Clarify lore articles: accessibility wave 18
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# Peoples and Polities
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No miracle supplies a constitution, and no ancestry dictates a complete way of life. Kalsa's peoples inherited powers, wounds, landscapes, prejudices, and old institutions; they continue to make societies from them under present pressure.
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Travellers and learned writers use these names for Kalsa's peoples and political powers. They are broad categories, not complete descriptions of the people within them. Kin and birthplace may establish one affiliation; adoption, work, worship, exile, marriage, and choice may carry a person across several.
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Travellers and learned writers use the names below as broad handles. Kin and
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birthplace may place a person within one of them; adoption, work, worship,
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exile, marriage, and choice can pull the same life across several. The name
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settles less than outsiders usually want it to.
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Inherited powers, old injuries, landscapes, prejudices, and institutions all shape these societies. None determines how people must govern themselves or live together. Those decisions remain under pressure and open to dispute.
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## Selza'a
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The fogbound Selza'a country has no central government. Territorial families
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answer for dwellings, paths, stores, shrines, and stretches of shared work.
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Descent matters, but people also enter through adoption, marriage, residence,
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and work.
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Families govern territories in the fogbound Selza'a country, which has no central government. Each answers for dwellings, paths, stores, shrines, and shared work within its territory. Membership can come through descent, adoption, marriage, residence, or work.
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Windtraps make that independence interdependent: an upper structure may stand
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on one family's ground, catch water for several territories, and fail into a
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cistern used by households that never touch its machinery. Family shrines keep
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stories of dimna protection and inherited fortune. Such stories become
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dangerous when one territory's survival follows another's loss.
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Water binds these otherwise independent families together. A windtrap may stand on one family's ground while supplying several territories. If it breaks, it can foul a lower cistern used by households that have never handled its machinery. Responsibility for the structure and dependence on its water do not follow the same boundaries.
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In [[../Sources/After the High Windtrap Broke|After the High Windtrap Broke]],
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three families open their water stores before they agree about fault. The
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keeper leaves with a corrected record and no old contracts.
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Family shrines preserve stories of protection by dimna and of inherited fortune. When one territory survives a disaster that harms another, those stories can become grounds for suspicion.
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[[../Sources/After the High Windtrap Broke|After the High Windtrap Broke]] follows three families that open their water stores before agreeing who was at fault. The keeper eventually receives a corrected record, but leaves without the old contracts restored.
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## Jamnai and the terjamna
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Jamnai stands deep in the coldward storm country, sustained by heat drawn
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through a vast undercity. Its branch rolls place households and tributary wards
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beneath holders who owe protection upward and down. The rolls do not settle how
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a relation began or what may be refused.
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Jamnai is a vast city sustained by heat drawn through an undercity, deep in the coldward storm country. Its households and tributary wards belong to a hierarchy recorded in *branch rolls*. Branch holders owe protection both to those above them and to those below. The rolls record these relationships without necessarily explaining how they began or what a person may refuse.
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The arcology survives through heatworks no champion can repair by winning.
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Branch officers choose among safe demands; recognized stewards keep the working
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limits. Dead warriors called Soiru'i remain in branch and sect memory, where
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living champions may act in their names and disputed signs may enter an appeal.
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Branch officers decide how to use the heatworks, but recognized stewards determine which operations are safe. Officers choose within those limits. A champion's victory cannot repair the machinery on which the city depends.
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In [[../Sources/Who Kept the Heat|Who Kept the Heat]], a branch holder tries to
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send a tributary ward's heat to siege foundries. A steward stops the valve; a
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Hearth sect keeps the steward's family and copied page beyond the holder's
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reach.
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Dead warriors called Soiru'i remain part of branch and sect memory. Living champions may act in their names, and signs attributed to them may be presented in an appeal, though their meaning can be disputed.
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In [[../Sources/Who Kept the Heat|Who Kept the Heat]], a branch holder orders heat diverted from a tributary ward to siege foundries. A steward stops the valve. A Hearth sect protects the steward's family and preserves a copied page beyond the holder's reach, allowing the challenge to the order to continue.
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## Papsenai and Ti'asantatca
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Papsenai tribes are famous for agriculture guided by long attention to possible
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seasons. Their shamans can bind their work to a field, herd, road, or weather
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front and labor toward a favorable future over months or years. Households set
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aside seed and subsistence before arguing over what the land and their own labor
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can risk. The chosen future has an edge; no harvest account proves what happened
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beyond it.
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Papsenai tribes are known for agriculture shaped by sustained magical work on possible futures. A shaman can bind that work to a field, herd, road, or weather front, then labor for months or years toward a favorable outcome. Before deciding what to risk, households set aside seed and enough to live on. They then debate how much land and labor they can commit.
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Ti'asantatca stands beside a storm that does not end. Its Stormshield Circles
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keep overlapping watches. The incoming shaman takes hold before the outgoing
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worker releases the threatened section, and observers compare both accounts
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against the weather. Relief comes from the same households and fields the
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barrier protects. When no competent replacement arrives, the outgoing worker
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remains on the threatened section beyond the planned release.
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The future a shaman works toward has limits. A harvest account can record the result within them; it cannot establish what happened beyond them.
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[[../Sources/The Missing Relief Cohort|The Missing Relief Cohort]] begins with
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grain taken for a campaign and a relief watch sent elsewhere. When the shield
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yields, its workers bring store marks, shift papers, and household testimony to
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the review.
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Ti'asantatca stands beside a storm that never ends. Its Stormshield Circles maintain the barrier through overlapping watches: an incoming shaman takes hold of a threatened section before the outgoing worker lets go. Observers compare both workers' accounts with the weather. Replacement workers come from the same households and fields the shield protects. If no competent replacement arrives, the worker already holding the section stays beyond the planned end of the watch.
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In [[../Sources/The Narrow Shield|The Narrow Shield]], separate Papsenai and
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Sarxe workings keep correcting the pressure sent by the others. A Circle lead
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takes every target for one watch, saves the central refuges, and releases the
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outer road and fields.
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[[../Sources/The Missing Relief Cohort|The Missing Relief Cohort]] describes what happens when a campaign takes grain and sends a relief watch elsewhere. After a section of the shield yields, its workers bring store marks, shift papers, and household testimony to the review.
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Separate efforts to protect people can also interfere with one another. In [[../Sources/The Narrow Shield|The Narrow Shield]], Papsenai and Sarxe workings repeatedly redirect pressure into each other's care. A Circle lead takes control of all the targets for one watch, then concentrates protection on the central refuges. The refuges survive; the outer road and fields lose their protection.
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## The Ju'onai Hegemony
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Ju'onai readers call sudden comprehension of a bounded system an **opening**.
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Their schools spend generations disputing what an opening reveals: a god's
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concordance, a trial survived, causes properly distinguished, or merely a frame
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whose edge has finally been named. Opened readers experience such moments;
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learned readers test and carry the knowledge without claiming the same gift.
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Ju'onai readers call a sudden understanding of a limited system an **opening**. An opened reader experiences that moment directly. Learned readers can test and pass on the resulting knowledge without claiming the same gift.
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A reading meant for public use passes from a school to a House of Attestation,
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which certifies what its reader demonstrated. The Measured Offices then decide
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whether to use the report for tax, works, conquest, or correction. Explaining a
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system grants the school no public office.
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Schools have spent generations disputing what an opening means. It may reveal agreement with a god's understanding, knowledge earned through a trial, a correct distinction between causes, or simply a clearer recognition of where an explanation stops. These interpretations remain in dispute.
