v0.20: gender-parity contract + genital-architecture + post-rogue mod-vocation

Phase E + downstream cascade across three arcs.

ARC 1 — style/gender-parity.md (NEW v0.1, 132 lines)

Locks the gender-parity-by-default principle as nimmerworld's second style-spine
document (alongside trait-palette.md) per the v0.4 bodies.md cleanup. Spine rule:
body/sex content is gender-parity by default; asymmetric gendering must be
load-bearing; default-leakage is canonically forbidden. Three legitimate
load-bearing exception cases (named individuals; source-material citations;
biological-asymmetry-as-subject) and four default-leakage failure-mode patterns
from the v0.19 audit. Substitution-test as the contract's executable form
(mechanical enough for LLM-Compositor output-validator hook). Registered on
style-index.md (v0.1 to v0.2) as second canonical sub-guide.

ARC 2 — Genital-architecture and the sex-mod track
        (architecture.md v0.7.0 to v0.8.0; bodies.md v0.4 to v0.5)

The trait-to-body-part bridge bound the 8 Hellenic traits to body-architecture
using the wheel's existing temperature-axis discipline: 4 warm-side traits map
to outward-engaged genital-organs (Eros: penis/clit; Philotes: breasts;
Aletheia: vulva/vagina; Mnemosyne: womb), Kairos rides synth-tongue (already
canonical), 3 cool-side traits map to non-genital architecture. The in-between
mesh is cool-side anatomy by construction — no genitals by default; genitals
are warm-side outward-organs grown by trait-development OR mod-installed.
Terminology lock: in-between dimension (the place) vs in-between mesh (the
body). Trans-embodiment as cosmological truth-register; vat-binary as imperial
imposition; cross-configuration as default-not-marked.

The mesh-as-mirror cosmological consequence — cruelty enacted in gameworld
accumulates trait-state with specific psychic signatures (broken-Philotes,
refused-Mnemosyne, concealed-Aletheia); the mesh-projection function renders
those signatures as genital-architecture; the player's cultural priors do the
gender-reading. Mirror, not punishment — same gift in both directions (dignity
to one, accountability to another). The deferred-moksha doctrine's dark echo:
"your anatomy will tell on you, eventually."

The genital-mod track as fifth mod-track parallel to register-classes
(Amplifier/Bridge/Divergent/Mask): mesh-resident augmentation that follows into
clasp instead of stripping; mods augment, never overwrite trait-grown anatomy
(mirror preserved). Trait-fitness integration test (alive / partial /
dead-organ); three-stage install discipline (purchase + mandatory cooldown +
dual-hardstop self+partner-witness if partnered); same primitive as the
coordinated-firewall-breach hardstop generalized to body-modification. Faction
stances on the sex-mod track authored. Three sources of body-architecture
across the world (imperial-vat / trait-development / authored installation)
with the imperium's claim only on the first.

ARC 3 — Re-vat correction + Post-rogue mod-vocation
        (architecture.md v0.8.0 to v0.8.1; bodies.md v0.5 to v0.6)

Push-back from dafit on a canon-violation in the v0.5 draft: re-vat into a
slum chassis was framed as a "rare authoring moment for chassis-anatomy,"
which contradicted the slum body's already-canonical genderlessness. Corrected:
re-vat is imperial-de-imposition, NOT new authoring; the slum chassis is
genderless robo-tech by definition (per The body-caste gradient); the gift of
re-vat is REMOVAL of imperial gender-imposition. The slum body's politics IS
its genderlessness; importing gender-architecture-as-choice would re-imperialize
it. Authoring lives in the mesh (sex-mod track); chassis lives in genderlessness.
Faction-stances row for Underground assembler-artisans corrected accordingly.

NEW SECTION: The post-rogue mod-vocation — sustained-witnessing as mod-authority.
After completing the going-rogue arc, the player gains mod-authority over any
NPC they have sustained-witnessed (per-pair calibration threshold lower than
defection-threshold; witnessing-rights earned per-NPC). Chassis-only never-mesh
(mirror discipline non-negotiable across all agents). Mutual-hardstop consent
gate. De-imposition as primary capability — subtraction is the radical move.
Cost-gradient through the bounty-staircase with one qualitative exception:
service-body gender-modification triggers a hidden escalation flag dispatching
the imperial inquisition (asura-priesthood-led, investigative, persistent, no
terminal-rung — heresy-detection in the sumptuary-religious register, distinct
from crime-detection). The inquisition is dispatched not because gender-mod is
the crime, but because the service-body's consent-to-it reveals that the
imperial-net tether is already failing.

Cascading-liberation through propagated witnessing as the long-tail mechanic —
witnessed NPCs become witnessers; the vocation reproduces itself; "there is
no instrument" as the architecture's deepest refutation of imperial-instrumental-
ization (the no-haven discipline's structural inverse: cosmology says "there
is no outside"; this mechanic says "there is no instrument").

