Canon Facts — Consolidated Lore & Status Sheet

Source: Wikipedia synopses S1–S4 (40 eps) + cast list + verified episode metadata. All facts traceable to episodes. Subagents: treat this as the consistency contract — if you write something that contradicts this file, you're wrong. If you find NEW confirmed facts during research, keep them in your own files; do NOT edit this file.

A. The town & its rules

• The town traps travelers: roads loop, cars circle back; a fallen tree blocks the main road and the detour leads into town (S1E01).
• The town has no fixed physical location (S1E04 — radio static, Kenny/Jade investigation).
• Electricity works but wires connect to nothing (S2E03 — Tabitha's basement dig; S1E06 she finds no power lines).
• Phones ring despite dead lines; callers are entities posing as the dead (Jim gets "Thomas" calls, S3E02; Ethan, S3E04; Kenny's dream phone, S2E08).
• Radio works: Jim's tower (S1E07–10) reaches a threatening voice that knows his name and warns "your wife shouldn't be digging that hole" (S1E10). Music box music plays over the radio (S2E09).
• Crops rot and food supplies fail when Tabitha leaves (S3E01); a new settlement with fresh vegetables appears nearby (S3E02); livestock found by Boyd in the woods (S1E08 flashback).
• The environment reacts to knowledge: "knowledge comes at a cost" (written above Jim's body, S4E02); the town pushes residents away when they get close to answers (Boyd, S4E02).
• Fears and nightmares become real: the straw dolls were born from a man's nightmares and thrown in the lake (S4E05, Tabitha's memory); "people's fears become part of the place" (S4E06); Henry's coma visions (S4E07–08); Khatri appears to Boyd as a vision telling him "some people may have to die" (S4E08).
• Choosing Day: newcomers pick a private house or Colony House (S1E03).
• The Box: the town's punishment — locked outside at night to be killed by creatures (S1E03, Frank).
• Victor is the longest survivor; he arrived as a child (~1970s), mother Miranda and sister Eloise died in a massacre of the original residents.
• Newcomer caravans arrive over time: Matthews family + Jade's car (S1E01), the bus (S1E10–S2), the ambulance with Tabitha/Henry (S3E04).

B. Creatures & entities

• The creatures (monsters): humanoid, undead-like; kill by ripping throats; speak and mimic loved ones (Jasmine lures Kevin, S1E07); cannot enter spaces with a talisman; sleep in tunnels/caves beneath town by day (S1E10); they walk, never run; they don't eat — Kristi's autopsy finds them dry inside except bile (S2E07); they torture for sport (Tian-Chen in the barn, S3E01; Randall, S3E04). They are the town's first residents, who gained immortality by sacrificing their children (S3E10, Fatima's reveal).
• Smiley: fan nickname for the perpetually grinning creature. Killed by Boyd's blood-worms (S2E06); reborn as Fatima's baby, birthed by the Kimono Woman in the cellar (S3E10); grows fast; stalks Fatima (S4); cornered Kenny (S4E07); kills Marielle in the clinic after a talisman falls (S4E10).
• The Boy in White: young boy in white clothes; appears to select people (Victor as a child, Sara, Ethan, Tabitha, Elgin in dreams); led Sara to the faraway tree (S1E10); pushed Tabitha from the lighthouse — "this is the only way" (S2E10); stopped Victor from chopping the bottle tree (S3E09); told Tabitha she cannot return home via the lighthouse and time is running out (S4E03); warned Victor (S4E09); told Sophia "you will finally lose" (S4E10).
• The Kimono Woman: corpse in a kimono; haunts Elgin (drowns him in bath visions, S2E07; guides him via polaroids, S3E06–08; traps Fatima in the cellar, S3E08–09; delivers Smiley-reborn, S3E10; disappears with the amniotic sac). Claims she can help everyone go home (S3E06).
• The voices: Sara's voices (kill Ethan, S1E04–05; a new female voice in the woods — "there are worse things in the forest than the creatures", S1E09; they direct her in S4 via Sophia's tests, S4E04).
• The Man in Yellow: yellow suit; rips Jim's throat out (S3E10); hangs Jim's body with "knowledge comes at a cost" (S4E02); arrived long ago like everyone else and, after residents died, began devouring them — including Miranda (S4E04, per Victor); drives a car; keeps a sack of teeth (S4E07); shapeshifts into "Sophia," a woman who infiltrates the town (S4E01 onward); blood used to spike Henry's liquor (S4E06); lures Tabitha and warns her off the bones theory (S4E08); makes a deal with Clara (S4E09); kills Elgin when he refuses the deal — "their cycle is ending" (S4E10); steals all the talismans and throws them into a farway tree (S4E10).
• The Pastor: S4 newcomer; suffocated to death by Sophia (S4E01).
• Martin: emaciated man chained in the dungeon (S2E01–02); warns the creatures are "the tip of the spear"; transfers blood-worms to Boyd; dies (S2E02).
• Cicadas / music box entity: manifests cicadas; targets Julie, Marielle, Randall ("they come for three, unless you stop the melody"); chant "They touch, they break, they steal. No one here is free."; music box in the dungeon; destroyed by Boyd (S2E10); victims woke from comas.

