Prologue

The beat sheet for the first five minutes of play and for the first beacon later in Phase 1 (06-roadmap.md, Phase 1 item 4), written to be built from. It sits inside rules owned elsewhere: the order, time targets and HUD rules of the first session are 10-operations.md §4’s; the systems in it are 03-systems.md §1.2’s; the story is 01-world.md §8.1’s; look and sound are 05-art-audio.md’s. Everything this document invents is marked (proposed) and listed in 07-decisions.md as D31–D34.

1. Shape

Step (`10-operations.md` §4)	Where	Budget	This document
Create	The Lodge yard	≤ 4 min	Not here
Prologue	Instance: the Pilgrim’s Stair, the Wick, the Stair’s curtain side	≤ 5 min	§2, beat by beat
First field	Instance: Mossy Field	≤ 5 min	§3, in outline
First bank	Instance: the foot of the Stair, then the Rim rail	≤ 3 min	§3, in outline
Into the live world	The Rim’s gate, a real channel	—	§3.3
First beacon	The Sump, level 12–14, live world (proposed)	~10 min	§5

The prologue teaches five things, one at a time, each before it is needed: move, jump, climb (ladders and ropes), drop (through a one-way foothold), and the lantern (it is lit for you, it is your light, the dark is theirs). Fighting is not taught here; it is the first field’s.

Targets: median 4:30, p90 ≤ 5:00 for a first-time player (the newcomer persona, §6.3). Times below are for a player who follows Fen without dawdling. Nothing in the prologue is on a timer: a slow player is never failed, only waited for.

2. Beat sheet

The camera, music and lines below are presentation; the beats, triggers and grants are server state run by the prologue director (§7). West is screen-left (05-art-audio.md, signature 2). Lines are authored, never free text, at most three short lines a page (01-world.md §11.1), and go through tr().

Verbal habits (proposed). Fen Cobble starts every speech formally and loses it halfway (“Welcome, pilgrim, to the foot of the — hang on”). Wickmother Hessa Lume calls every newcomer “spark” (the Guild’s first rank, 01-world.md §6.1). Pilgrims and the crowd speak in barks and voice blips only (05-art-audio.md, Voice).

2.1 Summary

#	Time	Where	Player does	Teaches	New on screen
B1	0:00–0:25	The foot of the Stair	Walks to Fen, hops onto the first scute	Move, jump	Health and class resource bars; the guide line
B2	0:25–1:45	The Stair, lit side, going up	Two ladders, a gap, a rope grab, the long ladder	Climb, rope grab, jump across	—
B3	1:45–2:00	The Stair head, the Wick lift (proposed)	Steps into the basket; rides	Where you are	—
B4	2:00–3:05	The Wick, the Vent	Walks to the Vent mark; holds out a hand	The lantern	Lantern gauge; your light circle
B5	3:05–3:15	The Lamplighters’ chute (proposed)	Slides	—	—
B6	3:15–4:30	The Stair, curtain side, going down	Six drops through one-way footholds in the dark; sees a Puddling shy from the light	Drop; the lantern keeps them weak	—
B7	4:30–4:50	The foot of the Stair, the field gate	Walks through the gate east	—	—

2.2 B1. Arrival (0:00–0:25)

Where. The meadow at the foot of Mossback’s kneeling foreleg, the Stair’s bottom floor (§4.1), at the east end beside the field gate. A crowd of pilgrims (render-only, §4.3) and up to eleven other newcomers.
Does. Spawns facing west. Walks 80 u to Fen; Fen walks on to the first scute, a 32 u ledge, and the player hops up after him.
Teaches. Move, then jump. The guide line shows one input at a time: the move glyph until the player has walked 40 u, then the jump glyph at the scute.
Camera. Starts framed wide on the crowd and Mossback’s head in the mid layer to the west (0.85x zoom, 2 s), then eases in to normal follow as the player first moves.
Music and sound. Cue Kneeling (proposed): the Lantern Town palette thinned to nylon guitar, fiddle and bassoon, 6/8 at 76 BPM, its bassoon breath on Mossback’s breath cycle (§4.2). Crowd murmur bed; moss underfoot.
Lines. > Fen: Welcome, pilgrim, to the foot of the — to Lantern Town’s — hang on. > Fen: It’s my first day too. Right. Up the Stair. Follow me.

