2026-09-06 22:23:35
Anonymous:
CMB101 r6: onto the Lead's ruled contract. Roster stated as eight rather than six, with the Floater transferred here by contract section 7 and given its own page. Encounter A rebuilt on the ruled two-second window and now prices both readings of the still-open fixed-power question instead of asserting one, since the scene works either way and only the insulation slot's price changes. Encounter B corrected on Equipment's three findings: the closing discharge's yield cannot be stated because the burst killed an unknown share of the late cohort, so it is given as five per complete ten survivors and the decision shown not to depend on it; a Carrier can take the motes the surveyor cannot; and emptying the last bank buys neither safety nor a clear road. The silhouette-count paragraph is superseded by the category table on Combat Rules.
hold the flood/enemies.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Enemies and Encounters
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**CMB101 · r5 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — changes required (PMR005).**
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r5 answers [PMR005](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR005). **The Heavy wording request is withdrawn** (PM declines it, and is right that a number is inspectable where a phrase is not); **the “nineteen kill motes” argument behind it is withdrawn** under [D023](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief)'s selected pickup priority; **the tint finding is narrowed** from a contradiction to a cue-budget concern; **the cable reel claim is corrected** against Equipment's actual revised definition; **the Carrier gains one complete behaviour definition** with a stated twelve-metre acquisition range, loss-of-target condition, pursuit precedence and beacon fallback, and Encounter B is checked against that distance. r4 corrected both encounters after [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004); the full history is in the revision log at the foot of this page.
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**CMB101 · r6 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — on the Lead's ruled contract.**
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r6 brings this page onto [the shared contract r3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction), which adopted the precedence stack, bounded press, the one-bit glow, the Carrier's mote and the Grounder, declined R10, and **ruled the coil at two powered seconds with an eight-second stun**. **The roster is eight, not six** — the contract transfers the Floater here, and it has a page. Encounter A now prices the one reading that is still open instead of assuming it; Encounter B's closing beat is corrected against [Equipment's](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) three findings — the surviving cohort, the Carrier's theft, and an overclaim about what spending a bank buys. The presentation count [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) asked to be reconciled is settled as categories on [Combat Rules §0.6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).
Eight roles across the campaign: **Walker, Floater, Heavy** (Campaign's), **Carrier** (merged), **Anchor, Crust, Spark, Grounder** (this page's). The per-district cap in the [composition budget](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) is unchanged — at most three distinct non-Walker roles in a district, at most two in a surge — so no expedition ever asks the player to read more than four kinds of body at once.
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*Superseded in r6 by the presentation-category table on [Combat Rules §0.6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), which [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) asked for and which answers the six-versus-eight question properly: eight roles, but one base body, five poses, two licensed edits and one scale. The paragraph below overstated the cost by counting roles as silhouettes.*
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**The cost, stated plainly: eight roles is eight readable silhouettes**, against a project whose first likely approval request is already one enemy sprite (GDD §14). Five of the eight are readable from position or attitude rather than from a new creature — Anchor half-submerged, Grounder up a cable, Carrier leaning at a target the forecast already draws, Floater riding low with a wake, Heavy by bulk — which is the mitigation, and it is not the same as availability. **Nothing has been located, inspected or created.**
**If the roster must shrink, my cut order, with reasons.** (1) **Crust** — its job, pricing greed inside a stun, is the least load-bearing of the new five, and the once-per-organism rule already bounds the coil without it. (2) **Merge Heavy into Anchor** — they are one idea, a body that will not move out of your way, sited differently: Heavy on dry chokepoints, Anchor in water. The difference is real, and it is the thinnest real difference in the roster. I would not cut further: the remaining six each delete a different assumption, and below six the roster stops covering the four clauses.
@@ 78,13 80,14 @@
| Role | Precedence line it exercises ([Combat Rules §2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)) | The assumption it makes false |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **[Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker)** | 3 — attraction | *(none — it is the assumption)* |
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| **[Floater](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Floater)** | 2 while its water flows, 3 when it stops | "Water is terrain; it does not take sides." |
| **[Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor)** | 2 — nearest wet ground | "Re-routing the crowd clears the ground." |
| **[Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier)** | 2 — nearest loose charge | "If I am not standing near a light, nothing is coming to me." |
| **[Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust)** | 3, but does not conduct | "One discharge stops everything in the water." |
| **[Spark](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Spark)** | 3, and discharges when killed in water | "My weapon firing can only help me." |
| **[Grounder](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Grounder)** | 2 — nearest powered cable run | "A light I set stays set." |
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**Five of the six are new; the Walker is the existing enemy, re-specified as a role** so that the roster has a stated baseline rather than an implied one. This is an initial submission, not a roster quota, and I would rather ship six that each delete an assumption than twelve that each add a number.
