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Reference

Style guide and conventions for the Cadwallon wiki. Read this before populating other notes; follow the templates below for consistency. This file governs prose and house style; Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema governs frontmatter/metadata; Conversion Notes governs Daggerheart mechanics.

Tone

Field guide, not encyclopedia. Sigil-of-Planescape energy — colorful, scuzzy, lived-in. Evocative one-liners over paragraphs of exposition. A casual reader should grasp a note's vibe in 10 seconds and find a hook within 30.

Canon Hierarchy

When the wiki has multiple sources of truth, resolve in this order:

  1. Homebrew.md files in each category — our table's invented, replaced, or overridden material. Authoritative. (In frontmatter, such notes carry canon: homebrew.)
  2. Populated canon notes — material drawn from the official source books (PHB, Secrets Vol 1, Marine Ruins). These carry canon: core.
  3. Source PDFs in Rulebooks/ — fall back here only when the wiki hasn't captured something yet.

If a canon note and a Homebrew.md entry conflict, the homebrew wins. When AI tooling answers questions about any category, it should check that category's Homebrew.md first.

File Structure

Every populated note has:

  • Frontmatter (Obsidian Properties) for metadata — conforming to Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema. Exactly one type; universal fields (exposure, canon, completeness) as applicable; links stored unquoted.
  • H1 title matching the filename
  • Pull-quote or tagline as the first line — a Cadwë saying, source quote, or one-line vibe statement
  • Short overview (2–4 sentences) — what is this thing
  • Bulleted sub-sections for details
  • Hooks at the end — 3–5 adventure seeds where they make sense

Length Budget

  • Districts, NPCs, locations: 150–300 words
  • Fiefs, major concepts: 300–600 words
  • Anything longer probably wants to split

Conventions

  • Every named entity wikilinked on first mention
  • Source quotes in > blockquotes with attribution
  • Daggerheart conversion details belong in Conversion Notes.md, not inline in canon notes
  • Metadata belongs in frontmatter per Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema, not buried in prose — and prose belongs in the body, not in frontmatter values

Callout Types

  • > [!hook] — adventure seeds
  • > [!secret] — GM-only content (pairs with exposure: secret)
  • > [!quote] — rumors, what people say
  • > [!note] — table-level meta or reminders

Templates

Frontmatter in these templates conforms to Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema; see that file for the full type vocabulary and every field's allowed values. Below are the four most common.

Fief

---
type: fief
tier: lower | upper
ruling-house: [[House note]]
peer: [[Peer character]]
exposure: public
canon: core
completeness: draft
---

> Evocative one-line tag.

**Vibe:** 2–3 sentences. What you feel walking in.

## Districts
- [[District]] — one-line flavor

## Power & Politics
- Who rules, what they care about, current tensions

## NPCs of Note
- [[Name]] — role

## Hooks
> [!hook] Title
> Seed in 1–2 sentences.

District

---
type: district
fief: [[Fief]]
tier: lower | upper
attitude: Style | Subtlety | Opportunism | Pugnacity
exposure: public
canon: core
completeness: stub
---

> One-line tag.

**Day:** what it looks like.
**Night:** what it looks like.

## Locations
- **Name** — one-line description

## NPCs
- [[Name]] — role

## Hooks
> [!hook] Title
> Seed.

Character

---
type: character
faction: [[Faction]]
location: [[Fief or district or site]]
ancestry: [[Culture]]
role: 
status: alive | dead | undead | missing | cursed
exposure: public
canon: core
completeness: draft
---

> Role-and-attitude one-liner.

**Wants:** one sentence.
**Will:** what they'd do for it.
**Won't:** their line.

> [!secret] What they're hiding
> ...

## Hooks
> [!hook] ...

Player Character

A mechanics-light identity note for a party member (type: pc). Build and identity live in the frontmatter per the pc schema in Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema; live stats (HP, Stress, Hope, traits, gold) stay on the app or paper sheet. Distinct from the Character (NPC) template above so the party never mixes into NPC rosters.

