# Content Roadmap The world's answer to [`docs/roadmap.md`](../docs/roadmap.md). That doc sequences **systems**; this one sequences **content** — lore, the economy, items, quests, the map — and makes it **countable rather than open-ended**. Source of truth is `content/lore/*.md`; `content/world` + `content/server` are BUILT from it (`python3 -m content_build`). Realizes the [content-track design](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-content-track-design.md). Three sections. **Only one of them is ever the work.** 1. **[Spine](#1-the-spine)** — the slice's world. Authored once; gates everything downstream. 2. **[Bill of Materials](#2-bill-of-materials)** — a countable checklist, per milestone. Numbers, not vibes. 3. **[Backlog](#3-backlog)** — everything the slice does not need. Named so it is not lost; parked so it is not looming. > ## The rule > > **Never author anything that is not in the Bill of Materials.** > > An idea that arrives goes to the Backlog, and is then no longer carried. The > Backlog is not a debt. It is where ideas go to be safe. --- ## 1. The Spine **Greywater Docks and one dungeon** — the smallest thing that is a *game*. Every system (creation, combat, dialogue, inventory, shop, quest log, map) is exercised exactly once, against real content. The cosmology touching ground for the first time. - **The town — Greywater Docks.** A rot-black wharf where the river meets the sea trade; everyone owes someone. **~6 NPCs:** Fenn (promoted from M2 test fixture to real NPC), the harbourmaster, a fence, an innkeeper, a dock rough, one more. - **The chain — "The Missing Ledger,"** extended from the existing hook. Town → road → dungeon → back. **Four objectives.** - **The turn.** The debt Fenn cannot cover is a **blood** debt. The harbourmaster is named in the ledger because he is the one *collecting*. The dungeon is the harvest site. - **The patron — Ghaul the Yoke.** Already, by name, the king of debt and bondage; a ledger of what men owe is his liturgy. This makes the quest chain and the cosmology **the same object** rather than two things bolted together, and gives `rule.blood-price` its first concrete instance. - **The dungeon** — the harvest site. One enemy family (the yoked) + a boss. **Adopting Greywater, not replacing it.** Fenn is the NPC the aliveness question was actually answered with (M2, live-proven). The slice's job is to make Greywater *deep*, not *new*. Breadth afterwards is **repetition of a proven shape**, not invention. ### Already authored (status: canon) - **`lore/cosmology.md`** — the overarching theme: the Warden (distant good god), the Sent (his angels), the Seven (demonic host), and the two economies + possession (`rule.the-pact`, `rule.blood-price`, `rule.possession`). The backdrop every future piece of content reconciles against. - **`lore/the-seven.md`** — the seven demon kings, one `person.*` each: Kareth (Red King), Vael (Quiet Knife), Morren (Grey Mother), Ghaul (the Yoke), Ishri (Open Mouth), Nuun (Hollow Choir), Draeth (Crowned Worm). - **FTH-axis callings** (folded into the cosmology, from the races/classes spec): the Bonesetter channels the Warden, the **Bloodsworn** pacts one of the Seven. - **`lore/mechanics.md`** — hosts `rule.disposition-ladder` (the required-once gate vocabulary). - **`lore/specimen.md`** — a synthetic `status: candidate` disposition-gate specimen (validated by `--check`, emitted nowhere); the world-building skill's structure example. **Not game canon.** ### Still to author for the slice Greywater itself — the town, its ~6 NPCs, the ledger chain's four objectives, and Ghaul's harvest site — as `content/lore/greywater.md`. The hand-written JSON under `content/world/{locations,quests,npcs,items}` gets **authored upward** into that bible, and `python3 -m content_build` emits `world/` from it. Per-town knowledge that grounds the cosmology (possessed NPCs, blood-harvest sites, shrine fronts) is authored as gated `rumor`/`fact`/`secret`. --- ## 2. Bill of Materials Countable. This is the anti-overwhelm device. The **Fixed/Variable** column is the [seven-campaign saga](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-character-reuse-seven-arc-design.md)'s only ask of this table. **Fixed substrate** is identical in every campaign of every saga — authored once, reused verbatim. **Variable** is per-campaign: