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Valenar Glossary

Shared terms used across the Valenar docs.

This glossary and gd-canon.md are the authority files for live terms. If a support doc still carries older prototype wording, these pages win.

Progression​

Act​

The canonical progression rung for Valenar's long-form campaign. Acts deepen the same running world rather than swapping the player into separate game modes.

Reclamation​

The outward loop of scouting corrupted territory, engaging threats, building wards, cleansing corruption, claiming ground, and repeating along the frontier. Local reclamation begins before the last act. Full world-scale reclamation is the late-game end of the act ladder.

Character Growth Language​

Technique​

A learned method the player brings through activities, missions, and assignments. Vocabulary token only: Technique is not declared as a SECS scope and is not declared as a SECS template. At dispatch time, an activity that calls for a technique takes an optional TechniqueRef typed arg, and dispatches the technique outcome through on_action and channel resolution. Skills feed channels that bias technique outcomes. The character screen shows known techniques as read-only information, not as queueable buttons. See systems/character-skills.md and systems/queue-and-activity-execution.md.

Fieldcraft​

The Act 0 field-survival skill covering camp setup, firekeeping, shelter construction, lashings and small field repairs, and safe overnight routines. Fieldcraft is the practical competence that makes the MC's early camp tenable and reduces exposure, accident risk, and camp failure chance. Fieldcraft matters from Act 0 survival through the full campaign wherever the MC or a named character works away from established infrastructure. See systems/character-skills.md.

Skill Tag​

Metadata that groups skills by domain for routing, discovery, teaching, and affinity targeting. See systems/character-skills.md.

Skill Family​

The larger grouping of related skills above any one exact skill. Affinities may target a family when the fiction supports it. See systems/character-skills.md.

Affinity​

A learning and discovery bias that targets one exact skill, a skill tag, or a skill family. It shapes gain, discovery, proof, and compatibility more than it acts as a generic output multiplier. See systems/character-skills.md.

Trait​

Long-term identity expressed through origin, background, personality, belief, work style, or acquired history. Traits answer who the person is. See systems/character-skills.md and systems/characters-and-retinue.md.

Condition​

Temporary mutable state such as Hungry, Cold, Exhausted, Afraid, Bleeding, Tainted, or Poisoned. Conditions answer what is happening right now. See systems/character-skills.md and systems/characters-and-retinue.md. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Gate scarring/taint fields row)

Injury​

Mutable medical or physical harm such as Wounded, Sprained Ankle, Burned Hands, Broken Rib, or Concussion. Injuries change more slowly than most conditions and do not define long-term identity by default. See systems/character-skills.md and systems/characters-and-retinue.md.

Acquired Trait​

Permanent or semi-permanent history that left a mark, such as Scarred Hands, Limp, Demon-Scarred, Veteran of the First Night, or Taint-Touched. Acquired traits answer what happened and still matters. See systems/character-skills.md and systems/characters-and-retinue.md.

Exercises​

Repeatable practice or study patterns that build competence and can reveal better methods. See systems/character-skills.md.

Breakthroughs​

Punctuated gains that unlock or stabilize higher-order capability instead of acting like flat XP ticks. See systems/character-skills.md.

Personal Infrastructure​

Core​

The MC's fixed personal anchor at the starting Nexus/Wardheart site. It is the stationary counterpart to the Camp and remains distinct from the Settlement layer that later grows around or beyond it.

The preferred physical-area term for the MC's anchor compound is Core Grounds. Acceptable alternates when the fiction calls for variation: Nexus Grounds, Wardheart Grounds, Core Enclave, Anchor Grounds, Core Homestead.

See systems/gd-core.md and catalogs/gd-core-building-catalog.md.

Camp​

The MC's mobile expedition infrastructure. It is packed, deployed, supplied, and upgraded for travel, rest, repair, surveying, warding, and longer-range work away from the Core.

Settlement And Polity​

Settlement​

The population-bearing, settlement-scale entity that owns footprint, tier, and later markets, districts, and administration. Settlement growth begins in Act 2 with the first Outpost and stays distinct from the MC's personal Core/Camp layer.

