Phillip Tarrant
bb8097929a
All seven callings are now named; no [CANON-TBD] remains in the specs.
Reaver (Barbarian). To reave is to raid — occupational, like Sellsword and
Trapper, naming what he does for money rather than what he is inside. That is
the rule the five mock names already obeyed and that §8's own list broke: a
calling is what a village calls you, not what a rulebook calls you. Bearsark
and Wildman were rejected for naming a condition; Breaker for being generic.
Bloodsworn (Warlock) was not a new coinage — the cosmology minted it a day
after the races spec was written ("what the Margreave calls bloodsworn",
rule.blood-price), and the cosmology spec had already applied it. It is the
exact FTH-axis mirror of Bonesetter: one channels the Warden, one pacts a king
of the Seven. Accepted cost, recorded in the spec: alone among the callings it
names a condition rather than a trade — the villain who pacts Ghaul is
bloodsworn too. A second, occupational word (Cursewright, Hexman) was
considered and rejected as a distinction the player will never feel.
Also retires the stale "reconcile class names" note on M4 and records the two
contract migrations that milestone owes: the canon log's `race` field, and the
deserter origin's dead allowed_classes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QYa9u7Kdxv5gX4AnwWexy8
186 lines
9.3 KiB
Markdown
186 lines
9.3 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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**The value type landed ✅** ahead of M7, as its own item
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([spec](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-12-currency-copper-design.md), merged to
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`dev`): a `Currency` value type storing **everything in copper** and formatting only
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at the display edge; `coin.json` replaced by `copper`/`silver`/`gold`; the purse as a
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single `GameState.purse_copper` int; the shell's command bar reading `◈ 3s 47c`.
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Money is **not** an inventory item. `give_item`/`accept_item` carry no quantity and
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`gifts_given` is a global one-shot, so a lone `copper` id would be givable *once, for
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one copper, per campaign*. The denominations are **move tokens** instead —
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`give_item(gold)` is +10,000c — and currency routes to the purse, never the
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`inventory` dict, so it cannot surface in an inventory grid by construction.
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**What is left is the numbers.** The **price table** (above) is content and belongs to
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M8's BOM. Nothing is priced yet.
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*§2: state · done · 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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- **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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*(Left the Backlog 2026-07-12: the Barbarian ⚔ calling name — **Reaver**. All seven
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callings are named; see the [races/classes spec](../docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-11-races-and-classes-design.md) §4.)*
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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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