systems/KIT_BE_0003.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 (structural — the registries this kit's canon rows live in, plus its chapter's spine node):
T0_Boss_Encounter_Registry·docs/spine/CH_03.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.
PROPOSAL-TIER. This kit serves canon and never outranks it. It writes no registry row.
The law it obeys: docs/proposals/combat/KIT_SCALING_TABLE.md. The intelligence scale:
docs/proposals/combat/INTELLIGENCE_TIERS.md. The body it fights with is the bestiarylane's: docs/proposals/bestiary/BESTIARY_ELEVATION_DOCTRINE.md and its sheets. This file
describes the FIGHT; it never restates the BODY. Authors no magnitude -- no damage, no
health, no timing, no coefficient. Those are Phase-5M's behind the tuning firewall.
| field | value |
|---|---|
| band | B4 (CHAPTER BOSS) |
| kit class | MUNDANE |
| intelligence tier | sapient (evidence rule A1) |
| canon rows | BE_0003 |
| chapter | CH_03 |
| canon verbs | parry / expose |
| authored abilities | 18 physical + 0 non-ordinary = 18 (band floor 18, ceiling 28) |
| phases | 2 (canon: 2 phases (BE_0003 -- ritual caci rounds; the broker's land pressure unmasked before the assembled community)) |
| counter classes | any, cover, dodge_only, neutralize, parry_only, trigger_interrupt |
Silhouette read. A man in full caci dress who is very good at this and knows it.
Opener (MHM-G10, the cheap lesson first). THE OPENING ARC -- one whip stroke, wide, slow, and thrown at the distance where it cannot reach. It is the salute and the ranging shot at once, it costs nothing, and every dangerous stroke in this kit is that arc with something changed.
| phase | name | what it PUSHES (nothing pops) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the ritual caci rounds | a real bout with real rules, fought in front of people who know the rules. The whip is the weapon and the shield is the answer. |
| 2 | the land pressure unmasked | the row's evolve-not-swap clause is precise: it TIGHTENS AND DOUBLE-BEATS THE WHIP ARCS ON THE SAME ENTRIES. No new weapon, no new stance -- the same man, no longer fighting a bout. Everything from phase 1 stays live and the arcs stop being single. |
| # | ability | phase | body origin | tell shape | counter | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Opening Arc | 1 | shoulder and hip, a wide horizontal stroke at over-distance | he steps into range and throws short | any | |
| 2 | Descending Arc | 1 | an overhead throw off the rear foot | his whip hand goes above his shoulder line | parry_only | The row's first counter -- 'shield-parry or rhythm side-step the whip arc'. This is the arc the shield answers. |
| 3 | Rising Arc | 1 | a low-to-high stroke from a dropped shoulder | the whip tip touches the ground behind him | dodge_only | Same root as ability 2, mirrored, and it goes UNDER a shield held high. The pair is the fight's first real read. |
| 4 | Rhythm Step | 1 | footwork alone, on the drum's beat | he moves on the gong and not on you | neutralize | The row's second counter -- 'rhythm side-step'. Neutralize means matching the drum, which is a real input and the reason the music is diegetic here. |
| 5 | Shield Beat | 1 | the nggiling shield driven forward as a weapon | he leads with the shield edge instead of the whip | any | |
| 6 | Feint Salute | 1 | the ritual opening gesture, used as a tempo trap | he begins the salute mid-bout | any | It is legal, it is disrespectful, and the assembled community notices. The first hint that he has been bought. |
| 7 | Cross-Body Wrap | 1 | a stroke that curves around a raised guard | his lead foot crosses behind his rear foot | cover | |
| 8 | Close Bind | 1 | shield and forearm, trapping the player's guard at contact range | he steps INSIDE the whip's own working distance | trigger_interrupt | |
| 9 | Ground Cut | 1 | a low stroke aimed at the lead ankle | the whip hand drops below his own knee | dodge_only | |
| 10 | The Reset | 1 | a full disengage to the ring's edge | he walks backward without lowering the whip | any | Tier-4 behaviour: he refuses a trade he is losing and buys the crowd's read of the bout while he does it. |
| 11 | Crowd Read | 1 | no strike -- his eyes on the assembly | he checks who is watching before he commits | neutralize | The ability that makes him sapient rather than merely skilled. He is fighting the ROOM. Neutralize is the player's own standing with the assembly -- which the evidence route builds. |
| 12 | Double-Beat Descending | 2 | the same overhead entry, thrown twice off one wind-up | the whip hand goes above his shoulder and the stroke lands EARLY | parry_only | The row's own words made mechanical. Same entry as ability 2, one extra beat, and the parry timing the player learned is now wrong by exactly that beat. |
| 13 | Double-Beat Rising | 2 | the same low entry, twice | the whip tip touches the ground and comes up TWICE | dodge_only | |
| 14 | Tightened Arc | 2 | the same horizontal stroke at half the radius | he throws from inside the distance he used in phase 1 | cover | Tightening, literally: the arc that was answerable by stepping back is now thrown at a range where stepping back is not available. |