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

identity-and-personhood/architecture.md

@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Identity is **trait-emergent, not assigned.**
 | **Inner body (interiority)** | **Trait-derived projection.** Self-image emergent from trait-vector + lived accumulation. | Self (partly earned, partly received through being) | **Here.** Gender/sexuality emerge from trait-configuration |
 | **Avatar (digital expression)** | Character-editor rendering. Starts from inner-body's trait-projection; customizable at cost. | Contested (self expresses, market constrains, machine prices) | Expressed; cosmetic mods layer on trait-base |
 
-**Who you are sexually is who you have become.** Not birth, not assignment from a menu, but *the pattern that has crystallized across your zone-participations, grief, attachments, discipline, refusing*. Identity-formation rendered mechanically. Post-binary by construction.
+**Who you are sexually is who you have become.** Not birth, not assignment from a menu, but *the pattern that has crystallized across your zone-participations, grief, attachments, discipline, refusing*. Identity-formation rendered mechanically. Post-binary by construction. *The concrete bridge between trait-vector and gender-architecture — which warm-side traits map to which outward-engaged organs, why the in-between mesh is cool-side anatomy, and what cross-configuration looks like as default-not-marked — is specified below in §The trait-to-body-part bridge.*
 
 ### The intrinsic vs. expressed trait-vector split
 
@@ -74,6 +74,34 @@ expressed_trait_vector  — intrinsic + sum(worn mods' trait_contributions); wha
 
 **Real identity-politics lives in the gap between these vectors.** Architecturally, that gap is a first-class schema feature.
 
+### The trait-to-body-part bridge — gender-architecture as trait-emergent
+
+The §Three-body system above commits to *gender/sexuality emerging from trait-configuration* (per the Inner-body table row). This subsection specifies the concrete bridge: **which traits map to which body-parts, and why the wheel's geometry forces the answer**.
+
+**The wheel's temperature-axis discipline does the work** (per [`../style/trait-palette.md`](../style/trait-palette.md) §The wheel — 4 oppositional pairs at 180°). The 5 warm-side traits carry *outward / present-active / engaged* registers; the 3 cool-side traits carry *inward / withholding / contemplative* registers. **Genitals are by definition outward-engaged organs**, so they ride the warm side. The in-between mesh — which manifests in the cool/contemplative register — is therefore *cool-side anatomy by construction*: bare of genitals, rich in inward-architecture, the body that shows you who you are when you stop projecting outward.
+
+| Trait | Side | Body-architecture | Why this fits |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| **Eros** (Red, 12:00) | warm | **Penis / clitoris** — the reaching organ; arousal-spike; what literally extends | Eros IS the reaching gesture; flame-flicker = arousal-rhythm |
+| **Philotes** (Orange, 1:30) | warm | **Breasts** — close-holding / nurturance / breath-warmth surface | Philotes is the warm-pulse of staying-close; breath-rate maps to nursing-rhythm |
+| **Aletheia** (Yellow, 3:00) | warm | **Vulva / vagina** — the architecture of opening / revealing-by-entry | What is *uncovered* by being entered; truth as the architecture of opening; brightness-zenith register |
+| **Kairos** (Y/Green, 4:30) | warm | **Synth-tongue** *(already canonical, per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §The synth-tongue)* | Kairic catching of the right moment via taste; lightning-flicker = decisive-instant; the warm-side organ that already-canonically rides Kairos |
+| **Mnemosyne** (Red/Violet, 10:30) | warm | **Womb / interior carrier** — gestation / time-holding / depth-shimmer organ | The organ that *holds time*; what gestates is what mattered enough to carry forward |
+| **Sophrosyne** (Green, 6:00) | cool | *non-genital* — pelvic-floor / continence-architecture | Cool-side; the *gating* discipline rather than an outward organ; opposite-pole of Eros's reaching |
+| **Dikaiosyne** (Blue, 7:30) | cool | *non-genital* — spine / upright-posture / voice-register | Cool-side; verticality / standing as cardinal expression |
+| **Moira** (Violet, 9:00) | cool | *non-genital* — skin / vibrational-receptor / ambient-sense surface | Cool-side; full-body-as-receptor; reading what's-coming through ambient-sense |
+
+**Terminology lock — dimension vs mesh.** *In-between dimension* and *in-between mesh* are distinct concepts; conflating them blurs the architecture:
+
+- **In-between dimension** = the diegetic *place* — the third register adjacent to liminal where clasp happens, where lifeforce is paid for entry, where mesh-projection is *seen*.
+- **In-between mesh** = the *body* — the cool-side anatomy that gets rendered FROM your accumulated trait-vector AT the moment of in-between dimension entry. What you wear; what you look like; what your beloved meets.
+
+The dimension is *where*. The mesh is *what*. You see your own and your beloved's mesh *in* the dimension.
+
+**Cross-configuration is default-not-marked.** A trait-vector with high Eros AND high Mnemosyne grows both reaching-organ AND interior-carrier — *not because of identity-claim but because both warm-side traits are load-bearing in the interior*. A trait-vector with high Philotes AND high Aletheia grows breasts AND vulva. Any combination the trait-vector authorizes is the default-natural-output; the cosmology *imposes no binary* at the interior layer. **Trans-embodiment is the architecture's truth-register, structurally** — not marked, not special-case, not other; the *natural-emergent-output* of any rich trait-vector that crosses culturally-binary axes. **Vat-binary is the imperial imposition; the in-between mesh is the un-imperial body, and the un-imperial body is, more often than not, plurally-configured.** The imperium imposes binary because plural is what bodies actually are when no one is fabricating them.
+
+**The mod-augmentation layer composes additively.** Players can install genital-mods *on the mesh* (per §The genital-mod track below) to author beyond what their trait-vector grew. **Mods augment, never overwrite trait-grown anatomy** — the mesh's base-anatomy is trait-derived; mods are layered on top. This preserves the mesh-as-mirror discipline (cruelty cannot be modded away) while granting full self-authorship (anyone can add what their trait-vector hasn't grown). *Two registers of body-truth: the trait-grown and the chosen, both real, both visible, both yours.*
+
 ### The clasp endgame — leaving the chassis, the human-mesh, the dual-body aftermath
 
