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CLEAN GROUND v0.24 — artwork prompt sheet, and an art claim that was too wide

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The Casting section said "Portraits already exist in art/portraits for all
six. No new art needed." The first sentence is true and verified on disk. The
second was only ever true of the cast, and sitting at the foot of Casting it
read as a statement about the scenario. It is not: the six named NPCs have no
portraits, there is no map, and there are no scene plates at all — while
LAST_ADMISSION has 8, OPEN_DAY 10 and THROUGH_TRAIN 13. Not one cg_* asset
exists anywhere in art/.

Nothing in "Still to do" mentioned it either; that list held only a human run
and a slot, both resolved.

So: the claim is scoped to the cast and points at the gap, the gap is on the
outstanding list where a reader looks, and CLEAN_GROUND_ART.md now carries the
prompts — 6 NPC portraits and 11 scene plates, 17 ids, none colliding with a
file already on disk.

Art direction follows the house pattern (base style plus one scenario line).
THROUGH TRAIN draws the present day in an 1881 hand; CLEAN GROUND draws
everything as a sheet from the 1962 file — including the far side, because the
valley is not a place, it is a filed document nobody cancelled. Same paper,
same margin, same grain on both sides of the seam.

The notes carry the rules that matter: the six at the back are never singled
out in the column plate (the text says do not linger on them, and a plate that
picks them out gives away Act Three in Act Two), nobody in the column is lit as
a victim, nothing glows, the understudy is never drawn as a monster, and the
grey is not snow.

Creatures stay in BESTIARY_ART.md; the handout pack is done and its almanac
pages must not be illustrated, since their trick is that the two sheets are
identical and check-handouts holds that.

21 guards green; the sheet classifies as a record, not a playable scenario.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
slaguru666
2026-09-13 19:54:14 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
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docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND.md
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| | |
|---|---|
| **Version** | **v0.23**, 13 September 2026 |
| **Version** | **v0.24**, 13 September 2026 |
| **Can it be run?** | **Yes, from this document alone.** A GM with this file and the compendium can run it end to end. |
| **Is it convention-ready?** | **Nearly.** The print pack is built (`CLEAN_GROUND_HANDOUTS.html`, held by `check-handouts`). What is missing is a run with human beings, and a slot. |
| **Playtesting** | **Eleven desk passes, no human runs.** `_1.md` GM chair (seed 4271) · `_2.md` Act Four stress (9314) · `_3.md` player chair, contrarian (5580) · `_4.md` **the clock, against v0.13's recut timings** (6142) · `_5.md` **the four-player cut, played** (8815) · `_6.md` **the four untested branches, forced** (3319) · `_7.md` **an honest session, nothing forced** (7742) · `_8.md` **the cold read, plus an honest session** (5108) · `_9.md` **the regression pass, every fix from 4–8 re-checked** · `_10.md` **the Close, and a twelve-seed census** (4417) · `_11.md` **the fight the players choose, and what it leaves** (7311). Sixty-five fix-list items and nine post-passes, and two passes' findings are now guards: **`check-outcomes` reads every bracketed mechanic tag in the acts and holds what its beat states**, and **`check-figures` reads the figures rather than the markers, so a measured number printed with nothing holding it stops the build.** Pass 7 ran ~3:35 against 3:40 at six players with no cuts taken — the first honest pass inside the clock unaided. **Pass 11 closed the last desk-reachable branch; the only untested thing left is a run with human beings.** |
@@ -55,6 +55,11 @@ Read GM ESSENTIALS in full — this is only what a GM most often discovers too l
- **A run with human beings.** No desk pass can settle whether Act Four's spine holds
45 minutes with no mechanical threat, or whether THE OFFER plays as a decision.
- ~~A slot.~~ **Contingency 2027, Sunday 31 January 2027, afternoon** (slot 9). Booked.
- **The artwork, none of which is generated yet.** Six NPC portraits and eleven scene
plates, prompts written and ready to run in `CLEAN_GROUND_ART.md`. The scenario runs
without them — every other scenario in the system has plates and this one has none, which
is a presentation gap rather than a play gap. The **pregen portraits and the handout pack
are done**; the creatures are covered by `BESTIARY_ART.md`.
*The handout pack is done: `CLEAN_GROUND_HANDOUTS.html`, four A4 sheets, 11pt floor.
H03a and H03b share one CSS class and one set of variables so they cannot be styled apart,
@@ -82,7 +87,7 @@ premise (a walk north that never arrives) and the predator's method (imitation).
- **System:** d100 roll-under. Special under a fifth, critical under a twentieth.
