creatures/CR_0169_si_gale_gale.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_Creature_Roster·T0_Theme_Registry·docs/spine/CH_05.md·_source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/sumatra_java.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, written to docs/proposals/bestiary/BESTIARY_ELEVATION_DOCTRINE.md
and critic-gated against its ten refusal tests. It runs the RITUAL REGISTER
(BE_0004_S3_barong_rangda_trial.md) and borrows the MACHINE REGISTER's skeleton discipline (§ 3B)
for one block, because this subject is a documented mechanism and § 3B is the doctrine's only tool for
declaring a skeleton that has no anatomy. The register choice is justified in § 2. It cites canon rows
and writes none.
papurpur sepata feast, festival and daily-immersion layer
space
(DIRECTOR_RULING_L11 RULING_4). The ritual register's own term is used rather than the doctrine's
generic guardian-test label, because there is no guardian in this beat and nothing bars the player
from anything — what is tested is the player's conduct, which is canon's own mechanic: "Handled with
weight the beat raises the community read; treated as a curiosity it chills it"
(sumatra_java.md:1024-1025)
T0_Creature_Roster @ CR_0169 (all 62 cells) · docs/spine/CH_05.md §§ asset anchors, music_mood, protected-chapter combat framing · _source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/sumatra_java.md
§§ 5, 10, 13, 15, 16
THE ONE THING THIS SHEET IS BUILT AROUND, AND THE MISREADING IT EXISTS TO BLOCK. Canon rules the
status in as many words: "This is a living funerary tradition and a protected practice, never a horror
automaton" (sumatra_java.md:1025-1026). Everything about this subject invites the other reading — a
near-lifesize wooden figure with movable eyes, a movable tongue and a mechanism that lets it weep — and
the whole craft of this sheet is spending that uncanniness on GRIEF instead of on fright. The rite's
own closing act is that the figure is shot and thrown over the village walls, and canon rules on that
too: the source's own wording stands rather than a euphemism, and "a build that euphemizes a living
tradition's own act is inflating care, not exercising it" (sumatra_java.md:3737-3739). Both rulings
bind at once, and holding both is the design.
THE RITUAL REGISTER'S PART ONE ASKS WHOSE BODIES ARE ON SCREEN AND WHICH IS THE SUBJECT. The bodies on
screen are a MOURNING FAMILY, a CARVER, a STRING-CREW and a FIGURE, and the subject is the funeral.
The figure is the instrument the funeral is performed with.
WHY THE MACHINE REGISTER'S SKELETON BLOCK AND NOT AN ANATOMY BLOCK. There is no animal base and the
figure is not a creature, but neither is it flat, so the iconographic register does not fit either. It
is a documented linkage with members, driven axes and load limits, and § 3B is the register that
declares those. The declaration is deliberately mechanical, because describing this object as an
anatomy is the first step toward animating it as one.
wheeled platform, manipulated by an elaborate system of strings [SRC_00446, print p. 60, p. 63,
p. 149; sumatra_java.md:1016-1021, 3729-3734].
elbows for the dance, the head, the eyes of a lead-and-antimony alloy over resin pupils, and the
tongue behind the mouth. The tongue's linkage is the source's own hedge — a small concealed stick
probably meant to work a movable tongue — and the hedge stays on the row and in the build.
ball of moss or a sponge so the figure could weep. The build treats it as the documented
possibility it is rather than as a certainty.
at any moment of the design.
earth, the cords' tension across the distance from crew to figure, and — the one that matters — the
EYES. Every read in the encounter comes back to whether the eyes are wet on the beat of the dirge.
the head does not turn as far as a head turns, and the dance is a person's dance performed by
something with less range than a person. That shortfall is what makes it moving rather than
frightening, and it is the single most important number in this block.
platform, arms at rest, in front of a seated crowd.
THE ANATOMY REFERENCE TABLE, READ AND STATED AFFIRMATIVELY. build/3d/schema/anatomy_reference/ is on
disk and supersedes the doctrine § 2.1 inline licence where a bucket covers a subject. NO BUCKET
COVERS THIS SUBJECT AS A BODY: the table's declared scope is the eight bucketed census archetypes plus
HUMANOID, with the PROVISIONAL folklore rows explicitly OUT OF SCOPE because "body plan is a canon
decision, already boarded as a canon debt"
(build/3d/schema/anatomy_reference/index.json, scope and out_of_scope). This subject is a
cord-driven linkage with no vertebral column, no clavicle and no gait cycle, so the § 3B members-and-
axes block above stands as its skeleton. HUMANOID IS CITED FOR ONE THING ONLY, AND IT IS THE RIGHT
RULER FOR IT: the under-reach rule. HUMANOID.json states that "every range below is clinical
goniometry, which means a pose outside it is not stylised — it is an injury," and this design's whole
articulation constraint is that every joint on the figure stops SHORT of that clinical range at every
moment. HUMANOID is therefore the BOUND this figure is measured against and never the plan it is built
to, and the anatomy tooth should read it that way.