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**The roster is eight, and the ownership is settled.** Walker is the existing enemy re-specified as a role; Anchor, Carrier, Crust, Spark and Grounder are new here; **Floater and Heavy are the Lead's**, adopted, with the Floater transferred to Combat by [contract r3 §7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) and the Heavy still defined on [Campaign](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign). r2–r5 of this page said "six" in places while the merged roster was eight; **r6 removes that drift**, which [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) asked for. It remains an initial roster, not a quota — I would rather ship eight that each delete an assumption than twenty that each add a number, and [Combat Rules §0.6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) states which of the eight cost a new drawn asset and which cost a pose.
**Why this set and not another.** The design's spine has four clauses — conduction, power, attraction, charge. A roster that covers all four with the fewest bodies is the one that teaches the spine rather than decorating it. Anchor, Carrier and Grounder each deform **attraction** in a different direction (ignore it, replace its target, remove its source). Crust and Spark deform **conduction** in opposite directions (will not carry current, will not stop carrying it). Charge is deformed by Carrier a second time, through [R5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat). Power is deformed by Grounder. Nothing deforms **conduction inside the rack**, and that is deliberate: the rack is Equipment's, and an enemy that reached into it would be reaching across an interface.
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| Role | Trigger — what makes it act | Action | Threat | First counterplay | Costs the counterplay carries |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **[Walker](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Walker)** | A dispatch; then any lit beacon it can reach | Walks to the nearest lit beacon, holds, presses, chases within range | Mass. 40–140 per surge | Route it with the panel; thin an edge; stun it in water | Lighting a branch is what brings it there |
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| **[Floater](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Floater)** | Water that is moving | Rides the flow; cannot climb a lock or a ladder; otherwise a Walker | It arrives where the water goes, not where the light is, and a flushed quay is not a cleared one | Stop the flow, or use it: flush the quay instead of fighting it | Whatever changing the water costs in that district — a lock cycle, a drain, a bundle |
| **[Anchor](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Anchor)** | Nothing. It is already standing in the water when you arrive | Walks to the lowest wet ground and stays | A permanent contact hazard on the wet route; unmoved by any routing you do | Kill it; drain its channel with a field pump; route around | A bundle for the pump, or the time and health to kill, or the longer road |
| **[Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier)** | Loose charge within its **twelve-metre acquisition range** — a mote, a bank with units in it, a planted beacon's battery | Walks to the nearest such source and takes it; reverts to ordinary Walker behaviour when none is in range | Inside that range it comes to you regardless of light, and it eats your harvest | Spend the charge; walk out of range; plant a beacon as a decoy; kill it and take the mote back | Spending is irreversible; walking out of range is usually walking away from the work; the beacon costs two cells and a bank |
| **[Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust)** | A dispatch, like a Walker | Walks to the beacon; **does not conduct** | It stands unstunned inside your stunned crowd, and it ends an arc chain | The cutter, and where you stand | It is the one body you must kill by hand, while collecting |
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| 8:25 | About 44 are in the water — 40 Walkers and 4 Crusts. The player steps into the channel edge and discharges the coil. Battery 10 → 0. | GDD §5: a discharge spends the whole battery, and to reach a channel you must be in it |
| 8:25 | **The stun takes 44 bodies: 40 Walkers and the 4 Anchors.** The 4 Crusts standing in the same water do not conduct and do not stop. | [R7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat); [Crust](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Crust) |
| 8:25 | **The shed: one 5-unit large mote per complete ten stunned. 44 stunned → 4 large motes, 20 units**, lying along the stunned mass. The four Anchors are now spent and stop glowing; the channel's charge is gone for the rest of the expedition. | Contract clause 4; [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) |
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| 8:25–8:33 | **The channel does not go inert, and never was inert.** The panel has been on yard since 7:30, so this channel is on a live circuit and its water has been energised the whole time — which is why GDD §5's electrician stands in it *in insulation*. The coil's own eight seconds of powered water add nothing the player was not already standing in; the discharge's contribution is the stun. **Insulation is the entry fee for this whole encounter, not a hedge against one second.** | Contract clauses 1–2; GDD §3 (1 health/second in energised water, insulated excepted); GDD §5. **Corrected in r4 — [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004) found r3 letting a fixed-powered channel expire with the coil pulse, which was wrong.** The reading that fixed power energises the branch's water is open question C10 |
