tevansandClaude Opus 5
df01615c5a
Four readings of generated output reached the same verdict, and the last one answered 'would you run this tomorrow' with No. Three renderer passes each fixed what the previous review named and each introduced a new fault: adding resolution blocks made it menu-like, and subtracting blocks buried the clue and the skip guidance. The density is not a rendering bug. Everything on the page is a vice at the table and a virtue at the desk. So one working file, two surfaces. The worksheet carries everything, labelled, with reroll commands beside each component and explicit prompts where only a human can write. The play sheet carries the GM's own prose, the leverage point, the decision on one line and the numbers — 61 lines against the worksheet's 137. The JSON is the document. An authored layer holds what the GM writes and the generator never touches it, so a reroll cannot destroy prose. Lock what is good, reroll what is not, write the read-aloud, export. Two bugs found while building it, both in reroll: the exclusion set omitted the area's own current value so a reroll could hand back what was already there, and when every option was in use — six areas against a six-item pool — the fallback did the same. A reroll that changes nothing looks broken. DELVE does not write the read-aloud and does not write the climax. It gets a GM to a strong first draft in a minute instead of an evening, then gets out of the way. Tests 28 -> 38. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
5.9 KiB
The Vault of the Patient Lord
They bought a household from people with nothing left, so that someone would always obey. The household is still obeying.
Appease: do one small thing it asks, without arguing [Poise 2] — +1 Vanity now, +1 Bane later. Repeatable, every area.
Clock: 1d6 on a trigger. 1 — something comes. Tab: 5 by the end.
GM truth: The Patient Lord bought a household from those with nothing left, so that someone would always obey. The Patient Lord is disobeyed now, and cannot bear it.
1 · The Weeping Stair
Forty steps down and the bones are still on their errand — a tray here, a folded cloth there, set down mid-stride three hundred years ago. Somebody was talking as you came through the arch, and stopped.
Here: Three of the Host in servants' dress, carrying out an errand that has no destination left — they stop, and wait to be told what to do. They can: tell them where to go, and they go.
An order carved into the floor, still legible — [Poise 2] you obey exactly enough to be counted household — Skeletons stand down for you · miss you obey wrongly, which is worse than not obeying: +1 Bane · or step over it: no cost now, and the Host does not count you as theirs
seenTwice · announcing · skipped → move the image on
2 · The Lesser Vault
The floor is scratched over with orders, the last one unfinished. A door at the far end is braced shut from the inside with furniture, and behind you a living man is whispering the same phrase again and again, trying to get the sound of it right.
Here: A living grave-robber, repeating a phrase over and over, trying to get the intonation right — they go quiet and put their back to the wall. They can: trade something for the phrase, badly remembered.
Two doors, and behind one a voice giving instructions to nobody — [Poise 2] you answer the voice as a subordinate would — it tells you the route AND answers one question about what lies on it, without taking you into its service · miss you engage and it takes that as enlistment: it will give you orders for the rest of the delve, and the first is now · or take the quiet door and never speak to it: one extra Turn, no obligation
Fight: 1× Ghoul 4/3/4 · 2× Skeleton 3/2/1 — harmed by anything.
Tube: ask one question and get one true answer. Use: +1 Bane. whatever answers can now hear you.
loud · noticing · skipped → move the image on
3 · The Crossing
The hall answers before you do — your own voice reaches the far wall a half-beat early, saying what you have not said yet. Somewhere below a bell starts, and then the one in this room takes it up.
Here: The bells, ringing a summons room by room, coming closer — the bell in this room begins. They can: answer the bell yourself before whatever is meant to arrives.
A bell-pull that would summon someone — [Poise 2] what comes is answerable to you for one scene · miss what comes is not the kind of help you wanted · or do not ring: the way on is longer by one Turn
loud · noticing · skipped → move the image on
4 · The Servants' Deep
An instruction has been cut into the stone so many times the stone gave out. Bootprints cross the floor and simply stop. At the far wall a figure is talking steadily into a speaking-tube, reporting to somebody who died first.
Here: A single figure at a speaking-tube, reporting, at length, to a listener who died first — it pauses mid-sentence and asks whether you are the reply. They can: answer as the listener would, and learn what it has been reporting.
A door that opens to a spoken password nobody living knows — [Wits 2] the word is already in your notes. It is in something you passed earlier — someone has been talking here, and stopped when you arrived. Say it and the door opens; if nobody wrote it down, the roll tells them now · miss you have the shape of it but not the word: one more attempt, or take the long way · or the long way: two Turns, no guessing, no Banes
Bell: ring it and one order is obeyed, by anything. Use: +2 Banes. it rings faintly when someone gives you an order.
disturbed · relicUse · skipped → move the image on
5 · The Last Door
Wax has been jammed into the tube here, still soft. A key that fits nothing hangs on a nail. One of them is kneeling at the last door, and has been for a very long time, waiting to be told what to do.
Here: One of the Host, kneeling, waiting for an instruction that was promised and never came — it addresses the first of you to speak as its superior. They can: give it the instruction and it will carry it out to the letter, wherever that leads.
An instruction you can obey, ignore, or countermand — [Poise 2] you countermand it and the dead obey you instead — this marks you as someone who gives orders: from now on the Host brings you their disputes, and once per delve you may issue one order they must follow · miss the order stands and you have been seen to fail at giving one: +1 Bane, and the Host addresses someone else from now on · or obey it, or ignore it and go round: ignoring costs one Turn
Battle: 1× Wraith 5/3/10 · 3× Skeleton 3/2/1 — harmed by blessed, silvered or magical weapons ONLY.
Staff: give one order the dead must follow. Use: +2 Banes. you may not refuse an order given to you.
disturbed · refusal · skipped → move the image on
The Audience
The seat at the head of the hall is occupied by a shape that keeps the gown's outline and nothing else. It turns toward you and there is nothing in the collar to turn.
It asks: "Do as you are told." The Patient Lord — Wraith, Grit 6, atk 5, def 3, incorporeal. Blessed, silvered or magical weapons only; say so before initiative. It opens with "Do as you are told." Obey one small instruction and it will trade the signet. Refuse and it is a fight it will win slowly.