The Atlas, the generated world map

A world can have an Atlas: a whole map made by MechaSquid's map engine (land, climate, rivers, countries, provinces, towns and roads), kept once and then lived in. It is different from the travel map (help topic maps), which is the schematic of places and legs the author drew by hand. Two tools read and change the Atlas: atlas_read and atlas_change. The travel map's tools are map_get, map_route, map_place, map_connect.

The Atlas answers questions where the author is writing. It is advice, never a rule: there is no calendar, so nothing here says a journey is too fast or a season wrong. Give the author the facts and let them decide.

Reading the map: atlas_read

Pass what:

• maps: the world's Atlas maps (most worlds have one, main). Everything else takes map to choose one; leave it out for the first.
• places: the named things on the map, filtered by kind (country, province, capital, city, town, village, castle, abbey, river, lake, sea, bay, island, range, peak, plain, volcano, forest, marsh, moor, wilds) or by a name fragment (name). Each comes with its id, where it stands, what it belongs to, and the wiki page that stands on it, when it has one. Use it to find the id of a place before asking about it.
• at: what is at a place (place: a thing's id or its name) or at a point (at: [x, y] in km): its facts (people, size, what it stands on), the setting in plain words (climate, ground, wind, water), what else a story can use there (the road and its traffic, a crossing a wet season closes, deposits and who works them, the weather, the peak on the horizon), the country and province, and the language names there are made in.
• route: the way between two places along the map's roads (from, to: ids or names), with the distance and the days by the world's means of travel (map_travel_modes). A leg with no road between its ends is a straight line, and says so.
• needs_names: what has only a made-up name so far, most important first, with its context: what it is, where, what it stands on, and the naming language that applies there.
• story: the book's scenes in order with the place each is set in on this map and its cast, and where each character was last seen (book, by: story time or reading order). A scene with no place is listed without one; nothing is guessed.

Changing the map: atlas_change

Pass action:

• name: give a thing a name (place, name, optional meaning and language). A made-up name may be replaced freely. A name the author gave is theirs: the tool refuses to change it unless author_asked: true, the same rule as everywhere in MechaSquid. The names are invented to sound like a language, never words of one: say "German-inspired", not "German". When the thing has a wiki page, the page is renamed with it and keeps the old name as another name.
• landmark: put a landmark on the map (kind: inn, cottage, hamlet, ruins, grotto, shrine, tower, camp, mine, battlefield, monument, or any word; at: [x, y]; name, note): a place that matters to the story but not to the simulation.
• make_page: give a thing on the map a wiki page: a place page whose first paragraph is what the map knows, the neighbours' names for it as other names, a link back to the map, and located_in ties to the pages of what it lies in. The thing's name becomes the author's. Returns the page. Make a page before tying scenes or characters to a place.
• set_scene: say where a scene happens (scene, place): a located_in tie from the scene to the place's page, made first if it has none, replacing the scene's earlier place. A place the text only names is not where the scene happens.

Land, water, climate, rivers, borders and towns are the author's to change on the website; the tools refuse them.

Working with it

• Before writing a scene set somewhere on the map, atlas_read with what: "at" for the place, and put the setting in the prose: the ground, the weather, what the road is like.
• Before writing a journey, atlas_read with what: "route"; give the author the distance and the days by foot, horse or cart, and let them choose.
• Asked to name the map: needs_names, then name for each, in the language the context gives, most important first; one call per thing. Check what the names in use already sound like (places).
• A place in the book with no page yet: make_page, then set_scene for the scenes that happen there, so the book shows on the map.