# Chapter 1 — cast, staging and asset plan

Status: first candidate pass, unapproved. This expands preproduction; the playable book timeline remains the prologue. Read the complete supplied chapter (891 lines) and the earlier project's textual character bibles. The chapter text has authority over those notes. Source line numbers below refer to `01-chapter-1.txt` in the user's chapter directory. Dates: prologue 1154; chapter 1 1161. Ganoes is approximately nineteen, Tavore eighteen. Ganoes is a **lieutenant**, not yet a captain.

## Art contract carried forward

- 640×360 logical view, exact nearest-neighbour 3× at 1080p; 32×32 environment tiles.
- Dialogue busts 160×192, optionally fit proportionally inside 128×160. Every expression shares the neutral master's framing, silhouette and lighting. Preview expression endpoints individually as well as blended.
- Human sprite cells 48×64; foot anchor (24,61). Suggested visible heights: fishergirl 44, Rigga 48 with stoop, adult Ganoes 56, Lorn 55, Tavore 55, Topper 58. These are art-direction targets, not heights stated in the novel. Keep adult head sizes close to commander/Surly; children have modestly larger head-to-body ratios.
- New images use built-in ImageGen; Aseprite handles native export, slicing, alpha cleanup and uniform nearest scaling. Source, prompt and unapproved export are separate files. Python only analyses image pixels.
- Portraits use a restrained shared light direction. Sunset/sorcery tint belongs primarily to scene layers, so a portrait can be reused in daylight without a different face.
- Keep optional equipment separate from the body in future production sheets. Align the skeleton, neck and shoulders before baskets, weapons or cloaks. Do not paste unrelated heads over a finished pose.
- Four-direction identity sheets are **not walking animations**. Native exports must pass a readability review before commissioning full eight-drawing contact/down/passing/up cycles. Motion should move head with torso, show real arm/leg counter-swing, preserve limb lengths, and link ground travel to stride. Do not use fractional pixel zoom or per-frame rescaling.

