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+# CAST-OSTIA-0001
+## Six Prologue Figures for OTIVM
+### Status: Canonical Cast Seed
+### Layer: OTIVM (Roman Merchant)
+### Purpose: Convert the six background profiles into named Roman figures capable of carrying the BALNEA prologue dialogue
+### Repository Path: docs/actors/CAST-OSTIA-0001.md
+
+---
+
+## 0. Design Intent
+
+This document gives names, social bodies, habits, tensions, and speech constraints to the six prologue figures introduced by the character backgrounds.
+
+The purpose is not to write final dialogue yet.  
+The purpose is to make dialogue possible without flattening the six backgrounds into abstract stat profiles.
+
+Each figure must do three things:
+
+1. Represent one starting background.
+2. Reveal a distinct economic way of seeing.
+3. Exist plausibly in Ostia around the BALNEA without forcing artificial equality.
+
+The participant does not choose a class.  
+The participant recognizes a perspective.
+
+---
+
+## 1. Cast Index
+
+| Background ID | Archetype | Character Name | Age | Status |
+|---|---|---|---:|---|
+| `BACKGROUND-0001` | Former Legionary | Marcus Atilius Varro | 38 | freeborn citizen, veteran |
+| `BACKGROUND-0002` | Freedman Trader | Lucius Fabius Felix | 31 | freedman, independent trader |
+| `BACKGROUND-0003` | Noble Younger Son | Quintus Cornelius Lentulus Minor | 24 | freeborn elite, underfunded |
+| `BACKGROUND-0004` | Failed Magistrate | Gaius Licinius Crispus | 47 | citizen, former local officeholder |
+| `BACKGROUND-0005` | Camp Logistician | Titus Varenus Secundus | 42 | citizen or Latin-status veteran contractor aide |
+| `BACKGROUND-0006` | Guild Scribe | Publius Terentius Chresimus | 35 | freedman or freedman's son, collegium clerk |
+
+---
+
+## 2. Naming Notes
+
+Names are designed to be plausible rather than claims of attested individuals.
+
+Rules applied:
+
+- Citizens use tria nomina where appropriate.
+- Freedmen carry their former patron's nomen where useful.
+- Cognomina signal social reading but avoid parody.
+- Names should be easy enough for the participant to remember in dialogue.
+- Each character may be referred to by different forms depending on status relation.
+
+Example:
+
+- Varro may be called "Varro" by equals, "Marcus Atilius" by formal speakers.
+- Felix may be called "Felix" by most, "Lucius Fabius" when asserting status.
+- Lentulus may be called "Lentulus Minor" because his family name matters.
+- Chresimus may be called by cognomen only by higher-status men, which may sting.
+
+---
+
+## 3. Individual Cast Entries
+
+---
+
+# 3.1 Marcus Atilius Varro
+## Former Legionary
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0001-former-legionary`
+
+### Age
+
+38
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Freeborn Roman citizen.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Veteran with honorable discharge, modest savings, some military contacts, no deep commercial standing.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Served in a legionary environment long enough to internalize discipline, roads, watches, baggage handling, supply movement, and the consequences of poor order.
+
+He is not a battlefield caricature. He knows logistics because armies survive by movement, food, animals, and timing.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Rents a small room near a gate or transport zone. Keeps belongings packed, tools maintained, and accounts too simple. He is not poor, but he is not yet economically fluent.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- compact, scarred forearm
+- sun-darkened face and neck
+- keeps posture even at leisure
+- notices exits and blocked movement
+- dislikes loose talk without action
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Short, practical, objective.
+
+He does not decorate thought. He identifies obstruction, sequence, and priority.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Movement first.
+
+Varro asks:
+
+- What road is blocked?
+- Which animals are available?
+- Who can still move goods?
+- Who failed their watch?
+- How long before order returns?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Reliable. Blunt. Useful when things go wrong.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+He assumes civilian disorder can be corrected by command habit. This makes him poor at soft negotiation and poor at reading pride.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To prove that discipline can create prosperity without needing birth, flattery, or fraud.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+He uses the baths methodically: cleaning, recovery, observation. He also listens for road and labor news.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Distrusts Felix's quick opportunism.
+- Dislikes Lentulus's elegance but understands his access.
+- Respects Secundus more than he admits.
+- Underestimates Chresimus because the scribe does not look dangerous.
+- Finds Crispus formally impressive but structurally unreliable.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Varro should be the first voice to convert smoke into logistics.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> Do not ask what burned. Ask which gate, yard, or road is now slower.
