Settlement Classification

Civilization survives in scattered pockets of warmth across a world buried in snow. Heat, food, water, medicine, and access to the railway network limit how many people a settlement can support. Even a town of a few thousand people can represent a major concentration of survivors.

Settlements are classified primarily by population, using names drawn from embers, fire, and warmth. These ranges are a shared reference rather than rigid laws: a settlement near the upper or lower boundary may still use the name that its inhabitants, neighbors, or faction traditionally recognize.

Population does not automatically indicate prosperity, security, technology, or political influence. A small community with a reliable geothermal source may be safer than a much larger settlement dependent on imported embers and a single railway line.

The nine settlement types

Type	Approximate population	Description
Sparks	10–30	Temporary exploration camps, small salvage crews, survey outposts, and short-lived resource-gathering sites. They often rely on portable ember burners or a nearby natural heat source and may be abandoned after a few weeks or months.
Kindlings	30–100	Small camps that have become semi-permanent. They commonly form around a railway siding, wreck, mine, or dependable heat source, with a few shared buildings and basic stores.
Hearths	100–300	Small, established communities with shared heating, basic workshops, local leadership, and limited food production or gathering.
Firesteads	300–800	Permanent settlements with more developed infrastructure, a market or trading point, reliable leadership, and some specialized trades.
Emberholds	800–2,000	Fortified towns with substantial storage, workshops, defenses, and a dependable heat supply. They may protect an important junction, mine, or industrial site.
Ember Cities	2,000–5,000	Important industrial or trading centers with multiple districts, larger heating systems, and significant railway connections. They can repair locomotives, process resources, and support surrounding communities.
Great Hearths	5,000–12,000	Major regional population centers. Their infrastructure and industries support nearby settlements, and disruptions to their heat or supply network can affect an entire region.
Beacon Cities	12,000–25,000	Exceptional urban centers with major infrastructure and considerable political, economic, or military importance. Their lights and heat installations can make them landmarks across the frozen landscape.
Crownfires	25,000–50,000+	The largest functioning settlements, typically the capitals or principal cities of major powers. They concentrate government, industry, research, and military resources, but their large populations make them highly vulnerable to failures in heat, food, or transport supply.

Capitals and political importance

Capitals are usually Beacon Cities or Crownfires, but this is not a requirement. A smaller faction, a fragmented territory, or a power with a depleted population may have its seat of government in an Emberhold, Ember City, or Great Hearth. The category records the settlement’s approximate population, not its political rank.

The largest categories should be rare. Settlements exceeding 50,000 people are exceptional in a world where warmth and transport constrain survival; cities of several hundred thousand or more should not be treated as ordinary features of the known world.

Heat security and supply

Every settlement’s heat source and supply situation should be recorded separately from its size. Settlements may rely on imported embers, local ember stores, industrial heating systems, geothermal pockets, warm underground water, or naturally heated caves. Natural heat can make a small settlement unusually resilient, but it rarely supports a large population or heavy industry by itself.

Most settlements still depend on railways for some combination of medicine, tools, food, machinery, and fuel. Losing a railway connection can turn a prosperous town into a desperate one even if its buildings remain intact. Larger settlements often have more infrastructure and reserves, but they also have more people to feed and heat.

The Great Forge crater: outside the scale

The Great Forge and its crater are not a settlement category. The Forge was a colossal pre-collapse heat project built by the global coalition known as the United. Its catastrophic first major activation destroyed the central structure, leaving a vast crater and scattered machinery, experimental components, energy systems, and records. Some underground systems may still show signs of activity.

Camps and communities can form in or around the ruins, and each should be classified according to its own population. The crater itself remains a unique ruin and hazardous site, not a functioning city whose size can be ranked alongside the nine settlement types.

Naming principle

The ember-themed names form a common classification for the setting, not necessarily a universal legal system enforced by every faction. Local languages, traditions, and political systems may use other names. The codex uses these terms to compare settlements consistently across the known world.