The Architecture of Belonging

A Tradition is a story that has learned to survive. It is the process by which a fragile, personal Faith is forged into a resilient, collective reality. It is a living architecture of belief, a set of shared rituals, texts, and social norms that provides a community with a coherent identity and a powerful sense of belonging.

In ATET, Tradition is not a static backdrop. It is a dynamic, high-stakes game of social engineering, a constant struggle to maintain unity in the face of internal dissent and external pressure. It is the system through which Factions build their “Cathedral-Forges,” turning a simple belief into a world-shaping force.

This document details the mechanics of Tradition: the tools a Faction can use to build its ideological fortress, and the vulnerabilities that are inevitably created in the process.

The Four Pillars of Tradition

The journey from a nascent belief to an established Tradition is a complex crafting process, built upon four interconnected pillars. These are the high-level, strategic actions a Faction’s leadership can undertake to shape the souls of its members.

Pillar 1: Canonization (The Curated Library)

• Mechanic: The high-level Faction action [Declare Canon]. This is a resource-intensive, multi-stage process where the leadership convenes a “Council” to perform key acts of Information Curation.

  • [Canonize]: A text is selected as the “Word of the Faction.” Its core Symbol Tags become central to the Faction’s identity.
  • [Declare Apocrypha]: A text is designated as inspirational but not authoritative.
  • [Burn the Heresy]: A text is declared forbidden, initiating a quest to destroy all known copies.

• The Consequence: The Creation of Ideological Weak Points Canonization solidifies a Faction’s Faith, but at a cost. Every text that is excluded creates a [Narrative Void] or an [Ideological Weak Point]. In the Social Arena, an enemy who has read a “forbidden” text gains access to a unique debate option: [Cite Heretical Text]. This action has a chance to inflict a massive [Cognitive Dissonance] debuff on a member of the canon-forming Faction, turning their unity into a vulnerability.

Pillar 2: Clerical Authority (The Interpretive Elite)

• Mechanic: Factions can invest resources to establish a specialist social class: the Priesthood, the Arbiters, the Lore-Keepers. An NPC with high Rhetoric and Intellect can be “trained” at a [Seminary] or [Academy], emerging with new skills like [Exegesis] and [Heresiology] and the formal [Priest] role.
• The Consequence: Gatekeepers of Meaning These specialists become powerful agents in the Social Arena, able to perform unique actions.
  • [Interpret Omen]: When an ambiguous event occurs (a strange comet, a plague), a high-skill Priest can perform a skill check to frame the event in a way that benefits the Faction, granting a temporary morale buff or justifying a new course of action. Failure can cause mass panic.
  • [Brand as Heretic]: A Heresiologist can “debuff” an opponent’s argument in a debate, reducing its influence by branding it as a deviation from the established Canon.

Pillar 3: Ritual Embodiment (The Habit of Belief)

• Mechanic: A Faction’s Priesthood can design and implement a new, faction-wide [Mandatory Ritual]. The ritual’s design is a crafting process where the creator chooses the actions, chants, and core Symbol Tags to be reinforced.
• The Consequence: Forging Cohesion & Symbolic Loci
  • [Communal Cohesion]: Faction members who regularly participate in the ritual receive a powerful, stacking buff. This makes them more resistant to hostile propaganda and more willing to sacrifice for the group, but also more xenophobic.
  • [Symbolic Locus]: A ritual performed consistently over a long period saturates its location with a specific form of Eidos, creating a new, permanent [Symbolic Locus] that projects a constant, ambient aura reinforcing the Faction’s core Faith. The belief has become so ingrained that it has literally soaked into the soil.

Pillar 4: The Other (The Great Filter)

• Mechanic: Once a Faction has a Canon, a Priesthood, and a Liturgy, it unlocks the final tool of social engineering: the Inquisition. The leadership can initiate an [Inquisition] action, targeting a specific [Heretical Belief]. This generates quests for the Priesthood and Enforcers to root out this belief.
• The Consequence: The Creation of Martyrs An Inquisition is a high-risk, high-reward gambit.
  • Success: The heretical belief is suppressed. The Faction’s unity becomes absolute.
  • Failure: The Inquisition is too brutal or its arguments are unconvincing. The targeted heretics go underground and form a new, radicalized Rebel Faction.
  • [Martyr's Relic]: When a [Heretic] is executed, the Director AI recognizes this as a narratively potent event and creates a unique item: a [Martyr's Relic] (their scorched book, their final words). This becomes the foundational Artifact for the new Rebel Faction, a powerful symbol that grants them a massive cohesion bonus and may even have unique abilities. The story the Faction tried to kill has become a ghost that will now haunt them forever.

The Individual Within the Tradition

These grand, systemic actions have a profound and direct impact on the internal life of every member of the Faction. The Tradition is the environment that shapes the social soul.

Tradition and the Social Genome

A Faction’s Canon and Liturgy create a powerful Ideological Filter that directly interacts with an agent’s Social Tags.

• The Test of Belonging: When an outsider seeks to join a Faction, the Faction’s members will subconsciously appraise the outsider’s Innate and Perceived Tags against the core Symbol Tags of their Canon.
  • [Resonance]: An outsider whose Innate Tags align with the Faction’s values (e.g., a [social:honorable] agent applying to a Faction of paladins) will be perceived with a natural [Trust].
  • [Dissonance]: An agent whose tags clash (e.g., a [social:chaotic] agent) will be met with [Suspicion], regardless of their deeds. Their very “vibe” is heretical.

Tradition and the Triad of Social Needs

Living within a strong Tradition creates a constant, ambient pressure on an agent’s Social Needs.

• AuthenticityNeed: For an agent whose personal Beliefs align with the Tradition, belonging to the Faction is a constant source of validation, deeply fulfilling their AuthenticityNeed. For a dissident, every social interaction is a painful performance that drains this need.
• ExposureNeed: A rigid Tradition provides a powerful shield for those with a high ExposureNeed. The Faction offers a pre-made, socially acceptable Persona or mask ([The Pious Believer], [The Loyal Soldier]). Adopting this persona is the easiest path to social safety.
• ObfuscationNeed: For the trickster or spy, the rigid structure of a Tradition is the perfect playground. Its clear rules and taboos provide a rich set of expectations to be subverted, and its dogmatic certainty creates exploitable blind spots.

The interplay of these systems transforms a Faction from a simple group of NPCs into a living, breathing culture. A Tradition is a beautiful, powerful, and often terrifying machine for making meaning. The player must choose whether to become a loyal cog in that machine, the heretic who throws a wrench in its gears, or the architect who designs a new one entirely.