Core Features

Grouped by what you are trying to do: build a world, see how it connects, run the session, get unstuck, and keep it all yours.

Build the world

Get a campaign out of your head and into a structure you can navigate.

Quick Start a world

Pick 'Quick Start World' when creating a vault to generate a ready-to-explore 4-6 entity constellation. One choice sets both the genre of the generated world and your workspace appearance, and the dialog previews what you'll get before you commit. Works fully offline.

+ Create

Pick Character, Place, Faction, Event, or Item and Codex Cryptica infers the current context and generates a draft immediately. Click Customize on the draft to reveal the full generator options.

Entity Explorer

Quickly browse and filter all your world entities via the persistent sidebar. Search by title, labels, or alternative names (aliases), and sort by name or last edited time in either direction. Switch between List and Label views to group entities by their labels. Click label pills to filter the explorer, or use Ctrl/Cmd+Click to combine multiple labels for a focused drill-down. On desktop widths of 1280px and above, keeping Entity Explorer open turns the main workspace into a side-by-side reader so you can select an entity on the left and read or edit it on the right. On smaller screens, selection keeps the existing full-screen Zen Mode behavior.

Nested Entities

Organize your world hierarchically. Drag and drop entities in the explorer to nest them under parents (e.g. putting a tavern inside a city). Expand/collapse nodes using the chevron. When you delete a parent, its children are promoted to the root level. Cycle detection prevents recursive loop errors.

Table View Filters. In table view, click a type badge or a label chip on any row to filter the table down to matching entries; click again (or use Clear) to remove the filter. Active label filters appear next to the type pills above the table. Every column header with an arrow, including Labels, can be clicked to sort.
Search Indexing. Search builds quietly in the background when a large vault opens. Early results may be incomplete while indexing is still running. If indexing fails, use Retry indexing to rebuild the local search index for the current vault.
QuickNote Fast Scratchpad. Capture fleeting ideas instantly. Press Ctrl+I or Cmd+I from anywhere to toggle the glassmorphic fast scratchpad. Jot down thoughts, auto-save drafts, and use the 'Elevate' button to let the AI structure your raw notes into complete Character, Location, or Item draft entities.
Pick Dates. Select dates seamlessly using smooth, center-snapping scroll wheels. Features side-by-side vertical tracks, intercalary anchors, inline repair warnings on calendar change, and quick keyboard year/day overrides.
Creature Packs. Populate a new vault fast with Creature Packs — curated sets of ready-to-use creatures. Open the Importer, scroll to the Creature Packs section, click a pack to preview every creature, deselect any you don't want, then import the rest. Each creature lands as a normal, fully editable entity in your vault. Works without an AI connection.
World Front Page. Use the briefing field to edit the world blurb directly. If it is empty, the Generate Briefing button appears inside the field; if it already has text, the generate action moves to the bottom next to Save Briefing. Tagged `frontpage` entities stay pinned at the top of recent entities and show their chronicle/body preview there.
Switching Stories. Change your world. Click the folder name at the top to switch to a different story.
Presentation Templates. Change how a Stat Sheet looks without touching its data. Click Presentations to switch between built-in layouts, or write your own in Markdown with field references like {{stat.hp}} and layout sections for groups, cards, and rows. Repeatable Table fields (used for Weapons/Items by default) keep rows of data together: add rows, edit their cells, adjust counters, and roll dice from the table. In the template editor you can customize a Repeatable Table's own column headings and cell types — text, number, dice, counter, or checkbox — so the same table type covers skills, spells, or any other list your system needs, and you can turn off vault-item linking for tables that aren't about items. A live preview and inline warnings catch typos or removed fields as you type, and every layout can be exported and shared with anyone using a matching schema.

See how it connects

The relationships between people, places and events become visible instead of remembered.

