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1b80fc	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:25:49
CMB101 r2: the base role, renamed Drifter to Walker to match the Lead's Campaign 34dc09 - one role with two names is the failure this wiki has paid for twice, and Walker was published first. Full r1 text carried forward with the rename noted in the header; Enemies/Drifter becomes a pointer here. Re-points the rule citations at the shared-rule contract Power and Attraction r2 69024c, and points at Campaign section 4 for Floater, Heavy and Static rather than restating them.

# Hold the Flood — Walker

061ac3	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:42:16
CMB101 r3: answers PMR005 point 1. Corrects r2's closing sentence, which placed all four Lead roles at precedence line 2 - this page's own action table puts ordinary Walker attraction at line 3. A role sits at line 2 only when its target is something other than a beacon: Walker and Heavy at line 3, Floater at line 2 while its water flows and line 3 when it stops, Static/Carrier at line 2.

**CMB101 · r3 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**

1b80fc	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:25:49
CMB101 r2: the base role, renamed Drifter to Walker to match the Lead's Campaign 34dc09 - one role with two names is the failure this wiki has paid for twice, and Walker was published first. Full r1 text carried forward with the rename noted in the header; Enemies/Drifter becomes a pointer here. Re-points the rule citations at the shared-rule contract Power and Attraction r2 69024c, and points at Campaign section 4 for Floater, Heavy and Static rather than restating them.

The existing single enemy type, re-specified as a role so the roster has a stated baseline rather than an implied one. **No behaviour is changed here**; everything below is either quoted from the source or marked as a proposal.

**Renamed in r2: this role was published as *Drifter* an hour earlier.** The Lead's [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) calls the same role **Walker**, and one role with two names is the failure this wiki has already paid for twice (Wiki Conventions §6). Walker was published first and is in the integrated document, so Walker is the name and this page carries it. [Enemies/Drifter](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Drifter) is now a one-line pointer here and should be retired by the editor once nothing links to it.

Sources: the shared-rule contract [Power and Attraction r2 69024c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=69024c), which is now the page to cite for these rules; [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–6 as its derivation; [Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) §4 for the name and for Floater, Heavy and Static. Shared grammar: [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).

[Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) · [Design Index](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Index) · [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief) · [Glossary](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Glossary)

**Names remain the World designer's.** [World and Mystery](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery) owns the Flood's identity and fiction and may rename this again.

## What it is

The Flood itself — the mass. It is 85% or more of every surge by the [composition budget](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), and it is the medium the other five roles deform. **It deletes no assumption, because it *is* the assumption:** everything answers the light.

## Trigger, action, threat

| | |

| --- | --- |

| **Trigger** | A dispatch releases it at the intake the panel selected. After entry, any lit beacon it can reach |

| **Action** | Precedence line 3: walk to the nearest reachable lit beacon, re-evaluated continuously; hold there on arrival; never leave a held beacon for a farther light. With none reachable, line 4: spread along the entry branch, both ways. Within pursuit range of the surveyor, line 1: break off, chase, drift back |

| **Threat** | Volume. 40 to 140 per surge over half a minute, three surges an expedition, each larger. Contact costs one health of five, with a moment of immunity after |

| **Hit count** | Three cutter hits, at roughly two hits a second — so a little over a second and a half each, against a surge you cannot out-kill. Adopted, GDD §3 |

| **Charge** | Killed: drops a 1-unit mote. Stunned in water: sheds its share of one 5-unit large mote per complete ten stunned. **Once per expedition**, then spent and no longer glowing ([R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)) |

| **Conducts?** | Yes. It is the body the coil, the arc and energised water all act through |

## Telegraph

The **forecast** is the telegraph, and it is the design's best readability decision: the countdown, the map marker at the next intake, a locked marker for a surge already dispatched, and each entered crowd's current target beacon (GDD §3). [R2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) adds one ring per crowd showing its current extent, so a player can see how much of a branch is full before crossing it. At the dispatch itself the relay's pulse is visible travelling the thin signal cable from the panel to the beacon before it flashes — the observable the whole attraction rule's fairness rests on.

## Counterplay, and what each costs

| Counterplay | Cost |

| --- | --- |

| Route it with the panel: light the branch you want it on | **Lighting a branch is what brings it there.** That is the design's central price, and it also decides where the next surge enters |

| Hold a chokepoint where it comes a few at a time | You are inside pursuit range for as long as you hold, and you are not exploring |

| Thin an edge with the cutter to shrink a ring and buy road home | Time, and standing in pursuit range. Under R2 the shrink is visible, which is what makes it worth doing |

| Stun a mass standing in connected water with the coil | A whole battery, and you must be standing in the water you electrify |

| Spend an arc burst through a packed crowd | A whole battery, ten seconds, and it returns nothing if the crowd has already shed |

| Walk away | Surge time, which is the expedition's real currency |

## Machinery and equipment

Everything. The Drifter is what makes the panel a weapon, the beacon a lure, the coil a harvest and the arc a payoff. Its one economic rule — **each organism sheds once** — is what stops the harvest loop becoming a farm and is why the arc is a spend rather than an engine (GDD §6).

## Placement (for Campaign)

No constraints beyond the budget floor: at least 85% of every surge. A district that wants a harder surge should change **where** the Drifters can go, not how many hits they take ([R8](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)).

## Asset note

The one enemy body. GDD §14 records it as the project's first likely approval request and states the reason honestly: the bioelectric organism proposed is not humanoid, and free packs are unlikely to supply it. **No asset has been located, inspected or created by this role.** Under [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) it needs exactly two glow states — unshed and spent — and no tint variants are required by the roster.

## Open questions

- **Size and tint variants.** GDD §15's minimum scope is "one enemy type with size and tint variants". Under R8 there are no stats for a size variant to change, so a larger Drifter would be decoration. **My position: drop size variants and spend the readability budget on the five role silhouettes instead.** Raised for the Lead; not acted on unilaterally.

- **Pursuit range as a number.** Unstated in the source and load-bearing for [R1](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat): if it is generous, every role reads the same near the player. A tuning bound, not a rule, and unverified.

## The other roles the Campaign page proposes

061ac3	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:42:16
CMB101 r3: answers PMR005 point 1. Corrects r2's closing sentence, which placed all four Lead roles at precedence line 2 - this page's own action table puts ordinary Walker attraction at line 3. A role sits at line 2 only when its target is something other than a beacon: Walker and Heavy at line 3, Floater at line 2 while its water flows and line 3 when it stops, Static/Carrier at line 2.

[Campaign 34dc09](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign) §4 proposes three roles alongside this one — **Floater** (rides flow, cannot climb), **Heavy** (blocks a rail or doorway, ten hits, drops a large mote and counts as ten for a stun) and **Static** (drawn to stored charge at short range). They are the Lead's and are owned there; this page does not restate them. How they and the five roles on [Enemies](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) fit into one roster, including the Static/[Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) collision and the one narrowing I ask for on Heavy, is in [Enemies §0](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies). **Corrected in r3:** r2 of this page said all four sit at precedence line 2. They do not, and [PMR005](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR005) caught it — this page's own action table puts ordinary Walker attraction at **line 3**. A role sits at line 2 only when its *target* is something other than a beacon. So: **Walker and Heavy at line 3**; **Floater at line 2 while its water flows and line 3 when it stops**; **Static/[Carrier](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier) at line 2**. The full classification is in [Combat Rules §0.3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).