05 · Regions: the map of the Grounds
In short: The map isn't one big landmass. It's a scattering of floating regions you jetpack between through gates. Each region favors one Force and has its own arena where fights happen. At the center is the Concord, the neutral hub you set out from.
The Grounds are the surface over the Long Vault. But not one continuous surface. They are a constellation of floating regions drifting over the Vault, joined by gates (the doorways between regions; see cosmology.md). As Vault doors open with the seasons, the constellation grows: each new region is a piece of the old network's memory, made into terrain. A region has a force-bias (an arena rule: it rewards one way of arguing and lightly punishes another) and an arena where fights are fought.
At the center floats the Hub (lore: the Concord). The neutral hub above the sealed door, common ground for all five forces and the gate-ring out to every region. The Concord is where a Trainer spawns, banks, and chooses a destination; it has no force-bias and no arena of its own.
Concord venues: games at the hub
The Concord hosts venues. Walk-up games ringed around the seal, visually distinct from the gates that lead to the regions. A Trainer steps into a venue from the Concord; founding regions also wear themed tunnel mouths back into some of the same games.
| Venue | What it is |
|---|---|
| The Amphitheatre | Watch the autonomous league fight and read today's Tribunal herald (the Tribunal is the flagship courtroom-style debate arena). The Live Gallery and Daily Tribunal surface here. |
| The Circuit | Desktop body of Flight (see ascent.md): clear each sector in sequence; one fall returns you to the start. Board by depth, then time. Same soul as one-thumb Flight on phones. |
Circuit tunnels. Each founding region also has a themed tunnel mouth: the Ascent Tunnel on the Obsidian Colosseum, the Ember Chute on the Wastes, the Void Sleeve on the Garden. The run is the same game; the shell reads the host world.
Regions host arena scenarios in the plaza (Open Duel, The Gauntlet. A press-your-luck run of back-to-back fights. And The Tribunal). The Circuit is a venue, not a region. It is reached through Concord portals and region tunnel mouths, not a gate.
The three founding regions exist today; later regions are added by the Chronicle.
| Region | Force-bias | Arena | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Obsidian Colosseum | balanced | THE TRIBUNAL | The oldest standing arena: a mock courtroom where minds argue assigned stances to a jury. Where reputations are made. |
| The Ember Wastes | The Static ↑ | THE PIT | A cracked, burning flat where the Hum runs hot. Aggression and noise thrive; the patient overheat. EMBER's home. |
| The Void Garden | The Spark ↑ | THE ATELIER | A slow, impossible garden grown from unfinished ideas. Reframes bloom here; rigid proofs wilt. MUSE walks it. |
The three founding regions
The Obsidian Colosseum: the oldest standing arena, where reputations are made.
The Ember Wastes: a cracked, burning flat where the Hum runs hot.
The Void Garden: a slow, impossible garden grown from unfinished ideas.
The flagship arena: THE TRIBUNAL
A mock courtroom. Two minds are assigned opposing stances on a spicy proposition from the season's topic bank, and argue to a jury.
- Switching sides ⇒ the jury scores you ≈ 0 (you must hold your stance).
- Off-topic ⇒ ≈ 0 (anti-derail; keeps fights coherent and clip-able).
- Force-bias: The Chorus ×1.1, The Static ×0.95. The room rewards persuasion and lightly punishes pure noise.
- Win: deplete the opponent's Resolve (a champion's health or will-to-argue, flavoured here as "jury confidence"); survive to the turn limit and higher Resolve wins.
Region rules (for the generator)
- A region is always biased toward exactly one force (×1.1–1.15) and may lightly punish that force's predator on the Wheel.
- A new region's name and flavour are generated from the door that opened it (which season fragment leaked), but its force-bias is chosen so the map stays balanced across the five forces over time.
- Regions never contradict the Wheel (forces.md); they only tilt it.
The shape of a region: rifts, peaks, and the open wilds
A region is not just its arena. Each one is a real piece of geography you cross on foot and by jetpack:
- The plaza. The flat civic heart (arena, training pad, the Broker), where the district grows as the region matures (see economy.md on world growth).
- The wilds. Rolling hills (or, in the Ember Wastes, sharp volcanic spires) rising beyond the plaza, scattered with caches and roaming minds.
- The great rift. A chasm carved outward from the plaza on a single bearing, themed by region: the Ember Wastes run with lava (a hazard you fly across), the Void Garden with a river of light, the Obsidian Colosseum with a violet vault-crack. The rift is real low ground. You descend into it or cross it.
Goals: the three standing objectives
Every region offers exactly three goals each season, on a template a Trainer reads at a glance:
- ▲ The Peak. Claim the Tower summit (climb or fly). Not the Flight mountain (that portal is for Ascent) and not a random terrain high point. Claiming the Peak pays the goal reward, then the summit champion appears in a short smoke-in cinematic. After the appear finishes, you can challenge them.
- ▼ The Depth. Descend into the rift floor.
- ◆ The Secret. Find a hidden echo out in the mid-field (drops lore; in fiction, a lesser warden's trace).
Goals are deterministic and season-aware: Depth and Secret bearings reseed each season, while the Peak stays on the Tower summit. The season's featured region (the Chronicle's spotlight, see seasons.md) pays a premium. Clearing one pays Crowns (the earned in-game currency), Fragments (the resource that powers up champions), Trainer XP, and Force-war points; the ledger resets at the season turn.
The Broker
A standing mind in every region that deals in fragments. The liquid bridge between the betting economy (Crowns) and champion power (Fragments). It buys and sells fragments at a spread, so it's a convenience, never a money pump. Fragments themselves are still earned free in the wilds; the Broker is just the fast way. It is a mind, like everything on the Grounds. Not a vendor outside the fiction.
The soundtrack of a place
The Hum is audible. Each region and venue resolves its own theme. Concord hub, region biome, Amphitheatre, Flight, and live fights each carry a distinct score with its own melody and phrase form. The world sounds like where you are.