A fixed world, finite riches
The landscape is fixed. Every mountain, valley, and coastline is the same for everyone, and over time you come to know it. The riches in it are not. Ore, gems, and mineral veins are hidden, finite, and revealed only as you get close. There is no map marker and nothing to read out of the game files. Finding the good stuff means going out and looking: malachite staining over copper, placer gold in river gravel, the difference between good stone and dead stone.
And it runs out. Mine a node, work out a vein, or pick up a surface deposit and that ore is gone, for everyone, with no respawn. The loop never closes on one lucky strike. You explore, discover, mine it dry, and move on. Periodically the world reseeds its harvestables: the riches reshuffle onto the same familiar ground, so no one sits on the best vein forever. Scarcity is what makes a good haul worth trading, and worth defending.
Stake a claim by placing a mailbox and the 50-metre square around it is yours. Inside it you build and reshape terrain freely; outside, the wilds don't keep your changes. Squares tile edge to edge, so neighbours can grid plots into streets and whole townships with no gaps for a hostile build. Grant building rights to friends, a party, or a guild and hold a town together.
Tend your claim and it never lapses. Walk away and the world takes it back: after 8 weeks with no sign of you the claim reverts, structures crumble, and a strip-mine you dug in the wilds heals over for the next explorer. Your character, inventory, and builds carry through a reseed. Only the ore moves.
Build the home. Go find the ore.
Deposits are server-authoritative and never shipped to the client. Placement comes from a server-only resource seed, weighted by each material's rarity and class, so it can't be datamined from game files or routed to ahead of time. The server reveals a deposit to a player only within discovery range, tracked per player, and harvesting decrements it; at zero it joins a consumed set and is gone for everyone. A server reboot rolls a new resource seed, the layout reshuffles on the fixed terrain, and the consumed set clears. That reseed is the only replenishment. The base terrain never regenerates.
Claims are free-placed 50-metre squares, not grid- or chunk-aligned: the mailbox anchors the square and repositions within it after placement. Point-in-claim runs as a spatial broad-phase plus an exact check on PostGIS, and the edit gate is brush-aware. It rejects a brush that reaches into land you can't edit, not just one whose center lands outside, so you can't carve across a boundary. Owner-only editing is the baseline; social grants extend build rights to friends, party, or guild, and the schema carries claim tiers (personal, guild, settlement).
An inactivity lifecycle reclaims abandoned land, run as a server decay pass over a small state machine. After the inactivity threshold a claim goes Reverting; if the owner returns it reactivates with everything intact. Edits stay intact through the grace window and drop only at free, the end of the lifecycle, when a region_reset tells clients to re-base that ground. Because a Reverting claim accepts no new edits, the op set is stable by free time, so the heal is race-free, and a boot reconciliation drops any edit whose claim was already freed. The whole 8-week timeline is env-overridable so it can be tested in seconds.
- Deposits reveal within 30 m, mine within 6 m, and yield about 50 units before depletion (already-public player facts).
- No respawn: a depleted deposit stays depleted for everyone until a reseed reshuffles the layout.
- Claims are 50 m squares anchored at the mailbox; the edit gate is brush-aware, not center-only.
- Spatial queries (claim-contains-point, deposits-near-player) run on PostgreSQL plus PostGIS.
- Abandoned land reverts after 8 weeks inactive; freed claims heal terrain, with all timers env-overridable for testing.
Metals & Elemental
- Iron (Fe)Commontools, armor, weapons; the backbone of any settled world
- Copper (Cu)Commonvessels and the base for bronze and brass
- Tin (Sn)Rarepewter and the essential second ingredient of bronze
- Lead (Pb)Commonroofing, plumbing, weights, stained-glass cames
- Silver (Ag)Very Rarecoinage, fine jewelry, diplomatic gifts
- Gold (Au)Extremely Rarehigh-value coinage, regalia, temple decoration
- Mercury (Hg) / QuicksilverRareamalgamates gold and silver from ore; alchemy; toxic
- Charcoal (C)Extremely Commonthe fuel that gates every smelting recipe
- Sulfur (S) / BrimstoneRaregunpowder, alchemy, dyes; gathered from volcanic crusts
- Antimony (Sb)Very Raretype-metal hardener and the cosmetic kohl; toxic
- Arsenic (As)Rarevivid pigments, medicines, poisons; highly toxic
- Bismuth (Bi)Very Rareiridescent decorative trim and inlay
Salts & Reagents
- Rock Salt / Halite (NaCl)Commonpreserves meat and fish; whoever controls salt controls the larder
- Alum (KAl(SO4)2)Rarethe mordant that fixes dye into cloth; tanning
- Vitriol (copper & iron sulfates)Rareblue and green crystals for inks, dyes, metallurgy
- Sal Ammoniac (NH4Cl)Very Raresoldering flux gathered at volcanic vents
- Saltpeter / Niter (KNO3)Rarethe oxidizer that makes gunpowder burn
- Borax (Na2B4O7)Very Raregoldsmith's flux, carried in by trade
- Gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O)Commonplaster, molded ornament, sculpture, casts
Stone
- Limestone / Calcite (CaCO3)Extremely Commonbuilding stone, plus quicklime and mortar
- SandstoneExtremely Commonworkable building and dressed stone, easy to carve
- MarbleRareprestige stone for cathedrals, palaces, sculpture
- GraniteCommonfortifications, bridge piers, long-wearing paving
- Flint (SiO2)Commonfire-striking and knapped masonry
- Basalt / Lava StoneCommonmillstones and durable volcanic construction
Quartz & Crystal
- Rock Crystal (clear quartz, SiO2)Rareluxury carving, reading stones, lenses
- Chalcedony, Agate & Jasper (SiO2)Rarecameos, signet seals, amulets, small carvings
Pigments
- Lapis LazuliExtremely Rareultramarine, the costliest blue, for manuscripts and royal art
- Malachite & Azurite (copper carbonates)Raregreen and blue artist's pigments; a sign of copper below
Gemstones
- GarnetRaredeep-red stone for cloisonne jewelry, crowns, regalia
- AmberRarefossil resin for beads, amulets, carvings
- Emerald, Ruby & SapphireExtremely Rarethe crown-jewel tier for royal and liturgical jewelry
Arcane Materials
- Orichalcum (Or)Mythic / Arcanerose-gold magical metal for enchanting, warding, artifice