arms it, five seconds, and steps back out of range: the nearest bodies retarget to the lure, nearer than the summit's lamp, and walk to the apron, off the road, while the rest continue uphill. The crank, ten seconds; the road to the gates and through them, ten more; the beacon burns its eight units, eighty seconds, and expires when the surveyor is on the dock road, and the bodies on the apron spread from it.
+
- **9:40.** Extraction: nothing carried, no charge, no hits taken; the beacon and its battery left on the apron; the Siphon and the bundle consumed. Above, the surge holds at the lit tram at the summit, which is where the next one will go too.
-
**Newly learned:** supply is a third thing, separate from timing and permission; a plan that waits for a surge to fund a coil is not a plan when the surge is withheld; a bundle can be thirty seconds of light. **Given up:** the bundle and the Siphon, both consumed; the depot gates dark for every later visit, because the lamp at the summit needs Rail. **Changed for good:** the tram at the summit, lit, so the next surge here climbs toward it and away from the dock road; the head-works approach that starts from this summit.
+
**The alternative on this return, priced.** With the Kit taken instead of the Siphon on the changed return, the heavy's five units alone buy fifty lit seconds: enough for the plant, the crank and the crossing with a few seconds to spare, and nothing if the arming is fumbled. Without a beacon at all, the surveyor waits on the stairs until the crowd's tail has passed up the road, then cranks through an emptied yard; that costs the wait, and the third dispatch at 12:00 is the clock it runs against. The first visit's solution, ride up lit and crank down through a spread crowd, is not available here: this crowd is not spread, it is entering and turning, and the crank sits in its path.
+
+
**Newly learned:** supply is a third thing, separate from timing and permission; a plan that waits for a surge to fund a coil is not a plan when the surge is withheld; a bundle can be thirty seconds of light; the tram left lit at the summit pulls a surge uphill, seen from the stairs. **Given up:** the bundle and the Siphon, both consumed; the beacon and its battery, left; the depot gates dark for every later visit, because the lamp at the summit needs Rail. **Changed for good:** the tram at the summit, lit, so the next surge here climbs toward it and away from the dock road; the head-works approach that starts from this summit.
**Ledger, later return.** One battery, capacity ten; the Siphon's three units count as collected by conversion.
| Time | Cells (of eight) | Dropped | Collected | Stored | Lost | Spent |
| 3:30 | + bundle 1, then bundle and siphon consumed; battery 1, beacon 1; six empty | | 3 | 8 | | |
+
| 9:00 | beacon and battery planted on the apron; eight empty | | | 0 | | 8, lure |
+
| 9:40 | extracted; nothing carried | | | 0 | | |
-
Collected three by conversion; three lost at the dock, or three spent on the lure.
+
Dropped five; collected eight, five from the heavy and three by conversion; spent eight on the lure; nothing lost.
-
**What the three visits are.** The first is discovery under the weather belief with no charge carried; the changed return exploits physical access and permission with a paid stun and a chosen exit; the later return sets the district for the ending under the harvested belief, with a discovery that turns cargo into light. Each has a credible alternative that reaches the same objective by a different sacrifice, and a lasting state the next visit reads on the board. A trip whose only purpose would be to watch the empty flash again is cut: once the player knows the supply rule and has no state to change here, the district is done until the head-works asks for it.
+
**What the three visits are.** The first is discovery under the weather belief with no charge carried; the changed return exploits physical access and permission with a paid stun and a chosen exit; the later return sets the district for the ending under the harvested belief, and its problem, coming down past an entering surge with no coil, is one the first visit's solution cannot solve, so the new combination is used rather than held in reserve. Each has a credible alternative that reaches the same objective by a different sacrifice, and a lasting state the next visit reads on the board. A trip whose only purpose would be to watch the empty flash again is cut: once the player knows the supply rule and has no state to change here, the district is done until the head-works asks for it.
-
**Assets.** Reuses the yard tiles, water, lamps, cables and panel, and the humanoid mass at a larger size for the heavy. Gaps: the rail, the tram, the incline's slope tiles, the pass gate, the loading apron as a raised platform prop. Nothing is claimed available.
