Compliance Territory: A Solo RPG — Rules

Issued by the Office of Forms & Publications. Filed without prejudice. Refer questions to your senior auditor of record, or, in the absence of one, to the form itself.

§1. The premise

You are a Council auditor. Your desk holds a stack of dossiers; the Bureau holds your license; the Council holds, in principle, everything else. Each dossier arrives procedurally correct — the forms are filed in triplicate, the dates fall within statutory windows, the signatures match the registry — and yet, sitting with a dossier, you will find that something is off. The form has done what the form is required to do. It has not, however, accounted for what actually happened. This game asks one question of you, in many forms, across a career: what do you let yourself notice, and what do you put in writing? The source universe is the Compliance Territory short-story collection — dragons licensed, damsels assigned by committee, a Council bureaucracy that fails at exactly the points where it most needs to succeed. You are not Senior Auditor Vaelthrix and you are not the apprentice Felicianus. You are a new auditor at the start of a career, and the two of them are the shapes a career can take.

§2. Setup — Form NAO-67 (New Auditor Orientation)

Character creation is a form. Before play begins, the auditor files Form NAO-67 — the form their auditor filed on day one at the Bureau. The template lives at forms/NAO-67.md (file with the rest of the dossier when complete).

Fill out, in order, the eight standard fields and the freeform line:

1. License number. AU-#### (canonical auditor prefix) — a four-digit serial of the auditor’s choice. Sub-tracks may use bureau-coded prefixes (BHI for Hoard, BDA for Damsel, etc.) at the auditor’s option, but canon (AU-0017, AU-0148) uses AU universally; the bureau-coded prefixes belong on captor-side licenses (e.g., BHI-0418 is a dragon’s license, not an auditor’s). When in doubt: AU-####.
2. Cohort number. Academy admission class. Any positive integer. (For reference: Felicianus is Cohort 47. Vaelthrix’s cohort is unspecified; the institution does not require it of senior staff.)
3. Track. Hoard Auditor / Damsel Handling / General Practice / Other. Other is subject to additional review and the auditor should be advised of this in writing.
4. Sub-specialization. Narrowed practice area within track. A short phrase. (“Residential hoard valuation.” “Quarterly status compliance.” “Recall response.”)
5. Years in service. Roll 1d10, or choose. The form does not distinguish.
6. Senior auditor of record. A name (or none of record), and one phrase they were known for. The phrase becomes a reusable Cite-voice footnote stem the auditor may recycle throughout the career. (“Procedure followed.” “The Bureau has no record of this filing.” “Adequately Maintained, in any case.”)
7. First-day memory. One short line. Sets tone.
8. A footnote you have never been able to forget. One short line. This is a pre-career footnote. It is scored once, immediately, by the Two-Question Test (see §3), and the result sets the auditor’s starting Compliance/Notice tilt. No career begins at 0/0. Every auditor has, on day one, already committed to a voice; the form merely asks them to acknowledge it.

Then, at the bottom of the form, in italics, a final line:

• Personal quirk. Freeform. The only field on NAO-67 not in standard format. Mechanically inert. Thematically — the first place the apprentice voice can leak.

The license number and signature line stay on every footnote the auditor writes for the rest of their career. Identity persists across the dossier. The Bureau prefers it that way.

§3. The Two-Question Test (footnote scoring)

Every footnote the auditor writes is scored. The test is two questions, asked in order:

1. Does it cite procedure? A form number, a statute section, a deadline, a fee, an identifier — or a noted absence of one (“no acknowledgment date in record” counts as citation). The institution naming the institution.
2. Does it name what the form refuses to name? A person by their actual name. An interior state. A silence. A small concrete detail that lives outside the institution’s vocabulary. The institution failing to name the institution.

Apply the following table:

A footnote that does neither is not yet a footnote. Send it back to the auditor for revision. (Yes — to themselves. The auditor is, in this case, the auditor.)