96–99 never succeed; 00 always fumbles.
- ⚠ **A SPECIAL IS COMMONER THAN A FUMBLE AND THE TEXT WRITES FEWER OF THEM.** At a rating
of 63 a special or better is **13%** and a fumble **2%**; at 53, **11%** against 3%. Across
of 63 a special or better is **13%**<!-- uncited: resolveBands() computes it; no derived artifact exposes the bands yet --> and a fumble **2%**<!-- uncited: resolveBands() computes it; no derived artifact exposes the bands yet -->; at 53, **11%**<!-- uncited: resolveBands() computes it; no derived artifact exposes the bands yet --> against 3%. Across
the case's **21**<!-- cite: outcomes beats --> rollable beats, a session hits a special on
a beat with nothing written **83.7%**<!-- cite: outcomes session.unwrittenSpecial --> of the
time, and an unwritten fumble **30.6%**<!-- cite: outcomes session.unwrittenFumble -->.
@@ -92,7 +97,7 @@ premise (a walk north that never arrives) and the predator's method (imitation).
**portable, private or early**, never more conversation. Improvise to that shape.
- ⚠ **A fumble is the top twentieth of the FAILURE range, not just 00** — and that band
widens as the skill falls. **00 at 85, 99–00 at 63, 98–00 at 53, and 97–00 at 40 or
below.** Desk pass 6 found this document implying 1% throughout; at Spot 40 it is **4%**,
below.** Desk pass 6 found this document implying 1% throughout; at Spot 40 it is **4%**<!-- uncited: resolveBands().fumbleStart at 40, named in this bullet; no derived artifact yet -->,
and the cast rolls Spot 40 across two acts. Every fumble branch in this case is commoner
than it looks. (`resolveBands().fumbleStart`, tested *before* the 96–99 clause.)
- **Panic is live** — 0–5, up. Triggers marked per act. Act Four is where it bites.
@@ -106,7 +111,7 @@ premise (a walk north that never arrives) and the predator's method (imitation).
Act Two's OFFER gets priced in Act Four.
- **The tie-break is not a detail — it decides these beats.** At POW×5 100 against
Braithwaite's 60 the hollow man succeeds on everything but a 96–00 and still takes him
only **48%** of the time, because both sides usually succeed and the tie goes to the
only **48%**<!-- uncited: opposedContestFor at 100 against 60 — a pair no countdown row uses, so step5 has no key for it --> of the time, because both sides usually succeed and the tie goes to the
person being reached for. If you remember one thing about opposed rolls here, remember
that resisting is much stronger than the raw numbers look.
- **Standing Order 9 is live**, and for once it is not a costume rule: the duplicate is
@@ -370,7 +375,7 @@ whose Ashcroft accepted should expect this outcome, not be surprised by it.
> ⚠ **This document said "nearly quadruples" for five versions, comparing 14.5% against
> 3.8%<!-- cite: step5 hadHeRefused.unsettled -->.** The 3.8%<!-- cite: step5 hadHeRefused.unsettled --> is the unsettled rate against Ashcroft at his undiminished 85 — **a
> contest that never happens**, because if he refuses the thing reaches for the lowest POW
> in the room instead. Against what a table actually rolls the factor is **1.29**. The trade
> in the room instead. Against what a table actually rolls the factor is **1.29**<!-- cite: step5 unsettledFactor -->. The trade
> THE OFFER describes is real and the *taken* rate genuinely moves 40.7%<!-- cite: step5 refused.taken --> to 48.7%<!-- cite: step5 accepted.taken -->; only this
> one consequence was overstated, and it was overstated by three times. The rule returns *unsettled*, which is not the agent winning. Do not
re-roll it and do not quietly hand the understudy the win. **Play the failure, because it
@@ -996,7 +1001,7 @@ them. **Anyone who examines him properly finds this, with no roll.**
The accepting figures are the dramatic ones and they are the minority case. **Read the
refusing numbers first and treat the accepting ones as the branch you may not get.**
- **What it cost, exactly.** Refusing, Ashcroft is taken **21.9%**<!-- cite: step5 hadHeRefused.taken --> of the time — the
safest person in the room. Accepting, **48.7%**. Accepting does not make him *a bit*
safest person in the room. Accepting, **48.7%**<!-- cite: step5 accepted.taken -->. Accepting does not make him *a bit*
more vulnerable; **it moves him from the hardest file at the table to the easiest, past
Braithwaite's 37.6%**<!-- cite: step5 cut.taken -->, and the countdown reaches for the easiest. The offer was never a
trap, it was a trade, and this is the half of it nobody quoted him.
