Working Title · Live Build, In Public
A literacy-based hidden tradition with a multi-generational revolution arc.
In addition to everything real, a hidden tradition exists, encoded in language, in places, in objects, in physical performances, in oral history, and in trained patterns of skill. The hidden tradition can only be accessed through specific kinds of literacy. Different cities and cultures specialize in different literacies. Full mastery is impossible alone; teams must combine literacies because no one person can hold all of them.
The hidden tradition is not hidden by a secret cabal. It is hidden by a perceptual blockade that mainstream culture enforces. Power does not directly hide the literacies. Power hides them by enforcing a shared reality that has no room for them. Anyone already practiced in seeing what dominant culture refuses to see can read the signs.
Most fictional worlds have a Big Bad. This world has a slower problem. The literacies are eroding. The traditions were scattered. The in-power are blind by design. Only collective mass-awakening can address the cosmic force. Stakes are continuance, not victory. The deeper conflict only reveals as people move the inner one forward.
The live working document. Foundation locks, the audit log, what's next. Updated every worldbuilding session. Password-protected. For builders who want to see the architecture.