poison-mask

What problem does it solve?

Use Poison Mask when the right move is not to poison one tile on the floor but to contaminate a specific interface, workflow surface, or operating persona that the target keeps wearing. Poison Mask attaches the cost to continued contact: every repeated use of the same channel, wrapper, queue, ritual, or decision surface becomes more unpleasant, slower, riskier, or more draining. Unlike Poison Face, which punishes staying in one place, Poison Mask punishes continuing to operate through one poisoned surface. Unlike Time Bomb, it is not waiting to go off later; unlike Killer Eye, it is not there to detect passage; unlike Anti Damage, it is proactive rather than retaliatory.

This is the secondary Codex compatibility rendering of a hybrid battle-chip pattern with a shipping-now execution model.

Canonical chip family: Poison Mask Codex shelf: Control and Terrain Provider target: Codex compatibility surface.

When To Use

• The target keeps interacting through one familiar interface, procedural layer, or persona the target keeps wearing.
• You need repeated-contact attrition rather than positional denial on one fixed tile.
• The strongest move is to make an old operating surface unpleasant enough that the target removes it, abandons it, or migrates to a cleaner lane.

Workflow

1. Name the exact interface, procedural layer, or persona the target keeps wearing.
2. Define what each continued touch, pass, or use should cost and what clean alternative Hermes wants to make relatively more attractive.
3. Apply the toxic overlay, then direct operators toward the unmasked route, replacement surface, or cleanse condition.

Deliverables

• One contaminated interface, wrapper, or workflow surface whose repeated use now carries a named cost.
• A short note describing the clean alternative, unmask path, or migration lane that becomes preferable.

Guardrails

• Poison Mask must attach cost to continued use of a named surface; if you are really poisoning a location, use Poison Face instead.
• Do not poison an interface without naming the clean alternative or the condition for removing the mask.
• If the surface is used equally by allies and opponents and you cannot separate the harm, the mask is badly placed.

Default Invocation

Use Poison Mask to contaminate one overused interface, wrapper, or workflow surface so repeated use becomes steadily more costly, then point to the clean alternative or unmask path Hermes wants operators to adopt.