docs(spec): cosmology — the Warden and the Seven (overarching theme)

Establishes the good-god/seven-demon-lords cosmology as the game's
overarching content theme, mapped onto the content schema as canon
entities, with the world-building skill updated to reconcile all future
authoring against it. Duncarrow scaffolding decoupled now, purged in a
follow-up.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HuHRPE7VfppUJEaoGBEUqZ

docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-cosmology-and-worldbuilding-theme-design.md

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+# Cosmology — the Warden and the Seven
+
+**Status:** approved design, ready for implementation plan
+**Date:** 2026-07-12
+**Scope:** Establish the game's overarching content/playthrough theme as canon, and
+bake it into the world-building skill so all future authoring reconciles against it.
+
+---
+
+## 1. The idea
+
+The Margreave sits inside a hidden cosmic war, and every future storyline hangs off it:
+
+- **The Warden** — a genuinely good god who loves the races of the world. He is
+  **distant**: he answers worship with blessing and otherwise does not intervene.
+  His true name is unknown/unspoken — nameless **by design**, not a TBD to fill.
+- **The Sent** — his angels. His hand reaches mortals only *indirectly*: a Sent one
+  asks a mortal to do a deed "in his name," and the doing earns blessing. This is
+  the cosmic-flavored quest-giver engine. Rare — most people never see one.
+- **The Seven** — seven demon kings, each commanding an army, each craving a
+  **distinct kind of blood**. They work against the Warden: they want every race
+  dead or enslaved, and they want **blood as sacrifice** to fuel their power.
+- **Possession & influence** — the Seven reach mortals by *influence* first and, more
+  rarely, by *seizing the body*. This is the primary way the war touches the world.
+
+## 2. Tone reconciliation (load-bearing — the design lives or dies here)
+
+The charter tone is **gritty, not grim; the world does not care about you** (§3), with a
+**dry narrator who never winks**. A straight cosmic good-vs-evil epic would break that.
+The reconciliation, chosen during brainstorming, is **"distant & contested":**
+
+- The god is real but **silent/absent to most.** Blessings are rare; the Sent are
+  seldom seen.
+- Demons are felt as **wreckage and bad people**, not manifesting monsters in the
+  square. They work *through* mortals. Possession is rare and quiet, not spectacle.
+- Ordinary folk **argue whether any of it is true.** Whether the Warden is good,
+  absent, or dead is a thing mortals dispute — a future `rumor`/`secret` layer, never
+  confirmed by the narrator.
+- Day-to-day the world stays indifferent (taxes, mud, bad men). **The cosmic war is
+  the hidden engine under the local grime**, not the surface text.
+- The narrator **never preaches, never confirms the god, never goes epic.**
+
+## 3. The Luck hook (grounds the theology in the existing signature system)
+
+The war is already legible through **§7 Luck** without touching numbers:
+
+- A Warden's blessing reads as **fortune**; demonic taint reads as **the trap door
+  opening under you.**
+- A cursed item (**+STR / −LCK**, the charter's "most interesting item") is a small
+  bargain with the Seven.
+- Luck stays **visible in prose, never in numbers** (§7). It becomes the *fingerprint*
+  of which side has hold of you. No new mechanic — a reinterpretation of Luck's flavor.
+
+## 4. How it maps onto the content schema
+
+The cosmology is **public, believed world-furniture**, so it authors as **canon
+entities** (secrecy 0, bodies ship to client) — same machinery as everything else. The
+*hidden specifics* (who is possessed, which cult bleeds which road) are authored later
+as gated `rumor`/`fact`/`secret` knowledge, per-town. The frame never names victims; it
+gives future authors the hooks.
+
+### New file: `content/lore/cosmology.md`
+
+| id | type | secrecy | notes |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| `person.the-warden` | person | 0 | The good god. Titled only; name unspoken by design. |
+| `faction.the-sent` | faction | 0 | The angels; his indirect hand; the deed-for-blessing engine. |
+| `faction.the-seven` | faction | 0 | The demonic host as a whole; the seven armies. |
+| `rule.the-pact` | rule | 0 | Worship → the Warden's blessing. The good economy. |
+| `rule.blood-price` | rule | 0 | Blood sacrifice → the Seven's power. The dark economy. |
+| `rule.possession` | rule | 0 | How the Seven reach mortals: influence, then rarely seizing the body. |
+
+### New file: `content/lore/the-seven.md` — the roster
+
+Each is a `person.*`, secrecy 0, `related: [faction.the-seven]`. Each body is a tight
