The districts

The Coil and nine districts sit in rings of distance from it, and the further out, the more dangerous. Two more regions lie past the wall and the water.

The map

This map draws Catena as rings of distance from the Coil. The Coil sits in the middle, the safe hubs around it, then faction ground, then the Fringe, then the Deadband. The land west of the Highwall and the south beyond the water are the newest part of the map.

Schematic map of Catena in rings around the Coil West of the wall The south and the water The Deadband The Wick Overpass Fields Breaker Rows The Yards Lowline Market Row The Junction Workshop Block The Coil
Not to scale. The rings show distance from the Coil, not walking distance. Every name is a link.
  • The Coil
  • Licensed core: the safe hubs
  • Faction ground
  • The Fringe
  • The war
  • Beyond the wall and the water

Four ways to read the map

Height. The corporation sits on the ridge. The Licensed live on terraces, labour lives on the flats, the signal lives in a hole, the unlicensed market sits lower still, and the dead live in the works below that.

Distance from the Coil. Checkpoints, scanner coverage, scrub crews and insurance payouts all thin out with distance. The murals survive best where the writ runs out, in the Fringe.

Nearness to the Fracture. Bleedthrough rises with it. Powers run on Seal leakage, which is strongest in the Deadband, reliable in the core and dead past the rim. See Bleedthrough.

Depth. Cascade's billboards are up high and lit. At the bottom, sealed, is ROOT Core. See the Lattice.

Who holds what
WhoHolds
The MunicipalsThe hub streets.
Meridian SecurityThe checkpoints, the Coil and the middle of the Fringe.
Chrome DogsThe Wick's close streets, and the edges of the sunken market below Lowline's deck.
Bleedthrough constructsThe scars, the outer rows and the water.
Scrapline UnionThe Yards, by presence and not by patrol.

Nobody holds the Deadband.

Getting around

Nothing in the safe districts stops you from moving. The suppression lattice that covers them damps hostile discharge and leaves travel alone, which is why flight is legal in the Coil's shadow and throwing a punch is not. Checkpoints never gate a player's path. The fighting is on the streets.

The Loop

In the dev build The fast-travel network runs in the development build, Loop stations included.

The Loop is a mag-line with three lit stations on one line: Market Row, The Junction and Workshop Block, with the Junction in the middle. The Junction's stop is the one a new Legend is taught, and the other two open when you walk up to them. Platforms at the Coil, Lowline, the Yards and Westgate were built and are not lit. Field zones get no Loop stop. You make your own way out to them.

Other fast-travel points are found by walking up to them. The Loop is in the glossary.

Beacon perches

Designed The Beacon is the game's design.

Each field shard has four elevated perches that face its hub. A friend who follows an invite link is meant to land on one of them, beside you. The Deadband has none, because the banner gate is a ceremony and not a side door.

Updrafts

Every updraft is a Deepworks exhaust shaft. The warm river, the updraft columns and the vent-glow of Workshop Block all come from the same Deepworks heat, and a Legend with no travel power can ride the updrafts.

The Catena Cut

The Cut is a river engineered from the Deepworks' Loom-era coolant outfall. It runs from the Spill in Overpass Fields, where breach runoff glows, past the Undercut, the Junction Quay and the Narrows, and into the Harbor Basin in the Yards. From there it carries on past the wall into Tidewrack and falls into the sea at the Wrackfall.

It is warm all year, with steam in the morning and a thermal shimmer at noon. It rises at the foot of the Deadband, so a faint Bleedthrough sheen rides the current.

The Tailrace Run

Designed The Run is the game's design.

A network of submerged Deepworks cable trunks used as fast travel, and the smugglers' route. It opens later in a Legend's career. Its longest hop is four thousand metres of cable with no branch and no exit. The Undercurrent calls the trip the long quiet, and nobody enjoys it.

The licensed core

The safe hubs, where no one fights and Meridian's reach is longest.

Faction ground

Two districts where one faction runs the ground.

The Fringe

No suppression lattice covers the Fringe, so fighting is legal.

Each street reports its trouble as heat, from a quiet tier 0 up to a titan breach at tier 5. The heat ladder is on the streets page.

The war

You declare a banner at the gate. Nobody holds the ground.

Beyond the Highwall and the water

The newest part of the map. Names here may change.

The map keeps going

Past the rim are the dead zones: no working currency, no logistics chain, no grid. Charter crews trade stories about other cities still lit on their own scrap of pre-Seal works, and no two versions agree on where, how many, or what they are called. Powers in Catena run on Seal leakage, and leakage does not reach past the city, so a Legend who leaves is a person in the dark. Catena is the last lit window in it.

See also