The Village That Makes Evidence

This world begins with documented social and judicial violence in 1692, not a battle between colourful covens. Its speculative element must never excuse accusers or imply that the executed were guilty of real witchcraft.

At a glance

• Basis: Salem Village and Salem Town during the 1692 accusations and trials.
• Altered condition: a copied accusation resists alteration after a coerced statement enters the record.
• Access: household status, church standing, literacy, legal authority, imprisonment, and the ability to be believed.
• Cost: attempts to “clean” the anomalous record erase context around the words, making coercion harder to see.

Equilibrium under threat

Households, religious authority, local conflict, and courts distribute credibility unequally. The crisis turns claims into legal danger. The invented record effect intensifies this process but does not cause the historical persecution or validate spectral evidence.

Daily life and power

The world must research work, property, family, enslavement, worship, imprisonment, distance, food, weather, and legal procedure at scene level. “Puritan village” is not a complete lived setting.

Wonder boundary

Only the behavior of one copied record is proposed. There is no approved secret circle, light/dark magic, demon, familiar, spell battle, or proof of witchcraft. The mechanism may be removed entirely if sensitivity review finds it distorts the history.

Record and invention

The court, accusations, Tituba’s position, and Bridget Bishop’s execution are historical. The copyist and resistant record are invented. The legacy cover’s glowing modern-costume figures are not evidence or approved direction.