Thinking about information architecture as terrain

Information architecture is often taught as taxonomy: categories, subcategories, tags. That works for catalogs. It works less well for worlds.

Thrapsus uses altitude levels — continental, regional, local — because geography is how readers already think about place. A territory page is not a folder. It is a region on a map with neighbors, capitals, and peoples.

Terrain metaphors that hold up

• Landmarks — high-traffic entries readers use to orient (capitals, major factions).
• Routes — contextual nav that follows relationships, not directory depth.
• Fog of war — stubs and in-progress entries are honest about what is not written yet.

When IA feels wrong, ask: would this make sense on a map? If not, the structure might be serving the filesystem instead of the reader.