systems/KIT_MF_CERVID.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_Creature_Roster·docs/spine/CH_02.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 | B1 (MUNDANE FAUNA) |
| kit class | MUNDANE |
| intelligence tier | cunning (evidence rule A6) |
| canon rows | CR_0006 |
| chapter | CH_02 |
| canon verbs | no boss row; collect_verb FIGHT |
| authored abilities | 8 physical + 0 non-ordinary = 8 (band floor 5, ceiling 9) |
| phases | 2 (fill (no boss row declares a count; B1's 1-2 fill range, taken at 2)) |
| counter classes | any, cover, dodge_only, neutralize, parry_only |
Silhouette read. Ears first, then the whole animal already leaving.
Opener (MHM-G10, the cheap lesson first). FREEZE -- it stops dead and looks straight at you. Free, harmless, and the only moment in the encounter when the player has a shot; every skill this animal has is a variant of how it breaks that stillness.
| phase | name | what it PUSHES (nothing pops) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the quarry | a flight-first animal running a real evasion repertoire. There is no damage in this phase in either direction unless the player creates it. |
| 2 | cornered, or in rut | the stag stops running. Nothing from phase 1 is lost -- it will still break and go the moment a line opens -- and the antler set, the rear strike and the stand are pushed on top. |
| # | ability | phase | body origin | tell shape | counter | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freeze | 1 | the whole body, still, ears tracking independently of the head | everything stops except the ears | any | The opener, and the entire hunt in one move: the animal is buying information and giving the player exactly one window. |
| 2 | Break and Bound | 1 | hindquarters; the stotting gait that changes direction mid-air | the tail flares white a beat before the first bound | dodge_only | It is not running away in a line. Each bound can turn, and the flare is the honest tell -- this animal signals its own flight, which is real behaviour and a gift to the player. |
| 3 | Downwind Circle | 1 | a wide sustained trot, always keeping your scent on its nose | it arcs rather than flees straight | neutralize | Tier-2 risk management on an animal that has no weapons. Neutralize is the wind: move to its upwind side, or mask, and the circle stops working. |
| 4 | Cover Break | 1 | a standing start straight into the understory | the head drops to shoulder height and points at a gap | cover | It reads the arena for exits and takes them. The player who has already closed the gap gets the encounter; the player who has not gets a chase. |
| 5 | Herd Scatter | 1 | the whole group, exploding outward on the alarm | one animal barks and every animal moves at once | any | The reason hunting this animal is a positioning problem. It is also the kit's only group behaviour, and it is a dispersal rather than a coordination -- deer are not a pack and this kit refuses to make them one. |
| 6 | Antler Set | 2 | forelegs planted wide, head lowered, the rack presented as a wall | it stops and lowers instead of turning | parry_only | The moment the encounter inverts. A cornered rusa stag is not prey and the wall is real. |
| 7 | Antler Drive | 2 | hindquarters driving through a set head | the set head lifts a hand's width before it comes | dodge_only | The push that follows the wall. Short, committed, and answerable by leaving the line rather than by meeting it. |
| 8 | Rear Strike | 2 | both forelegs, thrown from a rear-up | the forequarters come off the ground entirely | cover | The move players do not expect from a deer and the one that punishes crowding it from the front. Real behaviour, and it hits like a hammer. |
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 antler rack | Antler Set (6) loses the wall and Antler Drive (7) leaves the moveset entirely | the silhouette changes at any range, which is the clearest legibility gain in the batch | shed-grade antler, the chapter's first tool-handle and glue reagent |
EG_0020 Montane Forest Understory -- ENEMY: the destination of Cover Break (4); once inside, the animal is gone. PLAYER: the same concealment is how you get inside its Freeze window.EG_0016 Lingko Lodok Terrace Fan -- PLAYER-SIDE ONLY, and CARE-BOUND: the terrace fan is hard_blocked with HL_0001, so it shapes this encounter GEOMETRICALLY -- open ground with radial field boundaries that a bounding animal follows and a running player cuts across -- and it is never damaged, never burned, and never armed. The fields are a place, not a weapon.EG_0014 Montane Cloud-Forest Mist Layer -- BOTH: D11_OBSCURE is armed and the mist takes the white-tail tell away from the player exactly as often as it takes the player away from the deer.| channel | what the player sees or hears |
|---|---|
| posture | the head comes DOWN and stays down; a deer that has lowered its head is not fleeing |
| breath | the alarm-snorting stops and the breathing goes deep and even |
| vocal | the bark is replaced by the rutting roar, which is the sound of an animal that has stopped negotiating |
| opener | Freeze is retired and Antler Set becomes the opener |
IT ENTERS by already being present and unaware -- this is the one encounter in the chapter the player can begin on their own terms. IT RELOCATES constantly and by design; the chase IS the encounter. IT LEAVES the moment a line opens, in either phase, which is why the non-kill outcome is the DEFAULT here rather than a mercy. WHAT IT DOES TO THE ARENA: it teaches it to you. Following a deer is how a player learns where the gaps in the understory are, and the chapter uses that.
ORDINARY FAUNA, an introduced population, prey. No register attaches. The row carries a [FLAG] that its tameable status is unspecified in the source; this kit takes no position on taming and the flag stays where it is.
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.