Transitions between zones
The hard seam, the soft border and the threshold. What changes in what order over 80 m.
Three kinds of border:
| Kind | Where | Depth | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|---|
| The hard seam | the town wall's gates | 40 m | a step through a picture frame (the seam) |
| The soft border | between two zones | 80 m (60 to 120 m) | a walk of about 20 s in which the land changes its mind |
| The threshold | into a place inside a zone (Alvheim at Alveporten, Gammelskogen's heart, Skumleskogen) | 15 to 30 m | a doorway: an arch, two great trees, a stone gate |
A soft border, in the order things change
As she walks through its 80 m:
- Ground hue shifts across the whole depth, in ragged bays (the build's 23 m and 110 m bays), never a line.
- The signature plant hands over in the middle 40 m. The leaving zone's flower thins to nothing, the entering zone's starts as single plants and thickens. For 20 m both grow together. Nowhere else may they mix.
- Tree silhouettes hand over in the same 40 m: the leaving kind grows sparse and odd (mossy birches), young ones of the entering kind stand between them.
- Light and haze ease across the depth, about 20 s at a walk.
- Buildings never mix. No building of either zone within 100 m of the border, except the threshold marker.
- A threshold marker where a way crosses: one built thing made of both zones' stone or wood, with the carved ornament of the land ahead and a lantern in the entering zone's accent colour, facing the walker.
What stays the same across every border
The path's colour, the sky and the sun's direction, the lantern-post and waystone family, the princess, the UI.
Do
- Hand over the plants and trees in the middle 40 m.
- Put a marker on every way that crosses a border.
- Light the marker's lantern in the colour of the zone she is entering.
Never
- Two zones' buildings in one view within 60 m of each other.
- A change of ground along a straight line.
- A border with no marker on a way.
Which borders exist
The soft borders that the game's map gives: Nordalen with Fjellfoten, Nordalen with Fjellet, Fjellfoten with Fjellet, Sørvika with Sørmarka. Alvheim sits over Fjellet and is entered by a threshold, not a border: the elf way up has its own six steps in the Alvheim book.