Outpost​

Settlement Tier 1. A narrow, dependent foothold that serves as the first population-bearing settlement rung.

The first polity step above one settlement. A Banner Network links multiple holdings, routes, and defensive obligations without yet being the full Province or Crown layer.

Province​

The first administrative layer above settlements and outposts. Provinces group multiple holdings under unified rule, law, defense, and later taxation.

Crown​

The higher polity layer where rule, administration, fronts, diplomacy, and realm-scale priorities become explicit campaign systems.

Realm​

The broad player-facing polity formed by later holdings, authority, and rank. The docs commit that the Realm is not born by establishing the Core alone. Current canon describes Realm growth through the ladder of Settlement, Banner Network, Province, and Crown rather than through one single founding trigger.

Founding Tier​

The polity-level rule that decides which tier newly founded settlements start at. It changes with higher-rank progression; it does not replace the normal settlement promotion ladder.

World Model​

Shielded Zone​

One connected pocket of survivable ground held together by the remnants of the Ancient Shield. The player starts in the worst surviving Zone. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Shielded Zone row, Afterwar period state row)

Nexus​

The special anchor structure that fixes the starting Territory and ties the Core's founding path to a leyline meeting point. In Game 1 the failing anchor can pull an arrival into a nearby pocket rather than placing the MC directly on the structure. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Nexus manifestation row)

Wardheart​

The live canon name paired with the starting Nexus anchor chain in early-act docs. Canon surface prefers Nexus/Wardheart wording over older support-doc terms. (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Wardheart definition row)

Territory​

The smallest strategic land unit the player scouts, claims, designates, and acts in. A Territory contains generated facts plus discovered features and sites.

Site​

First-class place content inside a Territory that becomes meaningful once discovered, entered, or developed. Dungeons are a site family rather than a separate top-level world model.

Objective Language​

Clue​

The canonical player-facing term for uncertain evidence about a place, threat, opportunity, or future Site.

Lead​

Common shorthand for a clue the MC has noticed but not yet resolved.

Mission​

A planned operation with a target, risk, time cost, and likely queueable work.

Local Quest​

A place-, person-, or feature-sized multi-Mission objective that resolves within a single act. Content-authoring term, not a new runtime noun.

Quest Thread​

A connective chain that groups multiple Local Quests and Missions into one longer-running premise. Act 0's first visible Quest Thread is Survive, named for immediate need rather than hidden truth.

Objective​

The player-facing high-level goal or arc that groups clues, missions, discoveries, and planning context into one coherent surface.

Current Plan​

The synthesized player-facing layer above Objectives and Queue. It summarizes the active objective thread, likely approach, and next executable work without replacing those underlying surfaces. See ux/current-plan.md.

Journal​

The structured persistent memory layer. Each entry carries a stable id, day bucket label, sequence, class, title, readable prose, linked ids, tags, branch key, and preconditions. Day labels organize memory; they do not gate story. See ux/journal.md.

State Gate​

The explicit precondition set that unlocks or advances an objective, mission, quest beat, or Journal entry. State gates key off world, survey, quest, or branch state rather than absolute day count.

Branch Key​

The ledger label carried by a branch-sensitive Journal or story record so divergence, consequence, and rejoin remain explicit.

Chronicle​

The separate combat-focused readback surface. It does not replace Journal as the campaign's durable memory layer.

Activity​

The runtime and execution term for runnable atomic work the queue can execute.

Policy​

The runtime chooser that selects among activities when the game needs delegated or rule-driven control.