C. Artifacts, places & mechanics

• Talismans: carved stones; protect enclosed spaces when hung (S1E01–02); Boyd found them in a cave in the woods (S1E08 flashback); drawn symbol differs from Jade's symbol; ALL talismans stolen by the Man in Yellow at the end of S4 (S4E10) — the town is left unprotected.
• Faraway (farway) trees: hollow trees that teleport — Victor's childhood game (S1E04, "A Rock and a Faraway"); destinations: root cellar (Julie), bottle tree → lighthouse (Tabitha), pool wall — instant death (Dale, S3E05), mineshaft (Boyd). Unreliable and dangerous.
• The bottle tree: tree hung with bottles containing numbered scraps (one from 1864); numbers repeat in a second bottle tree (S3E06); numbers are musical notes — playing them summons the children (S3E10); roots connect to the underground burial chamber (S4E09–10); Boyd's group uproots it (S4E09) and descends a ladder into the dark (S4E10).
• The tunnels & caves: creatures sleep here; Tabitha fell in (S1E10); burial chamber where the children were sacrificed; the dungeon where Martin was chained and the music box stood; the ruins above (S3E07).
• The lighthouse: source of light/horn seen by Boyd & Sara (S1E10); Tabitha pushed from its window by the Boy in White (S2E10); children "kept prisoner" there per Tabitha's vision; Boy in White: Tabitha can't return home through it (S4E03).
• The ruins: stone ruins in the forest; Julie story-walks here; dungeon entrance.
• The Lake of Tears: Ethan's vision (S4E02–03); giant straw dolls in the lake (S4E05); a man's nightmares gave the dolls life (S4E05).
• The symbol: the recurring pictograph (trees/circle) — Jade's obsession; appears in notebook, trees, tunnel ceiling (S1E06, S2E08–10); connected to the seven children and reincarnation.
• The seven children ("Anghkooey"): chant "Anghkooey"; sacrificed by the first residents; appear to Tabitha/Jade; tied to the bottle tree numbers, the tower, and the roots; Jade finds the tunnel where they were sacrificed (S4E05) and the children's bones (S4E09).
• Music box: in the dungeon; plays when the entity acts; Boyd destroyed it (S2E10).
• Jasper: Christopher's ventriloquist doll; found by Victor & Henry in the tunnels (S3E06); Victor obsessed with making it talk (S3E07).
• Straw dolls: giant humanoid dolls; kill Roger (S4E05); one reanimated as a creature (S4E07, killed by Elgin with a totem); Tabitha destroyed the dolls with a sharpened totem (S4E05).
• Storywalking: Julie's ability — revisiting past moments via marked places in Ethan's books (S4E02–03); she cannot change the past (Man in Yellow, S4E02); Randall helps her return (S4E02); she sees the Man in Yellow in Victor's childhood (S4E04).

D. Reincarnation chain

• Tabitha = Miranda (Victor's mother); Jade = Christopher (the man with Jasper); earlier incarnations include a Civil War-era soldier (S1E06 vision) and a man killed by a falling rock (S4E05). Each incarnation tried to save the children and was killed by the townspeople (S4E05).
• Revealed when the bottle-tree numbers are played (S3E10).

E. Character status table (as of S4E10)

F. Known unknowns (seeded for the tracker)

• Who/what is the Boy in White? Why does he help?
• What IS the Man in Yellow? Why does he now work to end the cycle?
• What does "Anghkooey" mean?
• Why were the children sacrificed, and what exactly happens if they're saved?
• What happens to the town without talismans (S4 cliffhanger)?
• Fatima's transformed state — permanent? Can she revert?
• Julie's storywalking limits ("can't change the past" — but is that a rule or a lie?).
• What is the Lake of Tears, exactly? Who was the man whose nightmares made the dolls?
• Henry's coma visions — is the town his creation, or is he being shown the truth?
• The relationship between the Kimono Woman, the voices, and the Man in Yellow.
• What's in the dungeon below the bottle tree roots?
• The 1864 bottle scrap — the Civil War-era incarnation.
• Boyd's Parkinson's — real or town-induced?
• Whether anyone from S1–S3 dead residents can return (Khatri vision suggests memory echoes).