Industrial Corridors

Industrial corridors are the zoning backbone of The Forgelands: designated bands of territory where heavy industry is concentrated by plan, so that everywhere else can remain what it is. The corridors are why the Tortuga Monolith's base hums with furnaces while Cherry Mountain, the same distance from the Villa in the other direction, carries nothing but groves.

The Eastern Corridor

The eastern corridor is the system's anchor, running from the Scalloped Gulch crossing to the Dripstone Copper Pit, with the Tortuga Foundry at its center. Everything that smelts, quarries, or stockpiles at scale in the east sits inside its bounds. The corridor is fully lit, patrolled along its length, and built to the standing rule that industry stops at the survey markers — the Monolith's dome, inside the corridor on the map, is excluded from it by name.

The Northern Works

The northern river works of the Brickworks Empire form the second corridor, narrower and governed by stricter terms: dredging proceeds bend by bend, restoration follows extraction, and the Agrarians audit compliance unannounced and on foot. The corridor's continued operation is the proof case that industry and the Agrarians' single question — what does it leave behind? — can coexist.

Designation Rules

New heavy industry is sited inside an existing corridor or justifies a new one in writing. Corridors connect to the rail network by spur, never by mainline routing through their centers — freight goes to industry; the mainline goes past it.

Field Notes

The corridor markers are oak posts capped in copper, aging green on schedule. The Copperlings asked to supply them. They did.