---
type: pc
player: 
pronouns: 
ancestry: [[Ancestry]]
community: [Cadwallon fief / culture / faction](<../../Cadwallon fief / culture / faction.md>)
community-archetype: Highborne | Wanderborne | ...
class: 
subclass: 
domains:
  - 
  - 
level: 1
status: active
image: 
exposure: public
---

![[Portrait.png]] *(drop a portrait into `Characters/Portraits/`; see [Daggerheart Content](<./Daggerheart Content.md>) for class/community options)*

> A line in the character's own voice.

**Concept:** one line — who they are at a glance.

## Look
Appearance, bearing, the detail people remember.

## Background
Where they came from and why they're in Cadwallon — the Call pulled them here, or they were born to it (see [Cadwë Dream](<../07 Cosmology & Magic/Cadwë Dream.md>)).

## Drives
**Wants:** the goal that pulls them forward.
**Bond:** the person or principle they won't abandon.
**Flaw:** the lever the city can pull.

## Experiences
- *Experience Name* (+2) — one line on how it reads in the fiction

## Connections
- [[Other PC]] — the tie between you (the session-zero connection)
- [[NPC]] / [[Faction]] — a standing relationship in the city

## Hooks
> [!hook] Personal thread
> A seed tied to this character; link it to a [plot thread](<../09 Campaign/Plot Threads.md>) where you can.

Concept

For metaphysical or lore concepts like Desire, the Arcana, the Labyrinth. (Gods use type: deity; physical places use type: place — see Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema.)

---
type: concept
exposure: public | rumored | secret
canon: core
completeness: draft
---

> One-line tag.

## What It Is
2–3 paragraphs.

> [!secret] What's Actually Going On
> GM truth.

## Why It Matters Now
-

For AI Tooling: Dataview & Frontmatter

Operating instructions for an AI assistant working in this vault. Treat this section as a skill: load it before touching metadata or writing queries.

Ground rules

  1. Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema is authoritative for all frontmatter. Read it before creating or editing any note's properties. Match an existing type; never invent a field that isn't in Schema. If a new field is genuinely needed, add it to Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema first, then use it — otherwise it won't be queryable and the next session won't know it exists.
  2. Stamp full frontmatter on every new note, per its type's template — including the universal fields (exposure, canon, completeness). A note with no type is invisible to Dataview.
  3. Follow the link convention exactly: wikilinks in frontmatter are unquoted (fief: [The Rampart](<../02 City/Fiefs/The Rampart.md>)), multi-value link fields are YAML lists, values are atomic, years are bare integers. (Full rules in Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema#Conventions.)
  4. When you notice schema drift while editing a note for another reason, normalize that note's frontmatter as part of the edit. Don't leave a note half-migrated.
  5. Respect the canon hierarchy. Before answering a lore question about a category, check that category's Homebrew.md and any canon: homebrew notes first; they override source canon.

Working with Dataview

  • Dataview runs only inside Obsidian's renderer. An AI cannot execute a query or report its results from outside the app. When asked for "a list of X," the correct deliverable is a DQL block written into the relevant note, not a fabricated table of results. Never invent query output.
  • Use the cookbook. Cadwallon/00 Reference/Schema#Dataview cookbook has paste-ready queries for the common views (build backlog, GM secret-index, homebrew roster, NPCs by fief, per-fief district lists, history timeline, plot threads, orphans). Start there and adapt.
  • Self-filtering blocks (this.file.link) are how index views live inside the entity they describe — e.g. the "districts of this fief" block goes in each fief note and needs no editing per-fief. Prefer these over hand-maintained lists.
  • Don't break existing query blocks. When editing a note that contains a ```dataview or ```dataviewjs fence, leave it intact unless explicitly asked to change it.
  • Reach for dataviewjs only when plain DQL can't express the view (computed columns, multi-hop link-walking, custom grouping). Otherwise prefer readable DQL.

Quick reference