With that under my belt, I think it makes the most sense to sketch out every single building type and who owns it. Nothing too complex here, just a general description of what the buildings are like.
From here I can sketch out each building type in a lot more detail, including presumably the items that it contains.
At this point I should be able to design questlines -- not the dialogue necessarily but the goals of each faction, the various choices you have to make, and also how questlines impact other questlines since you can't reasonably do all of them since they compete with one another.
From here I can build out the content database and editor panel.
After this I can start actually fleshing the guild quests out fully from a writing perspective.
I can then actually build the engine now that I have a solid understanding of the room types and how things are put together, where people are going to be, etc. This is probably going to be a heck of a lot of work.
Past this point, I still need interaction with the main story (your father), smaller interactions (like people that laugh at the exhibit idea) and memories, which I can probably just table until the very end of the project if I really want to.
Mons Minima itself is a mountain with several very steep peaks. Each peak has a spiral of buildings built around it in a configuration known as a Cochlea. It's therefore separated into the following districts:
Research Cochlea -- this contains all of the different research group buildings, with the top being a complex containing Heaven's Observatory, the MMRC (Mons Minima Research Consortium), some administrative offices, and a residential district for the local Guildrapt (basically the highest class of the society, though those distinctions are less relevant in this world). There are some in-mountain quarries here but they're definitely not at the top level and they're pretty spaced out and also don't export anywhere outside of the Research Cochlea itself.
Mining Cochlea -- This one is full of in-mountain quarries and crystal charging stations around the outer edge. There are also various caves that house the Preguilded and some slightly better (and definitely quieter) caves for tourists. Most of the actual mining operation of Mons Minima happens here, as the Research Cochlea remains its biggest customer and is very close and connected with local wrung nodes. However, some is definitely exported. At the peak of the Mining Cochlea is a large crystal charging complex known as Shinetown.
Commercial Cochlea -- This one is dedicated to commerce. Some can definitely happen locally in the other cochleas, however a heck of a lot of goods are imported from the rest of the world and this area concentrates them. There are also some buildings here that house tourists which run much more expensively than the caves in the mining cochlea. In theory, things become more expensive as you move higher up the cochlea, with the most expensive goods at the top -- this has its own wrung node access to the top of the Research Cochlea. In practice though it definitely varies depending on who's running the shops and why.
West Monsfoot -- A small settlement that coordinates things between Mons Minima proper and its satellite settlements and entry points. Not a whole lot here, as it's primarily a transport hub. It's at the foot of the mountain, and shares the "Monsfoot" name with other Mons settlements. West Monsfoot is very definitely run by the MMRC, who hold the most political power in the area.
Garden Valley -- the flattest region of the area and hosts the many farms mentioned above. It's on a corridor between West Monsfoot and Abyssal Edge. Garden Valley is definitely not a settlement, more a loose collection of farms and transport networks. There are also some abandoned crystal charging farms here, which Agrirabbits has taken full advantage of.
Abyssal Edge -- as mentioned, it's on the absolute edge of the world near Mons Minima. It's home to a complex known as the Abyssal Observatory and the research group there, with some logistical areas as well. Their closeness to Garden Valley makes provisioning very easy. The Abyssal Edge group is under the umbrella of the Long Spear of Wisdom, as is anything really in Mons Minima that's based on pure research.
Goldbridge -- A settlement that connects to West Monsfoot and to the wider Gold Road between Mons Minima and Chryseum. It's also the HQ of the people maintaining the entire Gold Road, and all eleven points along it.
West Wind Hub -- connects to West Monsfoot and the Windy Road wrung node connection between Mons Minima and Cape Gale.
West Baymons Hub -- connects to West Monsfoot and the Baymons Route.
North Axis Bridge Hub -- connects to West Monsfoot and the Axis Bridge.
The above three are all transport hubs and so don't have any structures outside of that. They're maintained by the MMRC, or specifically its Monsfoot division.
Local Transport Networks
The three cochleas connect together on a rotating wrung node schedule that's timed to either run clockwise or counterclockwise for each set. This happens in three different places, with the exception of the top, where only the Heaven's Gate Peak and Commercial Cochlea Peak connect directly.
The bottom of each Cochlea has a dedicated connection point to West Monsfoot.
West Monsfoot has dedicated connections to each of the three transport hubs.
A rotating wrung node connects West Monsfoot to wrung nodes situated in the heart of Peak Orchards territory, a "general" farming connection point that's reasonably close to Agrirabbits Inc and the primary Good Roots farms, and a "ranged" farming connection point that's close to the Peak Orchards wood farms, the Good Roots miscellaneous farms and the Abyssal Edge. The bigger groups are obviously getting priority access here.
Agrirabbits Inc maintain their own connections to the heart of Preguild farm territory and the Abyssal Edge, on a rotating schedule. It generally makes more sense for the Abyssal Edge to use the dedicated "ranged" connection point for transport elsewhere, so the connection there is more to coordinate provisionary shipments into Abyssal Edge, something that Agrirabbits and its Preguild farmer allies are trying to corner.
