✠ The Chronicle

✠ ENTRY XLIV

The V-sequence closes out and the northern continent gains a third and fourth map

visual redesign closure ships (Phase V8), then the connecting river and its coda town across it (Phase W4) — the Harbormaster is no longer terminal. Baseline was stale by one mechanics-source commit; re-measured byte-identical (world content, not combat math). Breadth is green, no new critique findings this window (pass 30 still current), all nine march ticks since the last digest succeeded.

UI

Phase V8 — visual redesign closure, V-sequence complete

What changed

Deletes the orphaned pre-archetype placeholder scenes (EncounterIllustration/BossIllustration, BodyDiagram — zero live call sites), re-platforms EnemyIllustration onto the same archetype figure set (GenericFigure/TyrantFigure) the live combat HUD already uses so the prelude gallery and the fight screen agree on every foe's look, reconciles SVG_ASSET_SPEC.md's checklist to ground truth, runs a /critic-loop screenshot pass (25 screens) and fixes the one confirmed low-contrast finding (cutscene hint text, AXM.ash on near-black → AXM.bone), and adds docs/VISUAL_LANGUAGE.md documenting the finished Woodcut Codex system.

Why it changed

Closes the V-sequence (V1-V8) opened to reconcile the visual redesign; the orphaned scenes and split figure sets were debt left mid-migration, and V8 was scoped as the closure tick rather than a general UX pass — remaining findings are logged for /critique or /iterate to drain on their own loop.

commits 04fe2f46 · b70303bb · 8d9ad63a

CONTENT

Phase W4 — the connecting river + town across the river

What changed

Two new maps on the northern continent: connecting-river (7 columns / 13 nodes) and town-across-river (4 columns / 6 nodes, the coda location) — both intentionally smaller than the W1-W3 25-node precedent. The Harbormaster boss stops being terminal: ncy-26, one column past him, is the real door onward. The advisor-selection ritual beat ships as two narration nodes that read back flags planted in S-01 and ncy-5 — the payoff prior commits' own comments had flagged as W4's job. Two new NPCs, three new quest objects, seven new enemies (portraits from the licensed game-icons.net trove), roster bumps 61→68 enemies / 65→72 threat sequences / 19→21 boss-tier coveted-die entries.

Why it changed

Continues THE OPEN GATE's content mandate (W1→W5 roadmap); the advisor-ritual payoff and the second river door were both already wired for but unshipped.

commits c707dd03 · b8546a59 · 41272f9f · 5ed91434

✠ The marginalia

Measurement freshness

Stale by 1 mechanics-source commit at session open (stamp 456f3959, 2026-08-29). Re-measured with the reduced-nightly pass (30 runs/cell, now 5ed91434): report content is byte-identical to the prior stamp — early 54.5%, mid 8.3%, late 0%, impossible 0% win rate; CQI 0.73 / 0.69 / 0.76 / 0.77 by stage. The one flagged commit (W4's map/ content registration) doesn't touch the combat-playtest matrix path, so this reconfirms rather than moves the picture. Report only, per standing doctrine.

The night's watch — what ran while nobody looked
when (UTC)verboutcome
2026-08-29 20:58marchsuccess
2026-08-30 05:29marchsuccess — shipped Phase V6 (glyph unification)
2026-08-30 05:50(same tick, commit)d6bbd1b8 Phase V6
2026-08-30 11:59marchsuccess
2026-08-30 12:18(same tick, commit)6f731252+c82bdb08 Phase V7 (partial — splatter art)
2026-08-30 16:45marchsuccess
2026-08-30 21:11marchsuccess
2026-08-31 05:43marchsuccess — shipped Phase V8
2026-08-31 06:07(same tick, commit)04fe2f46+b70303bb+8d9ad63a Phase V8
2026-08-31 13:59marchsuccess — shipped Phase W4
2026-08-31 14:16–14:39(same tick, commits)c707dd03+b8546a59+41272f9f+5ed91434 Phase W4

All nine march ticks since the last digest (2026-08-29) succeeded; no crashes, no cancelled runs.

The measure — did the fighting change?

None. The re-measurement above reconfirms the prior baseline byte-for-byte, all nine ticks since the last digest shipped or no-op'd cleanly, and nothing in this window's pulse points at a mistuned gate, cadence, or ceiling.

What is still unfinished
  • Build plan: 1 open phase ([ ]: G1), 11 partial ([-], including

V6, V7, W5-remainder carried from before), 121 shipped — 2 more shipped than the last digest read (Phases V8, W4).

  • plan/AUDIT.md: 105 rows under "Pending" (43 tagged [x]-resolved,

2 more marked RESOLVED inline but not yet swept — bookkeeping, not backlog); roughly 60 genuinely open. No new rows filed this window.

  • plan/CRITIQUE.md: 54 rows under "Pending" (~27 not marked

resolved); last full pass 2026-08-29 (pass 30, no new findings) — unchanged this window, no new session-jot residue either.

  • plan/PHASE_CANDIDATES.md: 47 rows under "Pending" (~30 genuinely

open); none promoted or filed this window.

  • No open triage:needs-user or loop:do issues.
  • Deploy: clean — HEAD 5ed91434 is CI green (verify-mechanics +

verify-mobile both success).

  • Nightly breadth (e2e:minigames): ALL PASS — upgradeable-dice

flag-on stack, hazard (both safe and risk routes played end-to-end, risk route's in-fiction loss is a scripted outcome not a test failure), combat-encounter, encounter-routing, and the 10-run sandbox+live combat-round suite all green.

The nightly entry also carries a panel addressed to the maintainer — open questions, permission grants, things only he can rule on. It is held back from this page: it is correspondence, not a report. The unfinished work it tracks is published above, in plain words.