This canon pack cites the revised novel. Read the 26 September 2026 canon pack to see the earlier edition and its original citations.
Current R5 chapter text. Archived R4 canon.
Established story material
A2-CHAR-NARA · Character
Nara Venn
Tracks how overlapping authorities affect ordinary actions, keeps public maps open to correction, resists territorialising administrative lines and insists that the live Graham event be recorded before it is interpreted. Her assembly remains one authority among several, not a citywide sovereign.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶001, ¶021, ¶027, ¶038, ¶065, ¶124, ¶152
Illustration continuity: Use the established Organiser continuity only if needed. Stronger chapter compositions are the layered map wall, relay-station bread cart or market screen crowd.
A2-CHAR-MEREL · Character
Merel Vann
A lodging-house resident and courtyard messenger who carries four valid papers serving different functions and asks which one is real. Her question makes the chapter's overlapping-authority problem concrete without making any paper fraudulent.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶001, ¶002, ¶003, ¶004, ¶005
Illustration continuity: Four mismatched papers in one hand on a stair landing; no fixed portrait needed.
A2-CHAR-SEN · Character
Sen Dorr
A local receiving-court messenger at the first relay station who asks whether lift alarms still pass through the disabled command path and how long the bread route can wait. She represents service continuity rather than either armed side.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶049, ¶050, ¶052, ¶059, ¶060
Illustration continuity: Messenger beside bread cart and relay doors, not a faction uniform.
A2-CHAR-MARIAN · Character
Marian Vale
Uses her succession office primarily to refuse enforcement of claims that depend specifically on her prospective authority. Her notices do not cancel debts or command third parties; they remove one asserted source of coercion while leaving other legal and administrative claims intact.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶076, ¶077, ¶079, ¶081, ¶082, ¶086
Illustration continuity: Desk with refusal notices and an old dressmaker sign outside; no ownership symbolism.
A2-CHAR-ARUN · Character
Arun Vey
Maintains technical authority over relays and service systems while refusing both custodial and black-seal attempts to turn machinery into factional control. His crews disable remote command for both sides when necessary, even when that causes temporary service costs.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶035, ¶041, ¶045, ¶052, ¶054, ¶063, ¶065
Illustration continuity: Relay key and systems map; avoid depicting him as armed security.
A2-CHAR-ELIZA · Character
Eliza Marr
Maps provenance rather than territory, builds a current-authorities wall with explicit DOES NOT ESTABLISH limits, and treats the responsive Graham feed as an event to preserve and compare rather than immediate proof of identity.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶020, ¶064, ¶065, ¶145, ¶151, ¶157
Illustration continuity: Current-authorities wall or recorder table; no oracle imagery.
A2-CHAR-PERA · Character
Pera Sol
Maintains the market booth, preserves the sleeping-eye screen event, records local receiver behavior and keeps capturing the feed while different authorities argue over whether they can disconnect it. Her work establishes custody, not authenticity.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶021, ¶026, ¶103, ¶105, ¶115, ¶120, ¶127, ¶157
Illustration continuity: Receiver booth with local recorder and timestamp notes; no surveillance-control console.
A2-OBJ-LAYERED-PAPERS · Authority records
The Four Valid Papers
Food, lift access, housing appeal and district-messenger papers are all valid for different actions. Their coexistence demonstrates functional rather than territorial division of authority.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶001, ¶002, ¶003, ¶004, ¶005
Illustration continuity: Four distinct paper forms without a hierarchy crown or universal master pass.
A2-OBJ-FOUR-MAPS · Public map set
The Maps of London
Nara and Pera pin four public maps under the viaduct: custodial districts, Rook’s air corridors, Arun’s service systems and assembly mandates. Passersby annotate and contest their meanings. Eliza separately maps provenance; Marian’s claims list later becomes a fifth public display, not one of the original four.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶020, ¶021, ¶026, ¶027, ¶087, ¶095
Illustration continuity: Layered wall of differently structured maps with handwritten public annotations; avoid one merged authoritative map.
A2-PLACE-RELAY-STATIONS · Places / events
The Contested Relay Stations
The first relay station has custodial police outside, black-seal credential holders in an administrative room and engineers holding removed actuator keys; lift alarms still pass. At a second station, a maintenance lockout prevents remote switching but interrupts lifts and clinic ventilation briefly. Neither armed side has total machine control.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶035, ¶038, ¶045, ¶049, ¶052, ¶062, ¶063, ¶065
Illustration continuity: Relay doors, police line, occupied room and bread cart or switching boards; no simple two-army battlefield.