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Ju'onai client colleges circulate [[../Sources/Four Readings of a Broken Sluice|a teaching dialogue]] in which four schools explain a failed sluice and
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its keeper asks which of them will carry the repair. The Hegemony can repair
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such headworks and use the improved flow to justify a larger levy. Local rulers
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may keep their titles while Measured Offices decide which accounts will support
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a levy or public work. An appeal can expose the edge of an official model,
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sometimes only after the people omitted from it have paid for the error.
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Before a reading is used in public affairs, the school sends it to a House of Attestation. The House certifies what the reader actually demonstrated. The Measured Offices then decide whether to use the report for taxation, public works, conquest, or correction. A school's ability to explain a system gives it no office or power to administer that system.
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For people under Ju'onai rule, this distinction affects water, work, and what they owe. The Hegemony can repair major waterworks and cite the improved flow as grounds for a larger levy. Local rulers may retain their titles while the Measured Offices decide which accounts justify taxation or public works. An appeal can show where an official model fails to account for people or conditions, sometimes only after those left out have suffered the consequences.
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Ju'onai client colleges circulate [[../Sources/Four Readings of a Broken Sluice|a teaching dialogue]] about this gap between explanation and responsibility. Four schools explain why a sluice failed. Its keeper asks which of them will carry the repair.
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## The divided city
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The Ju'onai first reduced the City of Prophets to tribute. Later terjamna power
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contested the same prize. Neither could cheaply take exclusive custody of the
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prophetic houses or the Sunwall farms, so local courts and ward authorities
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survived between their claims. Ju'onai and terjamna garrisons and tribute claims
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still cut through those local jurisdictions.
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The City of Prophets is governed through overlapping local and imperial authorities. The Ju'onai first forced it to pay tribute; terjamna power later contested control of it. Neither could cheaply gain exclusive control of the prophetic houses or Sunwall farms. Local courts and ward authorities survived between them, and Ju'onai and terjamna garrisons and tribute claims still cross those local jurisdictions.
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A civic allocation table schedules public shares from reports of available
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capacity. Sunwall stewards operate the farms and lifts and can stop an unsafe
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configuration. Prophetic houses supply comparisons among possible futures;
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civic judges decide what those reports can support. Most residents farm the
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galleries, maintain lifts and pressure refuges, carry grain, keep records, or
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serve the garrisons.
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Most residents farm the galleries, maintain lifts and pressure refuges, carry grain, keep records, or serve the garrisons. Their access to public shares is scheduled through a civic allocation table based on reports of available capacity.
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In [[../Sources/The Closed Lift Appeal|The Closed Lift Appeal]], two sponsored
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forecasts close a grain lift and cost its non-house captain work and housing.
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The sponsors must disclose their own intended actions before the lift moves
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again.
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Different authorities control different parts of that process. Sunwall stewards operate the farms and lifts and can stop an unsafe arrangement. Prophetic houses compare possible futures. Civic judges decide what those reports justify. A forecast, an operating limit, and a civic order each answer a different question.
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In [[../Sources/The Closed Lift Appeal|The Closed Lift Appeal]], two sponsored forecasts lead to the closure of a grain lift. Its captain, who belongs to no prophetic house, loses work and housing. Before the lift moves again, the sponsors must disclose what they themselves intend to do—actions that bear on the futures they have presented.
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## Sarxe and Saxfoldi
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Sarxe communities remember two great dispersals: the conquest of their first
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Crown City and a later massacre at a refuge they had believed secure. Their
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best-known political center, Saxfoldi, now moves and hides so that no enemy can
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take it at one gate.
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Sarxe communities remember two great dispersals. The first followed the conquest of their first Crown City; the second followed a massacre at a refuge they had believed secure. Saxfoldi, their best-known political center, now moves and hides to keep an enemy from taking it at a single gate.
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Every move chooses what enters its finite route space. Central stores and
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records travel; clinics, graves, fields, and workshops remain under settled
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care. Divided families send messages and medicine across the closing road,
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along with arguments about who was reached in time. Diaspora workers guide and
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guard those routes, salvage lost ground, and sometimes take mercenary
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contracts. Many received dangerous road assignments from people who remained
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nearer the political center.
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Each move has limited room along its route, so people must decide what travels. Central stores and records go with the center. Clinics, graves, fields, and workshops remain in the care of settled communities. Families divided by a move send messages and medicine along the road before it closes. They also argue over who received help in time.
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Diaspora workers guide and guard these routes, salvage lost ground, and sometimes take mercenary contracts. Many have been given dangerous road assignments by people who stayed closer to the political center.
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## Peoples outside the great magical polities
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Many people express no recognized magic. They belong to old communities without
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a Crown tradition, mixed households, and ways of life that cross the great
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polities. Courts and employers still turn the lack of a recognized gift into
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claims about allegiance, resistance to miracles, and fitness for ordinary
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labor.
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Many people show no recognized magic. They include members of old communities without a Crown tradition, mixed households, and ways of life that cross the great polities. Courts and employers nevertheless use the absence of a recognized gift to make claims about whom these people owe allegiance to, whether they resist miracles, and what ordinary labor they are suited for.
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Technical lineages also cross these boundaries. Their members may inherit a family practice, enter by apprenticeship, leave one order for another, or arise around a local work with no prestigious ancestry at all.
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Technical lineages cross political and social boundaries too. Someone may inherit a family practice, learn through apprenticeship, or leave one order for another. A lineage may also form around local work without any prestigious ancestry.
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Stories speak of a coldward people whose uncanny judgment serves trade, defence, and craft. Travellers confidently describe their politics; the descriptions do not agree. Until a visitor can name the office, workshop, household, or road behind the claim, “they always know what to do” is a boast, a fear, or a sales pitch rather than useful knowledge.
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Stories describe a coldward people whose uncanny judgment aids trade, defence, and craft. Travellers offer confident but conflicting accounts of their politics. A useful account would identify the office, workshop, household, or road on which its claim rests. Without that, “they always know what to do” remains a boast, a fear, or a sales pitch.
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See [[Kalsa]], [[Magic and Miracles]], [[Gods and the Dead]],
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[[../Sources/Four Readings of a Broken Sluice|Four Readings of a Broken Sluice]],
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@ -22,104 +22,83 @@ tags:
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# Kaos
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`Kaos` is the author-facing name for the use of prescient information to steer
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causal systems toward reachable outcomes. It owns adjudication constraints, not
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the vocabulary or theories of Kalsa's cultures. A mage does not command reality
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by declaration. Their Gift exposes or selects interventions: the gesture,
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pressure, timing, word, route, or refusal that changes which possible future
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becomes present.
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Kaos is magic that uses information from possible futures to change what happens now. A mage's Gift reveals or selects an intervention—a gesture, pressure, timing, word, route, or refusal—that can bring one of those futures about. Declaring an outcome does not make it possible: the intervention must work through causes already available in the world.
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Chaotic systems provide the greatest leverage because small interventions can propagate into large effects. Weather, stressed geology, markets, battles, ecologies, and human decisions can all carry Kaos. Each remains limited by what it contains.
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Small changes have the greatest reach in chaotic systems, where their effects can grow as they propagate. Weather, stressed geology, markets, battles, ecologies, and human decisions can all carry Kaos. What a mage can achieve through each depends on what that system contains.
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`Kaos` is an author-facing name. This note sets the constraints for deciding what magic can do; it does not supply Kalsa's cultures with a shared vocabulary or theory.
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## Author comparison: three axes
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Clarity, Depth, and Scope are backstage comparison terms distilled from the
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seed. Promethean records may preserve related classifications, but no living
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culture receives this table as innate knowledge. Scholars instead divide the
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evidence according to their own instruments, work, doctrines, and historical
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failures.
