When to Use the Atlas or the Codex
Last updated: August 21, 2026
- Choose by the shape of the question
- The pattern that works
- Where they genuinely differ
- Official source
- Related reading
The Atlas and the Codex hold the same celestial material and present it in incompatible ways, which is the point. The Codex publishes several hundred celestial records as readable, addressable, linked pages. The Atlas renders the same hierarchy as an explorable 3D scene. Neither is a reduced version of the other, and using the wrong one is the most common source of frustration with either.
Choose by the shape of the question
| Your question | The surface |
|---|---|
| Where is it, what is near it | Atlas |
| What is it, who holds it, what happened there | Codex |
| I want to get a feel for the scale | Atlas |
| I want to cite this somewhere | Codex |
| I want to see how the levels nest | Atlas |
| I want everything that links to it | Codex |
The pattern that works
Explore in the Atlas, note the names, read in the Codex. Going the other way — reading first and then trying to find a place in the canvas — is slower, because you are hunting for something whose position you do not yet know.
Where they genuinely differ
The Codex carries relationships the Atlas cannot show: an institution seated at a location, a phenomenon recurring there, a lineage originating from it. Those links are the reason a place matters, and they are invisible in a spatial view.
When the two seem to disagree about a name or a placement, the Codex record is the canonical statement. Rendering is a presentation of the data, not a second source for it.
Official source
Canonical source for this subject: the Celestial Atlas. Checked 21 August 2026 — where this guide and the live service disagree, the service is right.
Related reading
- Geography, Sites of Power and Celestial Sources — Codex records for spheres, systems, planets, cities and the places where power concentrates.
- Locations and Their Canonical Sources — Getting from a place you saw in the Atlas to everything the Universe records about it.
- How to Browse and Search the Codex — Route patterns, indexes and search, and how to choose between them.