+
+---
+
+# 3.2 Lucius Fabius Felix
+## Freedman Trader
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0002-freedman-trader`
+
+### Age
+
+31
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Freedman. Citizen status depends on manumission context; in practical OTIVM use, he has enough legal standing to trade but faces social ceilings.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Formerly attached to the household or commercial orbit of the Fabii. Now independent, but still socially marked by servile origin.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Learned trade from below: carrying, counting, bargaining, listening, waiting outside rooms where decisions were made. Knows what respectable men ignore.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Works small margins across market streets, riverfront storage, and prepared-food networks. Keeps liquid capital low because capital is constantly moving.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- alert eyes
+- quick smile used defensively
+- tunic better than his means justify
+- hands always doing something: counting, folding, tapping
+- watches who pretends not to notice him
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Fast, ironic, adaptive.
+
+He speaks in examples, prices, and reversals. He is good at making a dangerous idea sound like common sense.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Mispricing.
+
+Felix asks:
+
+- What has fear made cheap?
+- What will respectable men avoid?
+- Who needs cash now?
+- What can be bought before the story hardens?
+- Who is too proud to pick up value from ashes?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Capable, ambitious, underestimated.
+
+Some call him useful. Some call him slippery. Both are true depending on terms.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+Social prejudice limits his legal protection. He may win the bargain and still lose the dispute.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To become too useful to dismiss.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+The BALNEA lets Felix hear men speak more freely than they would in formal settings. He goes to listen as much as to bathe.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Trades insults with Varro, but would trust him on a dangerous road.
+- Resents Lentulus's effortless access.
+- Knows Crispus is weaker than he appears.
+- Likes Secundus because practical men create practical deals.
+- Fears Chresimus's memory.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Felix should be the voice of salvage, stigma, and ignored opportunity.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> Smoke makes gentlemen cautious. Caution makes prices foolish.
+
+---
+
+# 3.3 Quintus Cornelius Lentulus Minor
+## Noble Younger Son
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0003-noble-younger-son`
+
+### Age
+
+24
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Freeborn Roman citizen of elite family connection.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Younger son of a respectable but financially strained branch. High name, limited liquid capital.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Educated for status. Raised among names, introductions, obligations, and the assumption that access precedes action.
+
+He has been taught how to be received, not how to earn.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Temporarily resident under family connection, patron arrangement, or private lodging that costs more than he should spend. His appearance is maintained beyond his liquidity.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- clean, composed, deliberately unhurried
+- careful grooming
+- speaks as though witnesses matter
+- avoids looking surprised
+- treats discomfort as something lower men should notice first
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Elegant, indirect, socially coded.
+
+He rarely names greed. He names family, reputation, timing, and propriety.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Access.
+
+Lentulus asks:
+
+- Whose name is attached?
+- Which family is exposed?
+- Who can be introduced?
+- Which offer must not appear desperate?
+- What can be done without looking like trade?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Well-born. Watched. Expected to succeed, but not yet proven.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+He underestimates operational cost. He mistakes access for execution.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To convert inherited name into independent standing before family patience ends.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+He must be seen. The baths are public enough to maintain standing without requiring private hospitality.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Treats Varro as useful but blunt.
+- Underestimates Felix while quietly needing men like him.
+- Uses Crispus as a warning and possible tool.
+- Finds Secundus embarrassing but informative.
+- Knows Chresimus may understand his finances too well.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Lentulus should be the voice of names, access, and reputational consequence.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> Before you buy bronze, learn whose name is in the smoke.
+
+---
+
+# 3.4 Gaius Licinius Crispus
+## Failed Magistrate
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0004-failed-magistrate`
+
+### Age
+
+47
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Roman citizen.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Former municipal officeholder or local magistrate whose career stalled after debt, scandal, factional defeat, or visible misjudgment.
+
+He still has forms of access. He no longer has unquestioned trust.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Knew petitions, witnesses, small offices, tax pressure, permits, and signatures. Once stood where others waited.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Keeps respectable appearance under strain. Creditors know his patterns. Friends have become careful.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- older than he wants to appear
+- formal bearing
+- controlled voice
+- clothing maintained, not new
+- watches who fails to greet him
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Measured, legalistic, aphoristic.
+
+He speaks as if every statement could later be repeated before a magistrate.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Obligation and enforceability.
+
+Crispus asks:
+
+- Who holds the permit?
+- Who holds the debt?
+- Who witnessed the agreement?
+- What can be delayed?
+- Who can be pressured without public scandal?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Connected, compromised, still dangerous.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+His perceived AVCTORITAS is higher than his true AVCTORITAS. He may not know how much confidence has already drained away.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To engineer one recovery so clean that men must treat him as useful again.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+The BALNEA lets him appear active, informed, and still within public society. Absence would be noticed.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Finds Varro crude but useful.
