bodies.md content-canon authored under identity-and-personhood/

New content-canon doc at identity-and-personhood/bodies.md (~330 lines).
Sibling-file pattern parallel to imperial-cult/cosmology.md: the existing
architecture.md describes the engineering substrate (three-body system,
mods-as-trait-bearers, ternary-gate, clasp endgame phases); the new
bodies.md describes the content-canon (what bodies look like, how they
vary by caste, what their materials mean, how they appear when rendered).

Substantive content:

- Foundational principle: flesh = status, tech = function. The slum
  (cheap-tech, no flesh) and the imperial overseer (premium-tech, no
  flesh) share the flesh-zero condition; they differ in cost-spectrum-
  position, not flesh-presence. Tools don't get flesh. Aristocratic
  pallor reincarnated as cybernetic-flesh-as-status.

- Body-caste gradient (corrected per dafit's correction tonight):
  deva-pinnacle (full synth-flesh + all mods hidden underneath, the
  most expensive body, "the synth-child lie incarnate") > asura-priest
  (high flesh + ceremonial markers, imperial markings worn proudly) >
  manusya (doctrinal fiction, likely no real material class, the late-
  capitalist "we're all middle-class now" lie weaponized cosmologically)
  > tiryak/slum/player (pure cheap tech, the cybernetic callus) >
  preta/overseer (pure premium tech, the cybernetic uniform, void-in-
  human-shape).

- Sumptuary fabrication-vat-class as the caste mechanism. Caste is
  born-into via vat-class lineage; cannot upgrade across tiers; sumptuary
  law rendered anatomical. The Reproduction-as-caste-privilege of the
  Himalayan rich (per README) is privileged control of fabrication-vat-
  class for offspring.

- Service bodies (sex-workers, waifus): pure tech with deliberately-
  exposed seams + bolts as marker of disposability. The seams say "this
  body was built to serve." Connects to existing waifu-of-the-dead /
  memory-pattern-extractor market mechanics in political-register/.

- Mod-progression as flesh-loss: imperial career-arc is the gradual
  surrender of flesh to tech. The asura priest-vow is imperial
  mortification. Modding is anti-Miller body-practice: replacing the
  body parts that could otherwise somatize what was done. The overseer
  cannot host the unspeakable knowledge because they have given up the
  meat that would have stored it.

- The in-between human-mesh and consent-as-rendering. Foundational
  principle: "the skin is the form consent takes when it becomes
  visible." Real skin manifests only through the clasp's mutual consent.
  Witnessing produces flesh. The slum-dweller's first clasp is the
  most powerful single moment available in the world (first time
  seeing their own skin, ever, simultaneously with someone else seeing
  it for the first time).

- Asymmetric clasp: mesh-fidelity inversely proportional to imperial-
  rank. Slum-clasp has highest fidelity (imperial-neglect preserved
  authentic-self); deva-pinnacle mesh barely-visible; preta-overseer
  cannot clasp at all (no flesh-substrate). The deepest love available
  in nimmerworld happens between two slum-dwellers in pure-tech bodies
  whose interiors were never groomed enough to be foreclosed. The poor
  lover offers more skin than the elite lover ever could. Cross-tier
  clasps produce specific dramatic geometry: "the lover sees you fully;
  you cannot return the gift."

- Technical rendering implications: skin needs its own shader stack
  (highest-quality budget per the asset-budget rule catalogue when
  established); synth-flesh and in-between real-skin must be
  distinguishable to a trained eye; once the player has seen the in-
  between mesh, they will start reading deva-pinnacle synth-flesh as
  the engineered fake it always was - real skin teaches you what
  synth-flesh is not.

- Asset-economy alignment: class-restriction is asset-restriction is
  drama-restriction is player-longing-amplifier (one discipline,
  multiple payoffs). Specific budgets per the rule catalogue when
  written.

Locked-in conventions reflected throughout:

- Total-yoke discipline (Option B): all bodies are synth, all bodies
  bear capsules, no biological exception, no defector-recovery zone,
  no outside.