## Visible cast and expression coverage

| Character | Textual anchors | Portraits / expression direction | Sprite and action requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fishergirl → Sorry | 65–121, 193–209, 497–515; 12–13, thick black hair, sandals; later chapters confirm brown eyes | Curious open face; alarm; grief; same face with a cool blank gaze after possession. 'Old eyes' means affect, not aged anatomy. No armour at recruitment. | Civilian idle/walk in 4 directions; head-basket carry separate from base; fall/sit, kneel, helped to stand; right-hand candle and fist; possession overlay. Keep the same child model after possession. |
| Rigga | 63–121; old, bony, lined lips, wool shawl, turnip sack; five tallow candles | Bitter; urgent prophetic concentration; the same ordinary old woman, no invented wizard costume. Portrait is justified by her importance despite short screen time. | Stoop/carry sack, hair-grab gesture, impact/fall and still body; sack, turnips and five candles as separate props. Injured state separate from neutral. |
| Ammanas | 137–207; shorter black-cloaked figure, hooded face obscured by shadow | Hood silhouette, amused inclination versus cold stillness. Do not reveal a face merely because later books identify him. | Raise arms to summon seven Hounds; short silhouette distinct from Cotillion; turn/walk. |
| Cotillion | 125–209; tall hooded black-clad man, soft gloves, long fingers | Hood silhouette, weary inclination / resolve. No glowing eyes, skull mask or invented exposed face. | Crouch/help girl rise, reach, stand, engulf her in shadow. Gloves and hands readable. Do not reuse Claw guards unchanged: these two need their own silhouettes. |
| Kan captain | 211–285, 439–485; balding, unshaven, hot wool cap, loose helm with mail neck tail, veteran | Sardonic reserve; grief; wary attention. Distinct from prologue commander; no burn or bridge brooch. | Mounted and dismounted; helmet on/off, helm held by strap. Reusable soldier base, dedicated head and portrait. |
| Adjunct Lorn | 221–247, 363–437, 729–783; young, lithe; long auburn hair revealed at 393; leather armour at 737 | Controlled neutral; suspicion; warning; thoughtful concern; slight restrained smile. Young rather than prematurely middle-aged. Helmet-on/off versions; after re-donning, hair hangs below the helm. | Mounted travel, dismount, helmet removal/replacement; longsword high under left arm while mounted. Stallion distinct from Ganoes's mare. Keep blade scabbarded here. No glowing sword. |
| Lieutenant Ganoes Paran | 297–423, 553–625, 663, 791, 853; ~19, black hair, clean-shaven, broad back, mail, sword, cloak | Recognisable older version of boy: neutral professionalism; tight smile; anger/stung; shock; exhausted. Add grime/blood as scene-specific variants, not permanent facial features. | Adult base made afresh; mounted/dismounted, leading mare, sword-draw, seated meal, bow, exhausted sit. No stretching the twelve-year-old sprite. |
| Staff Sergeant Aragan | 487–515; bleary-eyed recruiter with conscience | Weary gruff neutral; grin; unsettled/scowl. Hair colour/age specifics beyond veteran impression are design choices. | Seated writing, looking up, temples rubbed. Compact desk scene; no need for a full bespoke combat/walk set. |
| Topper | 573–697, 719–727; green cloak/tunic/boots, linen leggings, light grey skin, long face, angled dark eyes, white hair, early-thirties appearance, many rings, long-knife | Florid polite smile; appraising; irritated/furious. Hood-down identity portrait plus hood-up entrance if framing requires. Do not turn him into a muscular armoured knight. | Hood up/down, squat with food, cup, walk, turn, stumble/roll. Rings readable in portrait/gesture, simplified in tiny sprites. |
| Laseen | 701–717; almost unchanged from prologue, short fair hair, blue-tinted plain features, brown eyes, unadorned | Reuse Surly identity and current neutral/cold-smile candidates as temporary references. Narrow-eyed and dry amusement variants. Review hair value for chapter's 'fair' description; avoid a royal makeover/crown. | Seated on twisted-bone throne, small dismissive gesture. Chapter doesn't specify the prologue's salt-stained robe: court clothing is a restrained interpretation. |
| House guard (Garnet/Gamet) | 807–849; old, scarred, watery grey eyes, mended knee-length mail, polished dented pot-helm, full white teeth | Appraising; knowing grin. Supplied text says 'Garnet' repeatedly and 'Gamet' at 849; flag probable text issue for later editorial review, do not silently rewrite dialogue. | Open postern, take reins, escort; veteran armour reuse with new head/helmet and posture. |
| Tavore Paran | 857–889; one year younger than Ganoes, near his height, plain angular features, short reddish hair, pale eyes | Impassive; narrowed eyes; restrained disdain. No smile added to soften the character. Family resemblance without making a red-haired clone of Ganoes. | Tall civilian stance, one hand on father's chair; turn and leave. Fine but restrained household clothes are an interpretation; no later military uniform. |

### Supporting people and creatures

- Two **different** mounted outriders speak (97–105). Reuse the cavalry equipment family; distinguish silhouettes/helmet details. One delivers the blow with an open iron-scaled gauntlet. Do not conflate this soldier with the Kan captain.
- Recruiting corporal is present but has no quoted dialogue; generic military sprite suffices. Mixed men/women in the cavalry and road cleanup crews, not an all-male army.
- Exactly seven Hounds appear. Build a common large canine skeleton and individually track count/size/occlusion. Yellow eyes and massive bodies are supported; do not invent breed-specific colours or named identities in this scene without a source check. They need larger cells than humans, approximately 96×64 as a starting test, and a real gallop cycle.
- Ganoes's mare and Lorn's stallion need modular tack/rider layers. Starting horse canvas 96×96, with hoof anchors independent of rider. Author rider and horse motion together; do not bob a rigid human walking sprite on a horse.
- Gulls and crows at the massacre; **black pigeons** at Gerrom. Use separate silhouettes and wing cycles. No crows substituted inside the constabulary.
- Twenty palace guards are described; can instance a small body/helmet palette set. Estate servants, groundskeepers, cats and Untan crowds are ambient models.
- Felisin, the Paran parents, the fishergirl's father, Dujek and the epigraph's commanders are mentioned, not present as acting characters here. No portraits needed for them in this chapter. Don't insert flashbacks merely to use their assets.

