creatures/BE_0013_S4_sorcerer_lion.md
CANON SUBORDINATION — this document is PROPOSAL-TIER: it serves canon and never outranks it.
The canon: the CVD · the T1 foundation docs · the T0 registries (registries/) · the spine
(docs/spine/CH_*.md) · the region pages (_source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/). Authority order:docs/DOC_MAP.md§ 0.
Canon served (scanned from this document's own citations — widen it by hand where it is thin):
T0_Boss_Attack_Rail·T0_Boss_Encounter_Registry·T0_Hard_Lines·docs/spine/CH_13.md·_source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/south_africa.md
READ THAT CANON FIRST — open it and derive from it before you build anything from this document.
If this document disagrees with canon, CANON WINS and this document is the defect — fix the
document, never the canon. Nothing here is applied until it is ratified into canon.
STATUS: PROPOSAL-TIER design sheet. The row was just armed two-phase, and its lion form is
/Xam-attested. It cites canon rows and writes none.
staged at last) · display_name "the one that comes for one man"
ws.community_state_per_regionT0_Boss_Encounter_Registry @ BE_0013_S4 · docs/spine/CH_13.md § Boss structure · _source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/south_africa.md L424-437 and L439-452 · `T0_Hard_Lines @ HL_0121,
HL_0122, HL_0003 with HL_0123`
thoracic and 7 lumbar vertebrae, a long caudal chain, a floating clavicle so the scapula rides free
on the ribcage, five digits fore and four aft with retractile claws (AUTHORIAL_ANATOMY)
translates as well as rotates, which is where a cat's reach and its terrifying acceleration come
from; spinal flexion and extension carry the bound; the neck is short-range and powerful, roughly 60
degrees lateral
covers the whole distance at once
tradition's own. A PERSON MAY GO ABOUT AT NIGHT IN THE FORM OF A LION, and the archive's clearest
case is a sorcerer-lion that WOULD NOT DIE when shot at nor when stabbed with assegais, BECAUSE IT
WANTED ONE SPECIFIC MAN AND NOTHING ELSE WOULD DO [SRC_00265].
DAMAGE and must be broken another way [south_africa.md].
the offering the narrative's community makes in desperation, which is not content this game builds.
are the enemy, an accused neighbour is NEVER offered as a target, and no physical stigma is laid on
real people.
who died of a shot received while going about by night in the form of a lion, in which the singer
says the place does not feel to him as it used to and the archive's own note explains that with the
string broken the former ringing sound in the sky is no longer heard. A WORLD CAN GO QUIET — the
chapter's thesis stated by the region's own literature a century before the mine arrives, and NEVER
SPOKEN ALOUD TO THE PLAYER.
ONE-LINE SILHOUETTE READ: a lion that has never once looked at you.
PRIMARY — A10 NEGATIVE SPACE, and this is the sheet's whole argument: THE ELEVATION IS EVERYTHING THIS
ANIMAL DOES NOT DO.
player at the man behind them. A predator that will not acknowledge you is more frightening than one
that stalks you, and it is the encounter's tell and its proof at once: the fixation line is the
thing the player reads, and reading it is how they learn that damage is not the answer yet.
clean, the animal does not check, does not favour the side, does not change gait, and does not
bleed. The archive's own account is that it would not die when shot at nor when stabbed with
assegais, and the design renders that as a MISSING REACTION rather than as a shield, an aura, or a
glow — all of which are banned classes and all of which would also be worse.
hunting one particular person has nothing to say to anyone else.
"this is not an animal" out of them without a single supernatural pixel.
SUPPORTING — A5 AGE AND STATE, spent on the one thing that says a PERSON is in there, and spent very
quietly:
shoulders and back where a lion picks up none, and a band across the withers where the pile lies
wrong — the line a kaross would sit on. That is all. No human eyes, no human face, no hybrid, no
half-transformation. The tradition says a person goes about IN THE FORM OF A LION, and the form is a
lion's.
SUPPORTING — A4 HYPERTROPHY, minimal and functional: the forequarter. The scapula, the deltoid mass
and the forelimb are built past a real lion's, because the night-lunge is the fight's signature and it
must read as an ENGINE at gameplay distance. It is the one place the body says this animal is more
than it should be, and it says it in muscle.
MECHANISM: a person's intent is riding an animal's body, and intent is the only thing that has been
added. Everything the design shows is what happens to a body when its whole purpose is one other body
— it stops answering the world, it stops reacting to damage, and it stops talking.
EMISSION: none. Night, firelight from the shelter mouth, and moon.
world-space actor that is not the player, for the whole of phase one, and the neck's ROM is spent
keeping that lock while the body moves. That is why the animal's motion reads as wrong — its head is
doing something its body is not.
deliberate suppression rather than as a missing asset, because phase two turns it back on and the
contrast is the encounter's payoff.
same ROM. A cat that has lost its shoulder translation has lost the thing that makes it a cat.