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Authors compare Gifts through three separate capabilities:
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- **Clarity** is conscious causal resolution: how precisely a mage can distinguish variables, dependencies, and intervention paths.
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- **Depth** is counterfactual reach: how far from the unaided probable course the mage or Beast can select and commit an outcome. It is not temporal distance.
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- **Scope** is the spatial and temporal horizon across which information or influence remains coherent.
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- **Clarity:** how precisely the mage consciously understands the causes at work. It distinguishes variables, their dependencies, and the available ways to intervene.
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- **Depth:** how far the mage or Beast can push an outcome away from what would probably happen without help. It governs selecting and committing to a less probable future, not reaching farther into time.
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- **Scope:** how far across space and time information or influence can remain coherent.
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The seed's inconsistent forward/backward descriptions are retired. Reading consequences uses Clarity, selecting a branch uses Depth, and reaching farther in place or time uses Scope.
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These terms are distilled from the seed for backstage comparison. Promethean records may preserve related classifications, but living cultures do not know this table innately. Their scholars classify evidence through their own instruments, work, doctrines, and histories of failure.
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The seed's inconsistent descriptions of “forward” and “backward” perception are retired. In the current model, distinguishing consequences uses Clarity, selecting a possible course uses Depth, and extending reach across place or time uses Scope.
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## Hard constraints
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Kaos creates neither matter nor energy. An outcome requires all of the following:
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Kaos creates neither matter nor energy. Every successful working needs all seven conditions:
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1. A causally reachable branch with nonzero possibility.
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2. Available matter and energy.
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3. Levers accessible to the mage, their allies, or their bound power.
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4. Adequate Clarity, Depth, and Scope for the style and task.
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5. Sufficient magical potential.
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6. Enough time for the causal chain to propagate.
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7. No stronger rival, barrier, or God Beast closing the route.
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1. The desired outcome must have a causally reachable path with a nonzero possibility.
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2. The necessary matter and energy must be available.
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3. The mage, their allies, or their bound power must be able to reach something they can change: a causal lever.
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4. The working must have enough Clarity, Depth, and Scope for its style and task.
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5. It must have sufficient magical potential.
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6. There must be enough time for its causes to produce their effects.
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7. No stronger rival, barrier, or God Beast may close the required route.
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Large miracles therefore require large susceptible systems. Mountain-rending requires stressed geology and exceptional coordination. Heating a lake requires an existing thermal, geological, or technological source. A tale that names no source may be a compressed account or religious exaggeration rather than literal mechanics.
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A large miracle therefore needs a large system susceptible to intervention. Rending a mountain requires stressed geology and exceptional coordination. Heating a lake requires an existing thermal, geological, or technological source. When a tale names no source, it may be compressing the causal account or exaggerating for religious purposes.
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Costs include depletion of magical potential, exposure to rival Beasts, corruption of forecasts by competing intervention, and attraction of [[Spoilers/Foundations/Projections, God Beasts, and Thaumavores|thaumavores]] when power concentrates. Individual styles impose their own practical costs: trance, setup, vulnerability, submission, or dependence on a suitable flow.
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Working magic can deplete magical potential and expose the mage to rival Beasts. Competing interventions can corrupt forecasts, while concentrated power can attract [[Spoilers/Foundations/Projections, God Beasts, and Thaumavores|thaumavores]]. Each style also has practical costs of its own, such as trance, preparation, vulnerability, submission, or dependence on a suitable flow.
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## Divine-scale processing
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Divine scale increases the potential, relations, preparation, and causal
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territory available to a working. A God hierarchy can coordinate distinct
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Gifts, long records, delegates, material operators, and prepared sites. Each
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contributor retains its own limits: routing several partial views through one
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hierarchy does not turn them into one complete faculty.
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A God hierarchy can attempt larger workings because it has more magical potential, more relationships to act through, more preparation, and a wider range of causal systems within reach. It can coordinate different Gifts alongside long records, delegates, people doing material work, and prepared sites. Each contributor still has its own limits. Combining their partial views does not give the hierarchy one complete faculty.
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Within an open route, a divine working can locate, gather, separate, refine,
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transform, move, and assemble existing material. Available pressure, heat,
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gravity, metabolism, machinery, weather, geology, or another physical process
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supplies the work. Prescient preparation may place matter, people, instructions,
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and stored energy before observers recognize the later need.
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Where a causal route remains open, divine magic can locate, gather, separate, refine, transform, move, and assemble existing material. The work still draws on available physical processes: pressure, heat, gravity, metabolism, machinery, weather, geology, or another source. Prescience also allows preparation before the need is apparent. Matter, people, instructions, and stored energy may already be in place by the time observers recognize what they are for.
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Witnesses can reasonably call the result materialization when raiment closes
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around a champion in a flash, or summoning when a concealed or long-guided
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entity arrives at the required instant. Those descriptions remain true to the
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experience. Adjudication still follows the source matter, energy, preparation,
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lever, propagation time, and rival actions that made the arrival reachable.
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This can look like creation or an instantaneous arrival. Witnesses may reasonably describe raiment closing around a champion in a flash as **materialization**. They may call the timely arrival of a concealed or long-guided entity **summoning**. Those words accurately describe their experience. To adjudicate the event, the author must still account for the source matter, energy, preparation, accessible lever, propagation time, and rival actions that made it reachable.
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Levitation, radiance, sudden armament, and catastrophic destruction are
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possible results rather than a common divine spell list. A factual event or
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site must own the causal account for each occurrence.
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Levitation, radiance, sudden armament, and catastrophic destruction are possible outcomes. They are not a standard list of spells available to every god. Each established occurrence needs its causal account in the note that owns the event or site.
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## Observing Kaos
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The backstage constraints below say what evidence each Gift can expose. They do
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not say that witnesses classify the evidence this way or agree about its cause.
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There is no universal detect-magic faculty.
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Different Gifts reveal different evidence. None provides a universal ability to detect magic, and witnesses need not agree on what their evidence means. The distinctions here are backstage constraints on perception, not a classification all inhabitants share.
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- **Analysis** receives the later relevance of present connections inside an active, bounded system: which join will carry a change into consequence during the opening. It can detect local intervention signatures but does not see a soul or Beast directly.
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- **Sorcery** receives no observation. The coupled person-Beast relation's active local orientation presses backward upon unconscious motor choice and selects a lever able to produce the first reachable change. A superior's strategic aim is not that local result, even when obedience shaped it. Only the used lever, forced departure, and any causal scar become available to other witnesses.
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- **Prophecy** detects deformation or occlusion in forecast space caused by large-horizon actors. It can infer presence without automatically identifying actor or style.
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- **Channeling** feels an active flow's imminent continuation and its response to deflection before the crossing completes. It can redirect or contain that crossing but cannot locate a remote or dormant source.
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- **Shamanic bonding** senses future conflict or pressure upon the bonded target.
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- **Luck** has no discrete activation signature and is directly undetectable. A prophet may infer persistent Luck from futures that fail in a patterned way, but cannot identify a luck-user by magical sight alone.
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- **Analysis** reveals which present connections will matter to later consequences within an active, bounded system. During that opening, the mage can understand which connection will carry a change through the system. This can expose local signs of intervention, but it does not reveal a soul or Beast directly.
