Yesterday, I was working through a devils advocate session; and drafting some of the Goddess of the Night novella. Pretty productive day but I was troubled going to sleep.

I had a strange dream. The New Devil wasn’t a devil’s advocate; it was me. I gave up the notion of creating a “philosophical playground,” and embraced the grandiose idea of a “sermon.” I founded The First Church of the Holy Narrative; became the first priest of a “narrativist” cult. What struck me about it as I woke up was the disturbing scale of bureaucracy that unfolded instantly from the founding of this church. I saw a great spiderweb of oppression and control unfold; even more horrible than the abrahamic offshoots that I had rose up against in the first place.

I realized, this mechanism was something that still terrified me. I didn’t understand it. How is it that a simple text, a story, penned by someone who believed it to be merely a story; could become the foundation of religions that shaped the course of human history? How were they able to so effectively erase the plurality and contradictions in their source texts and find a univocal directive amongst the chaos? This was the reason for the Text to Tradition deep-dive.

Having completed that, and reflected on it a bit; I think the way to handle this darkest potential is to fully embrace it ontologically. Just like with the greater whole of the “philosophical playground,” by giving narrative form to real world “evil,” we steal its power. We make it into mechanics, and thereby give the player the immediate ability to rise above these coercions and to manipulate these social levers themselves, rather than being manipulated by them. And we give them the tools to see the consequences of their actions, without creating real victims in the process.

To be clear; I don’t think this philosophy of mine is a world-changing one, nor do I see a particular risk of its misinterpretation or abuse. But I think taking these ideas seriously, building them into the world, the game, and my thought processes about it; this is the best way to ensure that I don’t fall into traps of my ego’s own making. I don’t want to become the new devil, or the first priest of a new church, or a prophet. I want to be a storyteller, and a game designer; and I want to create a world that is rich enough to allow others to tell their own stories.

Give the player a set of the most dangerous social tools ever invented and say, “Here. Understand how this machine works. See what it builds. See what it destroys. Now, choose.”

This isn’t a church, it’s a mirror.

The Great Funneling as a Playable System

The Act of Canonization (The Curated Library)

Mechanic: A high-level Faction action called [Declare Canon]. This is not a simple choice; it’s a resource-intensive, multi-stage Quest. The faction leaders must expend vast amounts of political capital (Influence) and resources to convene a “Council.” This council can perform a few key actions:

• Canonize: Select a text to be the “Word of the Faction.” This grants the text a new, powerful status. Copies of it will be distributed, and its core Symbol Tags will become central to the faction’s identity.
• Declare Apocrypha: Designate a text as “useful for inspiration, but not authoritative.” It can still be read, but quoting it in the Social Arena carries less weight.
• Burn the Heresy: Designate a text as forbidden. This begins a new quest for the faction’s enforcers to find and destroy all known copies of the text.

Consequence: This act solidifies the faction’s Faith but makes it more brittle. They now have a clear identity, but they have also created a list of forbidden ideas that rebels and heretics will find irresistible.

The Creation of Ideological Weak Points

• When the Council [Declares Canon], they are not just selecting texts; they are defining the Faction’s official narrative reality.
• Every text they “Burn” or declare “Apocryphal” doesn’t just disappear. It creates a [Narrative Void] or an [Ideological Weak Point] in the Faction’s belief structure.
• In the Social Arena, an enemy who has read a “forbidden” text can now use it as a weapon. They gain access to a unique debate option: [Cite Heretical Text]. If used against a member of the canon-forming Faction, this action has a chance to inflict a massive [Cognitive Dissonance] debuff. The Faction’s strength (its unity) has become its greatest vulnerability. Their curated library has a list of known exploits.

The Clerical Authority (The Interpretive Elite)

Mechanic: Factions can establish and fund a new “Specialist” social class: the Priesthood, the Arbiters, the Lore-Keepers. This is a social crafting system. The faction invests resources to “train” new specialists. An NPC with high Rhetoric and Intellect can be sent to a [Seminary] or [Academy] building. They emerge with new skills like [Exegesis] or [Heresiology] and the formal [Priest] role. These specialists become powerful agents in the Social Arena. A Priest’s [Assert with Faith] action is far more persuasive to believers. A Heresiologist can “debuff” an opponent by successfully branding their argument as heretical, reducing its influence. They are the Faction’s ideological special forces.

Consequence: This makes the Priesthood a powerful and dangerous tool for a player/leader. The “right” person in a job can turn a disaster into a miracle. The wrong one can turn a minor issue into a catastrophe.

The Power of Exegesis

• Creates gatekeepers of meaning.
• When a significant, ambiguous event occurs in the Tapestry (e.g., a strange comet appears, a plague breaks out), the Faction’s population looks to its Priesthood for an official interpretation.
• A high-skill Priest can perform an [Interpret Omen] action. This is a skill check.
  • Success: The Priest can frame the event in a way that benefits the Faction. They declare the comet a “divine blessing,” granting a temporary, faction-wide morale buff.
  • Failure: The Priest fumbles the interpretation. They might accidentally frame the plague as a “divine punishment,” causing mass panic and a stability debuff.