Quest Thread And Mission Primitives​

QuestThread​

The canonical scope QuestThread primitive: a running quest-grouping container that binds a child mission list, accumulated clues, and lifecycle state across the Saga Arc. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

Mission​

The canonical scope Mission primitive: a runtime atomic-with-respect-to-the- queue planned operation row carrying typed args, an activity-beat list, and its own lifecycle state. The runtime term sits alongside the player-facing planning vocabulary defined above under "Objective Language". See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

QuestThreadLifecycleState​

The seven-rung enum carried by scope QuestThread (Proposed, Active, Stalled, Completed, Failed, Resolved, Abandoned). See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

MissionLifecycleState​

The seven-rung enum carried by scope Mission (Proposed, Offered, Accepted, Active, Resolved, Failed, Cancelled). See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

ActScopeKind​

The enum that names the Act-bucket label for a scope QuestThread or scope Mission. Concrete value list is deferred to Wave 5a. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

DefinitionTemplateId​

The template-id reference field carried on both scope QuestThread and scope Mission rows that names the authored definition template a runtime row was instantiated from. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

ScopedList​

The child-mission list field declared on scope QuestThread per the ScopedList typed-collection pattern. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

ScopedList​

The accumulated-clue list field declared on scope QuestThread. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

ScopedList​

The activity-beat list field declared on scope Mission that records the sequence of queue-executable activity beats the mission scheduled. See systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.

Pressure And Front Emergence​

ThreatSource​

The canonical scope ThreatSource primitive: a Territory- or Site-anchored demon-cycle threat that materializes when pressure ingredients exceed threshold. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

FrontCandidate​

The canonical scope FrontCandidate primitive: a Realm-scoped clustering of ThreatSources that has aggregated enough severity to merit Crown attention, proposing a HQ Territory and Campaign Goals before the player declares a Front. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

PressureCluster​

Informal design term used to describe a ThreatSource cluster that has aggregated into a FrontCandidate. Not a committed runtime entity by itself. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ProvinceThreatPressure​

Province-level contributory channel aggregating downstream ThreatSource and pressure inputs for the dynamic-quest-pressure system and the Front emergence ladder. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ProvinceWardIntegrity​

Province-level contributory channel summarizing the integrity of ward and shield infrastructure across the Province. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ProvinceRouteSafety​

Province-level contributory channel summarizing route-graph safety across the Province, contributing to ThreatSource materialization and FrontCandidate clustering. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ThreatSource.DiscoveryState​

The four-rung ladder (Hidden, Suspected, Confirmed, Reported) carried on scope ThreatSource that governs UI exposure. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ThreatSource.Kind​

Enum naming the demon-cycle threat class for a ThreatSource. Concrete value list is deferred to Wave 5a. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

AnchorTerritoryId, AnchorSiteId, AnchorRouteId​

The anchor fields on scope ThreatSource that name where the threat is rooted in the world. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

CoveredProvinceIds, ProposedHqTerritoryId, AggregatedSeverity, ProposedCampaignGoals, DismissedByCrown​

Fields on scope FrontCandidate: the Provinces the candidate spans, the proposed Front HQ Territory, the aggregated severity score, the proposed Campaign Goals roster, and the Crown-only dismissal flag. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

ThreatSourceMaterialized, FrontCandidateRaised, FrontDeclared​

The three on_action transition labels (working names) for the emergence ladder: ThreatSource transitions into Confirmed/Reported; FrontCandidate is raised from a cluster; Crown promotes a FrontCandidate into a declared Front. See systems/gd-front-emergence.md.

Act Progression​

ActState​

The canonical scope ActState primitive: a saga-scoped singleton that records CurrentAct, PreviousAct, and EnteredOnDay. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

CurrentAct​

The base channel on ActState carrying the 0..7 Act index. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

PreviousAct​

Field on ActState recording the Act index the saga most recently exited. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

EnteredOnDay​

Recorded-fact field on ActState capturing the day on which CurrentAct was entered. Not a gate input. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

ActProgression​

The system that evaluates per-Act gate predicates against world state and drives Act transitions. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

ActProgressionSystem​

The host-side class name for the system that hosts ActProgression. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

OnActStarted​

Event with trigger on_action fired at the start of every Act transition. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

OnActCompleted​

Event with trigger on_action fired when an Act is completed. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

ActStateContract​

The contract that carries the two Act-lifecycle hooks (OnActStarted, OnActCompleted). See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

ActProgressionArgs​

The typed args struct carried by both Act-lifecycle events. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

CampaignEnded​

Follow-on event fired at Act 7 completion. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

Phases.Progression​

Game-vocabulary phase declaration that names where Act-progression evaluation runs in the per-tick phase ordering. Not a SECS keyword. See systems/gd-act-progression.md.