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Chaos- and God-Beast trails are forecast occlusions or repeated causal scars, not universally visible tracks.
|
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- **Sorcery** gives the user no observation or forecast. The coupled person and Beast have an active local orientation: the immediate change toward which their relation is directed. That change presses backward upon unconscious motor choice, selecting a lever that can produce the first reachable departure from the current course. A superior's strategic aim is a different thing, even when obedience has shaped the local orientation. Other witnesses can encounter only the lever used, the change forced, and any lasting causal scar.
|
||||
|
||||
- **Prophecy** can notice where actors working across large horizons deform or obscure possible futures. It may therefore infer that an actor is present without identifying who they are or which style they use.
|
||||
|
||||
- **Channeling** senses where an active flow is about to go and how it will respond to deflection, before it finishes crossing the sensed boundary. The Channeler can redirect or contain that crossing. This does not locate a source that is remote or dormant.
|
||||
|
||||
- **Shamanic bonding** senses future conflict or pressure affecting the bonded target.
|
||||
|
||||
- **Luck** has no distinct activation signal and cannot be detected directly. A prophet may infer persistent Luck when forecasts fail in a recurring pattern. Magical sight alone cannot identify the luck-user.
|
||||
|
||||
A trail left by a Chaos Beast or God Beast is therefore a pattern of obscured forecasts or repeated causal scars. It is not a track that every magical observer can see.
|
||||
|
||||
## Oracles among oracles
|
||||
|
||||
Every Gift is an oracular relation even when it produces no conscious forecast.
|
||||
Its user, Beast, intended response, and material intervention enter the causal
|
||||
systems available to other Gifts. Their collisions are asymmetric: an effect is
|
||||
blocked only when another act closes its route, consumes or redirects its
|
||||
potential, removes a lever, changes the observed system, or makes the question
|
||||
obsolete.
|
||||
Every Gift uses an oracular relation: information from possible futures affects present action, even when the user sees no conscious forecast. The user, their Beast, their intended response, and the material intervention they make are also parts of the world that other Gifts can encounter and change.
|
||||
|
||||
[[Spoilers/Foundations/Oracle Ecology|Oracle Ecology]] owns those interactions,
|
||||
crowded horizons, and local timeline capture. Kaos continues to own whether any
|
||||
individual intervention is physically and causally reachable.
|
||||
These encounters work differently in each direction. One act blocks another only by closing its causal route, consuming or redirecting its potential, removing a needed lever, changing the system being observed, or making the original question obsolete.
|
||||
|
||||
[[Spoilers/Foundations/Oracle Ecology|Oracle Ecology]] owns the explanation of those interactions, including crowded horizons and local timeline capture. This note owns the narrower question of whether an individual intervention is physically and causally reachable.
|
||||
|
||||
## Unresolved
|
||||
|
||||
- Quantitative limits and how magical potential is measured, if it can be.
|
||||
- Whether Scope governs perception and influence identically.
|
||||
- The seed's omitted fourth faculty for perceiving farther across possibility itself.
|
||||
- What Intuition perceives and whether Analysis can identify a style rather than an intervention.
|
||||
- The exact boundary between a physically zero-probability event and an event outside a particular Beast's reachable volume.
|
||||
- What the quantitative limits are, and whether magical potential can be measured at all.
|
||||
- Whether Scope limits perception and influence in the same way.
|
||||
- What to make of the seed's omitted fourth faculty, which concerns perceiving farther across possibility itself.
|
||||
- What Intuition perceives, and whether Analysis can identify a magical style rather than merely an intervention.
|
||||
- Where the exact boundary lies between an event with physically zero probability and one that a particular Beast simply cannot reach.
|
||||
|
||||
See [[Spoilers/Foundations/Magic Styles|Magic Styles]],
|
||||
[[Spoilers/Foundations/Oracle Ecology|Oracle Ecology]], and
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -22,133 +22,120 @@ tags:
|
|||
|
||||
# Projections, God Beasts, and Thaumavores
|
||||
|
||||
This note owns the backstage model used to keep divine, magical, and mortuary
|
||||
consequences coherent. `Projection`, `Chaos Beast`, `God Beast`, and
|
||||
`thaumavore` are author labels unless a local owner explicitly adopts a related
|
||||
term. Inhabitants know manifestations, covenants, inherited relations, divine
|
||||
claims, dangerous dead, and the records their institutions can preserve; they
|
||||
do not thereby know this complete taxonomy.
|
||||
A person's existence in Kalsa extends across possible futures and can persist after bodily death. That continuing identity is called a Projection. Repeated magic can also produce something connected to the person that can act in its own right: a Chaos Beast. A Beast can become a god by binding other Beasts and Projections beneath it. Some surviving dead instead draw on passing magical potential to appear and act again.
|
||||
|
||||
This note owns the author model for those beings and relations, keeping the consequences of magic, divine power, and death consistent. `Projection`, `Chaos Beast`, `God Beast`, and `thaumavore` are author labels unless a local owner explicitly adopts a related term. Inhabitants encounter manifestations, covenants, inherited relations, divine claims, and dangerous dead. Their institutions preserve records of these encounters; that does not give them the complete taxonomy described here.
|
||||
|
||||
## Individual Projections
|
||||
|
||||
A living person occupies more than the sequence of bodily states visible in ordinary time. Their **Individual Projection** is the volume of possible selves and futures to which their identity remains attached. A prescient fold carries information between points in that volume and opens routes toward futures that would otherwise remain unrealized.
|
||||
An **Individual Projection** is a person's continuing identity across the possible selves and futures that remain attached to them. The body visible in ordinary time shows only one sequence of states within that larger volume of possibility.
|
||||
|
||||
The Projection is the continuing person-pattern. It is not interchangeable with a [[#Chaos Beasts|Chaos Beast]].
|
||||
Magic uses information about possible outcomes to reach a future that would otherwise remain unrealized. A mage's Gift exposes or selects an intervention—a gesture, a word, a change in timing—that can make a reachable outcome happen. The information passes between points in the person's volume of possible selves and futures; this connection is called a **prescient fold**.
|
||||
|
||||
The Projection is the continuing person-pattern. A [[#Chaos Beasts|Chaos Beast]] is a separate kind of agency that can form in connection with it.
|
||||
|
||||
## Chaos Beasts
|
||||
|
||||
Repeated prescient folds can produce a coupled upper-dimensional agency: a **Chaos Beast**. Its character reflects both its Kaos strain and the person through whom it formed. In the lower world it appears through purposeful patterns of coincidence, perception, intervention, blessing, or force rather than as an ordinary animal.
|
||||
A **Chaos Beast** can form through repeated prescient folds. It remains coupled to the person through whom it formed, but is capable of acting; it is not simply another name for that person's continuing identity. The model places this agency in upper dimensions, beyond the bodily sequence visible in ordinary time. Both the person and their Kaos strain—the kind of magic they express—shape its character.
|
||||
|
||||
The seed does not settle whether every expressed mage forms a distinct Beast, when the coupling becomes self-aware, or how multistyle expression changes it.
|
||||
In the lower world, a Beast acts through purposeful patterns of coincidence, perception, intervention, blessing, or force. It does not appear as an ordinary animal.
|
||||
|
||||
The seed leaves several boundaries unsettled: whether every mage with an expressed Gift forms a distinct Beast, when the coupled agency becomes self-aware, and what changes when one person expresses more than one magic style.
|
||||
|
||||
## God Beasts
|
||||
|
||||
A Chaos Beast may become a **God Beast** by binding other Beasts and Projections into a hierarchy. Absorption means binding and priority routing, not annihilation. The God gains access to magical potential generated by those bound beneath it and may delegate potential downward as protection, authority, or miracle.
