Anchors are not tested by combat alone. They are tested by how much consequence they can survive.
The following examples illustrate the scope and weight of stories typically associated with each capability rank. Any of these stories may end cleanly, messily, or fall Unwritten depending on choice—not success.
Stories that affect individuals and small places
These stories are intimate. Failure hurts—but it does not echo far.
Example Stories:
Helping a single family accept the loss of someone who never returned from the Wake
Breaking a minor loop in a Verge-adjacent neighborhood
Escorting a lone NPC whose story is beginning to fracture
Preventing a personal obsession from turning someone Storyless
Narrative Risk: Personal loss, guilt, regret
Unwritten Outcome: One person, one place, one memory lost
Stories that affect groups and shared identity
At this level, denial spreads socially.
Example Stories:
A town repeating the same festival because no one will acknowledge why it began
A small faction refusing to disband after its purpose has ended
A community leader whose fear of change is dragging others toward stagnation
A local Story Realm beginning to reset nightly
Narrative Risk: Communal collapse, normalized denial
Unwritten Outcome: A whole settlement becomes a loop
Stories that shape culture, territory, or history
These stories rewrite maps.
Example Stories:
A regional war sustained solely because no side will accept peace
A long-lived ruler whose refusal to step down is unraveling reality around them
Multiple communities bound together by a shared lie
A Story Realm whose geography changes daily to avoid confronting a truth
Narrative Risk: Cultural erosion, legacy distortion
Unwritten Outcome: A region fractures into repeating fragments
Stories that define an entire Story Realm
This is where endings become dangerous.
Example Stories:
A world whose Core Story is breaking, threatening total Unwritten collapse
A civilization that refuses to admit it has already fallen
A Mythic being whose unresolved purpose is warping an entire realm
Choosing whether a world should be allowed to end at all
Narrative Risk: Total realm loss, mass Storyless creation
Unwritten Outcome: A world becomes a permanent Unwritten zone
Stories that involve multiple realms or the Storywake itself
Identity strain becomes real.
Example Stories:
Two Story Realms colliding due to unresolved shared history
A Wake route destabilizing multiple destinations simultaneously
A Storyforged Arm resonance spreading between Anchors uncontrollably
Preventing an Unwritten collapse from propagating outward
Narrative Risk: Anchor erosion, Wake destabilization
Unwritten Outcome: Cascading loss across realms
Stories that challenge the structure of Light and Darkness
Few Anchors reach this point unchanged.
Example Stories:
A persistent Unwritten entity attempting to rewrite how endings work
A failure point in Homeward itself beginning to stagnate
A Wake Ship lost in a way that threatens to become permanent
Choosing whether a new form of persistence should exist at all
Narrative Risk: Fundamental cosmology damage
Unwritten Outcome: Permanent alteration of the Storywake
Stories that exist only once
These stories are not repeatable.
Example Stories:
Confronting a being that embodies denial itself
Deciding the fate of a Mythic story too large to resolve cleanly
Choosing between two mutually exclusive cosmic truths
Ending a story that has been holding reality together
Narrative Risk: Irreversible change
Unwritten Outcome: A new rule of existence replaces an old one
Stories that should not be touched
These stories do not ask to be solved.
Example Stories:
Deciding whether Anchors themselves should continue to exist
Choosing how Light and Darkness will persist going forward
Ending a story that defines the concept of “story”
Allowing or preventing the final ending of the Storywake
Narrative Risk: Total narrative redefinition
Unwritten Outcome: There is no recovery—only aftermath
Ranks do not tell Anchors what they must face.
They tell Anchors what they can face
without losing themselves.
A wise Anchor does not chase higher-ranked stories.
They answer the ones that are already breaking—
and know when to let the rest end.