flock.state

What the rest of the game asks the flock.

local Flock = require("flock.state")

Flock.count()      -- how many yowes are still with you
Flock.leader()     -- the yowe nearest the Lingster, for a camera to frame
Flock.members()    -- every yowe still standing
Flock.lingsterZ()  -- how far up the fen the Lingster is

flock.shepherd writes it; everything else reads it. Every call is safe before the flock has been built — an empty flock, never an error.

The blackboard

Flock.get(key) and Flock.set(key, value) are the flock's window onto the run's shared key/value store, which lives on game.rules as Rules.get / Rules.set. A slice holding flock.state needs nothing else to read the phase, the tide or the station it is standing at.