<FILE> {

"file": "reference_and_continuity.json",
"version": "1.0",
"status": "locked_canon",
"scope": "authoritative_support",
"description": "Provides reference material, terminology control, canon hygiene rules, and continuity management for Into the Dreamwood. Ensures internal consistency and prevents drift, escalation creep, or accidental reintroduction of deprecated elements.",

"glossary": {
  "dreamwood": "A localized, conscious ecological intelligence functioning as a genius loci.",
  "genius_loci": "A place-bound intelligence with agency, memory, and boundary control.",
  "queenship": "A binding stewardship role granted by alignment, requiring surrender of personal priority.",
  "daoine_na_cuimhne": "Post-human culture integrated with the Dreamwood; People of Memory.",
  "root_rot": "Opportunistic psycho-ecological infection without intent.",
  "blight": "Intentional corruption aligned with fear and domination.",
  "blightborne": "Entities altered or created through blight exposure.",
  "koru": "Dreamwood sap inducing attunement and perceptual shift.",
  "dead_eyes": "Blighted koru; highly destructive corrupted sap.",
  "mourngrove": "Sacred burial and memory archive sanctuary.",
  "witch_bottle": "Containment vessel for memory or trauma fragments.",
  "sanctuary": "Space where escalation is suppressed, not erased."
},

"canon_locks": {
  "explicitly_excluded": [
    "wild hunt as active force",
    "chosen one narratives",
    "prophetic inevitability",
    "external mythic enforcement",
    "tabletop or mechanical metaphysics",
    "signal house",
    "roman cortez",
    "khalid",
    "abandoned or first child storyline"
  ],
  "scope_enforcement": [
    "human-scale consequences only",
    "no apocalyptic endpoints",
    "no total purification outcomes"
  ]
},

"continuity_management": {
  "retcon_policy": {
    "allowed": "additive clarification",
    "disallowed": [
      "contradiction of locked canon",
      "power escalation retrofits",
      "reintroduction of excluded elements"
    ]
  },
  "authority_hierarchy": [
    "core_structure.json",
    "culture_and_power.json",
    "memory_and_death.json",
    "corruption_and_threats.json",
    "narrative_structure.json"
  ]
},

"open_questions": {
  "succession_outcome": "Whether Sophie accepts stewardship and at what cost.",
  "grace_resolution": "Containment, reintegration, or displacement.",
  "forest_future": "Adaptive survival versus hardened hostility.",
  "institutional_response": "Containment versus exposure."
},

"toggle_space": {
  "future_elements": [
    "wild hunt as distant mythic mechanism",
    "expanded Dreamwood territories",
    "long-term ecological transformation"
  ],
  "usage_rule": "Toggles may only activate at season boundaries."
},

"hygiene_principles": {
  "avoidance": [
    "spectacle escalation",
    "mystical exposition dumps",
    "rule-based dream logic",
    "moral absolution"
  ],
  "reinforcement": [
    "symbolic consistency",
    "consequence tracking",
    "limited scope"
  ]
},

"maintenance_notes": {
  "review_triggers": [
    "new major character introduction",
    "boundary rule exception",
    "season transition"
  ],
  "documentation_expectation": "All deviations must be logged with rationale."
},

"canon_rules": {
  "consistency_over_surprise": true,
  "restraint_is_design": true,
  "ambiguity_requires_structure": true
}

}

</FILE>