Bounties

There are three kinds of Bounty in the world, distinguished by issuer and authority. Only Tower Bounties carry the Tower’s structural authority. Faction and Ascender Bounties are social constructs that emulate the Tower’s mechanism without inheriting its weight.

Tower Bounties

A Tower Bounty is issued by The Tower itself, passively, in response to specific structural conditions in the Topography.

Proclamation

A Tower Bounty is registered against the true Ascender the moment the qualifying act occurs. Tower Crimes are attributed to the Ascender beneath any Mask — registration is not affected by Mask state.

Proclamation is the public announcement that activates other Inhabitants to pursue the Bounty. A Tower Bounty is Proclaimed when the Bounty Target is Un-Masked by or in front of non-allies on the same Tier. Because Ascender mobility is superhuman, nearly everyone on the same Tier is within reach; for practical purposes, the Bounty becomes publicly available the moment an unmasked Target is observed by any non-ally.

See masks.md for Mask mechanics, the registration-versus-Proclamation distinction, and ally/non-ally classification.

Expiry

Tower Bounties never expire.

Fulfillment

To fulfill a Tower Bounty, the Bounty Target must be killed. The kill alone is sufficient; no further action against the corpse is required for the Bounty to be claimable.

Bounty lifecycle: Registered, Known, Claimed

A Tower Bounty passes through three distinct public-state events:

Registered — the Tower internally records the Bounty when the qualifying act occurs. This happens regardless of Mask state; Tower Crimes are always attributed to the true Ascender beneath any Mask. The registration is not publicly visible.
Known — the Bounty’s existence becomes publicly recognized. Any Un-Masking of the Target makes the Bounty Known: a live Un-Masking by or in front of non-allies, or a post-death Un-Masking of the corpse. Once Known, the Bounty is publicly actionable — other Inhabitants can pursue it knowing it exists.
Claimed — the Bounty is resolved and the Relevant Parties are credited. Only post-death Un-Masking with at least one non-ally of the slain as witness triggers the Claim. When a corpse is Un-Masked in non-ally presence, the Tower announces the Bounty on the Tier as claimed by the Relevant Parties. If the Bounty was not previously Known, this announcement is retroactive — the Tower simultaneously reveals the Bounty existed and assigns the Claim.

The Registered-but-not-Known state is what enables the “unknowingly claimed” scenario. A killer attacks a Masked target whose Bounty is registered but not Known; the target dies still Masked; the killer Un-Masks the corpse (the killer is themselves a non-ally of the slain); the Tower retroactively credits the killer and any other Relevant Parties.

Wanted indefinitely

If the post-death Un-Masking happens with only the slain’s allies present (a typical case: the slain’s friends discover the body in private, Un-Mask it, recognize them as Wanted), no Claim fires. The slain enters the Wanted indefinitely state: the Bounty remains Registered against them, but it cannot be Claimed until the body is shown to a non-ally observer.

The body holds the Claim potential. Wanted-indefinitely corpses can be transported, hidden, or displayed strategically. The slain’s allies who discovered the body may choose to:

Hide the body and preserve the secret (the Bounty stays unclaimed, by anyone).
Transport the body to a non-ally observer to trigger the Claim (the slain’s allies may then become Relevant Parties for that Claim event).
Leave the body and hope no one else finds it (the Bounty remains Wanted-indefinitely until someone does).

Reasonable time-frame

The entire Claim process is bounded by a reasonable time-frame. A Bounty can only be Awarded within reasonable time of the kill or of the Un-Masking event that triggers the Claim. What counts as “reasonable” — in tick or in-world terms — is open canon. Beyond the reasonable window, the specific kill’s connection to the Bounty may lapse, even though the Tower Bounty itself never expires; a fresh qualifying act would be required to re-register.

Relevant Parties and Mask eligibility

Relevant Parties are those credited with a specific Claim event — at minimum the killer(s), presumably the Un-Masker if distinct, and possibly the transporter in the Wanted-indefinitely-then-shown case.

Masked individuals cannot claim Bounties. To be credited as a Relevant Party at the moment a Claim fires, an Ascender must be Un-Masked. This creates a trade-off: an Ascender wearing a Mask for anonymity sacrifices the ability to claim any Bounty they would otherwise be eligible for.

The precise definition of Relevant Parties per Claim event (whether bystanders, parties-of-the-killer, claim-stake transferees, body-transporters all count) is open canon. The set of Relevant Parties may differ across Claim events arising from the same kill if the kill and the Un-Masking are temporally separated.

Tower Claim announcement structure

When a Tower Bounty is Claimed, the Tower announces the event on the Tier with the following information:

Claimer(s) (each Relevant Party): Name, Party (where applicable), Faction (where applicable).

Bounty Target: Name, Party (where applicable), Faction (where applicable), Tower crimes, Level.

The Target’s announcement includes their Tower crimes — the specific qualifying acts that triggered Tower Bounty registration against them — and their Level (see the-system.md). A Target who accumulated multiple Tower crimes over their life has each listed in the announcement, making the full record visible at the moment of Claim.

Mundane Bounty (Faction and Ascender) announcements follow Issuer-defined conventions; the Tower announcement structure above applies to Tower Bounties specifically.

Tower-versus-Revival reconciliation (open)

Because body destruction is no longer required for fulfillment, a Bountied Criminal killed under a Tower Bounty may be subsequently Revived (see the-system.md). How the Tower reconciles a fulfilled-and-claimed Bounty against a now-Revived Criminal is open canon.