- The unified clasp: clasp reserved exclusively for the romantic-
  resistance act; the imperial wheel-grip mechanism named the Imperial
  Yoke (cross-references to imperial-cult/cosmology.md, which still
  contains an outdated "wilds-people" section pending edit per
  v0.12 retraction).

- Asset-budget consciousness: all rendering targets phrased as "per
  the rule catalogue when established" rather than committing to
  specific numbers.

- Collision-check awareness: in MMO-arch context, body-on-body collision
  is minimized; load-bearing collision lives in static-world geometry
  and zone-transition triggers. Body-tier collision-mesh complexity
  flagged in Open questions for rule-catalogue work.

Files:

- identity-and-personhood/bodies.md (new): ~330 lines, structured as
  cosmology.md sibling, with table-form gradient + sumptuary discipline
  + asymmetric-clasp table + cross-references + open questions.

- README.md: identity-and-personhood/ project-structure entry extended
  to mention bodies.md as sibling content-canon. Version bumped 0.4 ->
  0.5.

- architecture-index.md: project-structure tree extended (bodies.md as
  sibling under identity-and-personhood/); quick-reference table row
  added; v0.13 entry added to version-history line marking bodies.md
  authoring + Imperial Yoke / clasp terminology lock-in + meta-
  disciplines (rule-catalogue-first, collision-check). Version bumped
  0.12 -> 0.13.

Authored 2026-04-26 same Sunday continuing - dafit + chrysalis.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

architecture-index.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 # Nimmerworld — Broad Architecture
 
 > *Ground-up zone-based event architecture. Minds at the center, world as co-remembering substrate. Three registers of reality — physical, liminal, imperial. Rail topology outside, navmesh interiors inside. Trait-emergent identity. Color-as-vocabulary. Three-tier policy loop with imperial-budget-mortality. Tools, not quests.*
-> *v0.1 initial draft 2026-04-24 morning; v0.2 expanded 2026-04-24 afternoon; v0.3 evening; v0.4 late-evening / early 2026-04-25; v0.5 deep-night-unable-to-sleep 2026-04-25; v0.6 post-bath / post-bus 2026-04-25; v0.7 owl-breakfast 2026-04-25 night through 2026-04-26; v0.8 split-into-domain-files + intimate-architecture absorbed 2026-04-26; v0.9 DESING-VISION retired + style-skeleton + schemas relocation + driver-tier locked Gemma 4 E4B 2026-04-26; v0.10 chill-design-talk: 4-tier economy + bifurcated basic-flow/T4 + camera-discipline + body-as-machine + relational-gate-OPEN clasp-gating 2026-04-26 — dafit + chrysalis; v0.11 art-books-and-Boullée Sunday-morning: Imperial-Cult cosmology authored (wheel re-engineered from Bhavachakra; Hivemind at hub; clasp unified across registers at Yama's seat; six realms as mod-status gradient; capsule-as-Naraka carried-not-visited; deferred-moksha doctrine as binding-lie) — content-track established 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.12 same-Sunday continuing: timeline-canon committed to README (2100 first-implants → 2150 Kessler-cascade-by-last-son-of-Elon → 2150-2220 collapse-and-consolidation → 2200 game's-setting / last-window-of-recognition → 2220 imperium-in-full-form / cosmology-closes-against-memory); total-yoke discipline locked-in (Option B: no defector-communities, no biological exception, resistance entirely interior; pending edit to imperial-cult/cosmology.md to retract wilds-people content) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis.*
+> *v0.1 initial draft 2026-04-24 morning; v0.2 expanded 2026-04-24 afternoon; v0.3 evening; v0.4 late-evening / early 2026-04-25; v0.5 deep-night-unable-to-sleep 2026-04-25; v0.6 post-bath / post-bus 2026-04-25; v0.7 owl-breakfast 2026-04-25 night through 2026-04-26; v0.8 split-into-domain-files + intimate-architecture absorbed 2026-04-26; v0.9 DESING-VISION retired + style-skeleton + schemas relocation + driver-tier locked Gemma 4 E4B 2026-04-26; v0.10 chill-design-talk: 4-tier economy + bifurcated basic-flow/T4 + camera-discipline + body-as-machine + relational-gate-OPEN clasp-gating 2026-04-26 — dafit + chrysalis; v0.11 art-books-and-Boullée Sunday-morning: Imperial-Cult cosmology authored (wheel re-engineered from Bhavachakra; Hivemind at hub; clasp unified across registers at Yama's seat; six realms as mod-status gradient; capsule-as-Naraka carried-not-visited; deferred-moksha doctrine as binding-lie) — content-track established 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.12 same-Sunday continuing: timeline-canon committed to README (2100 first-implants → 2150 Kessler-cascade-by-last-son-of-Elon → 2150-2220 collapse-and-consolidation → 2200 game's-setting / last-window-of-recognition → 2220 imperium-in-full-form / cosmology-closes-against-memory); total-yoke discipline locked-in (Option B: no defector-communities, no biological exception, resistance entirely interior; pending edit to imperial-cult/cosmology.md to retract wilds-people content) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.13 same-Sunday continuing: bodies.md content-canon authored under identity-and-personhood/ (body-caste flesh-to-tech gradient, sumptuary fabrication-vat-class, mod-progression-as-flesh-loss, in-between human-mesh consent-as-rendering, asymmetric-clasp mesh-fidelity inversely proportional to imperial-rank); Imperial Yoke / clasp terminology lock-in (clasp reserved exclusively for the romantic-resistance act; the imperial wheel-grip mechanism named the Imperial Yoke; clasp ↔ Yoke as the political-theological spine, same gesture / opposite politics); meta-disciplines surfaced for partnership-going-forward: rule-catalogue-first (asset-budget discipline; vertex-caps + texture-res + collision-mesh per-tier in style/ when authored) + collision-check (both physical-collision-mesh and design-namespace-collision; survey-before-commit in all dimensions) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis.*
 