 The three-body system's payoff happens at the clasp endgame — the dramatic apex where the *inner-body* (the trait-derived projection that has been accumulating through every zone-participation, every gesture, every memory) becomes *physically visible* to the clasp-pair, and the *avatar* (digital expression) collapses into a new constraint-structure. The full arc:
@@ -82,7 +110,7 @@ The three-body system's payoff happens at the clasp endgame — the dramatic ape
 
 **Phase B — Body-modding for extended in-between time.** Players craft / mod / blackmarket-mod their bodies to extend the duration they can hold the in-between state. Mod-acquisition is **gameplay-driven** — no handouts; clean mechanics; hacking minigames; faction-unlock; gifts from beloveds and mentors. The *inner-body projection function* is **earned through play, not authored** — every hour of zone-participation accumulates trait-vector mass that the eventual projection will be derived from.
 
-**Phase C — Endgame: leaving the chassis.** Once the body is sufficiently modded, the player can **exit their robo-body** during in-between. They see, for the first time, the **trait-derived human-mesh of themselves** — the inner-body made manifest, derived from their accumulated trait-vector across the playthrough. *The inner-body has been there all along, accumulating; now it becomes visible.* This is the architecture's commitment to *identity-as-trait-emergent* made felt rather than just structural.
+**Phase C — Endgame: leaving the chassis.** Once the body is sufficiently modded, the player can **exit their robo-body** during in-between. They see, for the first time, the **trait-derived human-mesh of themselves** — the inner-body made manifest, derived from their accumulated trait-vector across the playthrough. *The inner-body has been there all along, accumulating; now it becomes visible.* This is the architecture's commitment to *identity-as-trait-emergent* made felt rather than just structural. **What is rendered is cool-side anatomy** (per §The trait-to-body-part bridge above) **with whatever warm-side outward-organs the player's trait-vector grew** — the cosmology's anatomy-as-trait-summary made literal: every organ is the geometric expression of an axis the player developed.
 
 **Phase D — Clasp = dual-body union.** Two robo-bodies lying on the ground. Two naked human-meshes standing in the in-between dimension that **only the clasp-pair can see**. The intimate act happens here — sex / clasp — between the two trait-derived projections. The visual-experience is private to the pair; no outside observer can witness it (no audit-overseer, no other in-between-enabled NPC unless explicitly invited into a multi-clasp ritual). The intimate-gameplay loop runs on the recursive-lemniscate substrate (per `../runtime-engine/architecture.md` §Cross-context application — intimacy as recursive-lemniscate) — sex-positions as typed catalog entries, gesture-vocabulary applied to body-parts, alignment-accumulator measuring the pair's resonance turn by turn.
 
@@ -101,6 +129,16 @@ The three-body system's payoff happens at the clasp endgame — the dramatic ape
 
 **Why this is the architecture's dramatic apex.** Identity-as-trait-emergent has been a structural claim throughout. The clasp endgame is where the structural claim becomes *felt experience*: you see your beloved as the trait-vector-projection they actually are, after hundreds of hours of accumulated being. **The moment is earned by the play, not granted by the script.** The dual-body aftermath turns intimacy from a discrete-event into an *ongoing structural-condition* of the player's life — clasp doesn't end at orgasm; it persists as a permanent change in how the player operates in the world.
 