## Scene order and environment kits

| Beat | Text | Required setting and staging |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Coast road at sunset | 63–209 | Raised road between sea and land, rough ditch and rocks, trees inland. Cavalry passes; Rigga/grief; hooded visitors; seven Hounds run off; possession. Keep sunset warm but bodies readable. Establish road axis before riders pass. Use off-screen screams for distant slaughter as the text does. |
| 2. Next morning: crest and basin | 211–383 | Same region under changed light. Heather/gorse, road dipping then climbing to promontory; birds, wrecked cavalry, work crews and wagons. A restrained wide shot and character reactions can carry scale without turning every line into a close-up of wounds. |
| 3. Fishing village and return | 385–485 | Narrow trail above black bedrock/tide pools; crescent beach, grassy shelf, about twelve huts, grounded barques and mooring poles. No birds at the beach. Two missing households matter. Reuse coast kit, change elevation and props. |
| 4. Recruiting room | 487–515 | Aragan's desk/tablet/stylus, corporal by entrance; same girl now Sorry, blood on feet, no fresh uniform yet. No invented audience of named recruits. |
| 5. Gerrom | 517–549 | Inland rice paddies, abandoned baskets/clothing/produce, lame mule; mudbrick single street at T junction; two-storey stone constabulary, tin-backed shutters, banded door. Dead uniformed men, black pigeons, decaying documents. |
| 6. Roadside meeting | 551–635 | Dusk, rice fields, ridge shacks; Topper's green silhouette, jug, two crystal goblets, wrapped food. Ganoes removes helm. A seated meal is a brief character beat, not a walking corridor. |
| 7. Imperial Warren | 637–689 | Ash path and banks, ochre mist, dull yellow entry; disturbed trails and chain links. Newly made grey-black basalt arch at exit, carved **taloned hand holding crystal globe**, explicitly supported at 679. This is not permission to add banners elsewhere. |
| 8. Hall of the Throne | 691–727 | Golden ceiling, tapestries, semiprecious mosaic, twisted-bone throne, guards. Horse arrival knocks Topper aside. Lead with horse sound/impact then reveal court reaction; same Laseen face as prologue. |
| 9. Lorn's tower room | 729–783 | Sunrise through open shutters; faded tapestries, ragged furs, old plain Napan furniture. Stage portrait/dialogue after armour fastening; no need for a new undressed portrait. Exhausted Ganoes sits. |
| 10. Unta to estate | 785–851 | Crowded streets give way to garden walls, private gates, basalt estate wall; side postern, narrow service path, courtyard with ancient unrepaired well. Establishment shots can shorten asset duplication while narration continues. |
| 11. Feast hall | 853–891 | Long table, father's chair, bench/panelled wall; cats scatter. Tavore stands by chair, Ganoes sits exhausted; her exit leaves him alone. Echo prologue's child/adult contrast without adding a flashback. |

## First candidate wave

Create neutral identity candidates for fishergirl, Rigga, adult Ganoes, Lorn, Topper and Tavore. Exercise fishergirl's possessed expression with an identity-preserving edit. Prepare a small directional sprite study only after its portrait master exists. Review actual native resolution beside enlarged nearest-neighbour previews. Hooded gods, supporting portraits, horses, Hounds and maps have defined requirements here but remain pending art work; a checklist is not a completed asset.

The initial portraits are not dialogue implementation. Chapter 1's exact dialogue should be compiled from the supplied file in the next implementation pass, with explicit speaker/cue metadata and editorial flags. Preserve wording; do not improvise dialogue in a review mockup.

