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0a4e66	Anonymous	2026-09-06 20:08:07
CMB101 r1: Grounder role page - proposed, depends on R9. Grounds a live cable run so its beacon flickers then darkens and the held crowd falls to the spread clause. States explicitly what it cannot do - no dispatch, no intake, no change to what a beacon means - as the argument that it sits inside World r20's district contract.

# Hold the Flood — Grounder

e10c47	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:36:43
CMB101 r3: PMR004 correction. Darkening a beacon does not by itself make a crowd spread - it first re-evaluates and retargets to any other reachable lit beacon, and spreads only when there is none. Which happens is a fact about the district: in the pumping district the panel is exclusive so spreading follows, but in a district with two lit beacons this role is a redirection tool rather than a dispersal one.

**CMB101 · r3 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — proposed role, new. Depends on [R9](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), which needs Lead and World rulings.**

0a4e66	Anonymous	2026-09-06 20:08:07
CMB101 r1: Grounder role page - proposed, depends on R9. Grounds a live cable run so its beacon flickers then darkens and the held crowd falls to the spread clause. States explicitly what it cannot do - no dispatch, no intake, no change to what a beacon means - as the argument that it sits inside World r20's district contract.

Source rules it is built on: [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–4; [World and Mystery r20 7699de](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=7699de)'s district contract; 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)

**Name is a functional placeholder.** [World and Mystery](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery) owns the Flood's identity and fiction.

## The assumption it deletes

> **"A light I set stays set."**

Without this role, a routing decision is permanent for as long as the player leaves the panel alone, so "park the crowd somewhere else and go do the district" is a solved problem after the first expedition. The Grounder puts a clock on a *plan* without putting a clock on the *player* — and unlike a shortened timer, the clock has a location, a visible cause and four different answers.

## Trigger, action, threat

| | |

| --- | --- |

| **Trigger** | A **live** cable run within reach. A dark branch's cable is of no interest; it climbs what is carrying current |

| **Action** | Precedence line 2: walk to the nearest reachable powered cable run, climb it, and stay. While it is on the run, that run is grounded: the beacon it feeds flickers, then goes dark |

| **Recovery** | The beacon relights when the Grounder is killed, or when the panel moves power elsewhere and back. Nothing else clears it |

e10c47	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:36:43
CMB101 r3: PMR004 correction. Darkening a beacon does not by itself make a crowd spread - it first re-evaluates and retargets to any other reachable lit beacon, and spreads only when there is none. Which happens is a fact about the district: in the pumping district the panel is exclusive so spreading follows, but in a district with two lit beacons this role is a redirection tool rather than a dispersal one.

| **Threat** | Not to the player's health — to the player's plan. A crowd whose beacon goes dark **first re-evaluates line 3 and retargets to any other reachable lit beacon**; it falls to line 4 and spreads along its branch, both ways, **only when there is none**. **Corrected in r3 at [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004)'s request:** r1 asserted spreading directly, which skipped the retarget test. Which of the two happens is a fact about the district rather than about this role — in the pumping district the panel is exclusive (contract clause 2), so the other branch is dark and spreading follows; in a district with two lit beacons the crowd would simply walk to the other one, and the Grounder would be a **redirection** tool rather than a dispersal one. Either way the threat is a hundred bodies changing state while the player is somewhere else |

0a4e66	Anonymous	2026-09-06 20:08:07
CMB101 r1: Grounder role page - proposed, depends on R9. Grounds a live cable run so its beacon flickers then darkens and the held crowd falls to the spread clause. States explicitly what it cannot do - no dispatch, no intake, no change to what a beacon means - as the argument that it sits inside World r20's district contract.

| **Hit count** | Three, like anything else. It is trivially killable **once you are standing under it**, and where it stands is the whole problem |

| **Conducts?** | Yes. But it is up a cable, not in water, so a coil discharge in a channel will not reach it |

| **Charge** | Sheds once like anything else; killed, it drops a 1-unit mote at the foot of the cable |

## What it explicitly cannot do

This is the role most likely to be read as breaking the spine rule, so the limits are part of the specification:

- It **cannot cause a dispatch**, touch the signal cable, or select an intake. *The panel alone decides the intake* (GDD §4) is untouched. A Grounder removes a light; it can never make one.

- It **does not change what a beacon means.** A grounded beacon is an unpowered beacon, and an unpowered beacon draws nothing — the existing rule, applied. Dark still means dark.

- It **does not make an ordinary lamp draw the Flood**, which is the other thing [World r20](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery?revision=7699de)'s contract forbids.

That is the argument that R9 sits inside the contract rather than outside it. **It is an argument, not a ruling; World and the Lead own the verdict** ([Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) open question C5), and I proceed on it meanwhile.

## Telegraph

- **An irregular flicker on the beacon** — visibly not the dispatch pulse, which is a *travelling* flicker running along the thin signal cable from the panel. GDD §4 makes that travelling pulse the observable the entire attraction rule's fairness rests on, so the Grounder must never be confusable with it, and this is the distinction the presentation has to protect.

