code_of_conquest_dnd/.claude/skills/world-building/references/cosmology.md

Cosmology — the Warden and the Seven

The overarching theme of the Margreave. Every new piece of content sits inside this hidden war and must not contradict it. The canon lives in content/lore/cosmology.md and content/lore/the-seven.md; this file is the author-facing summary + the rules that keep it in tone. Read it before writing lore, NPCs, quests, or items.

The frame

• The Warden (person.the-warden) — a genuinely good, distant god. Made the races, loves them, wards the world against the Seven. Answers worship with rare blessing and does not otherwise intervene. Nameless by design — no one living speaks his name; never invent one. Whether he is good, absent, or dead is the world's oldest argument, never settled by the narrator.
• The Sent (faction.the-sent) — his angels. Indirect: a Sent one asks a mortal to do a deed in his name; blessing follows the deed. Rare — most people never meet one. This is the cosmic-flavored quest-giver vein.
• The Seven (faction.the-seven) — seven demon kings + armies, the Warden's enemy. Want the races dead or enslaved. Run on blood (rule.blood-price): sacrifice buys their power. The roster (content/lore/the-seven.md): Kareth (slaughter), Vael (betrayal), Morren (plague/mercy-kill), Ghaul (bondage), Ishri (appetite), Nuun (madness — chief possessor), Draeth (tyranny).
• Possession (rule.possession) — how the Seven reach mortals: mostly influence (a hand on the scale of what a person already wants), rarely outright seizing a body (Nuun's specialty). A possessed mortal is a victim; the thing inside is the enemy.
• The two economies — worship→blessing (rule.the-pact) vs blood→power (rule.blood-price). Both express through Luck's flavor, never numbers (see below).

The FTH-axis callings (from the races/classes spec)

The two divine callings draw power from opposite sides; the rest are unaligned.

• Bonesetter (Cleric, FTH) — channels the Warden; healing is his blessing.
• Bloodsworn (Warlock, FTH) — pacted to one of the Seven; the "Pact Mark" talent spends a thread of a lord's blood-price power.
• Hedge-Mage (Wizard, MAG) — outsider; arcane is studied, serves neither.
• Martials (Sellsword/Trapper/Barbarian) — unaligned; the war only echoes. Callings are code-owned state — reference them in prose, never author a "class" entity. (A Bloodsworn's patron choice and any Luck effect are M4/M5, not content.)

Authoring rules — keep it in tone

1. Distant. The cosmology is the hidden engine under local grime, not the surface text. A corrupt mayor can just be a corrupt mayor.
2. Through people. Demons work by influence; possession is rare and quiet. No manifesting monsters in the square, no preaching narrator, god unconfirmed.
3. Not epic. Keep the gritty, indifferent register (see tone.md). Cosmic stakes stay implied, argued-over, never announced.
4. Blessing/curse ↔ Luck. Express which side has hold of someone through Luck's flavor ("fortune spits on you") — never a number, never something the player can calculate. A cursed item (+STR / −LCK) is a small bargain with the Seven.
5. Victims are gated secrets. WHO is possessed, WHICH road is bled, WHICH shrine is a front — author as per-town rumor/fact/secret with disposition gates, not stated in the open. The frame gives you hooks; you place the wounds.