## Prologue refinement direction

1. **Architecture:** test a masonry return around the isolated tower-door prop, attached to the right edge of the map, with a clearer threshold shadow and entry route. Reuse the existing tile kit for a reversible staging candidate before commissioning a new tower. Keep Ganoes/commander/Fiddler at the existing lower wall gaps.
2. **Composition:** reduce competing texture around actors and reserve visual contrast for faces/silhouettes. The distant city should support the wall conversation. Keep the panorama as a short establishing shot; it is not the top-down playable map.
3. **Performance:** hold leaning and tiptoe poses after settling, with a short glance on speaker changes where supported. Don't loop stretching toes or shoulder shrugging. Ganoes rises as a whole figure by two pixels. Commander has both forearms present.
4. **Timing:** retain the shorter routes and Fiddler's run. Let Surly's arrival land before dialogue starts, using a brief static beat rather than a slow march or fractional camera zoom. Camera remains fixed and pixel-sharp for conversation.
5. **Animation priority:** a future redraw should target true leg/arm phases in Fiddler's run and commander walk. No more patches that swap the head/chin, no accessory-driven centering, no claim that offsetting existing frames creates eight new drawings.
6. **Portrait continuity:** maintain Surly/Laseen identity across the time jump; use chapter 1 Ganoes beside his child portrait to review recognition before a large adult animation investment.

Music remains a separate provisional review; no chapter 1 music is selected in this pass.

## Produced in this pass

- Six neutral identity candidates: fishergirl, Rigga, adult Ganoes, Lorn, Topper and Tavore, exported at 160×192. Topper v2 corrects the first draft's inappropriate blue skin cast to light neutral grey. Original remains in history.
- Fishergirl possessed expression: ImageGen master v1, then Aseprite native-region cleanup v2. Copy only eyes/brows and mouth into the neutral image; preserve hair, clothing, jaw, and alpha silhouette exactly. This is a minor expression cleanup, not an anatomy patch across different poses. Both expressions remain unapproved.
- Fishergirl and adult Ganoes static directional studies: four 48×64 cells per sheet, exported as 192×64, ordered south/west/east/north. Ganoes source placed east and west opposite the prompt: reordered complete drawings, never mirrored. Shared scale per character and foot-based alignment, no replacement heads. Baskets, candle, sword and scabbard are deliberately absent from base-body studies and remain separate pending equipment assets.
- Prologue architecture before/after/grid captures: separate `scenes/architecture_review.tscn`, reusing the current tile kit. The tower connects to the right battlement; the stair fragment is removed and floor variation reduced. Doorway routes are not implemented for this alternative; the selected prologue is untouched.
- `chapter1-review.html` includes native-size portraits, 2× enlargement, expression blend control, 1×/3× sprite sheets, shared-scale comparison, exact source prompts and the prologue comparison.

### Remaining visual review points

The new sprite stances are more upright than the existing prologue gait drawings. Review their overhead angle, face readability and adult head size together before animation. Tavore's first portrait may still be too conventionally attractive for the book's very plain, angular description; treat that as a specific identity-review point. Pixel colour counts are not yet reduced to a single approved shared palette. The tower's joins use provisional repeated masonry; a dedicated edge/coping/roof kit will improve it if the composition is chosen. No claim of completed chapter 1 maps or motion is made.

### Rebuild

`python3 tools/prepare_chapter1_art.py` exports saved masters through Aseprite and rebuilds the chapter review. `python3 tools/build_chapter1_review.py` only regenerates the HTML and manifest. ImageGen source images and exact prompt/ref lists are retained in `art/chapter1/source/` and `content/chapter1/generation_jobs.json`. Source imagery is excluded from Godot's import via `.gdignore`; native portrait and sprite candidates import normally.

Render the independent prologue composition study with Godot and `scenes/architecture_review.tscn -- --review-map`. This writes three uniquely named architecture captures without replacing the earlier map captures.

### Checks completed

Native exports inspected at 1× and enlarged pixel scale. Nine current candidates are indexed (seven portrait images for six identities, two directional sheets); all source/prompt links exist. Portrait alpha is binary. Cleaned expression v2 has zero alpha-silhouette differences from neutral. Godot import completed without script/parse errors; the architecture study rendered its three captures. The rebuilt review board loads over LAN with HTTP 200. These checks establish export/integration integrity, not artistic approval or completed animation.