Cell
Three to thirteen people who choose to walk together, by name, with a first Quest — a fully functioning part of the whole.
A Cell is the smallest complete unit of the living body. In every organism the cell sustains itself, does its work, and brings forth new cells, drawing from the whole and giving back to it; and within its nucleus it carries the complete code, so that though nearly all the body be lost, one living cell can regrow it. The human form is the same. A Cell is a gathering of sovereign people that has taken up the whole code — The Goal, The Golden Seed, the way of playing — so that no centre is required for it to live, and no attack on any centre can destroy what every Cell already holds.
Five functions make a Cell complete rather than merely gathered: Governance by shared agreements and consent; Economy — value made, exchanged, and shared; Education — mutual formation through practice and accountability; Mission — a living Quest that moves The Goal; and Replication — passing The Flame and planting new Cells. A body that holds all five depends on no one above it. That independence is why the Cell, and not the committee or the campaign, is the unit the whole Game is built from: everything larger is Cells that have become one another's home, and everything the canon says at scale is first said here, at one table.
The working shape is human-sized. Three to thirteen souls, and best at four to seven; a Field of Agreements spoken aloud rather than assumed; a weekly Turn and a seasonal Quest; two hosts who serve for a season and pass the hosting on (The Two-Coordinator Rhythm); a Keeper of the record; a Carrier for each new Cell planted. Growth is not the measure — the mark of maturity is the Cells a Cell has helped birth (Self-Sustenance and Self-Replication, Grow Your Cells). A Cell knows its Home Cell, and Cells that have become one another's home form a Supercell; below a Cell lie its subcells. That is how ten thousand people become one body with nobody in charge of it.
A Circle (as gathering) is a gathering that is not yet one. The distinction is not decoration: it keeps the word Cell meaning something that can be relied upon — a part that actually functions — and it gives a new gathering something definite to become.
Also called: a Cell · Cells
Stands on: Sovereignty · Consent · Field of Agreements · Trust · The Invitation
Opens onto: Circle (as gathering) · Form a Cell · Home Cell · Supercell · Cell of Cells · Quest · The Turn · Roles · Grow Your Cells · Guard the Membrane
In play: the table
Sources: Cell (canon-grade) · The Twelve Words 1, in The Little Book of the Great Game (canon-grade) · Form A Cell, Grow Your Cells, Self-Replicate Your Cells (draft) · The DNA of Heaven, Parts V and XII (Fable synthesis) · lionsberg.wiki: Cell
Open: The division threshold differs: the seed says a Cell divides in two at thirteen; Grow Your Cells says a Cell begins to lose its life beyond twelve to sixteen and prepares the split at ten to twelve. · The Playbook names its Plays Circle (Play — Grow Your Circle) where the Patterns they compose say Cells.