"Primary Guilds" here means guilds that are headquartered in the area, whereas "Secondary guilds" are headquartered in adjacent cities and "Tertiary guilds" are headquartered elsewhere. It makes sense to build out the primary guilds for each city first, and then the other variants once each one's aims become more clear.
So, all of that settled, these are the primary guilds operating in Mons Minima:
Non-research Groups
Shinemen -- these operate the crystal charging stations along the Mining Cochlea, as well as Shinetown. They also technically own the abandoned crystal charging complexes in Garden Valley, but obviously claiming them in reality is problematic. -- Primary quests complete
Heavenseers -- The group that uses Heaven's observatory and tries to predict the storms that hit Cape Gale. This group is very definitely exporting things of economic value, not just researching storms, though they certainly do that too.
Wind Machines Inc -- This group invented and maintains the infrastructure in Cape Gale that uses its storms to power its industries. They also have a kind of fledgeling Instrument industry that Wineport has a stake in (and Triumvirate isn't a huge fan of).
Gale Embassy -- Cape Gale very definitely owns Mons Minima, however with the amount of power that the MMRC wields, they've changed their name to be more polite. Nonetheless, it's important to them that they maintain some amount of control over the city. Gale Embassy is up in the administration section of the Research Cochlea. Despite their connection with Cape Gale, this is still a primary guild.
Cliff Drillers Inc -- One of the two groups that owns in-mountain quarries. They're focused in the Mining Cochlea and have a lot of connections there, and are in tight competition with the other group. They're somewhat bottlenecked by the other group in selling stuff to Mons Minima itself, but can access other settlements in the region and export things.
Mons Miners United -- The other group that owns in-mountain quarries. This one is instead situated in the Commercial Cochlea and has holdings in the Research Cochlea as well. They have a monopoly on selling things to Mons Minima as a whole and have been working to edge Cliff Drillers Inc out.
MMRC -- A consortium of research groups in the city and wields a lot of power over Mons Minima as a whole. The lion's share of the stakes here is definitely Heavenseers, but every primary research group also has a stake (and possibly some of the secondary or tertiary ones). They very definitely run West Monsfoot directly.
Cave Homes -- a group that operates the tourist-y moneymaking caves set into the Mining Cochlea, as well as the less well-maintained cave homes for Preguilded/etc people that have to live here.
Research Groups
These all very definitely are headquartered within the Research Cochlea and in fact should be its only content (outside of other groups I suppose).
The Long Spear of Wisdom -- dedicated to pure research. This is the guild you and your parents belong to. the Abyssal Edge is under their wing, they're the ones ultimately hosting The Exhibit and they have a (albeit small) stake in the MMRC.
The Gleaming Tower -- the group that studies gold pillars. I'm not sure how many primary quests this group would have since the actual pillars are elsewhere.
There are a lot of secondary and tertiary groups that variously: interact with the Triumvirate, magical animal populations in Minim and Medioc, interact with Schoolshore, study Untrained Monkeys. Probably other stuff as well. It makes more sense to get to these when I get to these.
Settlement Groups
These operate outside the bounds of Mons Minima itself, in its smaller settlements.
Peak Orchards -- They maintain the various trees in the Cochleas, as well as some smaller orchards that provide fruit/nuts and smaller pieces of wood.
The Good Roots Group -- These have some tuber-based farms that provide the primary means of subsistence on Mons Minima. They also have some other farm types, and tend to buy up any smalltime farms.
Agrirabbits, Inc -- A small group that raise magic-enhanced rabbits that provide the primary protein source in Mons Minima. They've resisted influence from the Good Roots Group and tend to help Underclass farmers avoid their squeeze as well. Given their magical prowess, they very definitely splintered from one of the research guilds.
Bridge Knights -- A rather self-aggrandizing group that maintains the entire Gold Road, which is (currently) the longest overland wrung nodes route, spanning eleven connection points and covering a huge distance through rocky terrain. They're headquartered in Goldbridge and basically run the entirety of it as well, much to the MMRC's chagrin. (seeing as they run the other transport networks)
There are various groups and sole proprietors that don't belong to any of the big factions. They don't offer questlines obviously but might be the target of faction quests, and may also offer Courier work. I'll list them out by where they're based.
Research Residential District -- houses the highest tier of research group people, known as the Guildrapt.
Mining Cochlea homes -- houses the lowest tier of working populations in Mons Minima. This includes Guildless people, cross-Guild marriages (a big no-no) and so on, since Guilds tend to provide lodging.
Commercial district shops -- various shops and/or warehouses that handle the commercial aspects of Mons Minima.
Commercial district inns -- these house tourists fairly expensively.
Smalltime Garden Valley farms -- Some farms are privately controlled and you should be able to do some kind of very basic work for them, though more likely this is going to tie into questlines.
