<Note added by Crawler Forkith. 20th Edition>
Based on some of these previous passages and my own observations, I think I’ve put together a good idea about the layout of the Hunting Grounds. They say it’s the same every time, but that is not true. Herot spoke of those tall creatures who bellow into the sky each night, rumbling the world. Azin described the kite birds always flying overhead. Ikicha wrote of the ice and cold weather. None of those are here, not in this iteration. Most of the world is jungle. That is a constant. But the monsters within change, so be careful taking advice from previous editions of this book regarding this floor.
However, the map appears to be the same each time. The “political landscape” is the same, too. It is a round world with a single named metropolis and dozens of other unnamed cities of varying sizes like on the third floor. This world, according to the story, was half metropolis and half jungle before Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack, whatever the hell that even means. After the attack, most everyone died, and the jungle ran rampant, swallowing the ruins. However, after a few hundred years, the survivors have started to rebuild. The named city is always in the same place. In the north, near the edge of the map and overlooking a clear valley filled with lower-level monsters, placed there so the hunters can train while the crawlers make their way through the lower floors. All the way to the southeast is the high elf city, which is in the thickest part of the jungle. Stay away from the elves. They are powerful magic users, and they attack everyone. Even the hunters stay away.
Before the cataclysm, this world was rich. The city was under control of a multi-race council. The jungle was under control of the high elves. They hated each other, but there was mostly peace. A river separated the two districts.
That river still winds through the map. There are bridges in regular intervals. Stay out of the water. The Naiads live within and are just as bad as the elves.
The named city—whose name appears to be different each time—will always be under control of a single race. It doesn’t matter which one. The moment the hunters arrive, one of them always hunts down and kills the NPC leader, which gives them control. I think it’s the only city they’re allowed to do this in, otherwise they’d have control of them all by the time we arrive. Either way, once the floor opens, the low-level valley will be hunted to extinction, the existing government of the named city will have been wiped out, and one of the hunters will have set themselves up as Grand, the title given to mayors of the biggest settlements.
Stay out of the big city. The guards will attack you on sight.