---
id: world-traversal-and-ground/001
title: Write the ground & traversal design spec
epic: world-traversal-and-ground
state: done
priority: 1
blocked_by: []
estimate: M
created: 2026-08-05
updated: 2026-08-18
claimed_by: null
claimed_at: null
delivers: []
review_artifact: land-of-lor/docs/specs/GROUND_TYPES.md
---

## What to do

Write the actual design spec this epic exists to produce: ground types and their gameplay-relevant properties, the fertile-ground rule, whether/how the boundary-topology framing applies, movement rules, and what a player does to ground on purpose vs. what merely happens to it. This is a spec, not implementation or a POC — see `overview.md`'s scope. This is the piece Kris flagged as the most poorly defined in the whole design — whoever picks this up should expect to need a real conversation with him, not just a solo research pass.

## Definition of done

A design document answering the four bullet questions in `overview.md`'s Scope section.

## Where the work lands

`land-of-lor` repo, likely as a new `docs/WORLD_TRAVERSAL.md` alongside the existing `WORLD_ZONES.md`.

## Docs to read first

`overview.md` in full, especially the "Why it exists, and why it's flagged this way" section; `docs/README.md` §3 and §7 for the underlying physics this spec has to be consistent with.

## 2026-08-17 — answered by Kris's own spec

`land-of-lor/docs/specs/GROUND_TYPES.md` (Kris, 2026-08-17) is the ground-types half of what
this task asked for: the 64 ground types, their properties (passable / sunken / mountain),
their look, and how they are stored, drawn and painted — and it has been built
(`epics/ground-types/`). Moved to `review` so Kris can decide whether that closes this task
or whether the traversal half (the fertile-ground rule, what a player does to ground on
purpose, movement feel) stays open here. The epic stays parked either way.