7th Street Development Artbook

This is a public brainstorm and revision-history archive — not canon. This is an immutable historical revision. Status: published.

Pool Noodle Paladin — v0.1

retired full revision

Before the Paladin existed, "Pool Noodle Knight" was a mechanically proven slow shielded melee unit with no originating kid, name story, or Lifeguard's Code recorded anywhere in the repository.

Why: Reconstructs the mechanics-only Knight era so the later Paladin renaming and character work has an honest, evidence-based first link in the chain.

Proven finding: A shielded, wetsuit-resistant, 3.5 m/s melee unit loses to the faster Snapper 1v1 (8/8 across an eight-seed harness, mean resolution 153 ticks) despite a 60% winding block chance, and takes roughly 3.9x longer to be soaked out by a lone Soaker (953 ticks) than a direct-hit Chucker path (244 ticks).

Legend

No Legend existed yet. The charter recorded only a matchup claim expressed as numbers: a shielded, resistant, slow unit was the intended counter concept to a fast, unarmored attacker.

Suburb

No Suburb existed yet. The Knight had a water-resistant wetsuit and a block-capable shield. There is no evidence at this date of an outgrown-suit comedy read, a Lifeguard's Code, a specific age, or any civilian detail.

Current draft

As of this date, "Pool Noodle Knight" was purely a mechanical roster entry. Charter v8 §8 records it as a Warrior-class analog built from a wet pool noodle and a garbage-can-lid shield: water-resistant and slow, with a shield that blocks and reduces interruption of his own swing, and a direct balloon hit as the named counter. No name beyond "Knight," no originating kid, no personality, and no equipment story beyond those two props existed at this date.

What changed

Nothing changed within this revision; it captures the roster's state before the Paladin's character work began. MG3 and MG4 (both 2026-07-21) validated the Knight's melee, resistance, and Sprinkler-adjacent behavior at specific proposed defaults, and charter v8 recorded the Warrior/Myth-analog framing.

Why it changed

This revision exists so the reconstructed chain has an honest first link: the Knight was a tested set of numbers before it was a kid.

Evidence and playtest marginalia

  • TUNING.md, "Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG3 pre-gate - Knight - 2026-07-21": range 1.4 m, windup 12 ticks, cooldown 15 ticks, soak 20%, speed 3.5 m/s, splash/stream resistance 35%, winding block chance 60%; commit 3c3bb32 (Snapper melee gate) and verdict commit a5c06fc. Snapper wins 8/8 against Knight, mean resolution 153 ticks. A lone Soaker needs 953 ticks to soak out a stationary Knight versus 244 ticks for a direct-hit Chucker path (3.9x). Anthony: "This is feeling great - the Snapper definitely has a faster feel than the Knight."
  • TUNING.md, "Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG4 pre-gate - Sprinkler - 2026-07-21": "The Knight sucks at dodging the Sprinkler" — expected under command-only AI and the Knight's deliberately slow identity, compensated by 35% splash resistance. Recorded as a balance observation, not a retune.
  • docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §8: roster table entry, "Pool Noodle Knight — Warrior — Wet noodle + garbage lid shield. Wetsuit = water resistant, slow. Shield blocks, and blocking reduces interruption of his own swing. Counter: direct balloon hit."

Rejected or alternate directions

Nothing was rejected at this date; no character-level proposal yet existed to reject. The "Knight" label and its Warrior/Myth-analog framing were the whole concept.

Still unresolved

  • Personality, name, age, and family were not recorded.
  • No shield-as-formation-object idea existed yet; the shield was a personal block-chance stat, not a physical object with facing.
  • No Lifeguard's Code and no Towel Snapper foil relationship beyond the raw matchup numbers.

Editorial question assigned during reconstruction: what kind of kid would choose to stand at 3.5 m/s in front of a faster, unarmored attacker?

Send feedback →

Evidence