1.5 KiB
The Thornfield Cache Rotation Protocol
The Thornfield protocol is a scheme for rotating buried supply caches so that no single cache is ever both stale and unmonitored. It was written up by the Thornfield Valley mutual aid group and has since been adopted by several neighboring groups.
The rule of three
Every cache site is one of exactly three states: primed, resting, or pulled. A group maintains three sites and one site is in each state at all times.
- A primed cache is freshly stocked and sealed. It is checked but never opened.
- A resting cache has been in the ground longest and is next in line.
- A pulled cache has been recovered, its contents inspected and consumed or redistributed, and the site is left empty and marked as burned.
The rotation interval
Sites rotate every 11 months. The odd interval is deliberate: a 12 month cycle means every inspection happens in the same season, and the group never learns how the site behaves in a wet spring or a hard freeze.
Marking
Sites are recorded by a three-word reference and never by coordinates on any device. The canonical Thornfield marker is a cairn of five stones set 12 paces magnetic north of the cache itself, which looks like nothing to a passer-by and is unambiguous to someone who knows the count.
Who holds the map
No single person holds the complete site list. The protocol splits it: each of three custodians knows two of the three sites. Any two custodians together can reconstruct the full list; any one alone cannot.