systems/KIT_BE_0005_S1.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·T0_Character_Index·docs/spine/CH_05.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 | B3 (SUB-BOSS) |
| kit class | MUNDANE |
| intelligence tier | sapient (evidence rule A1) |
| canon rows | BE_0005_S1, CHAR_0035 |
| chapter | CH_05 |
| canon verbs | decode / pursue |
| authored abilities | 13 physical + 0 non-ordinary = 13 (band floor 12, ceiling 18) |
| phases | 2 (canon: 2 phases (BE_0005_S1 -- a paper-trail chase narrowing him per decoded entry; the confrontation once his ledger is read)) |
| counter classes | any, cover, neutralize, trigger_interrupt, weak_point |
Silhouette read. A man who is never in the room, described accurately by three documents that disagree.
Opener (MHM-G10, the cheap lesson first). THE FIRST ENTRY -- one ledger line that is obviously wrong. It costs nothing, it is free to read, and it teaches the whole encounter: he is not hiding, he is OVERWRITING, and the errors are the trail.
| phase | name | what it PUSHES (nothing pops) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the paper-trail chase | no violence at all. He is a moving target reached through documents, and every decoded entry closes a district he can be in. |
| 2 | the confrontation | BE_0005_S1's evolve-not-swap clause: it COMPOUNDS THE CIPHER AND THE FALSE TRAILS. He does not become a fighter -- everything phase 1 established stays exactly true and there is simply more of it, faster, while he is in front of you. |
| # | ability | phase | body origin | tell shape | counter | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The First Entry | 1 | a ledger line, in his own hand | a number that does not reconcile with the one beside it | any | |
| 2 | The False Trail | 1 | a manifest routed through a port he never used | a document that is CLEANER than the ones around it | neutralize | BE_0005_S1's counter -- 'cross-reference two ledger entries to break a false trail'. Neutralize is the second document. |
| 3 | The Substituted Hand | 1 | a clerk's handwriting where his should be | the letterforms change mid-page | weak_point | A named place to look, so weak_point is honest here even in a fight with no bodies. |
| 4 | The Paid Silence | 1 | a harbour official who suddenly cannot remember | a witness answers faster than a person recalling | any | |
| 5 | Warehouse Move | 1 | his goods, relocated between two tides | a stock line drops in one warren and appears in another | cover | The chase is literal: this ability moves him on the map. |
| 6 | The Inscription-Tell | 1 | a forged manifest's seal | a stamped mark whose stroke order is wrong | weak_point | The row's second counter -- 'read the inscription-tell in a forged manifest'. A Neophyte read: shape, never signature. |
| 7 | The Narrowing | 1 | the district itself, as entries are eliminated | the streets he can be on stop being a list and start being a place | any | |
| 8 | Compounded Cipher | 2 | the same substitution, applied twice | a decoded line resolves into a second coded line | neutralize | MHM-G10's variant law in a document register: same root, one more layer. |
| 9 | The Layered Trail | 2 | three false routes laid on the true one | the cleanest document is now one of four | cover | PATTERN COUNTER: no single manifest is readable as false. The answer is which SET is internally consistent, which only exists across several documents. |
| 10 | The Buy-Off | 2 | an offer, made across a desk | he opens the ledger toward you instead of closing it | any | He would much rather pay than fight, and the player may take it. That is a real branch with a real integrity cost. |
| 11 | The Bolt | 2 | his own legs, through a warehouse door he had already chosen | he stands up before the conversation is finished | trigger_interrupt | secondary_verb = pursue. The interrupt is the door. |
| 12 | Hired Interference | 2 | two dockhands who are not his but are being paid | men who were working stop working | cover | |
| 13 | The Ledger Read | 2 | the true book, opened in front of him | he stops moving | any | win_condition = PERCEIVE;EXPOSE, has_nonkill_path = TRUE. The fight ends in a document, which is the only honest ending for a fight that started in one. |
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 cipher key | Compounded Cipher (8) and The False Trail (2) both collapse -- every document in the chapter becomes readable at once | the trail stops branching, visibly, on the player's own evidence board | the decoded institutional-destruction evidence -- which BE_0005 states bypasses its own phase 2 entirely |
| the warehouse lease | Warehouse Move (5) and The Narrowing (7) resolve: he has nowhere left to relocate to | the map's search area stops shrinking and simply ends | a property record, and a Thread-3 seed |
| his standing with the harbour | The Paid Silence (4), The Buy-Off (10) and Hired Interference (12) stop working | people start answering questions | nothing harvested -- a reputation, spent |
EG_0039 Port Warehouse-and-Market Warren -- BOTH: enemy_usable = TRUE, CONCEALMENT, D1_COLLAPSE armed, loaded_potential = structural. The warren is the chase's board and the one place either side may spend the arena.EG_0038 Riverine Timber Wharf and Jetty Deck -- BOTH: enemy_usable = TRUE, loaded_potential = structural. The wharf is where the goods move and where The Bolt (11) runs.EG_0040 Tidal River Channel and Strait Water -- PLAYER: D6_CONDUCT, submersion. The tide is the chase's clock -- Warehouse Move (5) happens between tides, so the water is a schedule before it is a hazard.| channel | what the player sees or hears |
|---|---|
| posture | he is not present for phase 1, and that absence is the channel: the escalation is announced by him being SEEN, once, at distance |
| breath | his handwriting deteriorates across the compounded entries, which is the closest thing a paper fight has to a man breathing harder -- and the kit names it rather than inventing a body |
| vocal | the harbour's own noise level drops in the streets he is in, because people know |
| opener | The First Entry is retired; Compounded Cipher becomes the opener |
HE ENTERS as a name on a document. HE RELOCATES by moving goods, which the player can watch. HE LEAVES by bolting, buying, or being read. WHAT HE DOES TO THE ARENA: he makes a port into a search space, and the chapter's map into a document.
MUNDANE, and worth stating: a broker is a man with a pen. care_tier = standard, target_type = corrupted_individual, has_nonkill_path = TRUE. The antagonist is the trade structure he serves, routed per CVD 17.1; he is the layer of it that can be reached. The Tamil-merchant community he belongs to is not on trial and no ability in this kit reaches for it -- the encounter is with one man's ledger.
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.