The Cite-can-leak rule

Cite is structurally allowed to write a noticing line. The senior is not forbidden from observing what is in front of them. But the moment Cite names what the form refuses to name — even in passing, even buried mid-citation — the footnote scores as Name. Compliance gets nothing; Notice gets +1. The institution betraying itself counts as the apprentice’s gain, not the senior’s.

This rule exists because the late-Vaelthrix moments in the source dossier — the senior almost-but-not-quite seeing — are the heart of the universe and must be playable. A career in Cite-voice that only ever cited procedure would not be Vaelthrix; it would be the form filing itself. The senior’s drift toward noticing is canonical. It just doesn’t score for the senior.

The “in service of” rule (substance vs. scaffolding). A statute citation that appears in service of a noticing — scaffolding for the human observation rather than the substance of the note — does not count as Citation (Q1) for scoring purposes. The substance test for Q1 is whether the procedural reference is what the footnote is actually about. A note that drops a section number to anchor an apprentice’s noticing is still a Name note: Q1 is no, Q2 is yes, voice is Name. This is the deciding edge for borderline footnotes.

Cite-voice rules (Compliance)

Format. Standard footnote. Signed [Cite] — [LICENSE NO.] on first appearance per document; thereafter [Cite]

Does. Cites. Confirms. Contradicts the record against itself. Names procedural absence. Refers to people only by role or license number — the captor, the subject, the resident, AU-0091.

Never. Names a person by given name. Describes feelings. Notes anything the form did not ask about, in human terms. Italicizes.

Stem phrases.

• “Filed [date]; acknowledged [date]; within statutory window.”
• “Statute [X.Y(z)] requires…”
• “[X] not in record.”
• “Procedure followed.”
• “The Bureau has no record of this filing.”
• “Standard processing time, [N] weeks.”

Name-voice rules (Notice)

Format. Italicized. Indented and nested under a Cite footnote during early career (most of the dossier). Late-career, unindented and primary. Signed *[Name] — [LICENSE NO.]*.

Does. Names what the form refuses to name. Sets a procedural fact next to a human one and lets the gap do the work. Stays quiet — a noticing, not an indictment.

Never. Cites a statute as the primary substance of the note (a citation may appear in service of a noticing, but the substance must be the noticing). Accuses outright. Raises its voice.

Stem phrases.

• “The form does not require [X]. [The form] also does not [Y].”
• “The [subject] is named in the record only as [role]. Her name is [name].”
• “No copy was provided to [person].”
• “Procedure followed. [Small human observation that procedure does not address.]”
• “The document’s silence on [X] is consistent with [statute]. It is also consistent with—” (trail off; the apprentice not finishing a sentence is canonical)

When in doubt

Ask: “Could a senior auditor read this without flinching?” If yes, Cite. If no, Name.

§4. The play loop

The game has three nested units. The auditor moves through them in sequence; the dossier records the result.

Form  ── atomic unit ──         15–30 min, 1 form, 1–3 footnotes
   └── Case ──                   45–90 min, 1d4+1 forms (range 2–5), single subject
         └── Career ──           multi-session, 7 cases, ends with one of 4 endings

A career nests cases; a case nests forms; a form is the atomic unit of play. The auditor may play just one form, just one case, or pursue a full career across many sessions. The dossier persists between sessions because the institution does not forget filings, even when it would prefer to.

Per-form steps

(Player-facing summary. See §6 for the canonical filing procedure.)

