The Progression

A chronicle of Breegarra's court, written from a world that was actually played.

[BHB] The Progression — chapter scaffold

The skeleton of the story so far, built on canon-timeline.md. Every beat below is pinned to a dated fact there. The prose is not written yet: this file is what the chapters must contain, where invention is free, and what each chapter hands to the next.

Book One — The Progress, from Breegarra’s arrival (2026-08-20) to the eve of the dragon hunt (2026-09-19). Ten chapters and a prologue. New chapters are added at the end as play continues, one per session or per event worth a chapter.

How to read a chapter. Span is the dates it covers. Beats are facts it must show. Room to invent is where the record is silent and the storyteller may fill. Hands on lists the threads left open. Decisions still open for the owner are marked Owner:.


Prologue — The Crossing

Span: 2026-08-19 to 08-20.

Beats. Breegarra comes ashore on the southern bank of Noob River, not a newcomer but a woman already made: a sorcerer who has finished every upgrade in the Tome of Kurak. Three are with her. Liana is a Heirs of the North fighter, remade as a woman. Tycho is a bearer, who took the place of the Bjorn she once had. Luba is the Relic Hunter dancer whose presence heals.

The origin is settled — II-A, The Shield of the Line; see court-bible.md. A captain overruled, her company holding the ground a working was performed on, and three people thrown clear of a war they did not end. They know none of what became of it.

Still to be told. The war itself, the company, the hour of the working, and how soon the three understood that they were not coming back. All of it arrives second hand: Luba was there, but behind the line.

Hands on. Three unknowns that the whole book is shaped around — whether others were sent here, whether others were sent elsewhere, and who won at home. And the question under the household: whether a company that has lost its war is still a company.

Chapter 1 — A Place of Succour

Span: 2026-08-21 to 08-24.

Beats. - She builds the Noob Inn where new exiles wash up, “a first place of succour”. This is the first sign of her character. - City Suburb Tower becomes home. - The first station staff arrive: Mercy at the Wheel of Pain, Grit at the mine, Akivasha at the mixing bench, and the first Gal Greenhammer. - Tanith Rose is named “from her own people”. - Ilyra keeps wandering out through the cellar door until it is locked against her. This is the court’s first comedy. - Two foals are raised, who will become Columbine and Harlequin.

Still to be told. How the staff came to her. The records say “admin-spawned”; the story needs a hiring, a rescue or a bargain.

Hands on. Ilyra’s restlessness. The Tower as a home still without a heart.

Chapter 2 — The Cages

Span: 2026-08-25.

Beats. - Four purges are fought at the Tower. The first is called off because the treasure was out of reach, and she rebuilds the approach and invites them in. - Out of the cages come Narcissa Farsight, who can be won no other way, Alren Storm, and the dancer Makes-Waves. - Two plain Lemurian archers are set on the wall. - Isscar the Sellsword is freed and becomes a man she buys banners from. - A Zamorian barkeeper takes the Tavern Bar; the old Darfari barkeeper is given a seat at a table. - Stoker Bram the Accursed comes to the furnace. - The Tower now holds 22 souls.

Still to be told. What a purge is in-world: who sends these armies, and why the defeated fill cages. The barkeepers’ first meeting.

Hands on. Isscar’s debt and loyalty. The two barkeepers, displaced and displacing.

Chapter 3 — The Progress

Span: 2026-09-05 to 09-06.

Beats. - The idea takes shape: a court that moves with its queen between houses, a royal progress with a wagon train of three carriages (the Wardrobe, the household goods, the Chamber). - Followers ride beside her and dismount to fight. - Kestrel and Sanda, won in a Headhunter competition, are named. Both are level 0, naked and unarmed. - Kestrel is made an archer at the City with No Name. - City Tower’s lumberjack is dead, and nobody ever learned his name.

Still to be told. The unnamed lumberjack is a gift: a death nobody recorded, which could haunt the naming rule the court later adopts.

Hands on. The promise of other houses. Kestrel and Sanda, bound together by how they came.

Chapter 4 — Threat Eight

Span: 2026-09-07 to 09-09.

Beats. - Mercy becomes Seneschal, the first office in the household. - Three hard purges follow, against the eighth threat. - The first is lost: Breegarra dies three times, and Liana is gone. - The second is lost too, and Liana is gone again. - The third is won, and Liana is lost once more. - The victory, its loot and seven Commander’s Keys are given up to get her back. The world rolls back to before the win. - The Altar of the Fallen appears in the world.

Still to be told. This is the book’s central wound. Rendered in-world, the rollback could be sorcery: Breegarra unmakes a day to keep Liana, and pays for it.

disagree on how many times Liana was lost (three or four); the story can pick.

Hands on. What it cost. Whether anyone else remembers the day that was undone.

Chapter 5 — The Altar

Span: 2026-09-10 to 09-11.

Beats. - Breegarra goes into Shaleback Hollow after the altar, overloaded, through bridges raised from the dark. - The altar is set up in the desert by the Tower. - The first five imprints are taken: Liana, Kestrel, Tycho, Luba, Makes-Waves. - Luba is left behind by a teleport and walks home alone. - The second win at Threat VIII: Liana kills the Siege Demiurge, then falls outside the land claim, where she cannot be rescued. - Liana rises at the altar in a different body, a Dogs of the Desert Slaver’s, far stronger, with her memories and skills but her settings reset. - A third win comes that night with no one lost. From the cages come Corvin Blackdrake, the hardest blade on the roster, and Kh’Urt the tanner. - Grin grows from the tenth whelp.

Still to be told. Liana’s experience of the new body, and whether she is the same woman. This is the richest identity thread in the record. Luba’s walk home.

Hands on. Liana, changed. Corvin’s arrival. Kh’Urt displacing Tanith.