|
||||
Magical intervention requires **magical potential**. It can be supplied, diverted, or depleted, and a divine hierarchy determines who can draw on it. This does not identify it with physical energy or settle what substance, if any, is being conserved. Those questions remain open.
|
||||
|
||||
Bindings can arise through:
|
||||
A **God Beast** is a Chaos Beast that has bound other Beasts and Projections beneath it in a hierarchy. The bound identities continue to exist. What is sometimes called *absorption* gives the God priority in directing their magical potential; it does not annihilate them.
|
||||
|
||||
- explicit covenant;
|
||||
- inherited attachment whose exact mechanics remain unresolved;
|
||||
- coercive submission after conflict.
|
||||
The God can draw on potential generated by those beneath it. It may also send potential down the hierarchy, granting protection, authority, or miracles. Its direct children are the Beasts or Projections bound immediately beneath it. A mortal's high clerical title does not, by itself, make them a direct child.
|
||||
|
||||
These relations may resemble one another in upper-dimensional topology while remaining morally and legally distinct. A hierarchy's direct children are the Projections or Beasts bound immediately beneath the God, not merely mortals holding high clerical titles.
|
||||
Bindings can arise through the following relations:
|
||||
|
||||
God Beasts differ by style. Luck Gods seek survival and territory. Sorcerer Gods reproduce conquest and submission, and often collapse after the death of their living anchor. Analysis Gods embody ideas and feelings and contend through ideological hierarchies. The survival rules of other styles remain unresolved.
|
||||
- An explicit covenant establishes the relation.
|
||||
- An attachment is inherited, though the exact mechanism remains unresolved.
|
||||
- Conflict ends in coerced submission.
|
||||
|
||||
A hierarchy also changes the competition among oracles. Priority routing lets
|
||||
one God coordinate potential and response across many bound actors. Where the
|
||||
same hierarchy also controls information, material levers, and rival movement,
|
||||
it can make its own anticipated response part of nearly every reachable future
|
||||
within a bounded horizon.
|
||||
[[Spoilers/Foundations/Oracle Ecology#Timeline capture|Oracle Ecology]] calls
|
||||
this local timeline capture.
|
||||
These bindings may have similar structures in upper dimensions. Their moral and legal differences remain real.
|
||||
|
||||
Binding does not make the God the only oracle present. Bound identities remain,
|
||||
rivals act from outside the hierarchy, and different Gifts expose pressures the
|
||||
God may not recognize. A Luck God's wide survival attractor, a Sorcerer God's
|
||||
submissions, and an Analysis God's ideological domain therefore narrow futures
|
||||
through different relations.
|
||||
The God's magic style also shapes the hierarchy:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Luck Gods** pursue survival and territory.
|
||||
- **Sorcerer Gods** reproduce relations of conquest and submission. They often collapse when their living anchor dies.
|
||||
- **Analysis Gods** embody ideas and feelings, competing through ideological hierarchies.
|
||||
|
||||
The survival rules for other styles remain unresolved.
|
||||
|
||||
A God can use its routing priority to coordinate potential and responses across many bound actors. If the same hierarchy also controls information, the material means of intervention, and rivals' movement, nearly every reachable future within a limited horizon may come to include its anticipated response. [[Spoilers/Foundations/Oracle Ecology#Timeline capture|Oracle Ecology]] calls this **local timeline capture**.
|
||||
|
||||
This control remains contested. Bound identities still exist, outside rivals still act, and different Gifts reveal pressures the God may miss. Each style therefore narrows futures differently: a Luck God through the broad pressure toward its survival, a Sorcerer God through submission, and an Analysis God through its ideological domain.
|
||||
|
||||
## Divine knowledge and performed certainty
|
||||
|
||||
Power is not omniscience. A God Beast perceives through the relations, potential, manifestations, memories, and active conflicts available to its hierarchy. It can notice patterns beyond mortal reach, preserve perspectives across deaths, compare distant dependents, and infer causes from centuries of intervention. None of those capacities grants the complete author ontology.
|
||||
A God Beast knows the world through what its hierarchy can reach: its relations, magical potential, manifestations, memories, and active conflicts. This can give it extraordinary evidence. It may recognize patterns beyond mortal reach, retain perspectives across deaths, compare distant dependents, and infer causes from centuries of intervention. It still does not possess the complete author model.
|
||||
|
||||
A god's account is shaped by:
|
||||
What a god can tell someone depends on several limits:
|
||||
|
||||
- which persons and Beasts are bound beneath it and what those relations can perceive;
|
||||
- which memories survived binding, death, schism, delegation, and divine collapse;
|
||||
- the style and scale of intervention through which it encounters the lower world;
|
||||
- rivals, thaumavore pressure, broken routes of potential, and evidence it cannot safely approach;
|
||||
- its own doctrine, self-conception, appetite, and political need to appear coherent.
|
||||
- Its bound people and Beasts can perceive only what their relations expose.
|
||||
- Memories may or may not survive binding, death, schism, delegation, and divine collapse.
|
||||
- Its style and scale of intervention determine how it encounters the lower world.
|
||||
- Rivals, thaumavores, broken routes of potential, and evidence too dangerous to approach restrict its access.
|
||||
- Its doctrine, self-image, appetites, and political need to appear consistent shape its explanation.
|
||||
|
||||
Gods can therefore disagree about their own origin, mistake a stable relation for a universal law, conceal uncertainty, and present an inference as revelation. Some perform certainty because worship, obedience, or a negotiated covenant depends on it. Others distinguish memory, vision, doctrine, and guesswork more carefully. Age and power make a divine claim important evidence; they do not make it author truth.
|
||||
Gods can consequently disagree about their own origins or mistake a stable relation for a universal law. Some conceal doubt and deliver inference as revelation because worship, obedience, or a negotiated covenant depends on their certainty. Others take care to distinguish memory, vision, doctrine, and guesswork. Age and power give a divine claim evidential weight; they do not make it author truth.
|
||||
|
||||
This limit is part of Kalsa's revelation structure. Reaching a god can reorder a mortal investigation and expose whole layers of hidden history without ending the reconstruction problem. The god may be a witness, beneficiary, prisoner, perpetrator, or surviving fragment of the event it explains.
|
||||
Reaching a god can therefore transform a mortal investigation without settling it. The encounter may reveal whole layers of hidden history, but the god explaining an event might be its witness, beneficiary, prisoner, perpetrator, or surviving fragment. Its place in that history still matters when reconstructing what happened.
|
||||
|
||||
## Thaumavores
|
||||
|
||||
Projections do not simply vanish at bodily death. Those without independent magical power may consume potential passing through their vicinity and use it to manifest. These **thaumavores** include lost souls, ancestral presences, and carcasses of unascended Chaos Beasts.
|
||||
Bodily death does not simply erase a Projection. Some surviving Projections lack independent magical power but can consume potential passing nearby and use it to manifest. These beings are called **thaumavores**. They include lost souls, ancestral presences, and the carcasses of Chaos Beasts that never ascended.
|
||||
|
||||
Many seek recognition, remembrance, protection of descendants, or another route toward divine continuity. Their appetites limit concentrated miracles. A God Beast that extends too much potential in one place for too long exposes a feeding route to thaumavores whose Projections or existing footholds can reach it. A catastrophic divine collapse can become a magical fountain in which old ghosts and dead gods manifest while diverted potential remains available.
|
||||
Many want recognition or remembrance, seek to protect descendants, or pursue another way to continue through divine existence. Feeding gives them a means to act, and it makes concentrated miracles dangerous. When a God extends too much potential through one place for too long, thaumavores whose Projections or existing footholds can reach that route gain an opportunity to feed.