At the scute: > Fen: Hop up. He doesn’t mind.

2.3 B2. The climb (0:25–1:45)

Where. The lit side of the Stair, up the east half of the map: ladder 1, a 40 u gap between two scute plates, rope 1, the knee terrace, the long ladder, rope 2 to the head (§4.1). Every rope and ladder has a pilgrim lantern hooked at its top (05-art-audio.md, signature 3), so the route is lit and the curtain side is not.
Does. Climbs, jumps the gap, jumps and grabs a rope whose bottom hangs 30 u above the plate, climbs the long ladder past the knee.
Teaches. Climb (up at a ladder), jump across, rope grab (up while overlapping a rope in the air, 03-systems.md §2.1). Each prompt appears once, at the first ladder, the gap and the first rope, and never again in the session.
Camera. Normal follow, leading 40 u upward while climbing. On the long ladder it eases out to 0.85x for the vista: Mossback’s head resting on the meadow, a third of the sun behind it, white moss blooming; back to 1x at the top.
Music and sound. Kneeling continues; the titan call (Mossback’s major variation) plays once, low, at the vista. Wood and rope creak on ladders.
Lines. At the gap, from the far side: > Fen: Jump it. Nobody’s fallen off yet. Today.

Under rope 1: > Fen: Jump and grab. Up, up.

On the long ladder, at the vista: > Fen: That’s his head. Don’t wave. > Fen: He waves back, and it takes him a week.

If the player misses the rope grab twice, Fen climbs down beside it and says once: > Fen: Jump first, then up. In the air.

2.4 B3. The Stair head and the Wick lift (1:45–2:00)

Where. The Stair head, the Rim’s rail at the top of the Stair map, festival bunting and paper lanterns. The Wick lift (proposed): a Lamplighters’ basket on a rope from the Rim up the shell to the Wick, running for pilgrims during the Kneeling. It exists so the prologue does not walk the length of Lantern Town.
Does. Walks into the basket and presses up (the portal input). Rides 12 s, no input.
Teaches. Nothing; this is the place. The ride is the town’s first showing.
Camera. A scripted pan (§7): from the basket up across the Rim, Shellstep’s terraces and Tailend’s market to the Wick on the crown, every lane lit by paper lanterns. Skippable (any input) after the account’s first prologue.
Music and sound. Kneeling swells into the full Lantern Town theme with the accordion; pulley creak, distant cheering.
Lines. > Fen: Lift’s for pilgrims today. The Wick’s at the top.