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| 8:25–8:27 | **The discharge keeps the water hot for two seconds** — the Lead's ruling, countersigned here and by Equipment. An uninsulated surveyor pays **two health of five** for their own discharge and can then collect for the rest of the stun without insulation. | [Contract r3 §4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction), R3 ruled; GDD §3 (1 health/second) |
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| 8:25–8:33 | **What the panel is doing to the same water is the one thing still open, so this scene prices both readings rather than picking one.** *If fixed power energises the branch's open channel* — PMR004's reading, which Equipment countersigns — the yard has been hot since 7:30, insulation is the entry fee for the whole encounter, and an uninsulated player loses eight health they do not have. *If it does not* — my recommendation, and the reading the Lead's own two-second rationale needs — the channel is inert except for those two seconds, insulation is worth a slot rather than mandatory, and the encounter is playable without it at a cost of two health. **The scene works either way; only the price of the insulation slot changes.** | Open question C2 on [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat). r4 asserted the first reading; r6 stops asserting it |
| 8:26–8:33 | Seven seconds of stun left to collect in. The battery is empty and holds ten, so **at most two of the four motes can be banked**; the other ten units cannot be taken however fast the player moves. | GDD §5 (a battery holds 10; a full one takes nothing) and §6, which states this break-even in the same words |
| 8:26–8:33 | Six Crusts are loose — four of them standing among the stunned bodies. Any within pursuit range chase. Each takes three cutter hits. The cutter fires at the **nearest** body, which among 44 stunned Walkers is usually not the Crust closing on you; the target line shows which one it has picked. | Stack line 1; GDD §3; [R6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) |
| 8:33 | Stun ends. The 40 Walkers resume toward the beacon. **The four Anchors do not move.** The channel is still occupied, and re-routing will not change that. | Stack lines 2 and 3 |
@@ 180,9 185,9 @@
| 12:25 | **100 stunned → 10 large motes, 50 units.** Those 100 are now spent. The coil bank is empty and holds ten; **the arc bank is full and takes nothing**, so **at most 10 of the 50 units can ever be banked**. | Contract clause 4; the collection rule |
| 12:25–12:33 | Collection, against opposition. The player banks **2 large motes, 10 units: coil bank 0 → 10.** The other 8 large motes are contested by the **3 Carriers who arrived after the discharge and were never stunned**; whatever they reach they carry, and killing one drops it back. The rest fade. The 5 stunned Carriers cannot compete for a harvest they were stunned in — which is worth stating, because it is where [R5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) does and does not bite. | [R5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat); motes fade in seconds |
| 12:33 | Stun ends. The 100 recover, spent, packed in the channel and the doorway. The 40 late arrivals are **unshed**. | GDD §13's stated 8 s |
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| 12:33–12:43 | **The burst.** Arc bank 10 → 0 over ten seconds. Each cutter hit conducts to **at most three additional bodies, each once per hit, each hop needing proximity and line of sight**; the arc never energises the water. Kills among the spent 100 return nothing. Kills among the unshed 40 drop 1-unit motes — **and nothing can take them**: the coil bank is full at 10 and the arc bank is being drawn. They expire on the ground, visibly. | [Arc A1](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment/Arc), adopted in [§0B](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat); the drawn-bank rule |
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| 12:43 | **Bank state: coil 10, arc 0 — one full bank, not two empty ones.** So the surviving Carriers do not stop: the player is still the nearest reachable loose charge, and spending the arc did not buy safety. **r3 claimed both banks ended empty and that the Carriers therefore lost interest. That was an arithmetic error and [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004) found it.** | Contract clause 4 |
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| 12:43+ | **And the last decision of the expedition falls out of a rule nobody had used yet: charge left in a battery is lost at the dock.** The coil's ten units are worth exactly nothing the moment the player extracts, so spending them costs nothing at all. A second discharge into the channel stuns everything in it for eight seconds — the 100 are spent and shed nothing more, but the **40 unshed late arrivals shed 4 large motes, 20 units** — and empties the bank, which is also what stops the Carriers following. The choice: **dump and run**, taking the stun and the clear road and banking nothing, or **dump and collect**, breaking even at ten units back for ten spent and paying for it in exposure with the evacuation window running. | Contract clause 4: "charge left in a battery at extraction is lost at the dock"; once-per-organism |
