institution/Wiki/contraband/Corruption.md

# Corruption

*A search is only as thorough as the warden running it, and a warden is a person with their own
diligence and their own price.*

The counter to contraband is the [warden search](Warden-Search.md) — but a search is not a machine. It
is a human being with traits and a mood, and Contraband models that human being on **two axes, both
read off the same vanilla traits, mood, and relationships — no new stat to maintain**:

| Axis | Question | Effect on a search |
|---|---|---|
| **Diligence** | How hard do they look? | multiplies the find chance |
| **Corruption** | How bent are they? | a flat chance to look away — and a route *into* the prison |

This is *"what turns 'the game vs the player' into 'the player's own guards, each with an angle.'"* The
prisoner you can control. The guard you assigned to watch them, you cannot.

## Diligence — how hard they look

Diligence runs 0 to 1 and multiplies the whole find chance. A lax or miserable warden misses things a
dutiful one would turn up. It starts from a baseline of **0.55** and moves with traits and mood:

| Trait / factor | Δ Diligence | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Industrious | +0.1 per degree | a hard worker searches hard |
| Lazy | −0.1 per degree | a lazy one frisks gently |
| Abrasive | +0.15 | happy to toss a cell |
| Psychopath | +0.10 | thoroughness without squeamishness |
| Kind | −0.20 | reluctant to be rough |
| Mood | ×0.6 (miserable) .. ×1.1 (content) | morale is thoroughness |

## Corruption — their price

Corruption also runs 0 to 1. In a search, a bent warden gets a flat chance to **look away** on each
item they would otherwise have a shot at finding — that chance is their Corruption × 0.6, rolled per
hidden item before the find roll. Corruption starts from a baseline of **0.04** (most guards are
mostly honest) and moves with traits and mood:

| Trait / factor | Δ Corruption | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Greedy | +0.40 | the classic bent guard — everyone has a number |
| Kind | +0.15 | looks the other way out of sympathy, not money |
| Ascetic | −0.10 | wants nothing, so cannot be bought |
| Abrasive | −0.05 | too surly to do anyone a favour |
| Mood | ×1.6 (miserable) .. ×0.7 (content) | a happy guard is harder to tempt |

## The Kind warden is a double liability

Read the two tables together and one trait jumps out. **Kind** *lowers* Diligence (−0.20) **and**
*raises* Corruption (+0.15). The gentle guard both frisks softly and bends the rules out of pity — the
worst warden you can put on a contraband detail, and the least obvious one, because "kind" reads as a
virtue everywhere else in the game. Meanwhile **mood** cuts the same way on both axes: a miserable
warden looks *less* hard and is *more* temptable. A depressed guard is a sieve at both ends.

## Worked examples

Find chance for a hidden item is roughly the base find chance × Diligence, with a separate look-away
chance (Corruption × 0.6) to ignore it entirely. Assume a mid-skill warden whose raw find chance on a
shiv is around 0.30 before disposition:

| Warden | Diligence | Corruption | Look-away/item | Net on a 0.30 shiv |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral, content | ~0.61 | ~0.03 | ~2% | thorough-ish: ~0.18 find |
| Abrasive + Psychopath, content | ~0.88 | ~0.02 | ~1% | a nightmare for prisoners: ~0.26 find |
| Greedy, content | ~0.61 | ~0.31 | ~18% | looks capable, pockets bribes |
| Greedy, **miserable** | ~0.37 | ~0.62 | ~37% | ignores contraband over a third of the time |
| Kind + **miserable** | ~0.25 | ~0.27 | ~16% | a sieve at both ends: ~0.07 find |

(Numbers rounded; mood taken as content ≈ 100% or miserable ≈ 20%.) The takeaway is that **who you
assign to search matters as much as whether you search at all.** A greedy, miserable warden is not a
guard — he is a supply line you are paying to pretend otherwise.

## The bent warden as a supply route *in*

Corruption is not only "looks away." The other half is reaching *in* — a bent guard who slips a
prisoner contraband through the very same door a smuggler or a gangmate uses. Only what can ride on a
body gets slipped across a handshake. Whether and when a guard does this is gated on that guard's
Corruption.

In Contraband on its own, this "smuggle in" ability exists but is not yet wired to an in-game trigger.
It is the seam **Institution: Gangs** drives when a gang's outside members pay a bent warden to make a
delivery, and the thing a planned secure-zone checkpoint that frisks *guards* is meant to catch.
Search-side corruption (looking away) is fully live today; reach-in corruption is the hook the rest of
the suite plugs into. See [Compatibility](Compatibility.md).

## How to play with it

- **Vet your wardens.** A Greedy or Kind pawn on prison duty is a liability the trait tooltip won't
  warn you about. Ascetic and Industrious make the best searchers; Psychopath and Abrasive are
  brutally effective if you can stomach them.
- **Watch mood.** A prison-duty warden in a slump is failing at both jobs — searching *and* not
  smuggling. Keep your guards content or rotate them out.
- **Redundancy beats brilliance.** Because each search is one shot per prisoner per day and even a good
  warden misses a well-hidden shiv, a *second* diligent warden over time matters more than a single
  perfect search.

## Quick reference

| Constant | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Diligence baseline | 0.55 | before traits and mood |
| Corruption baseline | 0.04 | most guards are mostly honest |
| Diligence mood scale | ×0.6 .. ×1.1 | miserable → content |
| Corruption mood scale | ×1.6 .. ×0.7 | miserable → content |
| Look-away multiplier | ×0.6 | applied to Corruption, per item |
| Smuggle payload | body-hideable contraband only | what fits in a handshake |

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*Part of the **Institution** suite — Core · Contraband · Justice · Gangs, alongside Foul Play and
Ward. Each stands alone; together they interlock.*