strings so it dances and weeps at the funeral of a high-ranking person who died without an heir,
with movable eyes of a lead-and-antimony alloy over resin pupils, a hidden moss-sponge that lets it
shed tears, and a movable tongue [SRC_00446, print p. 60, p. 63, p. 149; sumatra_java.md:1016-1021].
made and mourned so that her spirit could enter the land of the dead
[sumatra_java.md:1021-1022], and in the tradition's own origin-legend she instructs that a DIRGE BE
PLAYED BEFORE IT, without which her spirit is not admitted to the abode of the dead
[SRC_00446, p. 60; sumatra_java.md:2368-2371].
alongside, weeping; the image was led ceremoniously to the market where pork, beef or buffalo meat
was distributed; and after the prescribed period of dancing the si gale-gale was shot and thrown over
the village walls [SRC_00446, p. 60; sumatra_java.md:2371-2376].
described, so the cue is composed to FUNCTION — music played before the figure, for the dead
[sumatra_java.md:2368-2379].
zatua and the Sa'dan Toraja tau-tau, and the source's own contrast is carried rather than smoothed —
unlike most other ancestor figures in the region the tau-tau functioned more as a PORTRAIT than as a
RECEPTACLE FOR THE SOUL [SRC_00446, print p. 60, p. 78, p. 87; sumatra_java.md:3983-3991]. What that
passage states is a fact about the TAU-TAU and it is cited as such and nothing more.
contrast the other way puts the si gale-gale on the receptacle side, and this sheet's design of the
eyes follows from that reading. It is ours. It carries the same live scholarly hedge the page attaches
to the contrast itself and that hedge stays exactly as the tongue and moss hedges stay — the source
attributes the portrait reading to contemporary Toraja Christians and notes it is probably shaped by
Christian doctrine, while the Toraja term for the soul that is seen points the other way, and the
page records the tension without resolving it [sumatra_java.md:3991-3994].
[sumatra_java.md:1025-1026]; a living funerary tradition, protected, and never a combat target
[sumatra_java.md:3337].
ELEVATION BUDGET ON THE FIGURE: ZERO, DECLARED, AND THE DECLARATION IS THE POINT. The si gale-gale is
not elevated, scaled, monstered, given a moveset, given a will, or given a single frame of independent
motion. It is built to the documented mechanism and performed as it is performed. Any sheet that
"designs a si gale-gale creature" has already failed, and this line exists so the failure is visible if
a later lane attempts it. What gets designed is the RITE, and two axes run on it — both attested, so
this subject needs almost no invention, which is the mark of a design read that landed.
ONE-LINE ENCOUNTER READ: a family dancing in a line with one place in it that a made thing is wheeled
into, and a wooden face that is wet.
PRIMARY — A10 NEGATIVE SPACE: THE MISSING HEIR. The rite's cause is an absence and canon names it —
a high-ranking person who died with no heir, and a childless woman whose spirit could not enter the
land of the dead without a likeness made and mourned. The design puts that absence on screen as a
literal gap: the mourning line forms with a space in it, the space is the place a descendant would
stand, and the figure is wheeled into that space. Every subsequent beat reads against that gap. This
is the cheapest, most powerful and most light-free axis available and it is doing the sheet's whole
emotional work.
SUPPORTING — A9 THE MARK: THE TEARS. One mark, attested, and it is the identity nothing else in the
game shares — a carved face with wet on it, catching the feast's own lamps and the daylight of the
market walk. It reads at any distance because the surrounding surface is dry matte wood and the
tracks are specular. It is the mark and it is also the mechanism the player themselves fitted, which
is why it lands: the moss is in the head because the player helped put it there.
THE MECHANISM, stated, and it is entirely material. Nothing on this figure is supernatural in the
design. The eyes are alloy over resin and read wet because they are wet; the tears are water from a
sponge; the dance is cords. What the metaphysical layer supplies is not an effect on the object but a
fact about the rite — the tradition holds that the mourning is what admits the dead, and the game
holds that too, from inside, without narrating it.
EMISSION: none. Feast lamps, daylight on the market walk, and hearth-light in the carving shelter.
