Locations, Features, Sites, and Threats
This page owns Valenar's strategic map content taxonomy.
Location
A Location is the strategic map unit.
It is what the player scouts, surveys, claims, designates, connects, and acts within.
A Location carries:
- terrain and topology facts
- knowledge and survey state
- control, claim, and travel context
- visible or hinted Features
- discovered or enterable Sites
- Threat state attached to the Location itself or to content inside it
Feature
A Feature is notable generated or discovered content, sign, or fact inside a Location.
A Feature explains why a Location matters before, alongside, or instead of full place access. It can stay a Feature for its whole life, or it can convert into a Site when it becomes enterable, exploitable, defensible, or developed.
Examples include:
- springs, ore veins, or other resource nodes
- ruined mill traces, standing stones, or ward clues
- shrines or ruins that are known but not yet enterable
- ambush signs, demon tracks, ash fields, or other threat signs (See lore exposure: lh-game1-world-hooks.md — Demon presence row, gate scarring/taint fields row)
Site
A Site is first-class place content inside a Location.
A Site is what the player can inspect, enter, exploit, defend, connect, or build around once it becomes discovered, enterable, or developed.
Site wording should stay explicit about state:
- wild
- discovered
- secured
- active
- owned
- developed
- depleted
- sealed
- destroyed
Examples include:
- mine sites and productive water sites
- shrine interiors and ward sites
- restored ruins and strongholds
- dungeon sites
Threat
A Threat is danger, pressure, or hostile presence attached to a Location, Feature, or Site.
Threat is not a separate place ontology. It describes the dangerous state of a place or sign, not a parallel map object family.
Examples include:
- corruption or route danger attached to a Location
- hostile pressure revealed by a Feature
- an active dungeon as a Threat Site
- a Site with linked threats that must be cleared or contained
Dungeon Rule
Unknown dungeons begin as clues, Features, or threat signs inside a Location.
Once the player can meaningfully inspect, enter, or exploit them, they are Sites. Active dungeons are either Threat Sites or Sites with linked threats.
Design Rules
- Location is the strategic unit; Feature, Site, and Threat all live inside or attach to that Location record.
- Unknown or nonexistent content must not appear as a known row.
- Resource nodes and ruins can begin as Features and convert into Sites when the world state makes them enterable, exploitable, or developed.
- Dungeons do not create a separate top-level map ontology or top-level dungeon tab. They stay aligned with the Location Dossier and the combat/dungeon surface.
- Threat language should stay causal. A danger can attach to a Location, Feature, or Site, but it should not replace the underlying place taxonomy.
- Settlement designations and district logic consume Location truth rather than replacing it.