A2-OBJ-ACTUATOR-KEYS · Technical control artifact
The Removed Actuator Keys
At the first station engineers physically remove actuator keys before either armed side arrives. This blocks remote command by custodians and black-seal occupants while allowing the lift alarm signal to continue; the second station’s maintenance crew cuts the remote switching feed.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶041, ¶045, ¶046, ¶047, ¶052, ¶054, ¶063
Illustration continuity: Industrial key ring and relay mechanism; do not turn the key into a mystical master key.
A2-OBJ-CURRENT-AUTHORITY-WALL · Archive comparison system
The Current Authorities Wall
Eliza displays current custodial notices, district mandates, engineering compacts, Rook's air agreement, Marian's refusal notices and black-seal receipts with source, duration and explicit limits. It maps documents, not a single hierarchy.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶064, ¶065
Illustration continuity: Wall of heterogeneous records with DOES NOT ESTABLISH fields; editorial, not futuristic.
A2-OBJ-REFUSAL-NOTICES · Legal position records
Marian's Refusal Notices
The succession office states which estate-dependent claims Marian will not enforce while title and public-use questions remain unresolved. The notices do not erase all debts or command third parties, but they change behavior by removing her prospective authority from selected claims.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶076, ¶077, ¶079, ¶081, ¶082, ¶086
Illustration continuity: Claim list with ENFORCEMENT DECLINED or UNDER REVIEW fields; do not invent a sweeping renunciation deed.
A2-OBJ-RENEWAL-COLUMN · Public renewal record
Government by Expiry
The first forty-eight-hour air agreement expires at midnight and is renewed for another forty-eight hours with the civil missions still named. Nara asks Pera to post every renewal date; someone writes GOVERNMENT BY EXPIRY beside the public column.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶101, ¶102, ¶103
Illustration continuity: Simple dated renewal column with explicit expiries; no permanent ministry seal.
A2-OBJ-SLEEPING-EYE · Broadcast symbol
The Sleeping Eye Beneath a Black Sun
A sleeping eye beneath a black sun appears on public receivers with differing reported times before a Graham likeness speaks. The symbol’s display and local capture are established; its origin and any link to the bombing or black-seal credentials are not.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶105, ¶106, ¶109, ¶110, ¶115
Illustration continuity: Document the symbol as shown on a screen with timestamp context. Do not treat it as an officially authenticated faction logo.
A2-EVENT-RESPONSIVE-GRAHAM · Broadcast event / disputed identity
The Responsive Graham Feed
A Graham likeness appears on distributed receivers, answers questions from a reporter in another place and seems to answer a local woman after she gives her name through the booth microphone. The recordings and time marks establish an apparently responsive feed, not Graham’s identity or its technical mechanism.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶110, ¶115, ¶130, ¶132, ¶138, ¶145, ¶151, ¶156
Illustration continuity: Screen-and-crowd scene emphasizing receivers and observers rather than a canonical new Graham portrait. Preserve ambiguity for Chapter 16.
TCG candidates
Untested design candidates linked to the revised story. These are proposals only; the live game rules and printed card statistics are unaffected.
A2-C15-F01 · Figure · Influence / Knowledge
Nara Venn, One Paper Per Verb
Lets one Figure carry multiple limited permissions without converting them into general control. Each permission applies only to its declared action.
Open design question: Use existing action types or zones; do not add a bureaucratic subgame of paper tokens.
Story sources: Nara Venn, The Four Valid Papers
A2-C15-F02 · Figure · Infrastructure / Knowledge
Arun Vey, Neither Side Gets the Relay
Temporarily prevents two competing authority effects from taking control of the same Infrastructure while preserving one essential service.
Open design question: Define essential service using existing card states and keep the effect temporary.
Story sources: Arun Vey, The Removed Actuator Keys
A2-C15-F03 · Figure · Authority / Knowledge
Marian Vale, Negative Power
Allows a player to decline enforcement of one claim sourced from this Figure without cancelling unrelated claims on the same Place or Record.
