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Quest Thread - People and Retinue

Identity​

People and Retinue is the cross-act Quest Thread that carries the MC's named-character relationships, character-arc progression, retinue assignment consequences, and household / guest-quarter / household-support pressure across Acts 1 through 5. The lane begins in Act 1 when the first named people arrive around the Core and Camp and continues through Act 5, when Province- scale retinue and officer-assignment surfaces stabilize. Major Optional and Character-graded content lives here.

Scope​

People and Retinue owns the campaign-spanning identity of the named-character lane. It declares which world-state surfaces feed the lane and which act docs provide its per-act mission entry points.

People and Retinue does NOT own:

Inputs From World Pressure​

The world-state sources from ../systems/gd-dynamic-quest-pressure-model.md that primarily feed this lane:

  • Named-character and NPC state — relationship shifts, retinue assignment outcomes, character-arc state changes, vow / contract resolutions. This lane is the primary consumer of those signals.
  • Settlement shortages and labor pressure — household, guest quarter, and retinue capacity gaps that surface People-graded mission candidates.
  • Site state — Site outcomes that involve named characters as officers or that affect their condition state.
  • Operation outcomes — Operations with assigned named-character officers; their outcomes feed character-arc state changes.
  • Authored story gates — explicit character-arc gates that the per-act content waves will author.

Coexistence With Act-Scoped Thread Owners​

People and Retinue is a cross-act lane. It coexists with Act-scoped thread owners without subsuming them. Per-act mission entry points are provided by the act docs and by any future Act-scoped thread owners that the per-act content waves promote; the cross-act lane owner declares the campaign- spanning identity of the named-character arc.

No current Act-scoped thread owner sits inside this lane (Act 0 owners are Survive, The Old Stones, The Ruin Beneath, and Make This Place Hold; none of those is named-character-centric). When later content waves promote Act 1 + thread owners that feed this lane, they will sit beside this cross-act owner without retiring it.

Cross-References​