Skip to main content

World-Law and the True Harm Rule

Scope​

This file owns the cross-game design rule that demon essence cannot be destroyed by mundane physical force, and that True Harm methods are required to fully destroy demon essence. The file documents the categories of method and the structural mechanism that gates them; it does not document a recipe list of specific materials, ritual components, or weapons. Specific True Harm materials surface through play in each game's content (Wave M scope for Game 1) so that the player excavates rune-craft, ritual knowledge, and divine-touched implements through discovery rather than receiving a published list. This is universe DESIGN, not lore: the cosmological reason demon essence resists mundane force is in ul-demon-cosmology.md; the design-authority rule that game content must respect is here.

Facts​

Fact: Demon essence is not destroyed by mundane physical force.​

Mundane physical force — ordinary weapons, ordinary fire, ordinary collapse — disperses demons but does not destroy their essence. A dispersed demon recoheres, or its essence returns through a feeding gate, unless the destruction is performed under the rules of True Harm. This is the design-side rule that gates content authoring: encounters, weapons, and rituals must respect the rule that mundane force is symptomatic, not structural.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-demon-cosmology.md, ul-demon-cycle.md

Fact: True Harm requires methods drawn from one or more committed categories.​

True Harm methods fall into committed categories: divine-touched, ritually-prepared, and runic-worked. A True Harm method is one that draws from at least one of these categories. The categories are committed; the specific instances within each category — which divine-touched weapons, which ritual components, which runic-worked metals — are not committed at universe-design scope and surface only through play in each game's content. This file does not list specific materials.

Canonicity: hard canon (the three categories named here); proposed (any specific material list)

Fact: The cost of True Harm methods is non-trivial.​

True Harm methods are rare, ritually prepared, divinely granted, or excavated through deep craft work. They are not commodity equipment. The cost is structural to the design: a setting in which True Harm methods were cheap and abundant would not produce the Cycle and Afterwar pattern documented in ul-demon-cycle.md. Game content must reflect the scarcity.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-demon-cycle.md, ul-hero-calling.md

Fact: Mortals can learn True Harm methods through craft, scholarship, and divine patronage.​

True Harm is learnable. Mortals — through rune-craft, ritual scholarship, ward work, and divine patronage — can acquire the knowledge and the materials needed to apply True Harm methods. The methods are not gated to the divinely Called or to specific bloodlines; they are gated by knowledge, material access, and patronage cost. This is what makes True Harm something a mortal civilization can train toward, rather than a feature only Called heroes can deploy.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md, ul-divine-layer.md

Fact: Lesser demons can be dispersed without True Harm but recohere unless the feeding gate is closed.​

For lesser demons, mundane force is not useless: it disperses them temporarily and provides immediate tactical relief. But dispersed lesser demons recohere from the demon-origin layer through the gate that feeds them. Removing the gate under world-law-correct methods is the structural action; mundane force on lesser demons is the symptomatic one. Game content distinguishes the two roles of force without conflating them.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-demon-cosmology.md

Fact: A Demon King requires True Harm completion to be fully destroyed.​

A Demon King defeated by force without True Harm completion produces remains, not destruction. The remains taxonomy in ul-demon-king-remains.md is the consequence. A complete destruction of a Demon King requires True Harm completion at the apex coherence; this is rare in the setting's history, and most historical Cycle peaks have ended in arrested partial victories rather than complete destruction.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-demon-king-remains.md, ul-demon-cycle.md

Fact: Specific True Harm material instances are not in scope for this file.​

Specific True Harm materials — which specific metals, which specific consecration rituals, which specific divine-granted weapons exist in the setting — are not committed at universe-design scope. They surface through play in each game's content, consistent with the structural pattern that rune-craft and ritual knowledge are excavated by the player rather than narrated upfront. This file documents the categories and the mechanism, not a recipe list. A future wave may commit specific universal True Harm materials only after explicit user decision.

Canonicity: proposed (i.e. the deferral itself is the committed design choice; no material list exists at universe scope) Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md

Fact: Game content must respect the True Harm rule when authoring encounters, weapons, and rituals.​

This is the design-authority consequence of the rule for content authors: every encounter design, weapon channel-sheet, and ritual specification in any game in this setting must respect the rule that mundane force is symptomatic against demons and that destruction requires True Harm. A weapon that "kills" demons trivially without satisfying any True Harm category is a design violation that the content reviewer must flag.

Canonicity: hard canon

Cross-references​

  • ul-demon-cosmology.md
  • ul-demon-cycle.md
  • ul-demon-king-remains.md
  • ul-hero-calling.md
  • ul-divine-layer.md
  • ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md