Manual and Versioned Rules
Last updated: August 21, 2026
- Why documentation does not restate it
- Reading it in a persistent game
- Manuals elsewhere in the Universe
- Official source
- Related reading
The Terminus manual is the player-facing reference for game concepts and rules, and it is versioned — a detail that carries more weight than it first appears. A versioned manual is an admission that rules change, and a commitment to saying so. It means that a statement about how Terminus works is only complete when attached to a version, and that advice from an older version may describe a game that no longer exists.
Why documentation does not restate it
Everything in the manual is exactly the kind of content that ages badly in a copy: costs, timings, effects, relationships between systems. A guide that reproduced them would be a second, unversioned, slowly diverging manual — worse than useless, because readers would trust it. This section explains what each surface is for; the manual explains what it does.
Reading it in a persistent game
Read before acting rather than after. In a world that does not reset, the manual is the cheapest way to avoid a decision you cannot unmake. Reread after an update: a versioned document changing is not a formality.
Manuals elsewhere in the Universe
The Codex keeps a Game Manuals tome, which situates playable experiences inside the fiction — what a game depicts and what its terms mean. That is lore about the game. This manual is the game.
Where this documentation and the manual differ on any mechanic, the manual governs, and its current version is the one that counts.
Official source
Canonical source for this subject: Terminus Manual. Checked 21 August 2026 — where this guide and the live service disagree, the service is right.
Related reading
- Tales of Xdripia: Terminus Guide — The persistent strategy frontier and the command surfaces that make it up.
- Game Manuals and Architectonica — The two Codex tomes that document playable systems and built structure.
- Game Manuals and Source Map — Where the rules of a game live, and where its place in the Universe is documented.