+sketch (a paragraph, not a questline): **king/title · the blood it craves · its army ·
+how it corrupts mortals.** Gritty, not cartoonish — each is a *way mortals actually bleed.*
+
+| id | King / title | Blood it craves | Corrupts through |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| `person.kareth-the-red-king` | Kareth, the Red King | slaughter, the battlefield | rage, feud, the promise of victory |
+| `person.vael-the-quiet-knife` | Vael, the Quiet Knife | the trusted killed by the trusted | grudge, the easy solution |
+| `person.morren-the-grey-mother` | Morren, the Grey Mother | the fevered, the dying | despair, the mercy-kill |
+| `person.ghaul-the-yoke` | Ghaul, the Yoke | chattel worked to death | profit, the slaver's ledger |
+| `person.ishri-the-open-mouth` | Ishri, the Open Mouth | ruin by appetite | wanting — flesh, drink, more |
+| `person.nuun-the-hollow-choir` | Nuun, the Hollow Choir | the self-slain | madness, whispers — **the chief possessor** |
+| `person.draeth-the-crowned-worm` | Draeth, the Crowned Worm | a ruler's own people, spent for power | ambition, tyranny |
+
+`faction.the-seven` relates to all seven; each lord relates back. `rule.possession`
+names Nuun as the chief possessor (all seven can, Nuun is the specialist).
+
+## 5. World-building skill changes (the explicit ask: "the skill should include this")
+
+Every future author must reconcile new content against this backdrop, so:
+
+- **New `references/cosmology.md`** in the skill — the canonical backdrop authors read
+  before writing: the Warden/Sent/Seven, the two economies, possession, and the
+  **authoring rules** that keep it in tone:
+  - Keep it **distant** — cosmology is the hidden engine, not the surface text.
+  - Demons work **through people**; possession is rare and quiet, never spectacle.
+  - **Don't go epic** — no manifesting monsters, no preaching narrator, god unconfirmed.
+  - **Blessing/curse ↔ Luck** — express the war through Luck's flavor, never numbers.
+  - Victims/cults are authored as **gated secrets** per-town, not stated in the open.
+- **`SKILL.md`** — add cosmology to **step 2 (reconcile against existing canon)**: new
+  content must slot against the Warden/Seven backdrop; and a one-line pointer in the
+  reference list to `references/cosmology.md`.
+- **`references/tone.md`** — add a short "**The cosmic backdrop**" section: how the
+  good/evil war colors tone *without* breaking the world's indifference (the three
+  rules above, in tone language).
+
+## 6. Old Duncarrow canon — decoupled now, purged later
+
+The user confirmed the Duncarrow/Crell/White-Antlers content was scaffolding to build
+the schema + skill, not tied to the story, and **may be removed.**
+
+**This pass does NOT remove it.** Duncarrow currently:
+- is the world-building skill's **format/disposition-gate specimen** (SKILL.md and
+  schema.md point authors at `duncarrow.md`),
+- **hosts `rule.disposition-ladder`**, which the build requires **exactly once**, and
+- backs the `content_build` **tests/fixtures**.
+
+Ripping it out in the same pass as the new theme risks breaking the build alongside new
+work. **Plan:** this pass is **additive** (cosmology + skill). A **follow-up spec**
+purges Duncarrow, reparents `rule.disposition-ladder` into `cosmology.md`, and stands up
+a **cosmology-native town** as the new specimen. The build stays green throughout.
+
+Roadmap note: `content/lore/canon-roadmap.md` gets an entry recording that Duncarrow is
+non-canonical scaffolding slated for removal, and that the Warden/Seven cosmology is the
+new spine.
+
+## 7. Acceptance criteria
+
+- `content/lore/cosmology.md` and `content/lore/the-seven.md` author the entries in §4,
+  in tone (dry, distant, gritty; §2/§3 respected), every `related` id resolving.
+- `PYTHONPATH=tools python -m content_build` regenerates cleanly; `--check` exits 0
+  (fresh, valid, no orphans, no secrecy leaks); `pytest tools/content_build/tests -q`
+  green.
+- The world-building skill carries `references/cosmology.md`, and `SKILL.md` +
+  `references/tone.md` reference/enforce the backdrop.
+- `content/lore/canon-roadmap.md` updated (Warden/Seven authored; Duncarrow flagged
+  scaffolding).
+- Existing Duncarrow content and the build remain intact (no removal this pass).
+
+## 8. Out of scope (explicitly deferred)
+
+- Removing Duncarrow / reparenting the ladder / new specimen town — **follow-up spec.**
+- Naming victims, cults, possessed NPCs, or blood-harvest sites — **per-town knowledge
+  layers**, authored as the world grows.
+- Any engine/UI/prompt/combat change — this is content + skill only.
+- A true name for the Warden — nameless by design; not a deferred TBD.