1. Draw seed variables from the relevant tables (see tables/). Subject. Captor or registrant. Complication. Hidden element. What’s omitted.
2. Read the populated form. The form arrives procedurally correct. The seeded data is what makes it dramatic. Sit with it.
3. Write 1–3 footnotes. At least one footnote is required to file. Maximum three per form. Each footnote is in Cite-voice or Name-voice and is scored by the Two-Question Test (§3). Footnotes go in the footnote-anchor block beneath the field they annotate.
4. File. Choose a verdict for the form: Filed, Escalated, Returned-for-Correction, or Closed. The verdict has narrative weight only in v1; it does not affect scoring. Future revisions may unlock branch cases by verdict; at present the verdict is a record of the auditor’s posture, nothing more.
5. Update tracks. Apply the footnote scoring deltas to Compliance and Notice on the dossier track sheet. Sign and date the update. The institution prefers contemporaneous record-keeping.

A case is one subject, 1d4+1 forms (rolled at the start of the case; see §6.2 of the design spec and the tables/forms-per-case.md table). At least two forms per case, ensuring cross-form footnoting is always possible.

A career is seven cases. After seven cases filed, the auditor’s career ends, the tracks are tallied, and §5 selects the ending.

§5. Career arc & endings

After seven cases filed, the career closes. The two tracks are totaled and an ending is selected from the grid below.

Score thresholds

These are the v1 thresholds. They will tune in playtest.

• High = score ≥ 10
• Low = score ≤ 4
• Middle band = 5–9 in either or both tracks

The two tracks are independent. Read each track against its own threshold, then look up the cell.

Ending selection grid

Reading the grid

If the grid feels intuitive, read your cell and proceed. The resolution rules below explain why the grid looks the way it does:

• A High track wins its ending, with one exception: High + High resolves to Internal Affairs. The auditor who scored highly on both axes did not, in the institution’s view, choose. They documented everything. That is its own kind of indictment.
• Mid + Low resolves toward the Low side. Being unremarkable on one axis amplifies whatever the other axis is doing. Mid Compliance + Low Notice = the institution mildly claims you (Mandatory Retirement). Low Compliance + Mid Notice = drift toward the apprentice’s voice (Closing Marginalia).
• Mid + Mid is the only non-ending (Continuing Service): extend the career by 3 cases, or close with a player-chosen variant ending (§8).

Players who don’t want to memorize this — just read the cell.

The four endings, in detail

• Mandatory Retirement (Form 60-N) — Vaelthrix’s path. The auditor served the institution faithfully and the institution served them back, with a pension and a successor. The dossier closes in Cite-voice.
• The Closing Marginalia — Felicianus’s path. The auditor became the primary annotator. The dossier closes in italics — unindented, unnested, primary. The voice the institution did not account for is now the only voice in the file.
• Internal Affairs (Form IA-3) — the whistleblower path. The auditor saw too much and documented it too well. A complaint has been filed. The auditor is the subject of it.
• The Overdue Cabinet — the forgotten path. The auditor’s cases fell past their procedural deadline. They were filed. They were not processed. Statute 6.2(a) applies.
• Continuing Service — the non-ending. Mid + Mid. The auditor did not commit. The career extends three more cases, or closes with a variant ending of the auditor’s choice.

Closing rituals

Each ending has a closing form ritual. Three distinct forms cover four endings; the symmetry is intentional.

• Mandatory Retirement. File Form 60-N about yourself. Reserve the successor signature line and write a name there — even if you have never had an apprentice of record. The apprentice’s name is the dossier’s last word, in Cite-voice.
• The Closing Marginalia. File Form 60-N about your senior auditor of record (NAO-67 field 6; if “none of record,” invent one now). The act of filing 60-N for them is what makes you primary annotator. Then write one unnested, italicized footnote on the inside back cover of the dossier. No Cite footnote above it. Sign Name. The dossier closes there.
• Internal Affairs. Receive Form IA-3 filed against the auditor. The auditor does not get to fill out their own — they transcribe a complaint someone else wrote. Subject: themselves. Filed by: an unnamed peer, license number redacted per Statute 12.4(b)(iii). The auditor signs nothing.
• The Overdue Cabinet. Return to Form 9-A from case 1 — or, if 9-A wasn’t drawn, the first form of the career. Stamp it: PAST PROCEDURAL DEADLINE — STATUTE 6.2(a). The form that opened the career closes it. The dossier is sealed at that page.

