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Valenar Canon

This page records the current documentation canon for Valenar's progression, system boundaries, and behavior vocabulary.

When support docs lag, gd-glossary.md and this page win. Older prototype wording may still appear in support contracts, but it is not the live canon surface.

Progression Frame​

  • Acts are the canonical progression structure.
  • The approved act ladder is:
    • Act 0: Arrival and Core
    • Act 1: First People
    • Act 2: First Outpost
    • Act 3: Settlement
    • Act 4: Banner Network
    • Act 5: Province
    • Act 6: Crown
    • Act 7: Reclamation

Canon By Early Act​

  • Act 0 is Arrival and Core. The MC arrives alone in a constrained nearby pocket inside the failing starting anchor's pull radius rather than directly on the Nexus itself. The first visible multi-part thread is Survive: waking, water and shelter, food and fire, lost hours, and the first night. Repeated patterns can later be surfaced as reusable plans, but the early game still teaches the player through individual activities. Old stones, leyline hum, and the buried ruin chain go from observation to earned lead to identified Wardheart/Nexus. Act 0 ends when the MC establishes the Core. Establishing the Core does not create a Settlement. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Starting Nexus row, Afterwar period state row)
  • Act 1 is First People. The Core and Camp are used to find, rescue, escort, and house the first named people. Guest quarters, household or retinue support, and the first character assignments begin here. This is not yet the full Settlement or anonymous population layer.
  • Act 2 is First Outpost. The first population-bearing site and the first Settlement-tier foothold appear here. Outpost is the first rung of the Settlement layer. The Core remains the MC's personal anchor; founding an Outpost does not redefine the Core as the Settlement.
  • Act 3 is Settlement. The first Outpost grows into stable settlement-scale play with connected footprint, districts, buildings, labor, and administration.

Core Distinctions​

  • The Core is the MC's fixed personal anchor at the starting Nexus/Wardheart. It is not the Settlement and it is not a player-facing Realm birth trigger. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Nexus manifestation row, Starting Nexus row)
  • The Camp is the MC's mobile infrastructure. It supports expeditions, rest, repair, surveying, ward work, and longer-range travel. It is not a Settlement.
  • The first Outpost is the first Settlement-tier foothold. Outpost is a Settlement tier, not a separate world type.
  • Settlement, Banner Network, Province, Crown, and later realm-scale play grow on top of the Core/Camp layer. They do not replace it.

Detail: systems/gd-core-base.md.

Realm And Polity Canon​

  • Founding the Core does not create the Settlement.
  • Founding the Core does not create a player-facing Realm.
  • Current docs support a polity ladder that scales through Settlement, Banner Network, Province, and Crown.
  • Until support docs commit a stronger trigger, canon should describe polity emergence as a ladder of expanding holdings, routes, authority, and administration rather than as one single realm-birth moment.

Location And Site Canon​

  • The starting Location is special because of the Nexus/Wardheart anchor, not because generic settlement suitability picked it.
  • The start pocket sits inside the failing anchor's pull radius; nearby-arrival is Game 1 canon and does not require the MC to spawn exactly on the Nexus.
  • Sites are first-class content in the Location model.
  • Dungeons are treated as a site family once they are discovered or entered.
  • Feature rewards stay causal. A ruin, shrine, mine, dungeon, or Nexus unlocks outcomes because of what it is, not because the UI needs a generic bonus.

Character Model Canon​

  • Named characters are skill-bearing assignable individuals, not fixed jobs.
  • Valenar does not collapse people into generic attributes. Skills feed resolved channels through modifiers and formulas.
  • Conditions and injuries are not traits by default. Traits describe identity; conditions and injuries describe current mutable state.
  • Players act through techniques, missions, assignments, and higher-level planning surfaces. Runtime execution still resolves as activities and policies.
  • Detail lives in gd-glossary.md, systems/character-skills.md, systems/characters-and-retinue.md, and ux/character-screen.md.

Planning And Behavior Canon​

  • Objective, clue or lead, mission, and activity stay distinct.
  • Objective -> clue or lead -> mission -> activity is the authoritative player-facing planning stack.
  • Quest Thread, Local Quest, and Act Arc are story and content-authoring layers. They do not collapse into a generic runtime subquest noun.
  • Higher-level planning can group likely activities for a mission or routine, but it stays context above the queue rather than a separate runtime noun.
  • Journal is the persistent day-based memory layer for readable narrative readback and annotation. Chronicle remains the separate combat readback surface.
  • Live behavior vocabulary uses activity and policy for executable and delegated work.
  • Lagging support docs should rewrite old shorthand to activity rather than present a competing behavior noun.
  • The current prototype runtime and UI still flatten some higher quest and log surfaces and still expose legacy Core Base wording in places. That is implementation drift, not canonical terminology.
  • Objective language remains explicit:
    • Objectives are high-level goals or arcs.
    • Clues are uncertain evidence. Lead may still appear as shorthand.
    • Missions are planned operations.
    • Higher-level planning can group likely activities above the queue.
    • Activities are runnable atomic work the queue can execute.
    • Policies choose among activities when the game needs higher-level control.

World And Reclamation Canon​

  • The current executable map is a stepping-in prototype fixture, not the final world-scale commitment.
  • Reclamation starts early as frontier pressure, ward work, scouting, local cleansing, and stabilizing threatened ground.
  • Full reclamation and other-Zone reach remain the last-act, world-scale loop, not an early-act assumption.

(See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Afterwar wound-fields row, Afterwar period state row)