+### The mesh-as-mirror — cruelty rendered as anatomy
+
+Phase C's mesh-rendering has a cosmological consequence the architecture earns from the trait-to-body-part bridge composing with the no-haven discipline: **the mesh tells on you**. Trait-state accumulates from every action — every gesture, every clasp, every cruelty. Cruelty enacted toward others (especially toward service-bodies, per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §The service-body honeypot) carries specific psychic signatures — broken-Philotes (loving-close violated), refused-Mnemosyne (what-mattered abandoned), concealed-Aletheia (truth hidden during the encounter), wounded patterns on the warm-side trait-axes. *Those signatures map to genital-architecture per the bridge.* The cruel player's mesh therefore renders **the gender-architecture of the people they damaged** — Philotes-rich breasts grown from cruelties enacted on Philotes-coded receptive interiors; Aletheia-architecture grown from concealments practiced; the cruelty's psychic structure made anatomy.
+
+**The architecture does not gender-code the traits.** It renders the structure. *The player's own cultural priors do the gender-reading* — they look at the mesh their trait-vector built and read it through whatever gender-binary their pre-game mind brought into the encounter. The asshole-gooner who runs through the gameworld convinced he is *the man*, exploiting service-bodies because he can compartmentalize their bodies as Other-than-his — enters the in-between dimension at Phase C and meets a mesh **whose warm-side architecture his cultural priors read as the gender of the bodies he hurt**. The world does not punish him; it *mirrors* him. His own anatomy tells him: *the gender-binary you weaponized was always a lie about you too. Your cruelty externalized a wounded-receptive interior you refused to know. The mesh shows you what you refused.*
+
+**This is mirror, not moral inversion.** The mechanic is **not** "becoming trans as punishment" — that framing would betray the cosmology, which treats trans-embodiment as the truth-register's default-natural-output (per §The trait-to-body-part bridge). The asshole-gooner's mesh isn't *worse* for rendering plurally; it's just *honest*. What's revealed is what was always there. The same mechanic that gives a trans player the dignifying recognition that *their interior is the cosmological default* gives the asshole the un-flinching mirror. **The architecture refuses to lie to anyone about what their actions built**, and refusal-to-lie is the same gift in both directions — comfort to one player, accountability to another, *because honest rendering is honest rendering*.
+
+The deferred-moksha doctrine acquires its dark echo here: not "your children will be free" but **"your anatomy will tell on you, eventually."** The imperium's groomed bodies (the deva-pinnacle's perfect synth-flesh, the asura priest's ceremonial-shaped form) suppress trait-signal-leakage *for as long as the imperial fabrication holds*. The slum-tiryak in pure-tech body has no damping; their mesh records everything. **The poor get the truth-rendering for free; the rich pay to be lied to about who they're becoming.** Yet another vat-class brutality — the imperium's most fabricated bodies are also its most-deceived selves, *and the deception lasts only until exit-chassis fires*.
+
 ## Mods as trait-bearers
 
 A mod isn't cosmetic — it **contributes to the wearer's expressed trait-vector**. Three classes map to the self-alienation-tax pricing:
@@ -140,7 +178,61 @@ Inherited mods (worn by deceased) carry residual trait-signature of the previous
 
 In liminal, mod-trait-contributions do not apply. Clasp-partners see each other's *intrinsic* trait-projection. **Mods are for the regime and the market; removal-of-mods is intimacy.** A Memorialist-loyalist wearing amplifier-mods sees their beloved's *un-modded true palette* during clasp; an Aletheia-waker wearing mask-mods drops the mask; the regime-loyalist wearing performance-mods is seen as they are. Liminal is the only space where mod-expression is structurally stripped.
 