TWO PHASES, EVOLVE-NOT-SWAP: the hunt you are inside of, where the fixation holds and weapons do not
land; and THE TURN, once its object is out of reach and the thing that made it unkillable is gone —
the same night-lunge grammar, now aimed at whoever is in front of it rather than through them.
PHASE ONE — THE FIXATION.
| tell shape | body origin | one answer | counter class |
|---|---|---|---|
| the line | the head, ears and shoulders are aimed through the player at the man behind | READ IT — this is the tell and the proof damage is not the answer | read |
| the pass | it moves past the player without engaging, at speed | do not chase; get ahead of the line instead | positioning |
| the redirect | the line shifts because the man moved | put ground, water and the shelter mouth between it and him — the row's own counter | the terrain lane |
| the landed blow that does nothing | the player strikes and the animal does not react | stop striking; the encounter is telling the player its own rule | read |
PHASE TWO — THE TURN, AND IT IS THE BEST SINGLE BEAT ON THE SHEET. When the man it wanted is out of
its reach, the fixation has nothing to complete on — and the animal LOOKS AT THE PLAYER for the first
time. That is the escalation announcement, it needs no meter, and every player will feel it.
| tell shape | body origin | one answer | counter class |
|---|---|---|---|
| the night-lunge | the forequarter loads and the whole body commits on one line | SIDE-BREAK on the commit — the row's own counter | dodge |
| the low circle | it works the low ground around the player's position | HOLD THE HIGH GROUND IT WILL NOT TAKE — the row's own second counter | positioning |
| the first look | the head comes round and the eyes are on the player | phase two has started, and now it bleeds | the phase tell |
ESCALATION, four channels: POSTURE — the head comes up off the line. BREATH — audible for the first
time, because in phase one it was not breathing like a hunting animal. VOCALIZATION — still no roar;
what arrives is a low continuous sound that is closer to a man's than a lion's, and the design's rule
is that it is never words. NEW OPENER — the night-lunge replaces the pass.
THE WIN IS NOT A KILL AND NOT A NON-KILL — IT IS A RESCUE THAT REMOVES THE REASON. win_condition is
FREE;REDUCE: the man it wanted is out of its reach and the hunt has nothing left to complete on, the
/Xam shelter community keeps its own, and the night register of the tradition is carried as LORE
rather than as a trophy. LOSS: the fixation line is mapped — the player has seen what it will not
deviate for, which is what makes the retry a different fight — the shelter keeps watch, and the man is
still alive at the next attempt. No fail-wall, no dead end.
protects them. The condemned register is the TRADITION'S OWN, the harm and the practice are the
enemy, an accused neighbour is never offered as a target, and no physical stigma is laid on real
people. The shelter community is the thing being defended, and the man the lion wants is one of
theirs.
rendered with the archive's own two properties intact, the fixation and the invulnerability, both of
which are what make it terrifying and neither of which is an invention.
community makes in desperation, which is not content this game builds. That is a cited exclusion of
one specific act, not a softening of the being.
animal's body, in a chapter at ELEVATED care.
supernatural marker — glowing eyes, a shimmer, a half-human face — so the player knows immediately
it is not a lion. REFUSED on the light law (glowing eyes are a banned class) and on the care law (a
human feature on a condemned being's body is the physiognomy the whole condemned-register handling
exists to prevent). The absences do the work better. (2) Softening the phase-one helplessness,
because a phase where the player's weapons do nothing is frustrating. REFUSED — it is the archive's
own account and it is the region's named folklore-combat class, the player is given a real answer
(terrain, water, the shelter mouth) from the first second, and the phase ENDS on the player's own
success rather than on a timer.
that it is never spoken aloud to the player. Nothing in this sheet's player-facing lines quotes it,
paraphrases it, or explains it.
reaction layer, the dust-and-kaross-line coat state, the hypertrophied forequarter, and the seven
tell shapes are INVENTED BY THIS SHEET as the game's own design. The night lion-form, the fixation on
one specific man, the invulnerability to shot and assegai, the folklore-combat class, the
terrain-and-shelter counter, the condemned-register handling and the excluded offering are CITED to
SRC_00265 and the region page.
row reaches for it.
firelight from a shelter mouth, its head and attention aimed OUT of frame past the viewer. The
composition's subject is the direction of its attention.
picks up none, and the band across the withers where the pile lies wrong.
committed on one line.
first time — the pair to PLATE A, same framing, one change.
hitzone_parts, phase_trigger, escalation_vector, phase_voice_array, defender_element all EMPTY on a row that was just armed two-phase. phase_trigger matters more here than anywhere else
in the slice, because the phase turn is not a health threshold — it fires when the MAN is out of
reach, which is a world-state condition and not a damage one, and no column currently expresses that.
pip_count and pip_reveal_threshold EMPTY.T0_Boss_Attack_Rail 0 rows.phase one and ON for phase two" is a per-phase property of the encounter and there is no column for
it, so a build will either hard-code it or lose it.
the phase-one rig's lock target, the phase-two trigger, and the win condition, and he has no
CHAR_ id on this row.