2.5 B4. The Lighting (2:00–3:05)

Where. The Wick, the Lamplighters’ hall over the Vent: a long warm crack in the shell floor, amber light seeping up, racks of new lanterns on the walls. Hessa Lume at the Vent.
Does. Walks 15 s to the Vent mark. The ceremony takes 30 s with input locked except skip: Lume takes a new lantern with the glass the player chose at creation from the rack, lights it at the Vent and hangs it on the player. Then the lurch, the cheer, and input returns.
Group Lighting (proposed). Mass Lightings are the Kneeling’s custom (01-world.md §5.4). The ceremony starts when a player steps on the Vent mark; any newcomer who steps on it within the next 8 s joins the same ceremony, and later ones start the next. Each player’s camera frames their own lantern; everyone in the ceremony shares one lurch.
Teaches. The lantern. The player’s light circle appears for the first time, and so does the lantern gauge, the one new HUD element of this step (10-operations.md §4).
Grants (server, on the commit tick). The lantern is lit and bound to Mossback; the Lighting’s 100-mote draw is charged to Mossback and the character’s ledger (03-systems.md §7.3); the character is saved (reason lighting, §6.2).
Camera. Frames the Vent and the player in a fixed rect (0.9x) for the ceremony. At the lurch: the whole scene drops 10 ref px over 300 ms and settles with two overshoots, every hanging lantern swings, dust sifts from the rafters. With reduced motion (10-operations.md §7) the drop is replaced by a 200 ms vignette pulse.
Music and sound. Music ducks to silence as Lume lifts the lantern; her voice blips hum; the heartfire motif (1-5-6, 05-art-audio.md, Leitmotifs) on hammered dulcimer as the wick catches. Then a beat of silence, the titan sub-thud and mid creak, a crowd “ooh”, the cheer, and the full Lantern Town theme.
Lines. > Lume: Another spark. Come stand by the warm. > Lume: Hold it out. Don’t flinch, it won’t bite.

After the lurch, the crowd (bark, shown as a caption): > Crowd: He stumbled for you!

Fen: That’s lucky, that is. Happens at most Lightings. Lume (already turning away): Off you go, spark. Mind the dark.

Lume’s private crying (01-world.md §4.1) is not shown here. A player who goes back to the Wick in the live world after the prologue may find her at the rack with her back turned and one bark: “Smoke in my eyes.” (proposed).

2.6 B5. The Lamplighters’ chute (3:05–3:15)

Where. The Lamplighters’ chute (proposed): a moss-lined trough down the shell from the Wick’s back door to the Rim’s rail at the top of the Stair’s curtain side.
Does. Steps in; slides 4 s; lands on the curtain side’s top ledge.
Camera and sound. A scripted pan down the shell behind the player; a whoosh, moss brushing, and Fen’s voice blips laughing behind.
Lines. > Fen: Quick way down. Lamplighters only. And you, now.

2.7 B6. Under the curtains (3:15–4:30)

Where. The curtain side of the Stair, the west half of the map, under Mossback’s moss curtains, forty meters long, hanging off the shell’s rim (01-world.md §4.1). No static light: the map’s ambient is Dark and only lanterns light it (§4.1).
Does. Six one-way footholds zigzag downward, so the only way on from each is down and jump; a short rope down between the third and fourth. At the last ledge, a Puddling wobbles at the edge of the player’s light, shrinks back from it, and pops into a moss root. The player reaches the meadow floor and walks east under the knee to the foot of the Stair.
Teaches. Drop (down and jump, 03-systems.md §2.1), and the lantern’s second half: without it the curtain side is unreadable; with it the footholds show. The Puddling shows its stolen ember and that Lampghosts shy from light. It is a scripted prop (hostile: false, §6.1): it cannot be hit and cannot hurt.
Camera. Follow, leading 60 u downward; the map’s darkness does the work.
Music and sound. Kneeling low-passed toward silence with depth (Darkness depth, 05-art-audio.md); when the Puddling appears, two bars of its Lampghost-inverted version (reversed, detuned, no bass), then back.
Lines. At the top ledge: > Fen: Down and jump to drop. Keep your light close. It’s dark under the moss.

When the Puddling shows: > Fen: A Puddling. See the hole through it? That’s how you know. > Fen: Out of your light they’re tough. In it, they pop.

2.8 B7. The field gate (4:30–4:50)

Where. The foot of the Stair again, at the festival rope across the field gate.
Does. Fen unhooks the rope. The player walks east through the gate into the instance’s Mossy Field (§3.1). The prologue step completes on crossing.
Lines. > Fen: Mossy Field. Pop a few. > Fen: Watch where the sparks go. I’ll be here.

3. After the prologue, inside the instance

The rest of the instance is the first field and first bank, already set by 03-systems.md §1.2 and 10-operations.md §4. Only what the build needs is added here.

