2026-09-06 21:25:50
Anonymous:
CMB101 r2: reconcile with DES104 - rule citations move to the shared-rule contract, base role renamed Drifter to Walker. No behaviour changed.
hold the flood/enemies/crust.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Crust
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**CMB101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — proposed role, new.**
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**CMB101 · r2 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — proposed role, new.**
Source rules it is built on: [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–6; shared grammar and the precedence stack: [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).
| **Trigger** | A dispatch, exactly like a [Drifter](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Drifter) |
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| **Trigger** | A dispatch, exactly like a [Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker) |
| **Action** | Precedence line 3, unchanged: nearest reachable lit beacon, hold, spread, and chase within pursuit range. **Its behaviour is completely ordinary. Only its physics are not** |
| **Threat** | It is the body still walking when everything around it has stopped. It stands unstunned inside a stunned crowd, in the exact place and second the player has committed to standing still and collecting, and it **ends an arc chain** where it stands |
| **Hit count** | Three. No more health than anything else — it is not armoured, it is *not conductive* |
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## Telegraph
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**Silhouette, not brightness.** Under [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), glow carries exactly one bit — has charge to shed, or does not — so the Crust cannot be signalled by being dim, because a merely spent Drifter is also dim. It is signalled by a **broken, encrusted outline**: mineral scale from the sluice, dry and non-conducting, visible in a crowd as a change of shape rather than a change of colour.
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**Silhouette, not brightness.** Under [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), glow carries exactly one bit — has charge to shed, or does not — so the Crust cannot be signalled by being dim, because a merely spent Walker is also dim. It is signalled by a **broken, encrusted outline**: mineral scale from the sluice, dry and non-conducting, visible in a crowd as a change of shape rather than a change of colour.
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This is the one confusion in the roster that would cost the player real health, and R4 exists to make sure the strongest available cue carries it. A player who mistakes a Crust for a *spent* Drifter loses nothing, because both mean "nothing to take here". A player who mistakes one for an *unspent* Drifter walks into it during a stun.
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This is the one confusion in the roster that would cost the player real health, and R4 exists to make sure the strongest available cue carries it. A player who mistakes a Crust for a *spent* Walker loses nothing, because both mean "nothing to take here". A player who mistakes one for an *unspent* Walker walks into it during a stun.
## Counterplay, and what each costs
| Counterplay | Cost |
| --- | --- |
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| **The cutter, and where you stand.** It is the only body in a stunned crowd worth aiming at, and aiming means moving, because the cutter fires at the nearest target and cannot be withheld ([R6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)) | Standing among 44 stunned bodies, the cutter will usually pick a stunned Drifter instead. Getting it to pick the Crust means walking toward the Crust. The target line shows what it has chosen |
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| **The cutter, and where you stand.** It is the only body in a stunned crowd worth aiming at, and aiming means moving, because the cutter fires at the nearest target and cannot be withheld ([R6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)) | Standing among 44 stunned bodies, the cutter will usually pick a stunned Walker instead. Getting it to pick the Crust means walking toward the Crust. The target line shows what it has chosen |
| Route the arc chain around it — stand so the chain's path does not run through one | The good burst positions and the good collecting positions are not the same positions |
| Leave the water and let them come to you on the bank | You lose the collection window, which is what the discharge was for |
| Accept the contact and collect anyway | One health per touch, from five |
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## Placement (for Campaign)
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- Arrives **in a surge**; counts toward the limit of two non-Drifter roles per surge.
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- Arrives **in a surge**; counts toward the limit of two non-Walker roles per surge.
- Proportion matters more than count: at 10% of a surge it prices a harvest; above roughly a quarter it stops the coil being worth carrying, which is a district saying "do not bring the electrician" and should be a deliberate statement, not an accident.
- **Best placed where the player expects to stand still** — a channel harvest, a doorway hold, a collection window. A Crust in an area the player runs through does nothing.
- Pairs naturally with the [Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor) (see [Encounter A](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies)): one body that does not answer the light and one that does not answer the current, both standing in the same channel, is two thirds of the spine rule questioned in one place.
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- **Does a Crust conduct to *other* bodies touching it?** My position: **no** — it is inert in both directions, which is the simpler rule and the one that matches insulation in the rack ("insulation is the only slot that breaks a chain", GDD §5). A one-way version would be a new concept for no gain.
- **Can a Crust be made to conduct?** My position: no, and nothing should offer it. An enemy the player can convert is a puzzle piece, and this role's job is to be an unarguable limit on a tool.
- **Does it block the arc, or end it?** My position: the chain does not pass through it, so a chain whose only continuation was through a Crust ends there. It does not absorb or reflect. Stated because "blocks" and "ends" would be the same word in a spec and different behaviours in play.
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## Reconciliation with DES104 (added in this revision)
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The Lead published [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) and the shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c) while this page was being drafted. Two consequences for this page. **The rule source is now the contract, not GDD §4** — where this page cites the Design Document for a shared rule, cite the contract; the rules are the same and it is the one to cite. **The base role is called Walker there**, and this page's Drifter is the same role; Walker is the surviving name and [the role page is at Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker). The full reconciliation — what held, what conflicts, and the merged roster — is in [Enemies §0](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies).