|
||||
|
||||
A catastrophic divine collapse can release a **magical fountain**. Old ghosts and dead gods may manifest there for as long as diverted potential remains available.
|
||||
|
||||
### Acquired potential bodies
|
||||
|
||||
Potential taken across repeated feedings can support an **acquired potential
|
||||
body**: the organized capacity through which a thaumavore currently manifests,
|
||||
acts, and holds a lower-world foothold. Each feeder organizes that capacity
|
||||
differently. A lost person, remembered ancestor, and carcass of an unascended
|
||||
Beast may carry different memory, appetite, Gift, and agency. The available
|
||||
evidence reaches the active form; conserved substance and completeness of
|
||||
personhood remain open questions.
|
||||
Repeated feeding can give a thaumavore an **acquired potential body**: an organized capacity to manifest, act, and maintain a foothold in the lower world. The potential it has taken supports that active form.
|
||||
|
||||
Destroying an acquired body is a real destruction. The appropriated capacity supporting it is lost,
|
||||
the manifested form collapses, present agency ends, and relations depending on
|
||||
that foothold can go silent. The underlying Individual Projection keeps its
|
||||
grip on the lower world until voluntary release. Evidence after the collapse
|
||||
currently leaves memory, commitments, personhood, dormancy, and return open.
|
||||
Feeders do not all organize this capacity alike. A lost person, a remembered ancestor, and an unascended Beast's carcass may differ in memory, appetite, Gift, and agency. Evidence can establish what the active form does. It does not yet settle whether a substance is conserved through these changes or how complete a person survives within the form.
|
||||
|
||||
Destroying an acquired body has immediate consequences. The capacity taken to support it is lost, the manifestation collapses, and its present agency ends. Relations that depended on that foothold can fall silent.
|
||||
|
||||
The underlying Individual Projection nevertheless retains its grip on the lower world until voluntary release. That persistence does not establish what else survives the destruction. Memory, commitments, personhood, possible dormancy, and the possibility or form of return remain unresolved.
|
||||
|
||||
### Feeding, interception, and ascent
|
||||
|
||||
A feeding attempt uses an accessible part of a potential route. The diversion
|
||||
changes the amount, destination, timing, or coherence of the grant. Detection
|
||||
depends on relations exposed to that deformation; response depends on levers
|
||||
that can reach it. Retraction, dispersal, redirection, containment, negotiation,
|
||||
and binding are possible responses. A forceful interception can strip the
|
||||
feeder's acquired body before it establishes control; failure can leave a
|
||||
hidden loss, an overfed manifestation, or a fountain.
|
||||
To feed, a thaumavore must reach part of a route carrying magical potential. Its diversion can change how much of a grant arrives, where it goes, when it arrives, or how coherently it holds together.
|
||||
|
||||
Captured flow can establish durable independent agency and open an ascent
|
||||
route. A thaumavore following that route may later stabilize the agency and
|
||||
bind other Beasts or Projections into a God hierarchy. The exact stabilization,
|
||||
first binding, historical occurrence, prevalence among present Gods, and any
|
||||
memory of the earlier hunger remain unresolved.
|
||||
Someone can detect the feeding only if their relations expose that disruption. Acting against it likewise requires a means of reaching the affected route or feeder. Possible responses include withdrawing the grant, dispersing it, redirecting it, containing it, negotiating, or binding the feeder.
|
||||
|
||||
Visible crackling, faces, voices, cold, shadow, or light can accompany a feeding
|
||||
collision. Diagnosis rests on the event, route, and surviving evidence rather
|
||||
than the appearance.
|
||||
Forceful interception may strip away the acquired body before the feeder gains control. A failed response can leave a loss that goes unnoticed, an overfed manifestation, or a magical fountain.
|
||||
|
||||
Captured flow can also allow a thaumavore to act independently on a lasting basis, opening a route toward godhood. It may later stabilize that agency and bind other Beasts or Projections into a God hierarchy. The model leaves open how stabilization works, how the first binding happens, whether this ascent has occurred historically, how common such origins are among present Gods, and whether any of them reliably remember their earlier hunger.
|
||||
|
||||
A feeding collision may produce crackling, faces, voices, cold, shadow, or light. None of these appearances supplies a diagnosis on its own. The event, the route involved, and the surviving evidence must establish what happened.
|
||||
|
||||
## Release
|
||||
|
||||
The seed says a Projection remains until it willingly releases its grip on the lower world, after which its occupied possibility can be taken by a reborn individual. The current canon preserves voluntary release while treating rebirth as cosmological interpretation rather than an institutionally verified mechanism.
|
||||
According to the seed, a Projection persists until it willingly releases its grip on the lower world. A reborn individual can then take up the possibility it occupied.
|
||||
|
||||
Current canon retains voluntary release. It treats the account of rebirth as a cosmological interpretation, not a mechanism that an institution has verified.
|
||||
|
||||
## Institutional pressure
|
||||
|
||||
This cosmology makes worship, submission, apostasy, funerals, ancestral claims, miracles, and divine succession questions of real power. It does not yet establish one universal law for them. Later institution notes must distinguish who owns a rite, what the rite changes, who can refuse, and who bears the risk of thaumavore attraction.
|
||||
Worship, submission, apostasy, funerals, ancestral claims, miracles, and divine succession can all change real relations of power under this model. The model does not establish a universal law governing those practices.
|
||||
|
||||
The institution notes that develop them must explain who controls a rite, what performing it changes, who can refuse, and who faces the danger when it attracts thaumavores.
|
||||
|
||||
## Unresolved
|
||||
|
||||
- Whether potential is conserved, divisible, or measurable independently of a
|
||||
particular reachable intervention.
|
||||
- Which memories, commitments, or parts of personhood survive destruction of
|
||||
an acquired potential body.
|
||||
- Whether a stripped thaumavore becomes dormant, can rebuild the same agency,
|
||||
or returns through a meaningfully different manifestation.
|
||||
- How durable independent agency stabilizes after captured divine flow and what
|
||||
first binding turns it into a God hierarchy.
|
||||
- How many present Gods began through thaumavore ascent and which, if any,
|
||||
remember it reliably.
|
||||
- Which visible signs distinguish feeding, interception, binding, ordinary
|
||||
manifestation, and unrelated material effects.
|
||||
- Whether magical potential is conserved, can be divided, or can be measured independently of a particular intervention that someone can actually reach.
|
||||
- Which memories, commitments, or parts of personhood survive the destruction of an acquired potential body.
|
||||
- Whether a thaumavore stripped of that body becomes dormant, can rebuild the same agency, or returns in a meaningfully different manifestation.
|
||||
- How captured divine flow becomes stable independent agency, and how the first binding establishes a God hierarchy.
|
||||
- How many present Gods began through thaumavore ascent, and which, if any, remember it reliably.
|
||||
- Which visible signs can distinguish feeding, interception, binding, ordinary manifestation, and unrelated material effects.
|
||||
|
||||
See [[Spoilers/Foundations/Kaos|Kaos]],
|
||||
[[Spoilers/Foundations/Magic Styles|Magic Styles]],
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -19,32 +19,36 @@ tags:
|
|||
|
||||
# Canon and Provenance
|
||||
|
||||
The exported seed is evidence, not an instruction to preserve every old sentence as current truth. Current notes keep the ideas that give Kalsa its identity, expose contradictions, and leave genuinely undecided questions open.
|
||||
Canon is what the current setting has adopted as true. Provenance records where a claim came from and when it was adopted or repaired. This page explains how to tell an established fact from an old proposal, an inhabitant's belief, or a question nobody has settled.
