---
id: SC101
title: The Card at the Desk
act: I
status: in-engine
yarn_file: Assets/Dialogue/Scenes/SC101.yarn
location: The conference hall — registration desk, the bar, the table
reenterable: yes
---

# SC-101 — The Card at the Desk

The opening. Playable end to end, and it exits into SC-102, which is still a one-line stub.

An opening scene is not a normal node in the sandbox. It has no entry conditions and almost
nothing to gate. Its job is to sell the register in one sitting — the voice-committee narration,
the tone, the world's texture of disrepair, and one open question the player carries into Act I.

## Purpose

Establish that the protagonist does not know who they are, that other people appear to, and that
this was arranged before they decided to come.

## Cast

**Speaking:** Narrator, the Bartender, Chevalier Cassian Thal, Bradford Kane (silent — unwritten).

**Voices introduced:** CONFLUENCE (Reason), FACEWORK (Social), STANDING ORDER (Self),
HOUSE POUR (Body). Also appearing: PROVENANCE, AMNESTY, THE FLOAT.

## Entry conditions

None.

## Critical outputs

| Clue id | Routes |
|---|---|
| `made_asset_intuition` | CONFLUENCE hook at the desk (`$visited_desk`) |
| `journalist_intuition` | FACEWORK hook at the desk (`$visited_desk`) |
| `inheritor_intuition` | STANDING ORDER hook at the desk (`$visited_desk`) |

All three are **single-route**, which is acceptable only because they are intuitions rather than
gates: they fire passively, with no roll, so no build can miss them. The object, testimony and
document clues for all three candidates are still `Planned` with no `sceneId` — see the registry
in `Assets/Candidates/candidates.json`.

## Optional outputs

- The Atlantean cross on the place card — `Hard` PROVENANCE, one route, missable by design.
- The Cyprus connection — `Hard` PROVENANCE with Chevalier Cassian Thal, then an inquiry.
- Mr. Doss, surfaced from either the Bartender or the Chevalier — two independent routes.
- The Estate drink, and whether it tastes like the protagonist's own past.

## Shape

Hub-and-spoke throughout. The chair menu (`SC101_Hook_Menu_Chair_Interaction`) is the hub and
re-evaluates which variation shows after every sub-conversation returns.

## Opening frame

> The mahogany doors are too heavy for the hinges someone recently, badly, tightened — you feel
> the extra half-second of resistance before either side gives. Beyond them: a hall built for
> four hundred people politely disagreeing about tariffs, hosting perhaps sixty, none of whom
> look like they've read the programme.

## Beats

1. Arrival at the desk. A card with the protagonist's name, left three hours before they decided
   to come. Pure orientation, no plot delivery.
2. Four voices introduce themselves, one per pair, each reading the room differently.
3. The bar. The Bartender recognises someone the protagonist does not remember being.
4. The table. The place card, and a symbol that does not belong in Switzerland.
5. Two seated gentlemen. One of them mirrors back whatever the protagonist has been projecting.
6. Exit into SC-102 once a reading has been declared.

## Checks

| # | Voice | Colour/Gate | DC band | Success → | Failure type | Failure → |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PROVENANCE | colour | Hard | the cross is identified as not-Swiss, sets the flag | Wrong Truth | "This is probably related to Switzerland." Same calm, no hedge. |
| 2 | PROVENANCE | colour | Hard | Basel reads as old money, opens the Cyprus inquiry | Wrong Truth | the inquiry never opens; nothing signals that it existed |

Both are colour, not gates: failure changes what the protagonist believes, never what they can
reach. The desk hooks are **check-free by design** — a roll there would produce a pass/fail state
that reads as evidence about identity, which this scene must not deliver.

## Branch points

| id | The choice | Reconverges at | Persistent effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Admit the fugue to the Bartender, or claim "the usual" | bar conversation end | `$revealed_fugue_to_bartender`; lean to Made Asset or Inheritor |
| B2 | Whether the Estate tastes familiar | drink node end | ±1 Inheritor lean, first glass only |
| B3 | Accept or deny the Chevalier's reading | `SC101_Deny_Candidate` loop | `$declared_candidate_to_chevalier_cassian_thal`; lean |

## Flags

**Sets:** `$seen_sc_101`, `$visited_desk`, `$found_*_intuition` (×3), `$spoke_to_bartender`,
`$revealed_fugue_to_bartender`, `$looking_for_doss`, `$had_the_estate_drink`,
`$sat_down_at_table`, `$saw_knights_atlantean_cross_on_place_card`,
`$spoke_to_chevalier_cassian_thal`, `$spoke_to_bradford_kane`, `$inquired_about_cyprus`,
`$declared_candidate_to_chevalier_cassian_thal`, `$self_lean_*`

**Reads:** all of the above, plus `$player_name`, `$player_name_full`, `$player_alias`

## Constraints specific to this scene

These are deliberate. Do not "fix" them.

1. **Four voice introductions, against the cap of three.** One per pair — Self, Body, Social,
   Reason — because each candidate carries one intuition from a different voice-pair, and cutting
   to three would drop a candidate's intuition channel from its earliest appearance. HOUSE POUR
   is the non-lean control and the one to cut if the cap is ever enforced strictly. This is a
   logged exception for SC-101 only; do not copy it as precedent elsewhere.
2. **Evidence balance.** Each candidate gets exactly one of each evidence type. Never stack
   types, or trust becomes an artefact of imbalance rather than of play.
3. **Beat order is fixed.** Hooks fire in sequence from `SC101_Desk`: STANDING ORDER → HOUSE POUR
   → FACEWORK → CONFLUENCE. Each stays an independently authored node. Never `<<if>>`-guard a
   hook on another hook having fired, on any `$self_lean_*`, or on `skill_rank(...)`.
4. **The passive pattern for clue-bearing hooks.** One voice per hook, from the candidate's
   attached pair. The line is that character's *argument*, never a report. Exactly one
   `$self_lean_*` write, with `$found_<clue_id>` set alongside it.
5. **The body of the scene stays neutral.** No lean, no candidate attachment outside the hooks.
6. **The Chevalier's tie bias.** `top_skill` receives `made_asset` first and returns its first
   argument on a tie, so an even score reads as Made Asset. Deliberate, not an accident of
   argument order.

## Open work

- `SC101_Hook_Questions_Bartender_Talk` is placeholder text ("Question 1 / Answer 1"). It is a
  working loop with nothing in it, and the natural home for the missing testimony clues.
- Bradford Kane is reachable and silent.
- The Atlantean cross is never connected to the knight who is sitting right there.
- Tone could not be certified against a voice sheet when this scene was specced, because one did
  not exist. See `STYLE.md` §9 — four fields there still need deciding.