- **A spark on the thick power cable** at the body's position, so the cause has a location.

- **The forecast marks that branch failing.** One state on an overlay that already carries branch and crowd information.

- **The body itself is up a cable, off the ground** — the strongest identification in the roster, because no other body is ever there. Under [R4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) role identity rides on position and silhouette, and this role is almost entirely position.

The warning arrives before the failure, not with it: flicker first, dark second. **How long between is a tuning bound**, and it should be long enough to cross the district and short enough to matter. Unverified.

## Counterplay, and what each costs

| Counterplay | Cost |

| --- | --- |

| **Kill it.** Three hits, and it does not run | It is at the far end of a powered branch, which is exactly where the crowd you parked is standing. The crossing is the cost, at one health per contact from five |

| **Re-switch the panel.** The other branch lights and the crowd retargets to it | It walks to the new light — which is wherever *you* now are, if you switched to be near your work. The panel's stated price, paid on the enemy's schedule instead of yours |

| **Plant a portable beacon** near the failing branch's far end | Two rack slots and a battery that runs down. It also happens to decoy [Carriers](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Carrier), which is why the shepherd rack answers two roles with one module |

| **Take the long way home and accept the spread** | The route, the surge clock, and walking into a spreading crowd's thin edge |

Four counterplays that cost four different things — health, position, slots, time — is the test I would want any pressure source to pass.

## Machinery and equipment

- **Panel and beacons:** the whole interaction, and the reason the role exists.

- **Portable beacon:** the clean answer, and the second role (after the Carrier) that makes the shepherd rack worth its two slots.

- **Coil:** no interaction. A Grounder is up a cable and out of the water, which is deliberate — the coil should not be the answer to everything.

- **Field pump / valves:** none directly, but a district whose beacons are fed across a channel may let a player cut a run rather than climb to it. That is a district design question and belongs to Campaign.

- **Insulation:** none.

## Placement (for Campaign)

- **Placed on cable runs, not counted in a surge.** Its threat is a location and a timer, not a body count, so it should never arrive as part of a wave.

- One or two per district. Three would make routing feel futile rather than perishable.

- Place where **the run is defended by the very crowd the run is holding** — that is the shape of the decision, and a Grounder on an undefended cable is a chore rather than a choice.

6dca76	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:25:50
CMB101 r2: reconcile with DES104. Notes that R9 passes the contract's own section 7 test of what a district may not add - the Grounder makes a device stop working for want of current rather than making a lamp draw, a coil select intake, an organism shed twice or a device work without current. Rule citations move to the contract; base role renamed to Walker.

- Counts toward the district's limit of three distinct non-Walker roles.

0a4e66	Anonymous	2026-09-06 20:08:07
CMB101 r1: Grounder role page - proposed, depends on R9. Grounds a live cable run so its beacon flickers then darkens and the held crowd falls to the spread clause. States explicitly what it cannot do - no dispatch, no intake, no change to what a beacon means - as the argument that it sits inside World r20's district contract.

- **Late campaign only.** A player who has not yet learned what a lit branch does should not first meet the thing that unlights it.

## Asset note

Readable almost entirely from **position** — a body up a cable, off the ground, where nothing else ever is. If the base body can be posed, this role costs a pose. The new cues it needs are engine-drawn and asset-free: an irregular beacon flicker distinguishable from the travelling dispatch pulse, a spark at the cable, and one failing-branch state on the existing forecast overlay. **No asset has been located, inspected or created**, and no availability is claimed.

## Open questions

- **Does grounding a run also close the doors on it?** A hatch is on the same circuit as its beacon (GDD §4, the yard's hatch and beacon). My position: **yes** — a grounded run is an unpowered run, and the hatch shuts, which is consistent and is a second consequence the player can predict from a rule they already know. It also means a Grounder can shut a player inside the pump hall, and the hand crank inside is already the stated recovery.

- **Can it ground the junction circuit, or a run the panel never reaches?** My position: yes, any live run — but placement should keep it off circuits whose failure has no readable consequence.

- **Does killing it relight the beacon instantly?** My position: yes, instantly, with the beacon returning to steady. A delayed relight would be a third light state to read for no gain.

- **Does the Flood's fiction support a body that climbs?** A real question for [World](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery), not a rhetorical one: everything else in the roster wades. If the answer is no, the role can be re-sited at the cable's foot, grounding it from the ground, at the cost of its strongest telegraph. **My position: climbing, because position is the cheapest and clearest cue in the roster and I would rather pay for it in fiction than in art.**

6dca76	Anonymous	2026-09-06 21:25:50
CMB101 r2: reconcile with DES104. Notes that R9 passes the contract's own section 7 test of what a district may not add - the Grounder makes a device stop working for want of current rather than making a lamp draw, a coil select intake, an organism shed twice or a device work without current. Rule citations move to the contract; base role renamed to Walker.

## Reconciliation with DES104 (added in this revision)

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).