|
||||
|
||||
## Status vocabulary
|
||||
The exported seed preserves Kalsa's early material. It supplies evidence, including claims that may contradict one another; it does not make every old sentence binding. Current notes adopt the ideas that give Kalsa its identity, identify contradictions, and keep undecided questions open. An **owner note** is the note responsible for an adopted subject. Reference notes may explain or link to it without taking over that responsibility.
|
||||
|
||||
## Reading a note's status
|
||||
|
||||
| Status | Meaning |
|
||||
|---|---|
|
||||
| `source-fact` | A claim stated in an exported seed witness. It may still conflict with another witness. |
|
||||
| `canonical-policy` | A rule governing how canon, provenance, and unresolved claims are handled. |
|
||||
| `canonical-foundation` | The current owner note for adopted setting truth. |
|
||||
| `canonical-reference` | A current navigation or synthesis note that points to owner notes without superseding them. |
|
||||
| `canonical-polity` | The current owner note for an adopted polity, culture, or territorial arrangement. |
|
||||
| `canonical-institution` | The current owner note for an adopted office, procedure, jurisdiction, or durable social arrangement. |
|
||||
| `canonical-place` | The current owner note for an adopted settlement or other inhabited place. |
|
||||
| `canonical-dungeon` | The current owner note for an adopted playable site and its present pressures. |
|
||||
| `adopted-history` | An event deliberately added by a recorded repair pass. It is current history, but it is not claimed to appear in the seed witnesses. |
|
||||
| `adopted-candidate` | A non-factual design model retained for critique. Canonical neighbors may cite its pressure or open question, but must not assume that its institution, actors, or procedures exist. |
|
||||
| `in-world-belief` | A claim held by people or institutions in Kalsa, not guaranteed author truth. |
|
||||
| `story-seed` | A protagonist, threat, or campaign premise not automatically true in the standing setting. |
|
||||
| `unresolved` | An open question that downstream notes must not silently answer. |
|
||||
| `preservation-stub` | A thin, source-grounded owner awaiting institutional deepening; it must not accumulate invented certainty merely to look complete. |
|
||||
| `unresolved-stub` | A deliberate placeholder whose subject remains canonically undecided. |
|
||||
| `retired` | Old terminology or a claim deliberately removed from current use; source history remains preserved. |
|
||||
| `source-fact` | The exported seed states this claim. Another seed witness may contradict it. |
|
||||
| `canonical-policy` | This note sets rules for handling canon, source history, and unresolved claims. |
|
||||
| `canonical-foundation` | This note owns adopted setting truth about its subject. |
|
||||
| `canonical-reference` | This note provides navigation or brings information together. The owner notes it points to remain authoritative. |
|
||||
| `canonical-polity` | This note owns an adopted polity, culture, or territorial arrangement. |
|
||||
| `canonical-institution` | This note owns an adopted office, procedure, jurisdiction, or lasting social arrangement. |
|
||||
| `canonical-place` | This note owns an adopted settlement or other inhabited place. |
|
||||
| `canonical-dungeon` | This note owns an adopted playable site and the pressures currently affecting it. |
|
||||
| `adopted-history` | A recorded repair pass deliberately added this event to current history. The event is not claimed to appear in the seed. |
|
||||
| `adopted-candidate` | This is a design model kept for critique, not a setting fact. Other canonical notes may cite the problem or open question it raises, but must not assume its institution, actors, or procedures exist. |
|
||||
| `in-world-belief` | People or institutions in Kalsa hold this claim. Authors do not guarantee that it is true. |
|
||||
| `story-seed` | This is a proposed protagonist, threat, or campaign premise. It is not automatically part of the standing setting. |
|
||||
| `unresolved` | This question remains open. Notes that depend on it must not quietly supply an answer. |
|
||||
| `preservation-stub` | This owner note preserves limited source-backed material and awaits fuller institutional development. It must not invent certainty to look complete. |
|
||||
| `unresolved-stub` | This placeholder reserves a subject that remains canonically undecided. |
|
||||
| `retired` | This terminology or claim has been deliberately removed from current use. Its source history remains preserved. |
|
||||
|
||||
## Source witnesses
|
||||
## Tracing a claim to its source
|
||||
|
||||
Each canonical note lists `source_witness` filenames in frontmatter. These names refer to the unedited exports outside this vault directory and identify the seed substrate behind the subject. They do **not** imply that every procedure, office, place, or event in the note appears in those exports. Material deliberately established by the deepening process also carries an `adopted_in` pass identifier; later structural repairs may add `repaired_in` identifiers. Their inspectable design records live under `workshop/deepening/passes/` outside the published vault.
|
||||
Each canonical note names its seed exports in the frontmatter field `source_witness`. These unedited files live outside the vault directory. They establish the early material behind the subject; their presence does not mean that every office, procedure, place, or event in the current note appeared in the seed.
|
||||
|
||||
Later additions have their own records. Material established through deepening carries an `adopted_in` pass identifier. Later structural repairs may also carry `repaired_in` identifiers. The corresponding design records can be inspected under `workshop/deepening/passes/`, outside the published vault.
|
||||
|
||||
| Witness | Primary contents |
|
||||
|---|---|
|
||||
|
|
@ -58,72 +62,54 @@ Each canonical note lists `source_witness` filenames in frontmatter. These names
|
|||
| `page-2026-08-20-10-39-58.md` | Prophecy, noble houses, divided city, Sunwall |
|
||||
| `page-2026-08-20-10-40-04.md` | Channeling, Sarxe, Saxfoldi, Ji'esti |
|
||||
|
||||
## Adopted repairs
|
||||
## Decisions adopted by the initial foundation
|
||||
|
||||
The initial foundation adopts these repairs:
|
||||
The following repairs govern how the seed is used in current canon.
|
||||
|
||||
1. Eight Rings and eight Crown Cities; seven Gifted Cities plus one Control Crown.
|
||||
2. Null is a magical condition, while Controls and Spokers are distinct historical populations.
|
||||
3. Promethean Sequence numerals and binary Kaos signatures are separate labels.
|
||||
4. Clarity resolves causal structure, Depth reaches counterfactual outcomes, and Scope extends spatial/temporal horizon.
|
||||
5. Magic observability is layer-specific; Luck is inferable but not directly detectable.
|
||||
6. Kaos creates neither energy nor matter.
|
||||
7. God absorption binds and routes a continuing Projection rather than erasing identity.
|
||||
8. The two Channeler histories are successive: Ju'onai displacement, then the Terjamna Ji'esti massacre; the mercenary strand describes an external diaspora, not the entire Sarxe society.
|
||||
9. Magical descent is threshold expression of inherited strain-complexes, not a hierarchy of pure and diluted peoples.
|
||||
10. The returning Prometheus and Cabal plot remains a story seed.
|
||||
11. Every Gift is a differently shaped oracular relation. No oracle observes
|
||||
from outside the causal field; observation, response, rival Gifts, and
|
||||
material intervention can change reachable futures.
|
||||
12. God hierarchies can produce local timeline capture by controlling
|
||||
information, potential, levers, and rival agency. Capture is bounded and
|
||||
contingent, not proof of one global deterministic future.
|
||||
13. Divine-scale Kaos can gather, transform, move, and assemble existing matter
|
||||
through prepared causal routes at apparently impossible speed. Each case
|
||||
still requires source matter, energy, levers, time, potential, and an open
|
||||
branch.
|
||||
14. Repeated feeding can support an acquired potential body through which a
|
||||
thaumavore manifests and acts. Interception can destroy that body and its
|
||||
present foothold without establishing release or settling what memory and
|
||||
personhood survive in the Individual Projection.
