I got close enough to Charlie to give him cheese and pick him up today. That's the little moment I wanted from Town Square. A surprising number of things have to agree before it happens.
Charlie sculpt in Blender. This is a production study, not the Town Square playtest.
The encounter placed Charlie where I had authored him to appear. The player’s interaction had to reach that specific animal while preserving his state.
The Bloom kept its four familiar actions and could offer an equipped tool where the authored rules supported it. I could also put an animal into a cage and explicitly release it again.
I accepted the Town Square path for integration. It gave me a starting point for the next leg, where I still needed to take Charlie through travel and into the shelter.
I could give Codex a concrete beat to help make work, then reuse the pieces when the story moved to another place.