Phillip Tarrant
9e8fc55a44
Implements the docs restructure half of the content-track design (the
currency item is code and stays unbuilt). Content stops being unbounded:
the work is now a countable checklist with an end.
content/roadmap.md — new. Three sections, only one of which is ever the
work:
Spine Greywater Docks + one dungeon, patron Ghaul the Yoke; the
cosmology touching ground. Plus what is already canon.
BOM ~57 discrete pieces for a complete, playable game, per
milestone. Numbers, not vibes.
Backlog Everything the slice does not need. Not a debt — where ideas
go to be safe.
Its rule: never author anything that is not in the Bill of Materials.
The BOM carries a Fixed/Variable column — the seven-campaign saga spec's
only ask of this table. ~37 fixed / ~20 variable: a second town costs the
20, not the 57. That is also the exact split v2 generation would need.
content/lore/canon-roadmap.md becomes a pointer (older specs and plans
reference the old path). An items-and-prices table does not belong under
lore/.
docs/roadmap.md — M4..M9 each gain a "Content it consumes →" line into
the BOM.
world-building skill — SKILL.md and evals.json now point at
content/roadmap.md, and the skill is told to respect the BOM rule: ideas
that arrive during authoring go to the Backlog, not into the world.
Build + --check green; generated content/world and content/server are
byte-identical. No Python touched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
178 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
178 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
# Content Roadmap
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The world's answer to [`docs/roadmap.md`](../docs/roadmap.md). That doc sequences
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**systems**; this one sequences **content** — lore, the economy, items, quests, the
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map — and makes it **countable rather than open-ended**.
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Source of truth is `content/lore/*.md`; `content/world` + `content/server` are
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BUILT from it (`python3 -m content_build`). Realizes the
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[content-track design](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-content-track-design.md).
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Three sections. **Only one of them is ever the work.**
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1. **[Spine](#1-the-spine)** — the slice's world. Authored once; gates everything downstream.
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2. **[Bill of Materials](#2-bill-of-materials)** — a countable checklist, per milestone. Numbers, not vibes.
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3. **[Backlog](#3-backlog)** — everything the slice does not need. Named so it is not lost; parked so it is not looming.
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> ## The rule
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>
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> **Never author anything that is not in the Bill of Materials.**
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>
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> An idea that arrives goes to the Backlog, and is then no longer carried. The
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> Backlog is not a debt. It is where ideas go to be safe.
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---
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## 1. The Spine
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**Greywater Docks and one dungeon** — the smallest thing that is a *game*. Every
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system (creation, combat, dialogue, inventory, shop, quest log, map) is exercised
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exactly once, against real content. The cosmology touching ground for the first
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time.
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- **The town — Greywater Docks.** A rot-black wharf where the river meets the sea
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trade; everyone owes someone. **~6 NPCs:** Fenn (promoted from M2 test fixture to
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real NPC), the harbourmaster, a fence, an innkeeper, a dock rough, one more.
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- **The chain — "The Missing Ledger,"** extended from the existing hook. Town → road
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→ dungeon → back. **Four objectives.**
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- **The turn.** The debt Fenn cannot cover is a **blood** debt. The harbourmaster is
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named in the ledger because he is the one *collecting*. The dungeon is the harvest
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site.
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- **The patron — Ghaul the Yoke.** Already, by name, the king of debt and bondage; a
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ledger of what men owe is his liturgy. This makes the quest chain and the cosmology
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**the same object** rather than two things bolted together, and gives
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`rule.blood-price` its first concrete instance.
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- **The dungeon** — the harvest site. One enemy family (the yoked) + a boss.
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**Adopting Greywater, not replacing it.** Fenn is the NPC the aliveness question was
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actually answered with (M2, live-proven). The slice's job is to make Greywater
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*deep*, not *new*.
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Breadth afterwards is **repetition of a proven shape**, not invention.
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### Already authored (status: canon)
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- **`lore/cosmology.md`** — the overarching theme: the Warden (distant good god), the
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Sent (his angels), the Seven (demonic host), and the two economies + possession
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(`rule.the-pact`, `rule.blood-price`, `rule.possession`). The backdrop every future
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piece of content reconciles against.
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- **`lore/the-seven.md`** — the seven demon kings, one `person.*` each: Kareth (Red
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King), Vael (Quiet Knife), Morren (Grey Mother), Ghaul (the Yoke), Ishri (Open
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Mouth), Nuun (Hollow Choir), Draeth (Crowned Worm).
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- **FTH-axis callings** (folded into the cosmology, from the races/classes spec): the
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Bonesetter channels the Warden, the **Bloodsworn** pacts one of the Seven.
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- **`lore/mechanics.md`** — hosts `rule.disposition-ladder` (the required-once gate
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vocabulary).
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- **`lore/specimen.md`** — a synthetic `status: candidate` disposition-gate specimen
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(validated by `--check`, emitted nowhere); the world-building skill's structure
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example. **Not game canon.**
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### Still to author for the slice
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Greywater itself — the town, its ~6 NPCs, the ledger chain's four objectives, and
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Ghaul's harvest site — as `content/lore/greywater.md`. The hand-written JSON under
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`content/world/{locations,quests,npcs,items}` gets **authored upward** into that
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bible, and `python3 -m content_build` emits `world/` from it.