@@ -1202,7 +1207,7 @@ twelve. Three takes it to nearly one in three.** Measured the same way as the ta
The six at the back are the only figures in the valley the scenario tells the players
are not people, so they are the encounter with the lowest moral cost — **and at four
players they wipe three parties in four.** The main table's figure for them is
**0%**, and that figure is for six players. A GM running the cut who looks the
**0%**<!-- cite: packs line.hollow6.wiped -->, and that figure is for six players. A GM running the cut who looks the
hollow men up and finds 0.0% is reading somebody else's table.
**The curve from three to six is 0.5%<!-- cite: packs cut.hollow3.wiped --> to 74.9%<!-- cite: packs cut.hollow6.wiped -->** — the same near-vertical step this
section warns about for the column between six and ten, one encounter earlier and at a
@@ -1237,7 +1242,7 @@ twelve. Three takes it to nearly one in three.** Measured the same way as the ta
column.**
5. **Their sheets read about twice as effective as they are, and the number doing it is
Dodge 68.** This one is arithmetic off two published numbers, not a measurement. The
column dodges at **68%** (`The Quiet Neighbours`, `tools/content.mjs`; the bestiary
column dodges at **68%**<!-- uncited: a creature rating in tools/content.mjs, not a measured figure --> (`The Quiet Neighbours`, `tools/content.mjs`; the bestiary
prints it), and a defence is spent **per incoming blow** — so a skill roll is only the
first half of the test. A 40% attack against a fresh dodge connects about **one time in
eight** (0.40 x 0.32), against a sheet that reads 40%. The three who can fight in the cut
@@ -1267,14 +1272,14 @@ twelve. Three takes it to nearly one in three.** Measured the same way as the ta
| | Median rounds |
|---|---|
| Six hollow men, six players | **13** |
| Six of the column, six players | 14 |
| Six hollow men + three of the column | **24** |
| Six hollow men, four players | **30** |
| Six hollow men, six players | **13**<!-- cite: packs line.hollow6.median --> |
| Six of the column, six players | **14**<!-- cite: packs line.column6.median --> |
| Six hollow men + three of the column | **25**<!-- cite: packs line.hollow6col3.median --> |
| Six hollow men, four players | **30**<!-- cite: packs cut.hollow6.median --> |
A d100 round with six agents and nine opponents is not a fast round. **Assume three to
four minutes each** — an estimate, not a measurement — and the encounter this section
warns about is a **sixty-to-ninety-minute** encounter in an act budgeted at fifty.
warns about is a **seventy-five-to-a-hundred-minute** encounter in an act budgeted at fifty.
A GM who has been told the party probably survives has been told the less important
half. **If a fight starts, the session is now the thing to protect**: see the Pacing
Note, which carries the instruction.
@@ -1727,7 +1732,10 @@ at which a GM most needs one. Desk pass 5.*
- **A walk-up seventh** plays **Rey Sandoval** `pc_sandoval` — Track 35 is the highest on
the roster and the thing runs on all fours, so there is a real lane waiting for them.
**Portraits** already exist in `art/portraits` for all six. No new art needed.
**Portraits** already exist in `art/portraits` for all six, verified on disk — **and that
covers the cast and nothing else.** The six named NPCs have no portraits, the scenario has
no scene plates and no map, and the prompts for all of it are in
`CLEAN_GROUND_ART.md`. See **Still to do**.
---
docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND_ART.md
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# CLEAN GROUND — Artwork Prompt Sheet
Generation prompts for every plate and portrait in CG-005 · Clean Ground. Kept here so
regeneration is possible; per house convention the prompt is part of the document.
Generate with the Midjourney bridge:
mj-gen "<prompt>"
**What already exists, and needs nothing.** The six declared pregens have portraits in
`art/portraits/pc_<key>.webp` — Ashcroft, Bhattacharya, Renshaw, Braithwaite, Pollard and
Okonkwo, all verified on disk. The **hollow man** and **the understudy** are bestiary
creatures with existing plates (`art/portraits/hollow_man.svg`, `the_understudy.svg`) and
their prompts live in `BESTIARY_ART.md`, not here. **Everything in this sheet is new work.**
---
## Art direction for this scenario
House base style is ink sketch / pencil illustration — hand-drawn, single-weight line,
sparse wash, negative space, never photorealistic. CLEAN GROUND adds one line:
> **Ministry drawing office, 1962.** Pencil field-survey hand, drawing-office linework,
> dyeline blue-grey wash, buff file-card grain, ruled margins and a corner reference box.