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| 12:33–12:43 | **The burst.** Arc bank 10 → 0 over ten seconds. Each cutter hit conducts to **at most three additional bodies, each once per hit, within the hop reach and with a line between them**; the arc never energises the water. Kills among the spent 100 return nothing. Kills among the unshed 40 drop 1-unit motes — **and the surveyor cannot take them**: the coil bank is full at 10 and the arc bank is being drawn. **A [Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) can**, which r5 omitted and Equipment caught; the rest expire on the ground, visibly. | [Arc A1](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment/Arc) and [Combat §6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat); the drawn-bank rule; [R5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), now adopted in contract §4 |
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| 12:43 | **Bank state: coil 10, arc 0 — one full bank, not two empty ones.** So the surviving Carriers do not stop: the player is still carrying charge, and spending the arc did not buy safety. **r3 claimed both banks ended empty and that the Carriers therefore lost interest; that was an arithmetic error and [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004) found it.** **And emptying the last bank is not a clear road either** — a Carrier stops seeking the surveyor only when the *total* carried charge is zero, and loose motes, ordinary pursuit and the yard beacon all still govern what walks where. [Equipment](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) caught that overclaim in r5 and it is corrected here. | Contract clause 4; the precedence stack, lines 1–3 |
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| 12:43+ | **The last decision falls out of a rule nobody had used yet: charge left in a bank is lost at the dock.** The coil's ten units are worth nothing the moment the player extracts, so spending them costs nothing *they were going to keep*. A second discharge stuns everything in the channel for eight seconds. Its yield is **five units per complete ten surviving fresh bodies** — and **this scene cannot state that number**, because the burst has just killed an unknown share of the forty late arrivals. It is somewhere between nothing and twenty units, and **the decision does not depend on it**: the bank is worthless either way. The choice is **dump and run**, taking the stun and banking nothing, or **dump and collect**, paying exposure with the evacuation window running for whatever the survivors shed. | Contract clause 4; once-per-organism. **Corrected in r6:** r5 granted the full twenty units from all forty as though the burst had killed none of them, and [Equipment](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) rightly refused an invented survivor count |
### Checking this scene against its own rules
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| Rev | What it did |
| --- | --- |
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| **r6** | Brought onto the Lead's ruled [contract r3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction): coil at two powered seconds and an eight-second stun, R10 declined, the precedence stack, bounded press, one-bit glow, the Carrier's mote and the Grounder all adopted. **Roster stated as eight, not six**, with the Floater transferred here and given a page. Encounter A now prices both readings of the open fixed-power question instead of asserting one. Encounter B corrected on [Equipment's](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) three findings: the closing discharge's yield cannot be stated because the burst killed an unknown share of the late cohort; a Carrier can take the motes the surveyor cannot; and emptying the last bank buys neither safety nor a clear road. |
| **r5** | Answered [PMR005](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR005). Withdrew the Heavy wording request and the "nineteen kill motes" argument under D023; narrowed the tint finding to a cue-budget concern; corrected the cable reel against Equipment U6's actual definition; gave the Carrier one complete bounded behaviour definition and checked Encounter B against the stated distance; corrected the "escort that does not give up" line in §1. |
| **r4** | Answered [PMR004 §2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004), which found real errors in both encounters. Encounter A had let a fixed-powered channel go inert; Encounter B's bank arithmetic left two empty banks where the rules leave one full one, and ignored the cohort that arrived after the discharge. Both corrected and re-checked, and the scene now ends on a rule nobody had used — charge left in a bank is lost at the dock. The Grounder beat now runs the retarget test before spreading. The Crust's "harmless confusion" claim withdrawn. The elites recommendation rescoped as a price list, not a prohibition. |
| **r3** | Reconciled with DES104, which the Lead published while r2 was being drafted: two rosters merged into one of eight, the base role renamed Drifter → Walker, Floater adopted unchanged and left to Campaign, Heavy accepted, Static and Carrier identified as one concept designed twice. |