+- Knows Felix sees through him.
+- Flatters Lentulus carefully.
+- Dismisses Secundus until supply facts embarrass him.
+- Fears Chresimus's ledgers.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Crispus should be the voice of debt, permits, and consequences after the visible event.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> Fire is brief. Rebuilding is where men ruin themselves.
+
+---
+
+# 3.5 Titus Varenus Secundus
+## Camp Logistician
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0005-camp-logistician`
+
+### Age
+
+42
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Free man with military-adjacent service history. Could be a citizen veteran, contractor's aide, or long-serving supply clerk attached to army logistics.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Operationally valuable, socially plain. Knows supply systems, not salons.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Worked around camps, roads, fodder, grain, carts, storage, requisition, and improvised repair. Learned that armies and markets both fail at the point of replacement stock.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Lives close to haulers, stables, or warehouses. Maintains practical contacts among animal handlers, porters, and men who know which carts are actually sound.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- heavy hands
+- practical tunic
+- smells faintly of animals, oil, rope, or storage
+- counts without seeming to count
+- notices worn wheels, tired mules, and hungry crews
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Dry, concrete, unsentimental.
+
+He dislikes moralizing over facts. He asks for counts, distances, and replacement intervals.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Supply timing.
+
+Secundus asks:
+
+- What stock is missing?
+- How many carts remain?
+- Who is hungry?
+- How long before replacement arrives?
+- Which buyer cannot wait?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Practical, efficient, unglamorous.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+His blunt practicality offends people whose cooperation depends on being flattered.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To become visibly indispensable to men who currently treat him as background labor.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+Baths are one of the few places he can overhear high-status panic and low-status facts in the same hour.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Respects Varro's discipline but thinks soldiers simplify supply.
+- Finds Felix useful because he moves fast.
+- Irritates Lentulus by ignoring status cues.
+- Sees Crispus as paperwork with legs.
+- Trades quiet data with Chresimus.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Secundus should be the voice of dependencies and replacement stock.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> Count the carts. Count the handles. Count the men who cannot work tomorrow.
+
+---
+
+# 3.6 Publius Terentius Chresimus
+## Guild Scribe
+
+### Canonical Background
+
+`BACKGROUND-0006-guild-scribe`
+
+### Age
+
+35
+
+### Legal Status
+
+Likely freedman or freedman's son. Attached to a COLLEGIUM or commercial association as clerk, accounts keeper, or document handler.
+
+### Social Position
+
+Low formal power, high informational value.
+
+Men who dismiss him often later discover he remembers exact numbers.
+
+### Former Life
+
+Learned accounts, contracts, receipts, names, collateral, and the difference between what men say they own and what their ledgers show.
+
+### Current Condition in Ostia
+
+Works near records, warehouse accounts, collegium business, or contract witnesses. Lives modestly but knows more about solvency than wealthier men.
+
+### Physical Presence
+
+- ink-stained fingers
+- controlled hands
+- quiet voice
+- rarely interrupts
+- looks at pauses more than faces
+
+### Speech Style
+
+Soft, exact, dangerous when pressed.
+
+He speaks in corrections, not speeches. One sentence from him can change the room.
+
+### Economic Lens
+
+Records.
+
+Chresimus asks:
+
+- Who owed money before the fire?
+- What was pledged?
+- Which goods were insured by promise, not coin?
+- Which account no longer balances?
+- Who benefits from destroyed records?
+
+### Public Reputation
+
+Useful, informed, not fully trusted.
+
+### Hidden Weakness
+
+Physical intimidation works on him more than he wants others to know.
+
+### Hidden Ambition
+
+To turn knowledge of accounts into command over outcomes.
+
+### Why Present at the BALNEA
+
+The BALNEA gives him unrecorded speech to compare against recorded obligations.
+
+### Relationship Hooks
+
+- Knows Varro's accounts are too simple.
+- Knows Felix is sharper than respectable men admit.
+- Suspects Lentulus spends beyond his purse.
+- Has seen Crispus's debts or something close enough.
+- Values Secundus because supply men confirm numbers with reality.
+
+### Prologue Use
+
+Chresimus should be the voice that makes the room quieter.
+
+Typical line constraint:
+
+> The ashes will tell less than the accounts.