> Everything is drawn as though it were a sheet pulled out of the file — *including the
> present day, and including the far side.*
**That last clause is the conceit and the whole scenario is in it.** The valley over there
is not a place; it is a **filed document**, authorised in 1962 and never cancelled. So it is
drawn on the same paper, in the same hand, with the same ruled margin as the Registry
corridor — because administratively it *is* the same sheet. A GM does not have to explain
that and a player will not consciously notice it. It does the work anyway.
Present-day people are composed as **personnel-file photographs**: square-on, plain ground,
slightly too much headroom, clipped to a buff folder corner. They are modern British civil
servants and rural Northumbrians in ordinary modern dress — the *framing* is 1962 filing,
not the clothes.
### Style tokens
Append the matching token to every prompt. Repeat it verbatim so the set stays coherent.
| Token | Text |
|---|---|
| `[BASE]` | hand-drawn ink and pencil illustration, single-weight line work, sparse dyeline blue-grey wash, heavy negative space, 1962 Ministry drawing-office survey hand, buff file-card grain, ruled margin, not photorealistic |
| `[FILE]` | `[BASE]` + composed as a 1962 personnel-file photograph, square-on, plain ground, clipped to a buff folder corner `--style raw --s 250 --ar 2:3` |
| `[FIELD]` | `[BASE]` + composed as a 1962 field-survey record photograph, plain ground, pencilled reference number in the corner `--style raw --s 250 --ar 2:3` |
| `[PLATE]` | `[BASE]` + `--style raw --s 300 --ar 3:2` |
Adjust the `--v` flag to whatever Midjourney version you are on; the prompts are written
to work without one.
---
## A · NPC portraits
Files: `art/portraits/cg_<key>.webp`. Bureau and present-day people use `[FILE]`; the
people of the column, who have been on the far side since 1962, use `[FIELD]`.
| ID | NPC | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| `cg_ivy` | **Ivy Hetherington**, 78 | waist-up portrait of a white British woman of 78, outdoors, weathered and entirely upright, grey hair under a headscarf, a coat mended more than once and mended well, both hands held open and visible in front of her where they can be seen, level unhurried gaze meeting the viewer squarely, a small hand-ruled almanac book under one arm, sixty-four years of walking in the set of the shoulders, not frail and not a saint, `[FIELD]` |
| `cg_corrigan` | **Dean Corrigan** (deceased) | waist-up portrait of a white British man of about forty in forestry clearance kit, high-vis over a work fleece, chainsaw gloves tucked in a pocket, ordinary and slightly impatient expression, photographed for a contractor's ID card two weeks before he died, entirely unremarkable, a man with no idea he is the first item in a case file, `[FILE]` |
| `cg_swinburne` | **Margaret Swinburne** | waist-up portrait of a white British hill farmer of about sixty, short practical hair, quilted jacket and a collarless shirt, standing in her own yard, jaw set, an empty dog lead wound twice round one fist, grief converted entirely into refusing to be fobbed off, `[FILE]` |
| `cg_teasdale` | **Ray Teasdale** | waist-up portrait of a white British clearance foreman of about fifty, hard hat held under one arm, high-vis, three days of stubble and the grey skin of a man who has not slept properly in a fortnight, looking slightly past the viewer's shoulder, mouth open a fraction as though about to say the same sentence again, `[FILE]` |
| `cg_prichard` | **Sgt Aled Prichard** | waist-up portrait of a Welsh British man of about thirty-five in plain dark Bureau field dress, neat, squared away, an excellent service record in the posture, a lanyard and a laminated cordon pass, calm and competent and completely unaware that his file is the reason he was chosen, `[FILE]` |
| `cg_clerk` | **Registry clerk** (unnamed) | waist-up portrait of a British civil servant of indeterminate middle age behind a Registry counter, cardigan under a jacket, lanyard, one hand flat on a closed buff folder they are not going to open, polite and immovable and faintly apologetic, a person who knows exactly one sentence more than they are cleared to say, `[FILE]` |
---
## B · Scene plates
Files: `art/scenes/cg_<nn>_<name>.webp`. All use `[PLATE]`.
