Terrain Type Profiles

The Sprawl isn't uniform. Different zones have different purposes, different resources, different dangers. ORACLE designed this specialization; the corps maintain it. Understanding terrain is understanding how the world works.

Industrial Zones

Physical Reality

Industrial zones are the Sprawl's muscles—manufacturing districts where raw materials become products. The air tastes like metal. The ground vibrates with machinery. The light comes from furnaces and warning systems, not the sky.

Sensory Experience

  • Sound: Constant drone of machinery, punctuated by impacts and alarms
  • Smell: Chemical sharpness, heated metal, lubricant
  • Sight: Smoke stacks, cargo cranes, endless warehouses
  • Touch: Everything vibrates; surfaces are often warm

What You Find Here

Resources

  • Raw materials (E-Waste, Scrap, Rubble)
  • Processing facilities
  • Industrial salvage
  • Heavy machinery components

Buildings

  • Extractors and processors perform best
  • Salvage operations yield more
  • Fabrication facilities get efficiency bonuses

Hazards

  • Industrial accidents
  • Ironclad security
  • Toxic exposure
  • Equipment malfunctions

The Culture

Industrial zone workers are practical and hardened, suspicious of outsiders, loyal to their crews, and often carrying old injuries.

"You want to work these zones, you learn three things: respect the machines, watch your back, and never trust anyone who hasn't bled for the job."

— Old Industrial Worker

Before the Cascade

ORACLE-optimized manufacturing. Perfect safety records. Efficient shifts. Workers were assets to protect.

After the Cascade

Corp-owned chaos. Safety traded for profit. Workers are expendable. Accidents are "externalities."

Digital Zones

Physical Reality

Digital zones are server farms, data centers, and network hubs—the Sprawl's nervous system made physical. The temperature is carefully controlled. The air is filtered. The hum of electronics is constant.

Sensory Experience

  • Sound: White noise of cooling systems, electronic hum, data transfer clicks
  • Smell: Sterile, artificial, occasionally ozone
  • Sight: Blinking lights, cable runs, identical server racks extending to horizon
  • Touch: Static electricity; surfaces are cool and smooth

What You Find Here

Resources

  • Data Fragments, Trash Code
  • Computational components
  • Memory cores
  • Network infrastructure

Buildings

  • Data processing facilities
  • Network nodes
  • Logic fabrication
  • AI training centers

Hazards

  • Nexus ICE (security systems)
  • Data corruption
  • Rogue AIs
  • System failures that cascade

"We keep the world thinking. Without us, everything stops. That's not ego—it's physics. Treat the data with respect, and maybe you'll get respect back."

— Nexus Data Technician

Habitation Zones

Physical Reality

Habitation zones are where people live—apartment blocks, dormitories, residential towers. Cramped, loud, alive. The Sprawl's heart, beating with humanity.

Sensory Experience

  • Sound: Voices, music, arguments, children, life
  • Smell: Food cooking, bodies, laundry, waste
  • Sight: Laundry on lines, faces in windows, graffiti on walls
  • Touch: Crowded; you're always brushing against someone

What You Find Here

Resources

  • Human connections (NPCs, information, quests)
  • Consumer goods
  • Salvage from residential waste
  • Stories

Buildings

  • Markets and trading posts
  • Social hubs
  • Residential support (water, power, waste)
  • Community spaces

Hazards

  • Poverty and desperation
  • Territorial gangs
  • Overcrowding stress
  • Infrastructure failure

"You want to know what makes the Dregs work? It ain't the corps. It ain't the systems. It's us. We look out for each other because no one else does."

— Sector 7G Resident

Commercial Zones

Physical Reality

Commercial zones are the Sprawl's circulatory system—marketplaces, trading floors, shipping hubs. Money flows here. Everything has a price.

Sensory Experience

  • Sound: Transactions, negotiations, advertisements, currency counting
  • Smell: Product diversity, artificial scents, desperation
  • Sight: Bright lights, product displays, security cameras everywhere
  • Touch: Money, goods, the pressure of crowds buying and selling

"Everything has value. Everything can be traded. If you can't find the price, you're not looking hard enough. Or you're not offering enough."

— Marketplace Vendor

Zone Interaction

How Zones Connect

Industrial → Commercial: Products flow to market

Digital → Everything: Data connects all zones

Habitation → Industrial: Workers flow to jobs

Commercial → Habitation: Goods flow to consumers

The Sprawl is one organism with specialized organs.

Border Zones

Where zones meet, interesting things happen:

  • Industrial/Habitation borders: Workers live near factories; pollution is worst
  • Digital/Commercial borders: Data markets; information trading
  • Commercial/Habitation borders: The Dregs; informal economy thrives

The Dregs (Sector 7G)

Sector 7G is a border zone—Habitation that touches all other types: industrial salvage nearby, digital infrastructure running through, commercial markets informal but present.

It's where the player starts because it touches everything. From the Dregs, all paths are possible.

The Promise's Shadow

Each zone shows what ORACLE optimized and what the corps corrupted:

  • Industrial: Safety → Exploitation
  • Digital: Efficiency → Surveillance
  • Habitation: Community → Desperation
  • Commercial: Cooperation → Predation