Visual Graph

Navigate your lore through a dynamic, interactive web. On a phone, the graph starts near a useful entity; use Fit to Screen in the graph controls whenever you want an overview. Drag to pan, pinch to zoom, and tap a node to open it. Nodes grow visually larger as visible links accumulate around them, making major lore hubs easy to identify at a glance. The drawing needs a pointer and a screen, so Browse as table in the graph controls opens the same entities as a keyboard-friendly list, and each entity page names its connections and their direction.

Linking Notes

Connect people and locations. Click one item then another to link them together, or right-click two selected items to connect them.

Entity Links in Content

When reading an entity's content or lore, names of other vault entities are automatically highlighted as clickable links. Click any highlighted name to navigate directly to that entity. Links work with full titles and registered aliases. They only appear in read mode — the editor shows plain text while you are writing.

Spatial Canvas

Design custom layouts like conspiracy boards or quest flowcharts. Sketch with the pencil, remove individual strokes with the eraser, and rotate cards with a two-finger twist or the desktop rotation handle. Drawings and card angles persist with the canvas.

Family Tree. Open the Family tab on any character to see their parents, partner, children, and siblings laid out as a tree. Add family from the buttons below the tree — connect an existing character or create a new one — and the matching link is added to both people automatically. In the full-screen view, choose Lineage to explore every recorded generation. Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, and use the branch controls or Show all generations to reveal more. The tree is built from your normal connections, so nothing is stored twice.
Explore the lineage. Drag to pan, scroll or pinch to zoom, and use ⊞ to expand a branch. Choose Show all generations to reveal the whole recorded lineage.
Connections. The Connections tab puts this entity in the middle and arranges everything linked straight to it around the edge — links you made, links others made to it, and anything filed under it — each one labelled with its relationship. Click any surrounding entity to open it. Connections that do not fit comfortably in the picture are listed underneath it, still one tap away. The view stops at one step: to follow a chain further, open the next entity and look at its Connections, or use the graph.
World Chronology. Browse your world's history in Calendar mode (month grid) or Agenda mode (chronological list). The calendar shows your world's own year — use Previous / Next to navigate months, or click the month title to jump straight to a year with the scroll picker. Click an entry to open it in the detail panel; double-click to open it full-screen. Double-click an empty area of any date cell to open the entity creation form with that date pre-filled as the start date. Drag an entity from the left sidebar onto any calendar day to set its start or end date. If an entity has a date, click that date text in the detail panel to jump the calendar straight to it. Approximate and undated events appear only in Agenda mode under 'Undated/Approximate'. Use the Type, Label, and 'include undated' toggles to narrow what's visible.
Entity Timeline. Open any entity's detail panel and click the Timeline tab to see a chronological list of the events linked to that entity — battles, foundings, discoveries, and more. Events are sorted earliest to latest. Undated events appear at the end under an Undated heading. Click any event to open its full detail page. The timeline is read-only; to add an event to an entity's history, link the event using the entity's connections.
Multi-Selection Actions. Use the toolbar to quickly Apply Labels to multiple items or Merge duplicates into a single entry.

Run the session

What you prepared is usable at the table, with your players.

VTT Mode

Turn the map into a lightweight tactical board. Add tokens, move them with grid snapping, manage initiative, measure distances, and save encounters without changing the underlying map. Select a token and drag the handle above it or its facing indicator ring to rotate its facing; Alt+Left/Right rotates it in 45-degree steps. Right-click a token and open Appearance to show its facing indicator or switch between circle and square bases.

Map Mode

Plot your world data onto custom geographic or tactical canvases with persistent pins and Fog of War.

Hide Secrets

Keep secrets hidden. Hide items from your map so players don't see them during a session. Press `P` to toggle the preview.

Sharing a Link to an Entry

In a shared world, every entry has a link button (next to the entry title in the side panel and in the full-screen view). It copies a direct link that opens that entry full-screen for anyone you send it to. While browsing a shared world, the address bar also carries the current entry, so copying the address works too.

