Cauldmere, 712 After Anchor: a mercantile republic of two hundred thousand people built where a black river meets a hungrier sea.

• All characters are adults; an unnamed newborn remains offscreen and is a stake, never a presence.
• Sex cuts away at the door; desire, tension and aftermath stay on the page.
• Violence may be graphic where earned: blackening, amputation, a crushed hand, strike violence, and medically witnessed death.
• Never instructional detail for weapons, drug synthesis, or intrusion methods.
• No slurs written out. Bigotry shows through behaviour and consequence.
• Debt bondage, coerced labour, institutional medical neglect, food insecurity, grief, and bodily punishment.
• Addiction and withdrawal involving a fictional surgical sedative; consequence, never craft.
• Euthanasia of competent marked adults, requested and witnessed; no method described.

Text-first draft: backgrounds and character art are generated placeholders and there is no audio yet.