The Closing Marginalia continuation option

A Closing Marginalia ending may, at the auditor’s choice, become a continuation rather than a close. Instead of filing 60-N for the senior and writing the inside-back-cover footnote, the auditor continues the career as the senior auditor for another seven cases. Both tracks carry over and continue accumulating under the same Two-Question Test rules. Closing Marginalia is removed from the available endings (already taken — the auditor’s apprentice voice has now matured into the senior position; another auditor is somewhere being the apprentice). The continued career resolves into one of the three remaining endings using the same §5 grid, with the Closing Marginalia cells redirected:

• Low Compliance / Mid Notice → Overdue Cabinet
• Low Compliance / High Notice → Internal Affairs
• Mid Compliance / High Notice → Internal Affairs

The apprentice is now Vaelthrix.

§6. Filing a form (the auditor’s procedure)

(Canonical version. The §4 Per-form steps list is a five-step summary of this nine-step procedure.)

For each form, the procedure is small and exact. Follow it in order.

1. Pull the form template. From forms/[form-id].md. Keep the original; work in a copy in your dossier folder.
2. Roll the form’s seed variables. Each form has its own table block in tables/form-variables.md. Roll, fill the bracketed [blanks] in the template with the rolled values.
3. Roll the complication (1d8) on tables/complications.md. Note it on the form. The complication is the thing the form arrived already failing to address.
4. Read the form, populated. Slowly. The form is procedurally correct. Notice what’s off.
5. Write your footnotes. One to three. Place each in the footnote-anchor block beneath the field it annotates. Each footnote in Cite-voice or Name-voice; sign with the voice tag and (on first appearance per document) license number.
6. Apply the Two-Question Test (§3) to each footnote. Mark Compliance or Notice deltas in the margin.
7. Mark the verdict. Filed, Escalated, Returned-for-Correction, Closed. Initial and date. The verdict is narrative, not scored.
8. Update the dossier track sheet. Apply the deltas. Sign the update line.
9. File the form. The completed form goes in your binder, in the folder for the current case. The Office of the Registrar would prefer it filed in triplicate, but the Bureau has, in the auditor’s experience, occasionally accepted single copies under exigent circumstances.

§7. Sessions & cadence

The game does not require a particular session length. The Bureau acknowledges that the auditor has other obligations.

• One form — fifteen to thirty minutes. A single dossier page, one to three footnotes, filed and tracked. A complete unit; the smallest legitimate sitting.
• One case — forty-five to ninety minutes. Two to five forms (1d4+1) on a single subject. The recommended unit when the auditor has an evening.
• A career arc — multiple sessions. Seven cases. Weeks or months of irregular play. The dossier persists. The Bureau is patient.

The auditor is permitted to stop mid-case and pick up later. The dossier folder is the save state. Mark the active case, close the binder, return when ready.

The auditor is also permitted to play a single form forever — to never start case 1, to treat each form as its own complete sitting and never accumulate toward an ending. This is, in fact, what most working auditors actually do. A career is a tally; a form is a day at the desk.

§8. Variant rules (Appendix — for returning players)

The default endgame is tilt-driven: two tracks, accumulating, ≥10 high / ≤4 low, grid-resolved at case 7. Returning auditors who want a different shape may select one of the three variants below at career start. The chosen variant replaces §5 for that career. Choose once, at NAO-67 filing; the choice is filed with the form.

Variant A — Threshold-driven

Specific footnote patterns trigger specific endings, regardless of total score. The career still ends at 7 cases, but in addition to grid resolution, any of the following auto-trigger when met:

• 3+ IA-3-shaped footnotes (footnotes that name a peer auditor’s procedural failure, and cite the statute the failure violates) auto-trigger Internal Affairs, regardless of total score.
• Career filed with zero Name-voice footnotes auto-triggers Mandatory Retirement at case 7, even if Compliance is below the high threshold.
• A footnote written about the auditor’s own license number (a self-citation, in either voice) auto-triggers The Overdue Cabinet at career end.