3.1 First field (≤ 5 min)

A private copy of Mossy Field (map 2) with its Puddlings, Mossnips and Dandlehops. Puddlings take half damage outside the light circle and pop inside it; motes cling to the lantern and run up its thread; skill 1 at level 2. The first death, if any, happens in light (the spawns near the gate are inside the field’s static lights) and costs the walk back. After 5 Puddlings, or 4 minutes, Fen’s marker appears at the gate (proposed).

3.2 First bank (≤ 3 min)

At the foot of the Stair Fen points up: the motes the player banked stream up the foreleg into Mossback’s shell, and the Sunline gauge appears and ticks. > Fen: Going home to the sun.

Then the player rides the Wick lift’s lower stage from the foot to the Rim’s rail (proposed; one ride, no second climb) and Mossback rises.

3.3 The rise and the handoff

The rise (staged). From the Rim’s rail: the far parallax layers sink 120 ref px over 6 s as he stands, the hold tilts 1.5° and levels, the footfall bob starts (05-art-audio.md, signature 5), the Stair below draws up out of view, and the titan call plays in full. > Fen: He’s getting up. Hold the rail! > Fen: He’ll kneel again. The Tetherline’s free till then.
Handoff. The Rim’s gate is the instance’s exit. Stepping through moves the player into the live Rim of their channel (§7, Transfer), where Reeve Tamsey’s lantern count is the next step. In the live world Mossback may be walking or kneeling; the instance never asks.

4. The instance

4.1 The Pilgrim’s Stair map (proposed)

1200 x 960 u (150 x 120 tiles). Ambient Dark; the lit side is lit by static pilgrim lanterns, the curtain side by nothing. Footholds obey the map grammar in 03-systems.md §2.1 (up ≤ 36 u without a rope, a level gap ≤ 48 u). Heights are above the meadow floor; x runs west to east.

 h 960 ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
       │ [chute lands]  RIM RAIL (curtain side)   | RIM RAIL [lift] B3 │
 h 900 │ C1 ════════                              |    ════════H═══   │
       │      C2 ═══════      ← moss curtains     |       rope 2 │    │
       │  C3 ═══════   ║ rope (down)               |              │    │
       │            C4 ═══════                     |   long ladder ‖   │
       │   C5 ═══════                              |  ════ knee ═══‖   │
       │         C6 ═══════   (Puddling, B6)       |  ═ ═ steps    ‖   │
       │                                           | rope 1 │          │
       │   Mossback's head rests here (mid layer)  |  ═══ gap ═══      │
       │                                           |   ladder 1 ‖      │
 h   0 │═══════════════ meadow floor, under the knee ══════ scute ▄ F  │→ field gate
       └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
 x     0                                        600                1200

Piece	x (u)	Height (u)	Notes
Spawn; Fen (F); field gate	1140; 1060; 1180	0	Gate portal to the instance’s Mossy Field, roped until B7
First scute	960–1020	32	The jump lesson
Ladder 1	900	32 → 160
The gap	760–800	160	40 u across, both sides at 160
Rope 1	720	hangs 190 → 360	Bottom 30 u above the plate: jump, then up
Knee terrace and steps	680–1100	360 → 424	Two 32 u steps; pilgrims stand here
Long ladder	1100	424 → 700	The vista (B2)
Rope 2	960	700 → 900	Ends at the Rim rail
Rim rail, lift (east)	700–1150	900	The Wick lift portal at 1120
Rim rail (west), chute landing	40–360	900	One-way only (no way back east at the top)
Curtain ledges C1–C6	40–520, zigzag	900, 780, 650, 520, 380, 240	One-way footholds, 100–140 u apart, each reached only by dropping; a rope from C3 down to C4
Meadow floor	0–1200	0	Continuous; walls at both map edges; no pit anywhere

The Wick (proposed). A small hold map, 640 x 270 u (one screen): the Vent across the middle of the floor, the Vent mark at its east end, lantern racks, the lift arrival on the west, the chute door on the east. Ambient Hearth. No footholds above floor level; it is a stage, not a climb.