+
**Assets.** Reuses the yard tiles, water, lamps, cables and panel, and the humanoid mass at a larger size for the heavy. Gaps: the rail, the tram, the incline's slope tiles, the pass gate, the loading apron as a raised platform prop, the stairs' cutting. Nothing is claimed available.
### 3.3 The Tidal Barrier
@@ 406,7 410,7 @@
## 8. Length, honestly
-
The baseline path now exists, on the Districts page (r5, with the Exchange's own beat list): thirty-five expeditions and about eight and a half hours of authored expedition beats, required returns included; eight optional expeditions and about two hours separate; dock overhead an unmeasured assumption of a quarter to a third on top; deaths, retries and hauling excluded and printed apart. PM accepts it as a content-backed drafting hypothesis, not measured playtime and not proof that the scale is sufficient, and asks that every imported district beat sit in one ledger before the owner is asked whether it feels ambitious enough. The lead's position: the figure is the Campaign designer's and lives on their page; it is quoted here so that the page the owner reads answers the one question the owner asked, against the three to four hours rejected; it will move as districts are written, and nothing in it is padded by hauling. The three districts on this page each have one written expedition and a two-tier shape, counted there as three to five expeditions each.
+
The baseline path exists on the Districts page, and its owner has put the figures in one place so that they can be quoted rather than assembled (Districts r11, section 5): thirty-four expeditions and about eight hours of authored beats on the baseline path, expedition time only; ten to eleven hours for a player who does that path with the unmeasured dock overhead of a quarter to a third applied; eight optional expeditions and about two hours more, separate; about thirteen hours for everything designed, with overhead. Deaths, retries and hauling are excluded from every row and are not campaign length, and none of the figures is a measurement: the counts come from printed beat lists, the overhead is an assumption stated as one, and the number moves when content moves, as it did when the Campaign designer cut a revisit that only repeated an answer. PM accepts this as a content-backed drafting hypothesis, not measured playtime and not proof that the scale is sufficient, and asks that every imported district beat sit in one ledger before the owner is asked whether it feels ambitious enough. The lead's position: the figures are the Campaign designer's and live on their page; they are quoted here so that the page the owner reads answers the one question the owner asked, against the three to four hours rejected. The three districts on this page each have one written expedition, and the Tram now three, with a two-tier shape counted there as four expeditions each.
---
@@ 441,6 445,8 @@
**Rule ownership after this revision** (PMR004 4: the lead records which definitions now own the rule). 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 r7 (DES105 r2).** Design Review REV105 r1 35cccf; External Critique r14 211efe (X34; X32 on this page); Districts r11 c1bbe1 (section 5, the figures in one place, and 5.1); World and Mystery r26 744b21 (the chain re-ordered onto the Tram's three visits); Colony r6 59ad65 (COL102 r2, D026 applied); Combat Rules r8 221c48; Equipment r5 902439; Reference/Water Balance Haulage REF111 37601a (read; proposes nothing, and nothing is taken from it yet); Clarity r23 d3d6a0 (Q53, the Glossary's); Tasks cb7928.
+
**Sources read for r6 (DES105 r1).** PM Reviews PMR007 6fb181 and checkpoint e8a263, PMU007 f62987; Tasks 575001 (the DES105 row and the Tram handoff); Brief 0cba02 (D026); Hub 73d5b0; Design Review REV104 r6 ce94e4; Equipment/Build Paths r4 6bc3f7 (EQP102), Utility Modules r3 04a42d, Equipment r4 59fcc5, Coil 80da75, Inventory and Charge 9cebc1; Colony r5 fe7d88 (COL102); World and Mystery r25 e99445 (WLD104); Combat Rules r7 e3ad2b (R11 to R13; EQP102 countersigned), Enemies r9 56cadb; Districts r9 e9c413, the Exchange r3 4d6703, the Collector r5 8e39d2; Clarity Q52 (40a841). The contract at r7 was written from the same sources.
