Normalizers are deterministic for spells, combat turns, item events, NPC
interactions, and scene descriptions. They canonicalize display values and
evidence, use source-document order for stable output, and issue bounded
warnings for changes or collapsed duplicates. The NPC normalizer is the
intentional exception: it first produces a deterministic candidate set, then
uses a bounded structured-LLM proposal to reconcile identity groups. Invalid
or unusable proposals retain the deterministic result and surface retry or
fallback diagnostics; the model does not directly replace durable records.
## Generated References And Grounding
Normalized D&D artifacts can be handed to a later step through a generated
reference binding. The framework verifies artifact compatibility and retains
producer provenance; consumers resolve the handed-off artifact into an
immutable, validated projection for each operation. External files are checked
during preparation, while generated artifacts are resolved at the handoff.
NPC registries are names-only grounding projections: they may canonicalize
actors for spells and combat turns and are required for NPC interactions, but
they do not supply evidence. Scene-description registries are eligibility-only
projections: they retain the current chunk’s classification data, not scene
prose or evidence, and exist to route combat extraction.
## Lane-Specific Rules
The following differences are intentional and should remain explicit when a
shared helper changes.
| Lane | Intentional behavior |
| --- | --- |
| Spells | May use a spell-catalog overlay and optional NPC grounding; the catalog validator supplies domain-specific semantic checks. |
| NPCs | Does not consume an NPC registry. Its normalizer is the LLM-assisted reconciliation exception described above. |
| Combat turns | Requires a scene-description artifact. It calls the LLM only for an exact `combat` classification; exact non-combat classifications return an accepted empty result, while missing or mismatched classifications return an empty result with a bounded warning. Optional NPC grounding never becomes evidence. |
| Item events | Uses campaign context for disambiguation but has no NPC-registry or scene-description dependency. |
| NPC interactions | Requires the normalized NPC registry at extraction and normalization, using it for canonical actor grounding only. |
| Scene descriptions | Produces the classifications consumed by combat routing; it does not consume an NPC registry or provide evidence for combat artifacts. |
The combat and scene-description contracts describe their exact handoff and
empty-result behavior in more detail:
[combat turns](../integrations/dnd-combat-turn-artifacts.md) and