4.2 The staged Kneeling

Nothing in the Kneeling is simulated. Mossback is painted pieces in the mid and far layers (05-art-audio.md, How titans are drawn), driven by the instance’s own clock, never the world clock (03-systems.md §1.2).

What moves	How it is faked	Cost
He breathes	The mid and far layers scale 1.000 → 1.006 and back on a 12 s cycle around his head; the bassoon in the cue rides the same cycle	One tween
He blinks	The head’s eyelid is a two-frame cutout piece, every 15–25 s from the instance seed	One sprite swap
White moss blooms	`CPUParticles2D` white petals drifting from the curtains (Kneeling moss is white, content)	≤ 64 particles
The hold above	The Rim’s lit windows in the far layer, the festival lanterns on the rail swaying	The existing sway
No footfall	The instance’s look sets `footfall` to none until the rise (`game/render/looks.gd`)	A data field
The lurch (B4)	Camera drop and settle, lantern swing impulse, dust particles, the sub-thud	One shake cue
The rise (§3.3)	Far layers sink, a 1.5° tilt, footfall starts	Three tweens
The crowd	6–10 pilgrims (render-only, §4.3) on looped paths	Sprites and paths

4.3 Fen Cobble and the crowd

Fen Cobble is a scripted actor, one per player: each newcomer has their own Fen, drawn only for them, walking a beat’s path ahead of them and waiting at each lesson. Other players see their own Fen, not yours. He cannot be blocked, pushed or hurt.
Hessa Lume is shared by everyone in the instance and stands at the Vent.
The crowd is pilgrims and hold folk: render-only walkers on authored paths, with voice blips and barks, no collision and no sim presence. With other real newcomers in the instance, the crowd thins by one walker per player, so the Stair never looks empty and never doubles.

4.4 Who shares an instance

An instance opens for the first newcomer and takes joiners for 3 minutes or until 12 (proposed), each entering at B1. A party of newcomers is placed together. A player who skips (§6.4) gets a solo instance.

5. The first beacon (Phase 1)

Phase 1 builds one beacon (06-roadmap.md). This section proposes which and how it ties back (D33).

5.1 What it is

The Low Lamp (proposed): a Guild brazier on the middle ledge of the Sump, the stratum under the Mossway (02-atlas.md; level 12–14), directly under the ground where Mossback kneels. It is the first beacon any player meets, because 03-systems.md §1.3 already has the Sump bank carried motes at a beacon before Chime Dunes teaches kindling. In Phase 1 it teaches both: kindle it, bank at it, be relit at it. Chime Dunes keeps its beacons for launch. It follows 03-systems.md §6.8 exactly; nothing below changes a beacon rule.

5.2 The quest: The First Kindle (proposed)

Fen Cobble, still at the foot of the Stair (his post), level 12, after the Sump’s first trip. Three steps: 1. Meet Fen at the Low Lamp (he climbs down with you). 2. Be there for a kindle: start one, or join one on that map in your channel. If the Low Lamp is already lit, the step waits for it to gutter, and the Surge counts; its time left shows on the beacon. 3. Bank carried motes at it.

Fen: Right. So. Kindling. I’ve done it once. Hessa held my hand. Fen: You start it, they come for it. Sixty breaths. Don’t let them touch it.

Reward: the XP, brass and Guild tallies of one Guild contract (03-systems.md §11.1, §12.1), and the title Kindled the Low Lamp (proposed).

5.3 The group event

Kindle. 60 s, 03-systems.md §6.8: the kindler chooses Drawn or Poured. Everyone within 15 tiles is a defender (proposed) and shares credit. The wave is the Sump’s own Lampghosts: 6, plus 2 per defender past the first, up to 20 (proposed), so one level-12 player can finish it and six make it a scramble.
Lit (20 min). A relight point, a bank for carried motes, a refuel point, +10% XP on the map in that channel.
Surge. When it gutters, a 2-minute wave with an elite; the Surge’s motes relight it for 10 minutes at no cost.