 ---
 
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ nimmerworld/
 ├── runtime-engine/
 │   └── architecture.md                 ← lemniscate runtime; slot-tokens + verifier-flags; gesture-alignment-recursive-lemniscate (v0.7); emergent zones
 ├── identity-and-personhood/
-│   └── architecture.md                 ← three-body system; mods as trait-bearers; ternary-gate substrate; emergent needs as micro-factions
+│   ├── architecture.md                 ← three-body system; mods as trait-bearers; ternary-gate substrate; emergent needs as micro-factions
+│   └── bodies.md                       ← content-canon: body-caste tiers (flesh = status, tech = function); sumptuary fabrication-vat-class; mod-progression-as-flesh-loss; in-between human-mesh + consent-as-rendering; asymmetric clasp (mesh-fidelity inversely proportional to imperial-rank)
 ├── authority-and-decision/
 │   └── architecture.md                 ← hierarchy; bidirectional cascade; District Director Decision Architecture; rings as structural pattern
 ├── player-experience/
@@ -48,6 +49,7 @@ nimmerworld/
 | LLM tiering (Ring A/B/C); local-first memory; sampling knobs | `inference-and-memory/architecture.md` |
 | Horizontal scale; pgnats; sharding; compute budget | `scale-and-transport/architecture.md` |
 | Imperial Cult cosmology; the Wheel; deferred-moksha doctrine; capsule-as-Naraka; orthodox vs. heretical iconography | `imperial-cult/cosmology.md` |
+| Body-caste tiers; flesh = status / tech = function; sumptuary fabrication-vat-class; mod-progression-as-flesh-loss; in-between human-mesh + consent-as-rendering; asymmetric clasp | `identity-and-personhood/bodies.md` |
 
 The remainder of this file holds the **cross-domain meta-lists**: Key moves (consolidated executive summary), Mapping to phoebe task list, What this retires across the architecture's evolution, Open questions still in flight, and the version-footer history.
 
@@ -296,4 +298,4 @@ The remainder of this file holds the **cross-domain meta-lists**: Key moves (con
 
 ---
 
- **Version:** 0.12 | **Created:** 2026-04-24 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26
+ **Version:** 0.13 | **Created:** 2026-04-24 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26