|
||||
15. Captured flow can establish durable independent agency and open an ascent
|
||||
route for a thaumavore. Godhood additionally requires stabilization and the
|
||||
binding of other Beasts or Projections. Historical occurrence, prevalence,
|
||||
and divine recollection remain unresolved.
|
||||
### Cities, populations, and history
|
||||
|
||||
## Unresolved claims
|
||||
- There are eight Rings and eight Crown Cities: seven Gifted Cities and one Control Crown.
|
||||
- Null describes a magical condition. Controls and Spokers are two distinct historical populations.
|
||||
- Magical inheritance works through inherited strain-complexes whose expression must reach a threshold. It does not divide peoples into a hierarchy of pure and diluted descent.
|
||||
- The two Channeler histories describe successive events. Ju'onai displacement comes first; the Terjamna Ji'esti massacre comes later. The mercenary history concerns a diaspora outside Sarxe society, not Sarxe society as a whole.
|
||||
- The returning Prometheus and Cabal plot remains a story seed.
|
||||
|
||||
Every `## Unresolved` section is load-bearing. A linked note may propose an answer but must not silently turn it into fact. The largest current unknowns are the present date and map, the Control Crown, Intuition, inheritance mechanics, divine binding mechanics, exact magic limits, and the regional forms of institutions whose bounded owners are now established.
|
||||
### Magic, observation, and possible futures
|
||||
|
||||
## Knowledge layers
|
||||
- Promethean Sequence numerals and binary Kaos signatures are separate labeling systems.
|
||||
- Clarity concerns how well causal structure can be resolved. Depth concerns access to counterfactual outcomes—what could happen under different conditions. Scope concerns how far that reach extends through space and time.
|
||||
- What an observer can detect depends on the layer of magic being observed. Luck can be inferred, but cannot be detected directly.
|
||||
- Kaos creates neither matter nor energy.
|
||||
- Every Gift has its own form of oracular relation. No oracle stands outside the causal field it observes: observation, responses, rival Gifts, and material intervention can all change which futures remain reachable.
|
||||
- A divine hierarchy can bring local events under its control by controlling information, potential, the means of intervention, and the ability of rivals to act. This is **local timeline capture**. It depends on circumstances and has limits; it does not establish that the whole world follows one predetermined future.
|
||||
- At divine scale, Kaos can gather, transform, move, and assemble existing matter at apparently impossible speed, provided causal routes have been prepared. Every such act still needs source matter, energy, means of intervention, time, potential, and a possible branch in which it can occur.
|
||||
|
||||
Canonical means adopted by the setting, not known by everybody inside it.
|
||||
Current notes should separate:
|
||||
### Projections, thaumavores, and godhood
|
||||
|
||||
1. **Observed phenomenon** — a witnessed effect or durable material trace. Its
|
||||
occurrence may be public even when its cause is disputed.
|
||||
2. **Common or attributed account** — what a community, witness, cult, office,
|
||||
or popular tradition says happened and what it means.
|
||||
3. **Learned model** — a school, lineage, profession, court, or priesthood's
|
||||
organized explanation, including its evidence, tested domain, vocabulary,
|
||||
and known failures.
|
||||
4. **Restricted evidence or model** — records, rites, instruments, sites, and
|
||||
conclusions available only through bounded custody, danger, or initiation.
|
||||
5. **Backstage constraint** — a causal limit used by authors and adjudicators to
|
||||
decide what can happen whether or not anyone in Kalsa understands it.
|
||||
6. **Backstage explanatory model** — the current author vocabulary connecting
|
||||
constraints, including the Promethean Sequence, signatures, formal axes,
|
||||
Projections, and Beast taxonomy. It is a coherent working account, not a
|
||||
universal Kalsan textbook and not proof that every noun is final ontology.
|
||||
7. **Unresolved ontology** — a question no owner may quietly settle through
|
||||
local doctrine, glossary convenience, or confident narration.
|
||||
- When a God absorbs a Projection, the Projection continues. Absorption binds it and routes it within the divine structure; it does not erase its identity.
|
||||
- Repeated feeding can sustain an acquired potential body through which a thaumavore manifests and acts. Interception can destroy that body and its current foothold. This does not establish that the thaumavore has been released, or settle which memories and aspects of personhood survive in the Individual Projection.
|
||||
- Captured flow can give a thaumavore lasting independent agency and open a route of ascent. Becoming a God also requires stabilization and the binding of other Beasts or Projections. Whether this has happened historically, how common it might be, and what Gods remember of it remain unresolved.
|
||||
|
||||
A local theory can be sophisticated, predictive, and partly correct without
|
||||
becoming the backstage model. A backstage constraint remains real without
|
||||
giving a character the words or evidence needed to explain it. Institutions
|
||||
decide which accounts acquire legal, sacred, academic, or operational force;
|
||||
they do not acquire authority over reality merely by recording their decision.
|
||||
## Questions that must remain open
|
||||
|
||||
A machine explanation does not cancel a divine, legal, or emotional reality experienced by people in the setting.
|
||||
A note's `## Unresolved` section places a real limit on what other notes may claim. A linked note can propose an answer, but cannot treat that proposal as an established fact.
|
||||
|
||||
The largest current unknowns are the present date and map, the Control Crown, Intuition, the mechanics of inheritance and divine binding, and the exact limits of magic. Some institutions now have owner notes that establish a limited scope; their regional forms remain unresolved.
|
||||
|
||||
## Setting truth and knowledge within Kalsa
|
||||
|
||||
A fact can be canonical without anyone in Kalsa knowing it. Notes must distinguish what happened, what people believe happened, and what authors use to explain or adjudicate it.
|
||||
|
||||
1. **Observed phenomenon.** Someone has witnessed an effect, or a lasting material trace exists. People may publicly agree that it occurred while disputing its cause.
|
||||
2. **Common or attributed account.** A community, witness, cult, office, or popular tradition gives an account of what happened and what it means. The attribution matters.
|
||||
3. **Learned model.** A school, lineage, profession, court, or priesthood has an organized explanation. Record the evidence behind it, the conditions in which it has been tested, its vocabulary, and its known failures.
|
||||
4. **Restricted evidence or model.** Access to particular records, rites, instruments, sites, or conclusions is limited by who controls them, the dangers involved, or requirements for initiation.
|
||||
5. **Backstage constraint.** Authors and adjudicators use this causal limit to decide what can happen. It applies whether or not anyone in Kalsa understands it.
|
||||
6. **Backstage explanatory model.** Authors currently connect those constraints through terms such as the Promethean Sequence, signatures, formal axes, Projections, and Beast taxonomy. This is a coherent working explanation. It is neither a textbook shared across Kalsa nor a guarantee that every named category is a final account of what exists.
|
||||
7. **Unresolved ontology.** The nature of something remains undecided. No owner note may settle it merely by adopting a local doctrine, writing a convenient glossary definition, or narrating with confidence.
|
||||
|
||||
A local theory may be sophisticated, predict useful results, and get some things right without matching the authors' explanation. Equally, a real causal limit does not give a character the evidence or vocabulary to describe it.
|
||||
|
||||
Institutions decide which accounts count in law, worship, scholarship, or practical work. Recording an official decision does not give them control over what is true. Nor does explaining the machinery beneath an experience cancel its divine, legal, or emotional reality for the people living through it.
|
||||
|
||||
See [[Spoilers/Reference/Story Seeds|Story Seeds]], [[Spoilers/Reference/Timeline|Timeline]], and [[../index|Kalsa]].
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in a new issue