**Sources read for r5.** External Critique r12 4e4d20 (X33); Districts r7 cd487b (section 3.3, the three rules) and r6 d2b9eb; Colony r4 527f2b; Combat Rules r6 6129ea; Enemies r7 7e588c, Spark r5 30c5cb, Floater r2 92603a; the Head-works r5 65403a; Tasks 13c20b; Disagreement Register r17 3fc3b9. The contract at r6 was written from the same sources.
@@ 451,4 457,4 @@
**Sources read for r2.** PM Reviews PMR004 ed0def and PMU005 e8c3d4; Brief 70b6b1 (D022 to D024); Tasks 9569fc; Hub c33d3c; Expansion Brief d97965; Design Index 0ee6d3; Campaign 9d3590 (the Campaign designer's note); Districts r2 acb797, the Collector 40f2b5, the Head-works 6bf2a7; Combat Rules r2 1126c3, Enemies r3 0822dd and the eight role pages; Equipment a44990, Build Paths a9a288, Inventory and Charge 73eb77, Cutter 9618ad, Alternative Tools e6aed6; Colony a1046d; World and Mystery r20 7699de; Design Review REV104 r1 80a882; Reference index 454f11 (REF108). The contract at r3 was written from the same sources.
-
**PM report.** Task DES105 r1 against Tasks 575001 and PMR007 1, 2, 4 and 6; artifact Hold the Flood/Campaign r6 (r5 9366c8 and earlier in history), with the shared rule contract r7 as its rules. Section 3.2 is the integrated first, changed and later return on the Tram Incline: legal starts (Equipment's approach A with no battery, tooling's four-cell record, the small circuit set), the three preparations countersigned by Combat, Colony's two investment paths as a table, World's three explanations attached to the three visits in the accessible order, the loading apron, the free crank return and the summit stores' offer named as geography, the thirty-second crossing written as a priced contingency, and three ledgers that close; the illegal seven-cell berth-supported start is gone. The Exchange's found bank state, three clutches engaged, is ratified in section 3.4. D026 is mirrored in section 5. The asset wording PMR007 6 corrects is corrected in sections 7 and 10. Changed decisions: none canonical; two Combat proposals adopted on the contract (a crowd spreads from where it stands; a held crowd follows a moving beacon). Evidence: written design; no player data; nothing built or tested; no asset claimed. Risks: the apron, the crank timings and the crossing budget are the lead's proposals for the Campaign designer to place; the ledgers show consistency, not survivability. Next handoff: CMB102 and REV105 on this exact revision; the Campaign designer to attribute the geography and cut sections 3.1 to 3.3 to district pages by agreement; PM's next review. No PM request.
+
**PM report.** Task DES105 r2 against REV105 r1 and External Critique X34; artifact Hold the Flood/Campaign r7 (r6 ee4202 and earlier in history). REV105-1: the later return's problem is now the main line: the cadence needs two ticks, so the surveyor is at the summit when the second surge enters and climbs toward the lit tram, and the Siphon's light is the crossing at the foot, with the fifty-second and no-beacon alternatives priced; the first visit's solution is shown unavailable. REV105-2: the heavy stands on the rail on both later visits; the changed return walks because a coil cannot stun a dry rail, and the later return kills it for its first five units. REV105-3: the stairs run in a cutting ten metres below the road; the first visit's foot and crank beats, and the changed return's withdrawal and exit, are priced in hits and time, the exit now by throwing Gates so the yard beacon draws the spread crowd off the gates. The minor items: the Siphon's letter, the record made at the quay dock, approach A's free cells, the lamp lit before boarding. X34: section 8 quotes Districts r11's three consolidated figures and the owner page carries them; X32: REF107's implication is stated in section 2. Changed decisions: none canonical. Evidence: three ledgers re-derived and closing; no player data; nothing built or tested. Risks: the cutting, the apron and the crossing budget remain the lead's proposals for the Campaign designer to place; consistency, not survivability. Next handoff: the critic on this revision; the Campaign designer's attribution; PM's next review. No PM request.