Open design question: Target a narrow authority source; avoid making refusal equivalent to universal immunity.
Story sources: Marian Vale, Marian's Refusal Notices
A2-C15-P01 · Place / Record hybrid candidate · Knowledge / Influence
Four Maps of London
Shows multiple valid control relationships over the same board state. A player may inspect one additional authority source but no map becomes the master state.
Open design question: Prefer a Record if Place/Record hybrid types are unsupported by live rules.
Story sources: The Maps of London, The Current Authorities Wall
A2-C15-R01 · Record · Authority
Government by Expiry
Makes a temporary authority visibly expire. Reuse requires a fresh qualifying renewal rather than silently becoming permanent.
Open design question: Use current round timing and prevent recursive renewal loops.
Story sources: Government by Expiry
A2-C15-R02 · Record · Knowledge
The Sleeping Eye
Records a symbol and its reception timing without assigning authorship. It can support later comparison effects but cannot identify a faction by itself.
Open design question: Keep the card useful without rewarding unsupported attribution.
Story sources: The Sleeping Eye Beneath a Black Sun, Pera Sol
A2-C15-E01 · Event · Knowledge / Authority
The Feed Answers Back
Introduces a responsive authority claim whose identity remains unverified. Players can preserve or challenge the feed, but cannot treat responsiveness alone as authentication.
Open design question: This should seed Chapter 16 mechanics without revealing its conclusion or creating a free universal command.
Story sources: The Responsive Graham Feed, Eliza Marr
Continuity locks
- Chapter 15 follows Chapter 14's temporary air-command arrangement and the Chapter 13 bombing aftermath.
- The city divides by function and overlapping authority rather than neat territorial borders. A single building can be governed differently for food, lifts, housing, airspace and representation.
- Custodian, engineering, assembly, succession, air-service and archive authority remain distinct. None becomes the uncontested city government in this chapter.
- At the relay stations, black-seal credentials and custodial claims do not give either side total machine control; engineers physically remove or lock command paths.
- The two relay occupations are not proven to belong to one organisation merely because both use black-seal credentials.
- Marian's negative power consists of declining to enforce selected estate-dependent claims. She does not issue general orders cancelling debts or transferring property.
- The second water-related refusal is narrower because much of the charge does not depend on Marian's succession claim; the water continues moving.
- Rook's air agreement is renewed for another forty-eight hours and remains temporary. Renewal itself becomes a visible continuity risk.
- The sleeping-eye symbol is displayed before the responsive Graham feed. Its origin is unknown.
- The responsive Graham feed appears distributed and interactive. Chapter 15 does not decide whether it is Graham, a synthetic system, a live operator network or another mechanism.
- Graham's statements about the bombing and black seal are claims within an unverified feed, not narrator-confirmed facts.
- Arun and Rook each isolate parts of the communications system, but the feed persists through other receivers; there is no single citywide off switch.
- Chapter 16 must begin from an apparently responsive Graham that can answer questions, while retaining the Archive's evidence discipline.
- A woman whose brother died gives her name into the booth microphone, but the narrative does not print her name. Do not invent one in canon or art.
Companion records
A2-029 · Companion record
Nara and Pera pin four maps beneath the viaduct, exposing custodial districts, air corridors, engineering systems and assembly mandates that overlap on ordinary streets. People write repairs, routes and objections on them. Marian’s claims list later becomes a fifth public display.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶020, ¶021, ¶026, ¶087, ¶095
A2-030 · Companion record
A sleeping eye beneath a black sun appears across public receivers before a Graham likeness begins answering questions. Pera preserves the local recording and differences among receivers. Who made the symbol or feed, and whether the person on screen is Graham, remain unverified.
Revised chapter evidence: ¶105, ¶110, ¶115, ¶132, ¶145, ¶156
What changed in this edition
- All entity and record citations now link to verified current chapter paragraphs.
- Four maps are initially pinned under the viaduct; Marian’s claims display is a fifth added later, while Eliza’s provenance map is separate.
- First relay alarm continuity and second station’s eleven-minute clinic ventilation disruption are separate incidents.
What remains uncertain
- The two relay occupations are not proved to belong to the same organisation.
- The origin of the sleeping-eye symbol, identity of the Graham likeness and feed mechanism remain unverified.
- The woman’s name is spoken into the booth microphone but not disclosed to the reader.