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Per-town knowledge that grounds the cosmology (possessed NPCs, blood-harvest sites,
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shrine fronts) is authored as gated `rumor`/`fact`/`secret`.
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---
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## 2. Bill of Materials
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Countable. This is the anti-overwhelm device.
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The **Fixed/Variable** column is the [seven-campaign
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saga](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-character-reuse-seven-arc-design.md)'s only
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ask of this table. **Fixed substrate** is identical in every campaign of every saga —
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authored once, reused verbatim. **Variable** is per-campaign: the part a second town
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would have to re-author, and the part v2 generation would produce. The column costs
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nothing and tells you exactly what town #2 does *not* pay for.
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| Milestone | Content it consumes | Count | Fixed / Variable |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| **M4** creation | Calling blurbs; the Bloodsworn's patron choice | ~2 | **Fixed** |
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| **M4** creation | Origins (they reference world ids) | ~2 | **Variable** |
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| **M5** combat | Abilities for the 3 POC classes | ~10 | **Fixed** |
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| **M5** combat | 1 enemy family (4 units) + boss — **tier 1** | ~5 | **Variable** (per tier) |
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| **M6** dialogue | 6 NPCs — persona + `knowledge[]` + gated topics (§6) | ~6 | **Variable** |
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| **M7** inventory | 6 weapons, 4 armour, 3 consumables, **1 cursed item** (+STR / −LCK — §7 says day-one) | ~14 | **Fixed** |
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| **M8** world | The **price table in copper** | ~1 | **Fixed** |
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| **M8** world | 3 map locations + the road; shop stock; the quest chain | ~7 | **Variable** |
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| **M9** flavour | Authored fallback per AI surface (§13); shrine + Luck-drift events; humiliation seeds | ~10 | **Fixed** |
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**≈57 discrete authored pieces for a complete, playable game.** An estimate, and
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likely optimistic — but an estimate with an end, which is the entire point.
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Roughly **37 fixed / 20 variable**: a second town costs the ~20, not the ~57.
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Explicitly **not** in the slice: rings, amulets, trinkets. A second town. The other
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six kings and their cults. All parked in the Backlog.
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### The economy is two systems (§18)
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- **The loop is code** (§2: state) — purse, buy/sell, the ~40% fence rate, gritty
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disabled-CTA reasons. Sequenced as M8's *Shop economy*.
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- **The numbers are content** — what a shortsword costs, a night at the inn, an ale,
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the quest's purse. The **price table**, above.
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**Currency model:**
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```
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1 gold = 100 silver = 10,000 copper
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1 silver = 100 copper
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```
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**Gold is scary.** A peasant's whole life is copper, a mercenary's fee is silver, and
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a gold coin is a plot point. The party counting coppers for an inn bed is §3 grit,
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and Brannoc has an opinion about it.
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**This is a change, not a new thing — and it has a client consumer. It lands as its
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own small item before M7**, cheapest now while `content/world/items/` holds exactly
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two files:
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- A `Currency` value type — **store everything in copper**, format only at the
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display edge (`12g 40s 8c`).
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- `coin.json` → real denominations; all prices re-denominated.
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- The Main Window shell's command-bar purse (it currently shows a flat gold value).
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*§2: state · depends on nothing · goal: money that means something.*
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---
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## 3. Backlog
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Not a debt. Where ideas go to be safe.
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- **Items:** rings, amulets, trinkets.
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- **Places:** a second town. Regions of the Margreave beyond the slice.
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- **The saga (tiers 2–7)** — from the [character-reuse
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spec](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-character-reuse-seven-arc-design.md): the
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other six kings as campaign patrons; tiered enemy families (proximity to a king *is*
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the power scale); the three story-shapes (cult cell → cult that owns a city → the
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king himself).
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- **The Barbarian ⚔ calling name** (`[CANON-TBD]`).
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- **AI-generated worlds** (v2, charter §17). The saga spec guarantees the `Saga`
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object is what will feed it. Nothing else about it is decided.
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---
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## Notes for whoever authors next
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- Each BOM line is authored through the **`/world-building` skill** — it reconciles
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against existing canon, writes the build tool's source format, and verifies the
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build stays green.
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- **The build tool needs two new namespaces: `item` and `quest`.** Its legal
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namespaces today (`tools/content_build/model.py`) are `town`, `place`, `region`,
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`faction`, `person`, `rule`, `rumor`, `fact`, `secret`, `npc` — so **locations are
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already modeled** (`town`/`place`/`region`) and only items and quests fall outside
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it. Adding those two (model, emit, resolve) is a prerequisite of the M7 and M8 BOM
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lines. **Add `tier: 1..7` to the entry envelope at the same moment** — the saga
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spec's only schema ask, free while the model is already open.
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- **Moving or deleting generated content is a client change.** `content/world/**` has
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a client consumer: `client/scripts/content/content_db.gd` (via
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`client/scripts/harness/npc_harness.gd`) and its GUT tests in
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`client/tests/unit/test_content_db.gd`. That is the Duncarrow lesson — check
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`client/` before any content move.
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