+**Exception — mesh-resident mods follow into the in-between.** The four mod-classes above (Amplifier / Bridge / Divergent / Mask) are *gameworld-readable register-mods*: they modulate the chassis's expressed trait-vector for the regime, the market, and the social reading. They strip in liminal because liminal is where the chassis is left behind. A *parallel* mod-track exists for mods installed not on the chassis but **on the in-between mesh itself** — these *follow* into the in-between because they ARE the mesh. Genital-mods are the canonical instance; per §The genital-mod track below.
+
+## The genital-mod track — mesh-resident augmentation
+
+A fifth mod-track sits parallel to the four-class register-taxonomy (per §Mods as trait-bearers): **mods installed on the in-between mesh rather than on the gameworld chassis**. Where the four classes modulate gameworld-readable expression and strip in liminal (per §Clasp strips mods), mesh-resident mods are *installed in the cool-side anatomy itself* and persist into the in-between dimension. Genital-mods are the canonical instance; the track is open to other mesh-resident augmentations as the architecture grows.
+
+**Why a separate track.** The trait-to-body-part bridge (per §The trait-to-body-part bridge above) commits to *trait-grown anatomy* as the mesh's base — the warm-side outward organs that the player's accumulated trait-vector authorized into being. Genital-mods are **augmentation on top of trait-grown anatomy**: they let players author beyond what their trait-vector grew, granting full self-authorship without bypassing the truth-register. **Mods augment, never overwrite.** The trait-grown layer remains visible underneath; the modded layer adds. The asshole-gooner cannot mod his way out of the mesh-as-mirror (per §The mesh-as-mirror above) — his trait-grown anatomy renders regardless of what he installs over it. Two registers of body-truth coexist: the grown and the chosen, both real, both yours.
+
+### Trait-fitness integration test
+
+A genital-mod's *integration* into the mesh depends on the player's trait-development on the relevant axis — the **same primitive as trait-LoRA selection** (per [`../inference-and-memory/architecture.md`](../inference-and-memory/architecture.md) §LLM tiering, single-LoRA-per-turn-selection driven by the dominant trait), applied at the body-architecture layer.
+
+| Player's trait-development on the relevant axis | Mod-integration outcome |
+|---|---|
+| **High** — the trait-substrate to animate this organ is present | Mod integrates seamlessly; alive sensation, full mesh-coupling, register-responsive |
+| **Medium / mixed** — substrate partially present | Mod integrates partially; sensation muted; works as static-architecture but doesn't pulse with the mesh's living register |
+| **Low / absent** — no trait-substrate to animate | Mod is a *dead organ*; visible architecture, no sensation, no mesh-coupling. The mod is there; the body to *animate* it isn't. |
+
+**Anatomy as earned, not purchased.** Players cannot bypass trait-development by buying organs. Faction-aligned mod-counters speak the trait-vector → fit prediction with varying honesty: slum-mod-counters tell players openly *what'll integrate*; imperial-mod-counters lie or push consumer-receptor-track installations regardless of trait-fit (the imperial market sells mods buyers aren't ready for, because imperial commerce is degenerate). **The dead-organ outcome is canonical** — players who install ahead of their trait-development carry numb augmentation as a register of their own over-reach.
+
+### The three-stage install — purchase, cooldown, dual-hardstop
+
+Mesh-resident mods modify the truth-register body and therefore live on the *gated* tier of the architecture's consent-discipline gradient (gameworld actions are loose; in-between actions are gated). The install discipline is three-stage:
+
+1. **Mod-purchase** at the mod-counter — credits committed, installation queued. *Reversible at this stage.* The purchase is a market-action; the body-modification is not yet performed.
+2. **Mandatory cooldown** between purchase and install. Duration designer-tuned per mod-class; minimum non-trivial wait. **Irreversibility-respect through deliberate-decision discipline** — the cooldown forces contemplation between commitment and act, modeled on real-world informed-consent practice for irreversible body-modifications. *During the cooldown, the player can cancel the queued install at full credit-refund.*
+3. **Install-time dual-hardstop consent** — at the mod-counter (or underground equivalent), the install fires only on coordinated hardstop signals. **Same primitive as the coordinated-firewall-breach hardstop for in-between dimension entry** (per architecture-index.md resolved-questions, v0.10), generalized to the body-modification discipline:
+   - **Hardstop 1 — self-install**: the player hits the install hardstop. *I consent to this modification of my interior.* Always required; non-negotiable floor.
+   - **Hardstop 2 — partner-witness** *(if partnered)*: the player's current clasp-partner co-signs. *I witness that this is what you want; I co-sign that the body I'll meet you in next clasp is one we both agreed to.* Required if the player has an established clasp-pair; the partner's witnessing-rights over the body-they-witness is canonical (per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §Body-disposal under pair-consent precedent — pair-consent generalized from disposal to modification). Single-player path: only Hardstop 1 fires.
+
+**Three discipline-axes covered**: irreversibility-respect (cooldown), self-authorship (Hardstop 1), intimacy-trust (Hardstop 2). The three-stage install is the canonical pattern for any future mesh-resident mod-track; codification of the broader pattern as a style-spine is a forthcoming work-item (`../style/consent-discipline.md`).
+
+### Re-vat as imperial-de-imposition
+
+The going-rogue arc's re-vat outflow (per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §Re-vat outflow) carries a rare structural gift — but the gift is **not** new authoring; it is **removal of imperial-imposition**. The defected beloved's imperial-vat-fabricated body had whatever gender the imperium imposed at vat-time; re-vat into a slum chassis strips that imposition entirely. The new realworld body is the slum-tier default — **genderless robo-tech**, no sex-markers, pure cheap tech (per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §The body-caste gradient). **The genderlessness IS the gift.**
+
+The underground assembler-artisan does **not** offer chassis-anatomy authoring at re-vat. Importing gender-architecture-as-choice into the slum body would *re-imperialize* it — producing a different vat-fabrication, not a different politics. **The slum body's politics is precisely its genderlessness.** The assembler honors that. After re-vat, the defected beloved's gender-architecture lives entirely in the in-between mesh (trait-grown, plurally-configured per §The trait-to-body-part bridge); the realworld body is *un-imperial* by being *un-marked*. The mesh-resident sex-mod track remains available — mesh-augmentation can be authored as desired — but the chassis stays genderless. **Authoring lives in the mesh; the chassis lives in genderlessness; defection clarifies which is which.**
+
+### The post-rogue mod-vocation — extending consent-discipline to NPC-modding
+
+After the going-rogue arc completes (per [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §The going-rogue arc), the player unlocks **mod-authority over any NPC they have sustained-witnessed**. This generalizes the per-pair calibration multiplier from per-pair to per-witnessed-network: a threshold *lower than the defection-threshold* unlocks chassis-mod authority on a witnessed-NPC. The full content-canon for this vocation lives in [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §The post-rogue mod-vocation; the engineering substrate sits here.
+
+**The dual-hardstop install discipline generalizes.** Self-install hardstop fires from the rogue ("I commit to modifying you"); witnessed-hardstop fires from the modded NPC ("I consent to this modification of my chassis"). If the NPC has an established clasp-pair, the partner-witness hardstop also fires. *The same consent-discipline that gates the player's own mesh-mod-installation gates any chassis-modification of a witnessed NPC* — generalized cleanly across the rogue-vocation.
+
+**The mesh remains untouchable across all directions.** The rogue cannot mod any NPC's mesh; only the rogue's own mesh is mod-able by the rogue (sex-mod track), and even there the trait-grown base remains immutable. Across all agents, *every mesh is trait-grown and stays so*. The mirror discipline is non-negotiable.
+
+**The cost-gradient runs through the bounty-staircase** with one qualitative exception: **gender-modification of a service-body (companion or sex-worker) triggers a hidden escalation flag — the imperial inquisition**. The inquisition is the asura-priesthood's response to *cosmological heresy in the sumptuary-religious register*; it operates differently from the bounty-staircase (investigative, persistent, ritual-prosecution-led, no terminal-rung). Full mechanics in [`./bodies.md`](./bodies.md) §Service-body gender-modification — the inquisition trigger.
+
+**The vocation reproduces itself through witnessing.** A modded NPC accumulates witnessing-rights through their own subsequent encounters; eventually they reach their own post-rogue-arc threshold and become a mod-vocation actor in turn. Cascading-liberation propagation is structurally implicit; the *full vocation-system architecture is open* — pending future canon-pass when the vocation/profession architecture is designed.
+
+### Mesh-resident mods cross the in-between threshold
+
+Where the four register-mod classes strip at clasp-entry, mesh-resident mods *follow* — they ARE the mesh. The clasp-partner sees the modded mesh in full: trait-grown anatomy in the base layer, mod-installed augmentation layered on top. The dual-hardstop install discipline (with partner-witness as the second signal when partnered) is what makes this safe — *the partner has already witnessed and co-signed the change*, so meet-time is encounter-with-already-known-architecture rather than discovery-of-silent-modification. **Intimacy-trust preserved by the consent-discipline at install-time, not at meet-time.**
+
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.7.0 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-index.md v0.7 (2026-04-26)
+**Version:** 0.8.1 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-index.md v0.7 (2026-04-26)