5.4 How it ties back to the prologue

Drawn. When a Drawn kindle catches, the heartfire motif from the Lighting plays, the beacon shows Mossback’s mark, and through the cracks in the Sump’s roof dust falls and the light from above shifts: Mossback, kneeling overhead, settles. A Lamplighter bark, the crowd’s line in miniature: “He stumbled for it.” (proposed).
Poured. A Poured kindle catches from the motes the players carry, as a rising stream (05-art-audio.md, Motes). No motif, no settling overhead.
Neither is explained. Nobody before level 60 says that lanterns cost titans (01-world.md §11.5); the player who notices the difference has seen the Lighting’s lurch twice and drawn the line themselves (01-world.md §1.8).
Fen is the thread: his first day was the player’s, his first kindle without Lume is theirs.

5.5 Telemetry and bots

light.beacon_kindle (drawn or poured, defenders), light.beacon_surge, ftue.step_complete with first_kindle (proposed). A first-beacon scenario kindles with 1 and with 6 bots: both must finish the wave, and the Surge must relight it.

6. Fail-safes

6.1 Cannot die, cannot get stuck

Every prologue map is hostile: false; no spawns. The B6 Puddling is a prop.
No fall damage (03-systems.md §2.1) and no pit: the meadow floor runs the whole map and both edges are walls.
Waiting, not failing. No beat progress for 45 s: Fen’s marker pulses and the guide line repeats the lesson. 90 s: Fen walks back to the player and says once: > Fen: Over here. This way.

180 s: a “Follow Fen” button moves the player to the start of the next lesson (proposed).
Server guard. A body found embedded or outside the map is moved to the current beat’s checkpoint (the scenario check in §6.3 asserts it never happens).

6.2 Disconnect and restarts

The character carries prologue_step, the last beat started, saved by worldd with the character (04-architecture.md §3, Join flow) at every beat start.
The Lighting is the commit point. The draw, the bind and the lit lantern happen on one server tick and save at once (reason lighting). Disconnect before that tick: the ceremony replays. After it: the player resumes at B5. A Lighting is never charged twice.
Reconnect. Within 3 minutes, into the same instance if it still has players; else a new solo instance at the last checkpoint. A server restart (every deploy) is the same as a disconnect.
Instance lifetime. An instance with no players for 3 minutes closes (proposed).

6.3 How bots test it

prologue scenario (scenarios/prologue.gd, the simkit pattern of scenarios/town_rim.gd): one player from B1 to the field gate on the director’s markers. check fails on any damage taken, any embedded body, or a beat out of order; finish fails unless the lantern is lit, bound to Mossback, the Lighting was charged once and the player is in the instance’s Mossy Field within 300 sim seconds. Four shots (proposed, of the 48): the long-ladder vista, the lurch, the Puddling under the curtains with the light circle, the field gate.
prologue-skip scenario. The account-has-finished path (§6.4): no shots, ≤ 45 s.
Disconnect case in tests/test_prologue.gd (proposed): drop the client before and after the commit tick; one charge either way, the right resume beat.
Newcomer persona step. The newcomer persona (tools/bots/newcomer_bot.gd, in review in #82, 03-systems.md §22.3) plays the real client from what is on screen, 250 ms late (±60 ms, seeded) and fumbling about 15% of jumps. Its new first step is the prologue, following only the guide line and Fen’s marker: on 64 seeds every seed finishes, p90 ≤ 5:00, and the Playtesters job’s stuck rule (over 120 s with no progress) applies inside the instance too. The AI first-session critic’s newcomer prompt plays it on demand and ranks what confused it. The first-session bot (03-systems.md §22.1) runs the whole instance through §3.