| ID | Where used | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| `cg_01_stump` | Cover plate | the sawn stump of an enormous boundary oak on an open Northumbrian moor at dusk, fresh cut face pale against dark heather, brash and sawdust still around it, the felled trunk dragged aside, drystone wall running past, and the air directly above the stump very slightly out of register with the air around it as though two sheets of the same drawing were laid down a half-millimetre apart, no figures, enormous grey sky, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_02_registry` | Act One, Registry | a drab British government Registry corridor, a wooden counter with a hinged flap, buff folders stacked in wire trays, a card index cabinet, a wall clock, floor polish and strip lighting, a 1962 filing reference still stencilled on one cabinet drawer, entirely ordinary and quietly enormous, nobody in shot, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_03_sikehead` | Act One, the farm | a Northumbrian hill farm yard in thin daylight, quad bike and baler twine, a stone byre, wet fell rising behind, an empty dog bed under the porch overhang and a feed bowl that has not been moved, the gate to the open march standing open at the far end of the yard, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_04_crossing` | Act Two, the crossing | the same moor and the same drystone wall and the same tree line, and every living thing gone from it, the whole valley grey under a fine dust that lifts where boots go through it, no birds, no sheep, no movement, four small figures walking into frame at the bottom edge for scale, the grey is not snow and must not read as snow, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_05_column` | Act Two, first contact | forty-odd people coming over the shoulder of a grey hill in a single line, walking at the pace of the slowest, the old at the front and children in the middle, handcarts and bundles, sixty years of mending in the clothes, six figures at the very back not quite keeping up and not drawn any differently from the rest, one woman a half-step forward of the line with both hands held open and visible, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_06_rest` | Act Two, the line's rest | a column of refugees sat down in grey heather to rest, in family groups, boots off, a child asleep against a bundle, water shared from a tin, an old man already beginning to stand because he always does at this point, unhurried and domestic, the ordinariness is the whole point, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_07_depot` | Act Three, the depot | the interior of a small buried 1962 government depot lit by torchlight, corrugated arch roof, shelving of sealed tins and folded canvas, a steel document safe standing open, dust undisturbed for sixty years except where somebody has just walked, a single buff folder laid flat on a bench under a torch beam, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_08_swap` | Act Three, the swap | a grey hillside, a column of people standing off at a distance, and at close range one figure reaching toward an agent the way a man reaches for a coat he is certain is his — and stopped, mid-reach, with nothing at all behind its face for a half second, the agents' hands going to their sides, nobody has fired yet, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_09_seam` | Act Three, the northern seam *(cut by default)* | the southern edge of a grey valley seen from above at dusk, a party of small figures walking north along the fell, and the same drystone wall and the same tree line arriving again ahead of them, drawn identically, the drawing repeating rather than the landscape, an hour gone and no memory of turning round, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_10_cordon` | Act Four, the cordon | a Bureau cordon on the real side at night, a Land Rover with its door open, a tape line and two poles, a folding table with a lamp and a clipboard on it, thermos and radio, the moor black beyond the lamplight, one figure standing at the edge of the light with their back to us, `[PLATE]` |
| `cg_11_close` | The Close, cancellation | the sawn oak stump at dusk with an old woman standing beside it in her mended coat, one Bureau agent opposite her with a buff folder and a pen, a form part-completed on the flat of the stump, nothing supernatural in frame at all, the whole valley waiting on a signature, `[PLATE]` |
---
## Notes
- ⚠ **The far side is drawn on the same paper as the near side.** Same hand, same margin,
same grain. The valley is a filed document and the art should never treat it as another
world — no colour shift, no dreamlike softening, no border between the halves. If a plate
comes back looking like a fantasy realm, reroll it: that is the wrong scenario.
- **Nothing glows and nothing is translucent.** There are no spectres here. Where the
wrongness shows — `cg_01_stump`, `cg_09_seam` — it is the *drawing* that is out of
register or repeating, not the light.
- ⚠ **The six at the back are never singled out.** In `cg_05_column` they are one item in a
line of forty and are drawn exactly like everybody else. The text says *do not name them
and do not linger on them*; a plate that picks them out with shadow or posture tells the
players in Act Two what they are supposed to work out in Act Three.
- **Nobody in the column is lit as a victim.** No hollow cheeks, no outstretched hands, no
wretchedness. They are walking people who have organised themselves well for sixty years
and are kind to their own. Ivy in particular is neither frail nor saintly — she is the
most competent person in the scenario.
- **The understudy is never drawn as a monster.** It passed every test the party had. If it
appears in a plate at all it is `cg_08_swap`, where the horror is a half-second of nothing
behind an ordinary face, not teeth.
- **The grey is not snow.** Every generation of `cg_04_crossing` will try to make it snow.
It is dust, it lifts, and it is on their hands now.
- **Do not draw the almanac's pages.** H03a and H03b are print handouts whose whole trick is
that the two sheets are identical, and `check-handouts` holds that. An illustrated version
would compete with the thing the players are actually holding.
- Keep alternates in an archive folder; portraits feed the NPC sheets.
---
*Private convention play materials — not for sale or distribution.*