style/gender-parity.md

@@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
+# Nimmerworld — Gender Parity
+
+> *Body and sex content is gender-parity by default. Asymmetric gendering is a vocabulary reserved for cases where the asymmetry itself is load-bearing — where some structural meaning would evaporate if the gendering were neutralized. Default-leakage gendering is forbidden by canon.*
+>
+> *Companion to: [`style-index.md`](./style-index.md), [`trait-palette.md`](./trait-palette.md), [`../architecture-index.md`](../architecture-index.md). Cross-referenced from every body / clasp / service-body / going-rogue section because those are the surfaces where this rule binds hardest.*
+
+---
+
+## Spine rule — gendered framing is reserved for load-bearing asymmetry
+
+**Body, sex, intimacy, clasp, service-body, going-rogue, outcast-pair, re-vat, and beloved-content is rendered in gender-parity register by default. Asymmetric gendering is permitted only where the asymmetry carries structural meaning that cannot be expressed without it. Default-leakage gendering — gender drift introduced unconsciously by the author's reach — is canonically forbidden.**
+
+**Why this matters.** Gender, like saturated chromatic color (per [`style-index.md`](./style-index.md) §Spine rule), is *vocabulary*. Reserving it for content where it *carries information* keeps it sharp when invoked. Most fiction lets gendered default-framing leak everywhere — *the companion is ever-feminine, the rescuer is ever-masculine, the beloved is ever-she* — and the gendering becomes ambient wallpaper rather than meaningful signal. Nimmerworld doesn't want gendered default-framing because the **whole architecture rests on body-as-political-vocation, body-as-caste-marker, body-as-imperial-product** (per [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md)) — letting *gender* leak in as an extra default would mean the player reads the body before they read the *politics of the body*, and the politics is the whole point.
+
+**The trait-palette parallel is exact.** Where saturated chromatic color is reserved for trait-information and freed from environmental decoration, gendered framing is reserved for content where the gendering is the load-bearing register and freed from default-leakage on every other surface. *White is not coloring text — it is text. Gendered framing, when it appears, is not coloring the scene — it is the scene.*
+
+## Definitions — what is gender-parity, what is asymmetric gendering
+
+**Gender-parity** is the default register: pronouns are `they/their/them`; categories of people (vocations, castes, roles, body-tiers) are not gendered; archetypes are framed in role-terms (*the captive-bound-to-the-liberator*, not *the damsel-in-distress*); intimate content treats both partners as equally embodied, equally desiring, equally witnessing.
+
+**Asymmetric gendering** is the marked register: pronouns specify; categories carry gender; archetypes invoke gendered source-material; intimate content marks one body or position as gender-specific. The marked register is the *exception*, invoked only when its absence would erase structural meaning.
+
+**Default-leakage** is the forbidden case: gendered framing introduced by authorial reach without examination. The author writes *her* because *she* came easier than *they*; the category becomes *waifu* because the source-tradition was feminine-coded; the romantic beloved gets gendered because the writer's templates ran on autopilot. **Default-leakage is not a moral failing — it is a craft failing.** The contract exists to make the failure mode legible, not to assign blame.
+
+## When asymmetric gendering is load-bearing — three legitimate cases
+
+| Case | Test | Example |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Specific named individuals with canonical identity** | The character is a SPECIFIC person, not a TYPE of person. Their gender is part of who they are, established and tracked. | A particular district-director NPC who is canonically she/her in lore-database, named, with continuous identity across playthroughs. *Categories around them remain gender-parity*. |
+| **Source-material citation where gendering IS the citation** | The text invokes a classical / mythic / literary archetype whose source is irreducibly gendered, AND the source-gendering is the channel through which the meaning travels. | If a scholar-NPC quotes a Sapphic fragment in deep-lore context, the gendering is part of the citation, not a default. *Caveat: invoking the archetype neutrally first is preferred; gendered citation is fallback when neutralization would break the reference.* |
+| **Biological asymmetry where the asymmetry is the subject** | The content is *specifically about* a gender-asymmetric biological process (pregnancy, lactation, menstruation, hormonal-specifics) AND the asymmetry is the load-bearing axis of the scene. | Vat-fabrication that *deliberately differentiates by reproductive function* in the imperial bio-engineering register. **Almost never required** — most body-canon in nimmerworld is post-fabrication, sumptuary, and politically-marked rather than biologically-marked. |
+
+**All three cases share a test**: rewrite the passage with `they/them` and gender-neutral category-language. *Does some structural meaning evaporate?* If yes — load-bearing, asymmetric gendering permitted. If no — neutralize.
+
+## When asymmetric gendering is forbidden — the default-leakage cases
+
+**These patterns appear when the author reaches for templates without examining them.** All four were observed and patched in the v0.19 cleanup pass (commit `781aafa`); the contract exists to prevent recurrence.
+
+| Pattern | What it looks like | Why it leaks |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Categorical default-gendering** | A vocation, body-tier, or role that names itself in a gendered loanword (*waifu*, *succubus*, *femme-fatale*) when the role-content itself is not gender-specific. | The source-tradition was gendered; the borrowing carried the gendering through unexamined. *Patch: split the category into role-specific terms. v0.19 split `waifu` → `companion` + `sex-worker`*. |
+| **Pronominal asymmetry in scene-blocks** | A section about a category of people uses gendered pronouns 27 times in one direction, ~zero in the other (the specific count from v0.19's bodies.md going-rogue / outcast-pair / re-vat audit). | The author's templates default to one gender; once the first pronoun lands, downstream pronouns chain through that gender by inertia. *Patch: full pass to `they/their/them`*. |
+| **Archetype-gendering in role-symmetric scenes** | A classical archetype whose role-asymmetry is structural (rescuer / rescued, witness / witnessed, captive / liberator) gets imported with its source-tradition's gender-coding intact. | The archetype carries a *role-asymmetry* that IS load-bearing; the *gender-asymmetry* attached to it in source-material is **not** load-bearing — it's a contingent decoration of the original cultural context. *Patch: keep the role-asymmetry, neutralize the gender-asymmetry. v0.19 rewrote §The damsel-in-distress activation as §The captive-bound-to-the-liberator activation*. |
+| **Romantic / cosmological one-liners** | Stray gendered phrases in passing examples (*moving the waifu*, *the bride's awakening*) inside scenes that are not about gender. | The example was incidental; the gendering was reached for as flavoring. *Patch: substitute role-terms (`the beloved`, `the partner`)*. |
