# Desert Caravan v3a — Caravan at Golden Hour (faithful procession)

`desert-caravan-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

FAITHFUL take: a full-melodic 6/8 desert travel band in D mixolydian, 92 BPM. The bed IS the camel gait — a warm-pad fifth breathing over a rocking long-short sub ostinato and a frameDrum walking the two dotted-quarter beats of each 6/8 bar (a 24-row bar, eighth = 4 rows), so standing still already ambles. The HORIZON motif is re-seated into the lilt: stated recognizably once at the top of activity (renderMotif over a compound grid — rises 1-2-3 to the crest on 5, brushes 6, ends open on 2), then wound out as free phrases that lean the mixolydian b7 (C-natural) to keep the crest hungry, not arrived — 'the horizon as a road you've accepted.' Activity L1 (ch4-5) is the winding b7 pluck melody plus its soft-pluck echo answering a beat-and- a-half later (the row note's call-and-answer). Activity L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW material, not volume: a warm-pad counterline a third/sixth below (a second traveler) AND a lilting compound-eighth pluck fill on the off-beats — the band fully voiced. Danger is the sandstorm wall, abstract: danger1 (ch8-9) is the procession gone apprehensive — the frameDrum gait darkens onto the minor-leaning A/C centre, a low storm drone RISES as pitched density (not hiss/gusts — the old heat-shimmer airPad and noise gusts are retired), a far deepBoom each bar; real material, the wall sensed on the horizon. Danger2 (ch10-11) is the full ensemble crashing in at a FASTER danger tempo (116): the frameDrum DOUBLES TO A RUN across every compound eighth (the row note's literal ask, rendered as density not foley) under a galloping kick and an urgent shaker + hatTick drive — a genuine intensity jump, new rhythmic material, never danger1 louder. The danger bed drops the calm frameDrum so the ladder's run is the new gait. Fully diatonic D mixolydian throughout; the only colour is the modal b7, no chromatic darkening, no literal storm/sand foley (that belongs to the game's SFX + ambient soundscape).
