The twelve-rung ladder: director, champion, physio and mascot walk on

Oliver's four picks, each rolled off its own settled BOSS frame through the
family pipeline (rows in _famroll.py) — the rung and the chapter boss are the
same person. matchFoe decoupled from bossArt's cycling on his call: the match
ladder is 12 with the champion capping rung 12; chapters keep their ten.

The champion refused to bulk through four rolls (words lost, then a new
pair-reference in char_ref only half-won), so his mass is stature: OPPONENTS
rows carry an optional world height h read by zombieH — champion 2.1 m, the
Bulk 2.0 m — and the serve aims at the body actually drawn. HEAD_CROP measured
for all four; ramp test extended to 12 rungs.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

PROJECT.md

@@ -1832,6 +1832,25 @@ pipeline's knowledge:
   faces RIGHT by convention — the gameplay.js note at the swing aim). The new rows are all drawn
   facing right, which quietly fixed it.
 
+## THE TWELVE-RUNG LADDER — four new families, and the pair-reference lesson (2026-08-13)
+
+Oliver: at least 12 opponents. His picks: **DIRECTOR, CHAMPION, PHYSIO, MASCOT** — all four already
+existed as chapter bosses, so each family anchors on its own settled boss frame (`z_dir1`,
+`z_champ1`, `z_physio1`, `z_mascot1`): the rung and the boss are the same person, which is the
+roster's narrative. Rolled through `_famroll.py` (rows added), cut with `_zsheet.py`, HEAD_CROP
+measured for the four. The ladder is now 12 rungs (mascot at 5, physio at 8, director 11,
+champion 12) and **`matchFoe` is DECOUPLED from `bossArt`'s cycling** — his call, champion caps
+rung 12 while chapters keep their 10-rotation. The lists share characters, not arithmetic.
+
+**THE PAIR REFERENCE, and when words lose.** The champion came back club-pro-slim through FOUR
+rolls — two prompt escalations ("shoulders TWICE as wide", "if he is as slim as image 1 it is
+WRONG") and a general build-override clause in `_famroll.prompt()` all lost to the pose sheet's
+figures. `char_ref` now takes a `pair`: the character pasted NEXT TO a club-pro frame on one
+ground line, so the size difference is shown, not described. Even that only half-worked, so the
+champion's mass is STATURE instead: `OPPONENTS` rows carry an optional `h` (world height, read by
+`zombieH` so the serve aims at the body actually drawn) — champion 2.1 m, the Bulk 2.0 m. When a
+build matters, budget rolls for it, and remember the fallback is a data row, not a fifth roll.
+
 ## THE ZOMBIE FAMILY PIPELINE — one sheet, one character, 31 sprites (2026-08-12)
 
 **This replaces the nine-batch flow above for a whole opponent family.** `_regen.py` still exists and