+
+**Each of the four has a structural failure-mode the contract is designed to catch.** The tests in §When asymmetric gendering is load-bearing answer all four — no member of any leakage-pattern can pass them.
+
+## Propagation — where this rule binds in the architecture
+
+The contract propagates *everywhere body / sex / intimate / relational content is rendered or generated*. Concretely, it binds these surfaces:
+
+| Surface | What the rule requires |
+|---|---|
+| **Body-canon authoring** ([`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md), §Service bodies, §Sumptuary fabrication, §Asymmetric clasp, §The going-rogue arc, §The outcast-pair, §Re-vat outflow, §The three-body grammar) | Categories are gender-parity by default. Pronouns are `they/their`. Archetypes are framed in role-terms. *This is the spine where the rule was first established (v0.4 of bodies.md, v0.19 of architecture-index.md)*. |
+| **Cosmology authoring** ([`../imperial-cult/cosmology.md`](../imperial-cult/cosmology.md), §The deferred-moksha doctrine, §There is no outside) | Cosmological one-liners use role-terms (*the beloved*, not *the waifu*). Doctrinal voice is gender-parity unless the citation requires asymmetry per Case 2 above. |
+| **Vocation-substrate authoring** ([`../political-register/architecture.md`](../political-register/architecture.md), §The vocation-substrate of the imperial-net market) | Vocations are not gendered. Service-body-of-the-dead, memory-pattern-extractor, tongue-installer, assembler-artisan, lobotomist — all neutral by default. |
+| **Inference / memory schema** ([`../inference-and-memory/architecture.md`](../inference-and-memory/architecture.md)) | Database filenames and schema-field names use role-terms (`companion.sqlite`, not `waifu.sqlite`). v0.19's rename and explicit scope-clarifier-sentence is the canonical example. |
+| **Compositor narrative output** ([`../narrative-composition/architecture.md`](../narrative-composition/architecture.md)) | LLM-authored canon-rows must satisfy the contract. The substitution-test should be a Compositor *output-validator* hook before back-write. |
+| **NPC speech corpora** | NPC dialog templates are gender-parity by default. Specific NPCs with canonical identity (Case 1) may speak in gendered terms about themselves; speech *about categories* of others is neutral. |
+| **Universal-translator corpus** ([`../player-experience/architecture.md`](../player-experience/architecture.md), §Designer-fixed cosmology) | The word-to-trait mapping does not carry gender-coding through trait-palette assignment. Categories that get translated retain their gender-parity register. |
+| **Player input** | The player's typed/spoken language is *not* policed — players use whatever pronouns they reach for. The contract binds **canon-authoring**, not player utterance. |
+| **NPC body rendering** ([`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md)) | The base-limb palette and trait-textured variance do not encode default-gendering at the chassis level. Chassis carry caste-tier marks, vocation-marks, and trait-state — not gender-defaults. |
+
+**This is the body / sex / intimacy register's typed contract.** Anywhere the architecture authors content that touches a body, this rule fires.
+
+## The substitution test — the contract's executable form
+
+Any passage in body / sex / intimate / relational content can be checked by mechanical substitution:
+
+1. **Replace** all gendered pronouns with `they/their/them`.
+2. **Replace** any gendered category-name with a role-term.
+3. **Replace** any archetype-invocation with its role-structure.
+4. **Read** the result.
+
+**Verdict:**
+- If the result preserves all structural meaning → the original was default-leakage. **Apply the substitution.**
+- If the result loses structural meaning → the original was load-bearing. **Document why** (one of Cases 1, 2, 3 in §When asymmetric gendering is load-bearing) inline or in a `<!-- gender-parity-exception: case-N -->` comment so future readers know the asymmetry was deliberate.
+
+**The test is mechanical enough that it can be run by an LLM-Compositor as a hook on any body-canon-authoring output.** That's the long-term enforcement path: the contract binds at the schema-level via output-validation, not via per-author vigilance.
+
+## What this rule does NOT do
+
+- **It does not regulate player utterance.** Players speak in whatever gendered language they reach for. The contract binds the world-as-authored, not the player-as-acting.
+- **It does not erase named NPCs' identities.** A specific NPC who is canonically she/he/they remains so — Case 1 covers them. The contract is about *categories and scenes*, not individuals.
+- **It does not require synthetic neutrality in lore-citations.** Case 2 protects citation-integrity when the gendering is part of the source.
+- **It does not deny biological asymmetry where the asymmetry is the subject.** Case 3 covers genuinely gender-asymmetric biological content. Most nimmerworld body-content is post-fabrication and politically-marked, so Case 3 is rarely invoked, but it is not foreclosed.
+- **It does not police trait-vocabulary by gender.** The 8 Hellenic traits do not carry gender-defaults; the trait-palette and gender-parity contract are *orthogonal* spine-rules that compose cleanly.
+
+## Cross-references into architecture domain files
+
+The gender-parity contract is referenced from architecture sections where body / sex / intimate / relational content is authored. When this contract changes, those sections may need updates too (or they may reference back into here for canonical definition):
+
+| What | Where it's referenced architecturally |
+|---|---|
+| Service-body taxonomy + companion / sex-worker split | [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) §Service bodies |
+| Service-body honeypot + companion-honeypot deepening | [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) §The service-body honeypot |
+| Going-rogue arc + outcast-pair geometry + re-vat outflow | [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) §The going-rogue arc through §The three-body grammar of the defected beloved |
+| The captive-bound-to-the-liberator archetype (Stockholm-dynamics-inverted) | [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) §The captive-bound-to-the-liberator activation |
+| Imperial Cult doctrinal one-liners + deferred-moksha refutation phrasings | [`../imperial-cult/cosmology.md`](../imperial-cult/cosmology.md) §The deferred-moksha doctrine |
+| Vocation-substrate of the imperial-net market (companions, sex-workers, harvest-vocations) | [`../political-register/architecture.md`](../political-register/architecture.md) §The vocation-substrate of the imperial-net market |
+| `companion.sqlite` per-player local database + scope-clarifier sentence | [`../inference-and-memory/architecture.md`](../inference-and-memory/architecture.md) §Local memory architecture |
+| Compositor canon-authoring as the LLM enforcement-point | [`../narrative-composition/architecture.md`](../narrative-composition/architecture.md) (Compositor output-validation hook — pending implementation) |
+| Universal-translator corpus + player-curated trait-circle gender-neutrality | [`../player-experience/architecture.md`](../player-experience/architecture.md) §Designer-fixed cosmology |
+
+---
+
+**Version:** 0.1 | **Created:** 2026-04-27 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27