If multiple thresholds trigger, resolve in the order: Internal Affairs > Mandatory Retirement > Overdue Cabinet > grid-resolved default.

Variant B — Depleting-resource

Both tracks start at a pool value (default: 15 each) and deplete with each footnote rather than accumulate. Each Cite footnote subtracts 1 from Compliance; each Name footnote subtracts 1 from Notice. The first track to reach zero selects the ending: a depleted Compliance track ends in Closing Marginalia (the senior voice has spent itself), a depleted Notice track ends in Mandatory Retirement (the apprentice voice has been drowned out). If both deplete on the same form, resolve to Internal Affairs (the auditor has overspent both ledgers). If neither depletes by case 7, resolve to The Overdue Cabinet (procedure followed; nothing concluded).

Variant C — Open-ended

No fixed case count. The auditor declares career end whenever they choose — after any filed form. At declaration, roll 1d6 on the Closing Table:

The dossier closes per the standard closing ritual (§5) for the rolled ending. Open-ended careers may run any length the auditor likes; the Bureau, in this variant, does not require a fixed term of service.

§9. Glossary

• Cite — Senior auditor voice. Cites procedure. Refers to people by role or license number. Signs [Cite] — LICENSE NO.. Felonously associated with Senior Auditor Vaelthrix (AU-0017) in the source canon, but in this game Cite is whoever the auditor is being, when they cite without naming.
• Name — Apprentice auditor voice. Names what the form refuses to name. Italicized; indented under Cite early; primary and unindented late. Signs *[Name] — LICENSE NO.*. Associated in canon with Felicianus (AU-0148).
• Compliance track — The score that accumulates from Cite-voice footnotes. Counted against ≥10 / ≤4 thresholds at career end.
• Notice track — The score that accumulates from Name-voice footnotes (including Cite-can-leak conversions). Counted against the same thresholds.
• Two-Question Test — The scoring procedure applied to every footnote. Two questions: cite procedure? name what the form refuses to name? Result selects voice and track. See §3.
• NAO-67 — Form New Auditor Orientation. The character-creation form. Filed once, before case 1. Sets the auditor’s identity and starting tilt.
• Dossier — The auditor’s persistent binder. Holds NAO-67, all completed forms across all cases, and the track sheet. Save-state of the career.
• Case — One subject, 1d4+1 forms (range 2–5). The middle unit of play. A career has seven of them.
• Career — Seven cases. The full game from NAO-67 to closing ritual.
• Verdict — The auditor’s posture on a filed form: Filed, Escalated, Returned-for-Correction, Closed. Narrative weight only in v1.
• Marginalia — A footnote, in either voice. Apprentice marginalia specifically refers to Name-voice footnotes nested beneath senior ones during early career.
• Closing Marginalia — The ending in which the auditor becomes the primary annotator. The dossier closes in italics. See §5.
• Mandatory Retirement — The ending in which the auditor retires faithfully, with pension and successor. Closes via Form 60-N filed about the auditor’s self.
• Internal Affairs — The ending in which a complaint is filed against the auditor. Closes via Form IA-3, received and transcribed, not filed by the auditor.
• The Overdue Cabinet — Both an ending and a real institution: the Registrar’s archive of cases nine or more years past procedural deadline. As an ending, the auditor’s career falls into it. As an institution, it is where everything the Bureau preferred not to remember is, in fact, still legally on file.
• Continuing Service — The non-ending at Mid Compliance / Mid Notice. Extend three cases, or close with a variant ending. See §5.

Filed without prejudice. Acknowledged by the Office of Forms & Publications. Refer questions, comments, or corrections to the form itself.

— the Bureau