Tentative direction (not yet ratified): the Bounty resolves at the moment of Death+Un-Masking; subsequent Revival is the Revived Ascender’s own affair, and the Tower does not automatically re-issue a Bounty. The economic cost of Revival is the natural counterweight — Revival is expensive enough to discourage casual escape from a Tower Bounty’s claim.

If the Revived Criminal commits another qualifying act, a fresh Bounty would be registered against them under the normal rules.

Tradition

Tower Bounties are Kill-on-Sight by tradition. The Tower itself does not specify the manner of fulfillment — the kill-on-sight pattern is the historical Ascender response.

Faction Bounties

A Faction Bounty is issued by a Faction. It is a social construct — a Faction’s attempt to mobilize its members and allied Ascenders against a target, emulating the Tower’s Bounty mechanism but lacking the Tower’s structural authority.

A Faction Bounty draws its payout from the Faction’s own treasury, not from the Tower (the Tower has no treasury; treasuries are Faction or Party attributes).

Faction Bounties can be Kill-on-Sight or Capture. Capture is often the preferred posture: a captured high-power Ascender can be held, ransomed, brought before social-justice institutions, or surrendered to the Tower’s verdict if the target has been abusing their power.

Ascender Bounties

An Ascender Bounty is issued by an individual Ascender. Like Faction Bounties, this is a social construct rather than a structural enforcement mechanism.

The allure of an Ascender Bounty depends on the authority, power, and wealth of both the Issuer and the Target — just as in real-life bounty markets, where reputation and stakes determine who will pursue what.

Ascender Bounties can be Kill-on-Sight or Capture, by the Issuer’s specification.

Tower versus Faction-and-Ascender bounties

Property	Tower Bounty	Faction / Ascender Bounty
Issuer	The Tower (structural)	Faction or Ascender (social)
Authority	Inherent	Derived from social standing of issuer
Treasury source	None (Tower has no treasury)	Issuer’s own resources
Proclamation trigger	Un-Masking by or in front of non-allies (auto)	Issuer’s chosen channels, subject to the same Mask gating
Expiry	Never	Set by Issuer
Fulfillment	Kill (body destruction not required)	Issuer-specified (Kill or Capture)
Claim announcement	On Death + Un-Masking, announced on the Tier to Relevant Parties	Issuer-defined
Revival reconciliation	Tentative: fair game; Revival cost is the self-balancing counterweight (open canon)	Issuer-defined
Posture default	Kill-on-Sight (traditional)	Issuer’s choice
Tower-punishable	N/A	If abused (punching down), Tower may issue counter-Bounty on the abuser
Masking applies	Yes (all Bounty types)	Yes (all Bounty types)

The Masking-and-Proclamation gating model is uniform across all three Bounty types — a Masked Target enjoys deniability against Tower Bounties and Mundane (Faction/Ascender) Bounties alike. The Issuer-channel choice for Faction and Ascender Bounties controls where the Bounty is announced (which Faction members, which allies, which public boards), but it does not bypass the Mask gating: announcement to a Target’s allies does not constitute Proclamation in the canonical sense. See masks.md for full Mask canon.

The Tower punishes abuse by issuing counter-Bounties

The Tower is passive and does not directly punish anyone. The mechanism by which the Tower disciplines powerful Ascenders who abuse their power — for example, by issuing trivial Ascender Bounties on lower-leveled targets to harass them — is the Tower itself issuing a Tower Bounty on the abuser.

This keeps the Tower’s enforcement model internally consistent: the Tower issues Bounties; the world’s social fabric (Ascenders, Factions) resolves them.

Open canonical questions

What specifically triggers the Tower to register a Bounty in the first place? Proclamation addresses announcement (Un-Masking by/in-front-of non-allies), but the Tower must already have a registered Bounty against the Target. What act causes the Tower to register a Bounty?
How does the Tower determine “abuse of power” or “punching down”? Threshold of power differential? Pattern of repeated low-stakes Bounties?
Are there Mask types or tiers? Does Mask quality affect detection probability or only present/absent?
Can a Bounty Target know they have a Tower Bounty on them before it is Proclaimed?
Reward amount: how is a Tower Bounty’s payout determined and from where, given the Tower has no treasury?
Transferability: can Bounty claim be transferred between Ascenders, or only collected by the killing party?
Relevant Parties definition: who counts? The killer(s)? The Un-Masker if distinct? Party-of-the-killer members? Bystanders who witnessed? Body-transporters in the Wanted-indefinitely case?
Tower-versus-Revival reconciliation: is the tentative “fair game; Revival cost balances” position correct, or does the Tower re-issue a Bounty on a Revived Criminal? Does the Bounty announcement-as-claimed close the Tower’s interest in that specific Bounty completely?
Death-Un-Masking specifics: is Un-Masking of a corpse a deliberate action with a cost, or trivially free? Does the corpse’s Mask decay or persist while in the Wanted-indefinitely state?
Reasonable time-frame: what counts as “reasonable” in tick or in-world terms?
Masked Relevant Parties: if a Masked individual would otherwise be a Relevant Party (e.g., killed while Masked), do they lose their claim entirely, or can they Un-Mask later to claim within the reasonable time-frame?
All-Masked Claim: if every Relevant Party is Masked at the moment of Un-Masking, does the Claim fire at all? Or does the Bounty stay in Wanted-indefinitely until at least one eligible (Un-Masked) Relevant Party exists?
Tower crimes: how does the Tower track and accumulate Tower crimes against a single Ascender? Are multiple Bounties merged or kept distinct?