Realm Polity Ranks​

Realm​

The saga-scoped singleton scope Realm that carries the polity-rank ladder above settlements. See systems/gd-realm-ranks-and-polity.md.

PolityRank​

The enum on scope Realm that records the current polity-rank rung (PreRealm, Outpost, BannerNetwork, Province, Crown). Orthogonal to Settlement.Stage. See systems/gd-realm-ranks-and-polity.md.

PolityRankAdvanced, PolityRankRegressed​

The two on_action transition labels (working names) for Realm rank changes: advancement when threshold predicates clear, regression when sustained loss of required substrate is detected. See systems/gd-realm-ranks-and-polity.md.

RouteCoverage​

The runtime predicate that evaluates whether the Realm's claimed Routes form a connected graph sufficient for the candidate PolityRank. See systems/gd-realm-ranks-and-polity.md.

Defense Zone Plan Lifecycle​

PlanState​

The five-rung enum on ProvinceDefensePlan (Unplanned, Drafting, Committed, Failed, Recovered) recording the lifecycle position of the defense plan. See systems/gd-defense-zones.md.

Unplanned, Drafting, Committed, Failed, Recovered​

The five PlanState rungs. Unplanned is the explicit starting state and the source of a Current Plan urgency signal; there is no "missing plan" code path. See systems/gd-defense-zones.md.

Character Conditions And Injuries​

MCCondition​

Umbrella term for the condition and injury surface attached to named characters. Not a SECS keyword; the runtime expression is a set of Modifier templates carrying the Condition or Injury tag. See systems/gd-character-conditions-and-injuries.md.

Condition tag​

The tag value marking Modifier templates that represent transient mutable character state (e.g. Hungry, Cold). See systems/gd-character-conditions-and-injuries.md.

Injury tag​

The tag value marking Modifier templates that represent slower-changing medical or physical harm (e.g. Wounded, Sprained Ankle). See systems/gd-character-conditions-and-injuries.md.

Condition state-axis ladder​

The per-condition rung ladder authored on each named-condition Modifier template, governing apply / tend / clear transitions. The catalog of seven conditions (Hungry, Cold, Exhausted, Afraid, Bleeding, Tainted, Poisoned) and five injuries (Wounded, Sprained Ankle, Burned Hands, Broken Rib, Concussion) plus their ladders live in systems/gd-character-conditions-and-injuries.md; the named-character taxonomy authority remains systems/gd-characters-and-retinue.md.

Labor And Capacity​

Population​

Already glossary-surfaced via the Settlement scope; the partition vocabulary below names how Population subdivides for labor accounting. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

AvailableWorkers​

The Population partition representing workers who can be assigned to ordinary Settlement labor. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

DependentPopulation​

The Population partition representing dependents (children, elderly, incapacitated) who consume but do not contribute to labor pools. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

SpecialistWorkers​

The Population partition representing specialist-typed workers who can only be pulled into matching specialist labor demand. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

AssignedWorkers​

Settlement-scope labor channel recording the count of workers currently assigned to labor slots. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

LaborDemand​

Settlement-scope labor channel summing total labor demand across buildings, projects, and obligations. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

UnfilledLabor​

Settlement-scope labor channel recording labor demand not currently filled by an assignment. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

IdleLabor​

Settlement-scope labor channel recording workers not currently bound to any demand slot. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

OverassignedLabor​

Settlement-scope labor channel recording workers assigned beyond capacity (a detectable misconfiguration, not a silent overflow). See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

LaborShortageSignal​

Settlement-scope shortage signal raised when UnfilledLabor crosses the configured threshold. Also a dynamic-quest-pressure source fact. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

CriticalShortageSignal​

Settlement-scope critical shortage signal raised at the higher critical-threshold rung. Also a dynamic-quest-pressure source fact. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

ProvinceLaborShortage​

Province-scope contributory aggregate summarizing labor-shortage signals from member Settlements. See systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

Combat Engagement​

ContactEngagement​

The canonical scope ContactEngagement primitive: the persistent named multi-phase engagement entity that anchors a contact between Forces from detection through resolution. See systems/gd-combat-rules.md.