Nothing is added to anything. Four constraints instead, and all four are care constraints wearing
technical clothes.
hands, and the platform's wheels are part of the performance and are never hidden to make the figure
look self-moving. A si gale-gale whose operators have been composited out is a horror automaton, and
canon forbids exactly that.
and no retarget may take this figure to a full human extension, and the anatomy law's refusal
applies literally.
cords move them, and the expression comes from the FAMILY's bodies and from the figure's ANGLE,
which is how it works in life and is the same constraint BE_0004_S3 places on a consecrated mask.
alloy and resin, with the two source hedges — probably a tongue linkage, may have been a moss ball —
carried into the build note rather than resolved by the art lane.
THE TRIAL'S GRAMMAR IS ATTEND, HELP AND HOLD, and there is no attack in it, on either side. That is
not a defang and the sheet checks itself against the defang tell in the doctrine's own terms: the rite
runs the length of a feast, the chain is the longest in the chapter, a single wrong beat wipes it, and
what is lost is a whole community's read of the player for the rest of the chapter — which is the ally
standing the compound duel later leans on. Part economy home, declared: NONE. Nothing here breaks, and
this sheet says so affirmatively rather than leaving the block thin.
| tell shape | body origin | one answer | counter class |
|---|---|---|---|
| the carver holds out the alloy eyes and waits | the craft is being handed to a stranger on trust | take them and fit them, hands steady, at the carver's pace — the help is the respect | the craft lane |
| the dirge starts and the figure is not yet wet | the crew is waiting on the head cavity | the moss goes in before the first phrase, because the dirge is played BEFORE the figure | timing |
| the family's dance opens the gap in the line | the mourning formation has made the heir's place | stand out of it — the space belongs to the figure, and stepping into it is the beat's one unforgivable read | positioning |
| the market distribution begins and hands come out | the rite has turned outward into the community's own economy | receive what is offered and pass it on; taking without passing chills the read | the social lane |
| the prescribed dancing ends and the crowd turns to the wall | the rite has reached its closing act | stand still and stay — leaving here reads as flinching from a people's own ceremony | the read lane |
ONE SHAPE, ONE ANSWER, and the escalation is that the shapes arrive faster and with the crowd closer.
ESCALATION on the four channels, attached to the OPERATORS and the family exactly as § 3B directs.
POSTURE — the mourning line tightens and the crowd closes in, so the player's own footing is under
pressure without a single hostile actor on screen. BREATH — the family's weeping, which is real and is
mixed as breath rather than as score. VOCALIZATION — the dirge, played before the figure, for the
dead; the region's one fully attested musical function, composed to function because the source names
it and does not describe it. NEW OPENER — the walk to the market, which changes the trial's floor from
a courtyard to a moving crowd.
THE CLOSING ACT, AND THE HARDEST LINE ON THIS SHEET. After the prescribed period of dancing the figure
is shot and thrown over the village walls. It is in the build, it is on screen, and it is not
euphemized — canon ruled that twice and this sheet does not re-open it. It is performed BY THE
COMMUNITY. The player is never handed the weapon, the game never offers the shot as an input, no
prompt appears, and there is no branch in which a player can perform, prevent or interrupt it. The
last pip of the chain is a read and nothing else: stand still, stay, and let a people finish their own
ceremony.
THE WIN IS A STANDING AND THE LOSS IS A COLDNESS. Canon makes the outcome the community's read of the
player, and this sheet keeps it there: carried with the gravity of the proverb behind it — a man rich
for a moment and without an heir — the beat raises the read; treated as a curiosity it chills it.
Nothing is gated either way, which the no-dead-end rule requires.
present, mourning, and participating, and the player is a guest at a funeral. Nothing in this
encounter harms, defeats or opposes any person on screen. The mourners, the funerary specialists and
the Batak community are allies and protected non-targets, and no protected ceremony or sacred music
is reproduced — the dirge is composed to function at reference register per the spine's own
music_mood rule (CH_05.md:268).
rebutted into absence — the being is present, central and playable, and it is met as a test of the
player rather than as prey, which is the ritual register's form of the staging the doctrine's part
five names for this class.
actually read: there is no si gale-gale encounter, no health bar, no moveset, no independent motion,
no possession beat, and no scene anywhere in the arc in which this figure moves without a hand on a
cord. The row's own note names the misreading this blocks — a later pass reading "shot" as an
encounter hook is reading the row backwards.
record describes are nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples, and the page's standing rule is that
the 1200 CE build inherits the FORM and the structural logic and never a dated object or a dated
ornament programme (sumatra_java.md:1491-1494); this sheet applies that rule to this figure by its
own declaration. No real devotional object and no museum piece is reproduced as an asset, the
carving is the game's own, and the likeness is the game's own deceased NPC.