| 15 | Shield Shatter Attempt | 2 | full body weight behind the shield edge | he plants both feet before the shield moves | parry_only | |
| 16 | The Pressure Line | 2 | no strike -- he walks you toward the ring's boundary | his strokes all come from one side for three exchanges running | any | PATTERN COUNTER (B4 obligation): the answer is not a single tell, it is noticing that three strokes in a row came from the same side. Reading one of them tells you nothing. |
| 17 | The Broker's Cue | 2 | a glance off the ring, then a change of pattern | he looks at someone who is not you, and the next three entries are new | any | PATTERN COUNTER, and the row's EXPOSE verb made playable: the cue is visible, and catching it twice is what lets the prepared evidence land in the social round. |
| 18 | The Unmasking Stand | 2 | a full stop, weapon down, facing the assembly | he stops fighting | any | win_condition = PACIFY;EXPOSE, has_nonkill_path = TRUE. The fight ends when the room sees what he is being paid for, and the player brings that -- ability 17 is how they earn it. |
CLASS PURITY (tooth T5). Every move above is physical. No element family, no vril
mechanism, no non-ordinary affordance appears in this kit, because this being's own canon
row carries no hollow row, no lore home and nothing that elevates it. It is dangerous the
way the real animal or the real person is dangerous, engineered up until it reads at the
shipped combat camera. TIMID here would mean BORING-PHYSICAL, never insufficiently magical.
| part | moveset subtraction on break | legibility gain | material the economy wants |
|---|---|---|---|
the nggiling shield | Shield Beat (5), Close Bind (8) and Shield Shatter Attempt (15) all leave the moveset | his guard changes shape entirely and the whip has to cover both jobs | hide-and-cane shield stock |
| the whip's working length | Tightened Arc (14) and Cross-Body Wrap (7) go; the remaining strokes lose their reach | the arcs visibly fall short of where they used to land | buffalo-hide whip cord |
| his standing in the ring | The Reset (10), Crowd Read (11) and The Broker's Cue (17) stop working, because the room is no longer neutral | the assembly's noise changes and stays changed | nothing harvested -- this is a person and a reputation, and the part economy pays in the social round rather than in materials |
EG_0021 Caci Ritual Ground -- CARE-BOUND, GEOMETRY ONLY: hard_blocked, protected_care_ref = HL_0001;HL_0005;HL_0007, enemy_usable = FALSE, attack_verbs = none. The ritual ground is a CONSTRICTION-class volume, so it shapes the entire bout -- the ring's boundary is what The Pressure Line (16) walks you toward -- and it is never damaged, never burned, never armed by either side. The sacred ground decides the geometry and nothing else. This is the exemplar of the pattern.EG_0014 Montane Cloud-Forest Mist Layer -- BOTH: D11_OBSCURE armed. If the bout runs into the mist the crowd stops being able to see it, which costs HIM more than it costs the player.EG_0019 Felling Line and Cut-Timber Stack -- PLAYER: hard COVER and D9_HURL, and the reason it is in this fight at all is that the timber is the thing the broker is buying. The arena states the stakes.| channel | what the player sees or hears |
|---|---|
| posture | the caci carriage -- upright, formal, side-on -- squares up and drops. He stops standing like a man in a ritual and starts standing like a man in a fight |
| breath | he stops calling the rounds and his breathing goes short |
| vocal | the ritual chanting he was keeping time with stops coming out of him, and the drums keep going without him |
| opener | The Opening Arc is retired; Descending Arc becomes the opener and both double-beats are live behind it |
HE ENTERS through the ring, formally, in front of everyone. HE RELOCATES only within the ring in phase 1; in phase 2 he starts using the ring's edge as a wall. HE LEAVES by being pacified and exposed. WHAT HE DOES TO THE ARENA: nothing physical, and that is the authored point -- his whole leverage is SOCIAL, and the fight's real terrain is who is watching.
MUNDANE, and stated because it matters: E2 makes this row eligible and nothing in it elevates. A bought champion is a man with a whip. care_tier = standard, target_type = corrupted_individual, has_nonkill_path = TRUE, win_condition = PACIFY;EXPOSE. The story antagonist is the BROKER and the land pressure, routed through the complicit apparatus exactly as CVD 17.1 requires; Kaba Lomes is a man who took money, and the win is the community seeing it. Caci itself is depicted as the living ritual it is -- the bout is real, the rules are real, and the encounter's tension is that HE is the one breaking them.
This kit is authored ONCE, at Fading. The five modulators of KIT_SCALING_TABLE section 4
express it across the ladder: active_ability_set grows upward through reserved follow-ups
on roots the player already learned, window_class tightens, answer_tree_depth prunes
toward the single true answer, hazard_concurrency rises with the arena rows above, and
phase_overlap interleaves the phase cycles. No second kit exists and no number here changes
with the tier.