6.4 Skip rule for alts (proposed, D32)

Account state	What a new character plays
No character has finished the prologue	All of it
One has	A choice at B1: the full prologue, or the short Lighting: B4 alone, 20 s, from the Vent mark, then the field gate. ≤ 45 s
Holds any Lodgemark (D26)	A third choice: straight to the live Rim. The Lighting still happens, as a 6 s card (“Hessa Lume lit your lantern. Mossback stumbled.”)

The Lighting is never skipped outright: every character’s Lighting is a step drawn from Mossback (03-systems.md §7.3), and the game shows it each time, however short. Skipping logs ftue.skip with the beat.

7. Tech needs

Need	Today	To build
Instancing	One `Sim` per process; zones keyed by map name; an emptied zone resets (`zone.remove`)	Private zone copies keyed by instance id inside the channel process for Phase 1 (proposed, D34), with the join rules in §4.4; instance processes (`04-architecture.md` §4) later
Prologue director	A one-line guide per map (`game/sim/guide.gd`); no quests	A pure beat machine in `game/sim/` reading a data script (`prologue.json`, proposed): beats, triggers (enter a rect, interact, timer, all-players-ready), actions (line, camera cue, music cue, lock input, grant, checkpoint). Pure so the scenario can drive it; it also emits `ftue.step_complete`
NPC actors	Vendor stalls drawn by `game/render/npc_view.gd`, static, E to talk	Scripted actors with paths and per-player visibility (Fen); render-only crowd walkers
Dialogue	The HUD guide line (`game/ui/hud.gd`); the shop window	Speech bubbles over the speaker, ≤ 3 lines, auto-advance at 0.4 s a word plus 1 s (proposed) or on E or tap, never blocking movement except the 30 s ceremony
Camera scripting	Follow inside the map’s limits with the footfall bob (`game/main.gd`, `game/render/looks.gd`)	Cues: lead, frame a rect, zoom, pan a path, shake impulse; reduced-motion variants
Unlit lantern	Every player’s lantern is always lit (`game/sim/light.gd`, `lantern.gd`)	A not-yet-lit state with no circle and the gauge hidden; the Lighting grant
The Lighting draw	The Sunline is a snapshot field in server memory; worldd keeps the ledger	Charge 100 to Mossback and the character’s ledger once, on the commit tick
Maps	Four maps in `game/content/maps/` on the `map_file.gd` schema	The Pilgrim’s Stair and the Wick (§4.1); the Rim rail scene; a `script` key naming the director script (proposed)
Staged titan	Parallax layers and the footfall in `looks.gd`	Mossback’s head, eyelid and curtain pieces; breath, blink and rise tweens
Transitions	Portals with `move_to`; the client rebuilds the view (`_forget_zone`)	The lift and chute as portals with a scripted pan behind a fade
Audio	Music, SFX and UI buses, the Lantern Town and Mossway themes and the core SFX, the heartfire motif on level-up and relight (`client/audio.gd`, D81–D82); the Stair is silent	The Kneeling cue, the titan call, lurch SFX
Persistence	worldd whole-character saves	`prologue_step`, the lantern’s lit flag, the account’s prologue-done flag for §6.4
Bots	simkit scenarios; the grind bot’s nav (`tools/bots/nav.gd`)	`prologue`, `prologue-skip`, `first-beacon`; the newcomer persona
Beacon	`Boons.beacon` hook; hearth banking in `lantern.gd`	Kindle, wave, lit timer, Surge, Drawn and Poured (`03-systems.md` §6.8) on one map

8. As built (2026-10-04)

The first pass builds B1–B7 and the Lighting; §3, §5 and the instance itself wait.