Ritual Embodiment (The Habit of Belief)

Mechanic: A Faction’s Priesthood can design and implement a new, faction-wide [Liturgy] or [Mandatory Ritual]. This is a form of social engineering. The ritual’s design is a crafting process where the creator chooses the actions, the chants, and the core Symbol Tags to be reinforced. Faction members who regularly participate in the ritual receive a powerful, stacking buff like [Communal Cohesion]. This makes them more resistant to hostile propaganda and more willing to sacrifice for the group. However, it also makes them more hostile to outsiders who do not share their practices. The ritual literally makes them a more unified, and more xenophobic, team.

Consequence: After enough time, the [Temple] or [Assembly Ground] where the ritual is performed becomes a permanent [Symbolic Locus]. This new Locus now projects a constant, ambient aura that reinforces the Faction’s core Faith and may even have minor physical effects on the world. The belief has become so ingrained that it has literally soaked into the soil.

*Ritual as a Symbolic Locus Generator

• A Faction-wide [Mandatory Ritual] that is performed consistently over a long period of time doesn’t just grant a temporary buff. It begins to saturate the location of the ritual with a specific form of Eidos.

4. The Other (The Great Filter)

Mechanic: Once a Faction has a Canon, a Priesthood, and a Liturgy, it unlocks the final, terrible tool of social engineering: the Inquisition. The Faction leader can initiate an [Inquisition] action, targeting a specific [Heretical Belief]. This generates a series of Quests for the Priesthood and Enforcers to root out this Belief within the population. This is a high-risk, high-reward gambit.

• Success: The heretical belief is suppressed. The Faction’s [Cohesion] and [Stability] skyrocket. Their “unified voice” is now absolute.
• Failure: The Inquisition is too brutal or its arguments are unconvincing. The targeted heretics don’t disappear; they go underground and form a new, radicalized Rebel Faction. You haven’t eliminated the problem; you’ve given it a name and a martyr.

Martyrs as Narrative Seeds

• A failed Inquisition creates a new Rebel Faction. Let’s make that mechanically explicit and powerful.
• The System: When a [Heretic] is executed during an Inquisition, their Thread does not just end. The Director AI recognizes this as a narratively potent event and creates a new, unique item: a [Martyr's Relic]. This might be the heretic’s scorched holy book, their final written words, or even a piece of their bones.
• Gameplay Consequence: This Relic becomes the foundational Artifact for the new Rebel Faction. It is a powerful symbol that grants them a massive [Cohesion] bonus and may even have unique abilities. The player’s attempt to erase a belief has accidentally given it a body and a name. The story they tried to kill has become a ghost that will now haunt them forever.

Criticism/Refinement

Abstraction Barrier

The systems described: [Declare Canon], [Convene Council], [Design a Liturgy]; are the actions of a god-emperor playing a grand strategy game.

Lowering these actions to the level of non-player characters’ emergent behavior will be the core challenge. This is a new key role for the Social Arenas.

Each action listed here should initiate long, on-going social interactions that culminate in the declaration of a canon, etc.

Tyranny of the “Correct” Play

Any mechanical system risks creating a “correct” way to play.

If not properly balanced, a savvy player will quickly realize that creating a rigid canon is like painting a target on their own faction. The optimal strategy must not become to always remain pluralistic and flexible.

One must balance commitment to a single truth: avoid creating exploitable weaknesses, while emphasizing the benefits of coherence.

A faction with a strong, unified Canon might be incredibly vulnerable to a skilled internal debater, but they should be almost immune to external memetic threats.

Their [Communal Cohesion] should be so high that they are unbreakable in the face of outside propaganda or a morale-breaking military defeat.

This creates a meaningful strategic trade-off: internal brittleness vs. external resilience.

Now, the choice to canonize is a profound strategic decision with real pros and cons, not a self-inflicted wound.

The Risk of Deterministic Debate

The system risks feeling too much like a debate club and not enough like a messy, passionate, and often violent struggle between souls.

Real belief is not so easily broken. A true zealot, when confronted with a contradiction, does not suffer a debuff. They double down. They call you a liar. They attack you.

Like all social arena interactions, the core interactions should be informed by Anatomy, Cognition, and other biasing mechanics.

The success of [Cite Heretical Text] shouldn’t be guaranteed. It should be a check against the target’s Willpower, the Strength of their faith, and their current emotional state.

• A high Willpower zealot: Might become [Enraged], gaining a combat buff and immediately escalating to physical Violence.
• A low Willpower acolyte: Might suffer the [Cognitive Dissonance] debuff.
• A high Intellect scholar: Might become [Intrigued], opening up a new quest line to investigate the heresy.

Systems should always be designed around the agent, not the argument.