the part a second town would have to re-author, and the part v2 generation would produce. The column costs nothing and tells you exactly what town #2 does *not* pay for. | Milestone | Content it consumes | Count | Fixed / Variable | |---|---|---|---| | **M4** creation | Calling blurbs; the Bloodsworn's patron choice | ~2 | **Fixed** | | **M4** creation | Origins (they reference world ids) | ~2 | **Variable** | | **M5** combat | Abilities for the 3 POC classes | ~10 | **Fixed** | | **M5** combat | 1 enemy family (4 units) + boss — **tier 1** | ~5 | **Variable** (per tier) | | **M6** dialogue | 6 NPCs — persona + `knowledge[]` + gated topics (§6) | ~6 | **Variable** | | **M7** inventory | 6 weapons, 4 armour, 3 consumables, **1 cursed item** (+STR / −LCK — §7 says day-one) | ~14 | **Fixed** | | **M8** world | The **price table in copper** | ~1 | **Fixed** | | **M8** world | 3 map locations + the road; shop stock; the quest chain | ~7 | **Variable** | | **M9** flavour | Authored fallback per AI surface (§13); shrine + Luck-drift events; humiliation seeds | ~10 | **Fixed** | **≈57 discrete authored pieces for a complete, playable game.** An estimate, and likely optimistic — but an estimate with an end, which is the entire point. Roughly **37 fixed / 20 variable**: a second town costs the ~20, not the ~57. Explicitly **not** in the slice: rings, amulets, trinkets. A second town. The other six kings and their cults. All parked in the Backlog. ### The economy is two systems (§18) - **The loop is code** (§2: state) — purse, buy/sell, the ~40% fence rate, gritty disabled-CTA reasons. Sequenced as M8's *Shop economy*. - **The numbers are content** — what a shortsword costs, a night at the inn, an ale, the quest's purse. The **price table**, above. **Currency model:** ``` 1 gold = 100 silver = 10,000 copper 1 silver = 100 copper ``` **Gold is scary.** A peasant's whole life is copper, a mercenary's fee is silver, and a gold coin is a plot point. The party counting coppers for an inn bed is §3 grit, and Brannoc has an opinion about it. **This is a change, not a new thing — and it has a client consumer. It lands as its own small item before M7**, cheapest now while `content/world/items/` holds exactly two files: - A `Currency` value type — **store everything in copper**, format only at the display edge (`12g 40s 8c`). - `coin.json` → real denominations; all prices re-denominated. - The Main Window shell's command-bar purse (it currently shows a flat gold value). *§2: state · depends on nothing · goal: money that means something.* --- ## 3. Backlog Not a debt. Where ideas go to be safe. - **Items:** rings, amulets, trinkets. - **Places:** a second town. Regions of the Margreave beyond the slice. - **The saga (tiers 2–7)** — from the [character-reuse spec](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-character-reuse-seven-arc-design.md): the other six kings as campaign patrons; tiered enemy families (proximity to a king *is* the power scale); the three story-shapes (cult cell → cult that owns a city → the king himself). - **The Barbarian ⚔ calling name** (`[CANON-TBD]`). - **AI-generated worlds** (v2, charter §17). The saga spec guarantees the `Saga` object is what will feed it. Nothing else about it is decided. --- ## Notes for whoever authors next - Each BOM line is authored through the **`/world-building` skill** — it reconciles against existing canon, writes the build tool's source format, and verifies the build stays green. - **The build tool needs two new namespaces: `item` and `quest`.** Its legal namespaces today (`tools/content_build/model.py`) are `town`, `place`, `region`, `faction`, `person`, `rule`, `rumor`, `fact`, `secret`, `npc` — so **locations are already modeled** (`town`/`place`/`region`) and only items and quests fall outside it. Adding those two (model, emit, resolve) is a prerequisite of the M7 and M8 BOM lines. **Add `tier: 1..7` to the entry envelope at the same moment** — the saga spec's only schema ask, free while the model is already open. - **Moving or deleting generated content is a client change.** `content/world/**` has a client consumer: `client/scripts/content/content_db.gd` (via `client/scripts/harness/npc_harness.gd`) and its GUT tests in `client/tests/unit/test_content_db.gd`. That is the Duncarrow lesson — check `client/` before any content move.