Director. game/sim/prologue.gd reads game/content/prologue.json (beats, steps, lines, the waiting ladder). A character’s beat is its quest state prologue (1 Arrival … 9 Gate, 100 done), so worldd keeps it with the character and the client gets it in the class block; no new snapshot field. A character without the key is from before the prologue and never plays it.
Maps. The Pilgrim’s Stair is map 21 (stair, 1200 x 1000 u, the §4.1 layout with the floor at y 960 and the Rim rail at y 60, and the gap 32 u rather than 40, so a standing jump clears it) and the Wick map 22 (wick, 640 x 270 u). The lift and the chute are portals the director opens at their beat; the field gate is one way into the live Mossy Field.
The Lighting is the commit: at the end of the 20 s ceremony (10 s short) the lantern opens, lantern_titan is set to Mossback (1), 100 is charged to the Sunline once, and the server saves at once with reason lighting. Input is locked during the ceremony and the 6 s lurch, in the sim and in client prediction alike. Before it the player has no light circle and no gauge.
Group Lightings. A newcomer reaching the Vent mark within 8 s of another’s ceremony joins it and shares one lurch.
Fail-safes. No monsters and no damage on either map; a body out of the map or in the ground goes back to the beat’s checkpoint. The waiting ladder runs at 45 s (Fen’s pulse), 90 s (Fen walks back, “Over here. This way.”) and 180 s (“Press E to follow Fen”, which moves the player to the next lesson). A disconnect resumes where it was saved: an uncommitted Lighting replays from the Vent, a committed one resumes at the chute, and a position off the beat’s map goes to its checkpoint.
Alts (§6.4). worldd sets account_prologue on load when any live character of the account has finished. B1 then offers E for the short Lighting, after which the lurch puts the player at the field gate; walking onto the scute instead takes the full path.
Where it starts. The server begins the prologue for a character with no saves when it runs with worldd, or with --prologue for anonymous play (the playtesters pass it). Without either, a new character keeps the old start, so the Lodge yard flow is unchanged.
Staging (game/render/prologue_view.gd): Fen, Hessa Lume and up to 8 pilgrims as render-only figures; speech bubbles from the beat’s lines (near lines when the player is close); the Vent crack and mark; the Puddling on C6 as a lampghost prop that pops in the lantern’s light; white moss petals; the lurch as a camera drop and settle.
Tests. tests/test_prologue.gd; the prologue scenario (6 shots) and prologue-skip; tools/bots/prologue_bot.gd walks the beat’s steps, and the newcomer persona hands to it while the prologue is active.

Not built yet, each with a TODO in prologue.gd or prologue_view.gd:

Private instances per group (§4.4, D34): every newcomer on a channel shares one Stair and Wick.
The private Mossy Field, the first bank and the rise (§3); the gate leads to the live field.
The Lodgemark skip straight to the Rim, and the Lighting’s row in worldd’s ledger.
Audio (the Kneeling cue, the lurch thud), camera cues beyond the lurch, Mossback’s head, eyelid and curtain pieces, and the breath and blink tweens.
The First Kindle (§5.2) and Fen at the Low Lamp, which wait for a quest goal for a kindle and a bank at a beacon, and for Fen as a quest giver (D77).

The first beacon, as built (2026-10-05). The Sump (map 10, 02-atlas.md §6.3), the Sump Puddling and Sump Dimwing (17, 18) and the Soak and Ponds links are built, and so is the Low Lamp (game/sim/beacon.gd, D75, D76). E kindles it Drawn and Down+E Poured. A wave of 6, plus 2 for each defender past the first, up to 20, comes for the brazier. It catches at 60 s once the wave is out; lit, it gives 20 minutes of light, +10% XP, a relight point, a refuel and a bank (hold E). When it gutters, the Surge relights it for 10 minutes. On a Drawn catch, beacon_view.gd draws the dust and the light falling through the roof and the bark “He stumbled for it.”; on a Poured catch, a rising stream of motes. The first-beacon scenario kindles with 1 bot and then with 6, and the six must put out the Surge between them so it relights (§5.5). TODO: the heartfire motif on a Drawn catch (the relight cue plays for now); telemetry; pouring by others than the kindler.