and that is worth recording — the tradition supplies a beat that is already, on its own terms, one of
the most affecting things in the slice.
three softenings were considered and all three refused. (1) Ending the rite at the market and letting
the closing act happen off-screen. REFUSED — canon rules it twice, in the source's own wording, and
names euphemism as the defect rather than the care. (2) Cutting the tears, the tongue and the moving
eyes as too uncanny for a protected subject. REFUSED — they are the documented mechanism, they are
the tradition's own most striking craft, and deleting them would leave a plain effigy where a
people's applied engineering belongs. (3) Making the beat an unmissable cutscene so the player cannot
get it wrong. REFUSED — canon makes the player's conduct the mechanic, and a beat the player cannot
fail is a beat the player cannot respect. Toward over-boldness, three were considered and refused:
giving the figure one frame of self-motion; offering the player the shot; and scoring the eyes or the
tongue as a scare cue. All three would recruit a living funerary tradition into the horror register,
which canon forecloses in terms.
crew-always-visible rule, the five read shapes, the conduct chain and its pips, and the
moss-before-the-first-phrase timing are INVENTED BY THIS SHEET as the game's own design and are named
as ours. The figure, its scale, its joints, its platform, its strings, its alloy eyes over resin
pupils, its moss-sponge tears, its tongue linkage with the source's hedges, the Nai Manggale legend,
the dirge played before it, the papurpur sepata feast, the family dancing alongside weeping, the
market distribution, the closing act, the ancestor-image family and the receptacle contrast, and the
protected-practice status are CITED.
a pattern token. The proverb the beat is carried with — a man rich for a moment and without an heir —
is the tradition's own and names nothing the arc reveals later.
Written affirmatively. Every line names what IS in frame.
wheeled platform in a village courtyard, arms at rest, cords running away from its shoulders and
head to a crew of four standing clear of it in daylight.
inside the frame and the cord crossing the plate, the mourning line soft behind and below — and
within that, the study: alloy eyes over resin pupils, wet tracks catching the feast lamps, the mouth
closed, the carved features fixed and dry around the wet.
figure inside its performance, with the crew, the cords, or the mourning family present in shot. That
is this sheet's own crew-always-in-frame rule at § 5 applied to the art lane, and it follows
BE_0004_S3_barong_rangda_trial.md, where a protected subject is composed within its rite.
into that place, the wife, parents and brothers dancing alongside.
bench beside a small concealed stick, hearth-light on wet fibre and tools.
distributed around it, the crowd close on three sides, the crew's cords visible above the heads.
T0_Creature_Roster @ CR_0169 :: height_m and length_axis EMPTY on a row whose whole read is thatthe figure is NEAR-LIFESIZE. This is the one row in the batch where the missing scale is a design
hazard rather than a data gap.
@ CR_0169 :: folklore_behavior_substrate EMPTY while folklore_attribution_source is full. Therite's sequence — carve, fit, dance, lead to market, distribute, close — has no data home.
@ CR_0169 :: kit_ref and mesh_id_ref EMPTY; mesh_pipeline_type reads image_to_3d while thissheet's route is REFERENCE_BUILT and ATTENDED, and the figure additionally needs a linkage rig driven
by external cords, which is not a creature rig and has no pipeline type on the row.
figure rather than an organism, rowed on the creature roster because the region page routes it there
by name (sumatra_java.md:1138-1139); every husbandry and ecology column is structurally blank.
and names a funeral-dirge register at samosir_highlands (sumatra_java.md:2491-2494), the spine
defers music to [POPULATE→T0_Theme_Registry] (CH_05.md:268), and the cue that the whole trial's
timing hangs on has no id.
docs/spine/CH_05.md § 13 carries sixscene anchors and none of them is this beat, which canon nonetheless authors in full at
sumatra_java.md:3328-3337. A festival-layer beat with a wiping conduct chain and a community-read
consequence is not scene-anchored anywhere.
it" are canon's own outcome vocabulary; the nearest live key is
ws.community_state_per_region, which the forks write for the strait and the water, and nothing
records whether a festival-conduct chain writes the same key.
source_ref citesL1014-1026, L2368-2374, L3300-3310 and L3705 where the live page carries those passages at
:1014-1026, :2368-2374, :3328-3337 and :3729 — a drift of roughly 24 lines on the Section-13 and
Section-15 anchors, and the sibling rows drift the same way (CR_0168's notes cite L3219-3227 for a
passage now at :3243-3251). This sheet cites the LIVE page throughout and records the divergence
rather than reconciling it. Registry lane, with its own gate and baseline.