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Quest Thread - Pressure and Corruption

Identity​

Pressure and Corruption is the saga-spanning Quest Thread that carries the continuous threat of demonic pressure, taint spread, gate escalation, ward failure, and corruption response across the campaign. The lane is present from Act 0 (small early pressure signals around the start pocket and the failing Ancient Shield) through Act 7 (Crown-scale reclamation Operations). Pressure and Corruption is the lane that turns the Corruption and World Pressure systems' rising threat into concrete playable content.

Scope​

Pressure and Corruption owns the campaign-spanning identity of the threat- response lane. It declares which world-state surfaces feed the lane and which act docs provide its per-act mission entry points.

Pressure and Corruption does NOT own:

  • Per-act mission ladders. Mission ladder authoring for this lane is deferred to later per-act content waves.
  • The pressure model itself. World pressure rules remain owned by ../systems/gd-world-pressure-nexus.md and corruption rules by ../systems/gd-corruption-reclamation.md.
  • The Reclamation / Crown lane's final-arc resolution. Crown-scale reclamation belongs to the Reclamation / Crown lane.

Inputs From World Pressure​

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

  • World pressure and Nexus state — Ancient Shield decay, demonic gate activity, Wardheart stabilization windows. This lane is the primary consumer of those signals.
  • Corruption and reclamation pressure — taint spread, ward failure, unsafe-route state, cleansing-window pressure.
  • Feature transitions — pressure-Feature transitions (gate scars, taint fronts, demonic Site discovery and securement).
  • Operation outcomes — ContainThreat, CleanseSite, SealGateScar, and PushFront Operation outcomes feed back into the lane's consequence state.
  • Front campaign goals — Crown-scale Front transitions at Acts 6 and 7 that escalate pressure response.

Coexistence With Act-Scoped Thread Owners​

Pressure and Corruption 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 the existing Act-scoped thread owners; the cross-act lane owner declares the campaign-spanning identity of the threat-response arc.

The overlapping Act 0 thread owner is:

That Act 0 thread remains the canonical Act 0 entry point into the Pressure and Corruption lane. It is not retired or rewritten by this cross-act owner.

Cross-References​