How it works

The list is here. The witness is there.

Alone

Everything published here is self-guided. Read the standards, train against them, read the books, watch the films, and keep your own count. Nobody grants you permission to start and nobody is checking. You can work this list for years without speaking to a soul, and the work will be real.

What you cannot do alone is be certified. A count you kept yourself is a count you kept yourself. It trains you and it tells you honestly where you stand — and it stays exactly that.

Together

A rung is conferred, not claimed. Someone who already holds it watches you meet the standard and puts his name to it. The books work the same way: you read alone, but you are brought through them in a small group, and the man leading it says whether you have in fact been through it.

That happens at a fort — a local group under a leader Firebearer has endorsed, who authorizes the men permitted to score. A scorer may only certify rungs below his own. No one certifies himself and no one certifies a peer.

Holding and losing

The color ladder is measured, and measured things lapse. To rise, meet the ceiling on every event in your battery — there is no partial credit. To hold what you have, meet the minimum on every event, every cycle. Fall below on a single event and the color is gone until you earn it back.

A book, once read, is read. The reading list is a record of ground covered, not a claim about present capability, and it does not expire. Conduct is the exception that reaches both: the margin narrows as you rise, and a man can be put down a rung without ever failing a test.