Terheia

A generative canon system for multi-volume fantasy fiction, built on seven layers of world-producing constraint.

Read the Documentation Overview & Status

7 pipeline layers · 6 magic schools · 7 narrative invariants · JSON validator

The Problem

Worldbuilding fails at the boundary between documents

Multi-volume collaborative fiction fails at the boundary between documents. A world that begins with a magic system accumulates institutions, factions, cultures, and economies. Each layer introduces new internal constraints that must remain consistent with every prior layer — not just at the start, but across volumes, contributors, and formats. The traditional approach is reference documentation: lists of facts, names, and rules that contributors consult and hope to respect.

Reference documentation degrades. Contributors interpret it differently. Volumes accumulate implicit decisions that contradict each other. The further the project runs from its origin, the more divergence accumulates invisibly — until a manuscript contains two incompatible versions of the same institution, a magic school that has been quietly expanded beyond its defined cost structure, or a character whose arc violates a structural rule no one remembered existed.

The Terheia canon addresses this through a generative pipeline: each layer is defined not as a list of facts but as a set of rules that produce facts. Cosmology constrains magic. Magic constrains institutions. Institutions constrain individuals. The constraints propagate downward; violations are detectable at any level. A story submission can be validated against the schema. A character's magic tier has a defined cost signature. A narrative arc can be checked against the seven invariants before drafting begins.

The System

Seven layers, from cosmology to narrative

The master pipeline produces the world in sequence. Each layer defines the constraints that filter the next. Nothing at a lower layer contradicts something defined at a higher layer — the propagation is unidirectional and causal.

7
Pipeline Layers
6
Magic Schools
7
Narrative Invariants
37
Book 4 Chapters
1
Cosmology — Five moons, six magic schools, four tiers, and the suppressed Psionic school. The substrate that connects all magic is established here.
2
World — Nodes amplify local magic. Substrate connects nodes and channels magical physics. World geography is the product of cosmological pressure.
3
Society — Twenty states, thirteen cultures, six ethnicities, three major institutions, and eleven factions. Social structure follows from what magic makes possible and what it costs.
4
Infrastructure — Six material types, four transport systems, medicine, the contamination grade system, and warfare units. Physical infrastructure reflects social and magical constraints.
5
Life — Biological systems and a bestiary of creatures defined by tier, moon attunement, and role in the ecological infrastructure.
6
Object Generation — A nine-stage cascade filters every object through cosmological, material, social, and individual constraints before it appears in prose.
7
Narrative — Seven invariants, monotonic trajectories, escalation compression, and eight forms of hope govern how stories unfold without constraining what happens.
Status

Current state and scope

The core data files are complete. The magic system, canonical data tables, narrative architecture, and structural protocols are under active use. Book 4 (Those Who Cross) has a structurally complete volume blueprint: 37 chapters, six-POV rotation with insertions, 110,000–130,000 word target. Blueprints for Books 1–3 are pending.

The story spine validator is a JSON Schema (Draft-07) for canonical story submission review. It enforces the full cast, setting, spine, and compliance schema, including POV instrumentation fields, moon and school enumerations, and all twelve biome types. The validator distinguishes canonical submissions from experimental, alternate, and adaptation scope — non-canonical stories document explicitly what they test, what the canon says, and what the story does differently.

The governance framework defines canon compliance states, contributor privilege levels, and succession protocol. It is the institutional layer that keeps the canon from fragmenting as it grows.