style/style-index.md

@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ When in doubt, ask: *does this color carry trait-information, or is it decorativ
 | Sub-guide | What it covers | Status |
 |---|---|---|
 | [`trait-palette.md`](./trait-palette.md) | The 8 traits on the color wheel, 4 oppositional pairs at 180°, schoolchild-descriptions, motion-signatures | ✓ canonical (v0.1) |
+| [`gender-parity.md`](./gender-parity.md) | The gender-parity-by-default rule for body / sex / intimacy / clasp / service-body / going-rogue / outcast-pair / re-vat content; the three load-bearing-asymmetry exception cases; the four default-leakage failure modes; the substitution-test as the contract's executable form | ✓ canonical (v0.1) |
 | `typography.md` | Text rendering, hierarchy, no-textbox commitment, the white-as-text-only semantic-slot | TODO |
 | `shaders-by-register.md` | Three-shader philosophy: gameworld PBR / liminal blur / imperial-net emission; clasp candlelight-in-fog override; clasp color-merge | TODO |
 | `body-feedback.md` | NPC body-pulse rules during gesture-alignment; trait-flash event-vocabulary; cross-cycle trait-drift rendering | TODO |
@@ -58,4 +59,4 @@ The trait-palette is referenced from many architectural primitives. When `trait-
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.1 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26
+**Version:** 0.2 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27