Reading the Map

“Everything beyond the resonance fields: half-made terrain under a thin sky… Where the salvage is, and the snarls, and the whisper.” — The Seamkeeper’s Codex, Words of the World

The shape of the world

The world map is a 1000×1000 tile board centered on (500, 500), divided into 73 territory zones in seven tiers. Tiers are arranged grand-core style: a single Tier 7 core square at the very center, ringed by a handful of high-tier zones, broadening out to 28 Tier 1 frontier zones at the edges — where you start.

Deeper toward the center = higher tier = richer and more dangerous. That one gradient organizes everything on the map.

What you’ll find on the board

Resource nodes

Crystals and groves scattered through every zone (~3 per zone, respawning on a timer after depletion). Nodes come in tiers 1–7, and a zone’s tier decides which node tiers spawn there — frontier zones spawn T1 nodes; the core spawns T7. Node tier matters enormously: a T7 node yields 11× the haul rate of a T1 node and holds far more. All four resource kinds (Ironbark, Astral Ore, Spirit Essence, Gold Coins) appear everywhere — no need to travel for a specific kind, only for a richer tier.

Monster nodes (snarls)

Clusters of Echoes, about two per zone, also tiered 1–7 by their zone. Attackable at will, rewarding resources and Guardian XP; deeper snarls field bigger forces with champion-grade Echoes at the top end. Full breakdown: Monster Nodes.

The throne

At the exact center of the board sits the largest landmark in the world — the Tier 7 core, where the Devourer works. You’ll want an alliance before you want directions.

Other Sanctuaries

Every Overseer on the server shares this one board. Their Sanctuaries appear on the map; their marches crawl across it in real time, as do yours.

Practical reading

• Travel is Manhattan distance at 4 seconds per tile (base) — diagonal shortcuts don’t exist, so a node 30 tiles away is a 2-minute march.
• Your neighborhood is your economy. Early on, everything worth doing is within your starting frontier zone and its neighbors. Push inward one tier at a time as your army grows.
• The map is live. A node that shows depleted was gathered by someone; it will respawn (minutes to hours by tier). Snarls get cut and re-tangle similarly.

Tip

Zoom out before you plan. The tier rings are visible at a glance once you know to look for them — and “one ring deeper than I usually go” is the most reliable definition of profitable risk in the game.