Chapter 6 — The Household Named

Span: 2026-09-12.

Beats. - Every soul receives a nameplate and a place: - Liana is the Hand, and Luba the Almah, “one only, ever”: Breegarra’s companion and confidant. - Sanda is taken off the wall and made the Shield. - Corvin becomes the Harbinger who rides ahead. - Alren becomes Castellan of the Tower. - Makes-Waves is named Siren. - The watchmen take the -watch name. - The Train is formed: crafters who travel and do not fight. “Production travels, extraction stays.” - Ivga goes into reserve, and Isscar’s summons go with her. - The court clears Midnight Grove with nine followers. Breegarra comes out with the Bower of Jhebbal Sag, her sixth faith. - The altar is set again in a shrine precinct, and the war party is imprinted. - Sol and Luna are named: the sun and the moon.

Still to be told. The ceremony of naming itself. Who resents their title, and who was passed over. Luba’s place, public and private.

Hands on. A household with offices invites ambition. Jhebbal Sag’s claim on Breegarra.

Chapter 7 — The Evening Star

Span: 2026-09-13.

Beats. - The court’s plan changes from “one house six times” to three kinds of seat: the Settlement, the Outpost and the Lodge. - A site is chosen on the rim of the Unnamed City. - Vesper the Sabretooth is named for the evening star, and dies the same day on the northern meat run. She was never imprinted, so she will not come back. Sirius is held back for a greater cat. - Two more horses join the stable’s troupe: Brighella, and Isabella, “the one in the stable”.

Still to be told. Who grieved her. The records say nothing about what killed her.

Hands on. A name held in reserve, Sirius. The first permanent loss.

Chapter 8 — Dragonwatch

Span: 2026-09-13 to 09-14.

Beats. - The outpost rises on the Unnamed City’s rim: a Keep, a well, aloe for healing. - Jabari the farmer becomes its first resident. - Sadeh the dancer is made a permanent resident. - Thalis takes the wall and Bragoras the kitchen. - A purge the log never wrote up yields Sonja the Strider, a Forgotten Tribe Cimmerian, as Castellan. The armorer Too-Many-Teeth and the tanner Hell Breath come from the same cages. - Alren is offered Dragonwatch and does not go.

Still to be told. Why Alren stayed. How the name Dragonwatch was chosen; the record gives no reason. The dragons it watches.

Hands on. The dragons of the Unnamed City, and the next chapter’s hunt.

Chapter 9 — The Stillness, and Rimehold

Span: 2026-09-15 to 09-17.

Beats. - The hold in the snow is named Rimehold, “the Frost-hold at the Foot of Star Ridge”. - The world stops: nothing wakes until the gods mend it. It then goes on, changed, as the Bower of Bliss. - Rimehold is built. - Brenna, a local of the Mounds of the Dead, comes to the mine. Conn comes to the fields, because “we have to support what they eat”. Merram comes to the stone kitchen. - Ivga is sent north and recalled the same day: “a bartender, not an entertainer”.

Still to be told. The stillness as an omen, which is how the server outage would be told. Owner: tell it, or skip it?

Hands on. A northern house with no one yet to hold its gate.

Chapter 10 — Two Purges

Span: 2026-09-18.

Beats. - The first purge. Breegarra kills the Hand of War, and dies twice first. Into the court come: - Pelor the Well-travelled, a bearer. - Ama the Seductress, a dancer of Jhebbal Sag’s children, who goes to Rimehold’s gate. - Thutmekri, a Stygian archer, posted to the snow. - A second Luba, with Luba’s face, renamed Belesa Mirrorveil and dressed so no one mistakes her. - The second purge, won quickly. - Isscar the Sellsword falls. - Ulric Bearbaiter, Sonja’s twin in body and Forgotten Tribe kin, becomes Rimehold’s Castellan and its shield. - Ctesphon takes Rimehold’s gate beside Thutmekri, and Khafra joins Thalis at Dragonwatch. - Rimehold is staffed, seven of seven. - Sadeh’s name is found not to have held.

Still to be told. - Luba meeting her double. The records give the premise and nothing more, which leaves the whole scene open. - How Isscar died; the killer is unrecorded. - Whether Ulric and Sonja are kin. - Sadeh, a woman whose name slipped from the world.

Hands on. Everything open, below.


Open threads — what Book One hands to Book Two

Thread From Why it matters
Liana’s two bodies Ch 4–5 The same woman, or not?
Luba and her double Ch 10 The Almah is “one only, ever”, and now there are two faces
Narcissa and her Daughter Ch 2, 4 Two rolls of one woman: “one fights, one stays”
Isscar’s death Ch 2, 10 Freed from a cage, bought from, and fallen in her war
Vesper, and Sirius held back Ch 7 A name waiting for a cat worth it
Sadeh’s lost name Ch 8, 10 A soul the world forgot to name
Ivga, seen in the north Ch 9 Recalled from Rimehold, yet the collector saw her there
The Watch Ch 2, 6, 8, 10 Stillwatch, Longwatch, Farwatch, Sandwatch, Coldwatch, Dawnwatch: a brotherhood across three houses
Sonja and Ulric Ch 8, 10 Two Castellans, twins in body, of one tribe
The dragons Ch 8 Chapter 11
Were there others? Prologue Canonical unknown: any exile might be one of theirs
What became of home? Prologue Canonical unknown: only the searcher can answer it
The sibling at the fire the frame Breegarra’s brother or sister, listening; what they knew, what they bring, whether they believe her
Her sorcery Prologue, Ch 5 Learned here from the cost, used reluctantly; every use is a defeat in her own argument

Chapter 11 — (next) The Dragons of the Unnamed City

To be written from the chronicle collector’s ledger after the hunt.