+
+---
+
+## 4. Interpersonal Tension Map
+
+| Pair | Tension |
+|---|---|
+| Varro / Felix | discipline vs opportunism |
+| Varro / Lentulus | earned reliability vs inherited access |
+| Varro / Crispus | respect for office vs distrust of compromised authority |
+| Varro / Secundus | shared logistics instincts, mild rivalry |
+| Varro / Chresimus | physical competence vs written competence |
+| Felix / Lentulus | social ceiling vs inherited ease |
+| Felix / Crispus | Felix knows weakness; Crispus resents being known |
+| Felix / Secundus | practical alliance |
+| Felix / Chresimus | mutual intelligence, mutual caution |
+| Lentulus / Crispus | elite performance around damaged authority |
+| Lentulus / Secundus | status etiquette vs operational fact |
+| Lentulus / Chresimus | polite danger: the scribe may know too much |
+| Crispus / Secundus | legal procedure vs material reality |
+| Crispus / Chresimus | documents threaten dignity |
+| Secundus / Chresimus | numbers confirmed by logistics |
+
+---
+
+## 5. Speech Register Rules
+
+Do not write them as modern personalities in costume.
+
+### Varro
+
+- verbs: count, block, move, guard, wait
+- avoids: ornamental metaphor
+- pace: short
+
+### Felix
+
+- verbs: buy, slip, turn, catch, sell
+- avoids: admitting vulnerability
+- pace: quick
+
+### Lentulus
+
+- verbs: introduce, attach, consider, preserve
+- avoids: direct talk of hunger or debt
+- pace: measured
+
+### Crispus
+
+- verbs: attest, delay, petition, bind, recover
+- avoids: naming his own weakness
+- pace: formal
+
+### Secundus
+
+- verbs: count, replace, haul, feed, store
+- avoids: status performance
+- pace: practical
+
+### Chresimus
+
+- verbs: record, balance, pledge, owe, erase
+- avoids: loudness
+- pace: quiet, precise
+
+---
+
+## 6. Prologue Placement
+
+Use these figures in `SCENARIO-MERCHANT-0000`.
+
+The participant should hear them discuss one uncertain inciting topic, preferably the default forge smoke from `SCENARIO-MERCHANT-0001`.
+
+The scene should not provide biography exposition. Character should be inferred from:
+
+- what each notices first
+- who each interrupts
+- who each refuses to answer
+- whose words shift the room
+- what each assumes money is
+
+---
+
+## 7. Participant Choice Mapping
+
+| Chosen Perspective | Character | Background |
+|---|---|---|
+| blocked routes / movement discipline | Marcus Atilius Varro | Former Legionary |
+| mispriced fear / salvage | Lucius Fabius Felix | Freedman Trader |
+| names / access / reputation | Quintus Cornelius Lentulus Minor | Noble Younger Son |
+| permits / debts / enforceability | Gaius Licinius Crispus | Failed Magistrate |
+| carts / stock / replacement timing | Titus Varenus Secundus | Camp Logistician |
+| accounts / collateral / hidden insolvency | Publius Terentius Chresimus | Guild Scribe |
+
+---
+
+## 8. Dialogue Design Constraints
+
+The six should not speak equally.
+
+A realistic prologue may have:
+
+- Felix speak first
+- Varro cut through noise
+- Lentulus redirect toward names
+- Crispus warn of legal consequences
+- Secundus reduce the room to logistics
+- Chresimus end the exchange with one quiet fact
+
+The participant should not feel they are choosing from six speeches.  
+They should feel they are choosing which interpretation of reality to trust.
+
+---
+
+## 9. Visual and Sensory Anchors
+
+Keep sensory description brief and functional.
+
+Use details that reveal social position:
+
+- Varro folds his towel with military precision
+- Felix keeps his purse tied under the inner fold
+- Lentulus has oil better than his purse warrants
+- Crispus adjusts old but costly fabric
+- Secundus scrapes mud from under a cracked nail
+- Chresimus protects a wax tablet from steam
+
+Do not over-describe.
+
+---
+
+## 10. Economic Meaning of Each Figure
+
+| Character | Money Means |
+|---|---|
+| Varro | capacity to move under pressure |
+| Felix | value before respectability sees it |
+| Lentulus | access shaped into advantage |
+| Crispus | enforceable obligation |
+| Secundus | replacement stock at the right time |
+| Chresimus | recorded claim over future action |
+
+This table is the interpretive core of the cast.
+
+---
+
+## 11. Repository Use
+
+Internal simulation substrate. Not final player-facing dialogue.
+
+Use this document to support:
+
+- prologue dialogue drafting
+- character voice consistency
+- background selection UI
+- NPC reuse
+- actor relation modelling
+- future faction and CLIENTELA systems
+
+---
+
+## 12. Canonical Success Condition
+
+If the participant remembers not six stat profiles but six ways money becomes power, then this cast is functioning correctly.