EngagementState​

The state channel on ContactEngagement carrying the six-rung lifecycle ladder (Spotted, Engaged, Resolving, Resolved, Disengaged, Lost). See systems/gd-combat-rules.md.

ContactEngagementSpotted, EngagementResolved, ForceDisengaged​

The three on_action transition labels for the engagement lifecycle (working names). See systems/gd-combat-rules.md.

Generation Validation Primitive​

ValidationReport​

Host-runtime aggregate result type produced by the world-data import and the post-generation validation pipeline. See generation/gd-generation-validation.md.

ValidationViolation​

Host-runtime per-failure row type carried by a ValidationReport. Each violation names the failing predicate, the offending entity, and the diagnostic data needed to fail loud. See generation/gd-generation-validation.md.

ValidationPredicate​

The registered named predicate; the unit of validation registration in the generation validation pipeline. See generation/gd-generation-validation.md.

ValidationRegistry​

Host-runtime predicate registration surface that holds the active set of ValidationPredicate rows for world-data import and post-generation validation. See generation/gd-generation-validation.md.

State-Machine Hub Vocabulary​

Transition row​

A single row in any state-machine table in systems/gd-state-machines-and-transitions.md; carries the 12-column canonical schema (source state, target state, trigger, required facts, config thresholds, blocking conditions, side effects, runtime owner, read model surface, ui readback, tests required, fallback behavior).

<deferred-to-Wave-5a-runtime-backing>​

The canonical marker for a transition cell whose authoritative predicate or threshold field is deferred to Wave 5a runtime-backing closure. The marker is greppable. See systems/gd-state-machines-and-transitions.md.

<deferred-to-wave-7>​

The canonical marker for the tests_required column. See systems/gd-state-machines-and-transitions.md.

<screen not yet authored>​

The canonical marker for a UI read-back surface that does not yet have a committed ux/gd-*.md owner doc. See systems/gd-state-machines-and-transitions.md.

(working name)​

The canonical annotation for an on_action label whose promotion to committed metadata is deferred to Wave 5a. See systems/gd-state-machines-and-transitions.md.

Adjudicator Source-Fact Vocabulary​

Source fact​

A typed world-state observation produced by an owner subsystem (labor shortage, threat materialization, route loss, condition application, faction shift) that the dynamic-quest-pressure adjudicator reads as input. The adjudicator does not invent source facts; each one is owned by a subsystem doc. See systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md and systems/gd-labor-and-capacity.md.

Urgency signal​

The Current Plan urgency channel raised by an owner subsystem (Unplanned defense plan, labor shortage, ThreatSource Confirmed, mission failure) to flag a world-state condition that the player should act on. See systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md and ux/gd-current-plan.md.

Consequence chain​

The failure-forward sequence of world-state mutations that follow an ignored or failed mission: pressure escalation, route safety loss, settlement shortage growth, faction claim shifts. Every consequence is readable through Journal, Current Plan, Objectives, and Territory Dossier; no consequence is hidden. See systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md.

Escalation window​

The bounded time window within which an unresolved source fact escalates to the next severity rung (e.g. LaborShortageSignal → CriticalShortageSignal, ThreatSource.Suspected → Confirmed). See systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md.

Mission candidate​

A proposed scope Mission row produced by the dynamic-quest-pressure adjudicator from one or more source facts, awaiting Crown / player acceptance before transitioning to Accepted. See systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md and systems/gd-quest-thread-and-mission-state-machine.md.