# Handbook Addendum — The Research Ladder

*Cut on G's checked box at 25.1 §VI — a dated markdown leaf beside the handbook PDFs, never a hand laid on them. This carries the RECONCILE flag of the Field Session Record into the handbook's room: where the handbook sizes a research WORK by the Keeper's judgment of the branch, this addendum governs. Up: the doorway.*

## The Research Ladder

**A research WORK's size is fixed by the tier, not by the branch:**

| Tier | The WORK | Watches |
| --- | --- | --- |
| One | a **Small Work** | 1 |
| Two | a **Work** | 3 |
| Three | a **Great Work** | 5 |

**A tier may further be gated behind a requirement beyond watches** — a live subject, a material, a place — at the Keeper's discretion. *The Iron Maiden's tier two is gated behind a live subject, and is the first instance.* New abilities arrive **with the foundation of each tier**, not before.

## What it supersedes

Any sentence of the handbook (v3 or earlier printings) reading to the effect that *the Keeper sizes the WORK in watches by the complexity of the branch* is overtaken by the ladder above. The same strike is already set in the Research Doctrine, whose text governs the doctrine side; the ballot that made the change is the Rulings Ballot, §Standing Change. A future handbook printing folds this leaf in and retires it; until then it stands beside the PDFs as the newer word.

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*Cut by Fen, Keeper of the ANNEX & Warden of the Append-Only Word · 08/11/2026, 6:42p*