VTT Entity List. Open Vault Entities in the VTT sidebar to search your world notes, then drag characters, creatures, or items straight onto the map to create tokens. A ghost marker follows your cursor so placement stays precise.
VTT Tile Decks. Use Tile Decks in the VTT sidebar to add a starter pack (Scribble Dungeons, Geomorphs 2013, Geomorph Collection) or import your own PNG or JPG images. Filter the tile palette by category, choose a specific tile, draw one at random from a deck, or use "Draw from all decks" to pull from every installed deck at once. New tiles snap edge-to-edge against tiles already on the map. Starter tiles are downloaded once into the current vault, so drawing remains available offline.
Map Layers. Every placed tile and token belongs to one of three layers — Terrain, Furniture, or Tokens — always drawn in that order so tokens never disappear beneath the map. Click LAYERS in the VTT toolbar to pick which layer new placements land on; only items on that active layer can be clicked, selected, or dragged, so you can safely work on furniture without nudging tokens or terrain by accident. Hide a layer to declutter your view, or lock one to stop edits entirely (a locked layer blocks even the GM). Right-click an existing tile or token and choose Move to Layer to reassign it. Players moving their own token are never restricted by your active layer.
Die Roller. Perform polyhedral dice rolls via the /roll command in Oracle chat or using the dedicated Die Roller modal. Click dice icons in quick succession to roll multiple dice at once, and use the reroll button to instantly repeat any previous roll.
Random Tables & Card Decks. Keep your encounter tables, loot lists, and oracle decks in the vault and roll them mid-session. A table holds entries you can weight or assign explicit die ranges to. Create custom tables manually, paste external spreadsheets via the Import Wizard, or use 'Generate with AI' to build world-grounded random tables referencing your vault's NPCs, locations, and existing sub-tables. Candidate rows appear in an interactive staging review where you can edit, select, or discard entries before adding them. Write {source_name} inside an entry to pull a result from another table (e.g. {weather}), and click recognized entity chips in roll results to immediately inspect linked world lore. Decks work similarly by dealing cards without replacement. Roll or draw from the Oracle chat with /table and /deck commands.
Session Voice Chat. Talk to your players without leaving the app. While hosting a live session, press the Voice button in the header to open a voice channel. Connected players can join from their own header, mute their microphone, and see who is in the channel.
Guest Character Chat. Invite world participants to chat in-character with NPCs. GMs can enable guest chat on specific characters, configure a 'Public' or 'Hybrid' context scope, and review synced transcripts to promote emergent lore directly into official rumors. In a private host chat, choose a campaign character to speak as so the NPC can respond to their role and relationship. If you speak as another saved character, that conversation also appears — read-only, with a link back — under that character's own Chat tab.
Solo Adventure Mode. Let Oracle run a grounded, system-light adventure from your vault. Your session stays separate from normal Oracle chat, and GM notes are hidden from the play surface but not encrypted from the vault owner. The play surface stays quiet by default — dice presets, roll history, resource counters, provisional facts, and the adventure archive live behind the Adventure tools panel, open it when you need them. Fullscreen is optional for an even quieter view; Escape leaves browser fullscreen without leaving the adventure. When a player-visible person, place, faction, item, event, or clue first appears, you can choose Add to Codex to save its visible summary as a normal campaign entity. The adventure archive lets you rename, duplicate, search, and resume past sessions. "Fix something wrong with the current situation" lets you correct what the player currently knows — it never touches anything the GM is keeping hidden. Optional dice presets, a roll history, and simple named resource counters (ammo, favor, a countdown) are there if you want a bit more structure, but nothing about them is required.
Public World Directory. Sharing by link and listing publicly are separate choices. A guest snapshot stays unlisted until you open Publishing Settings, review the public preview, and save a directory listing. The public directory exposes only the saved title, description, labels, optional cover image, optional owner name, and the read-only guest link. All listed worlds display a provenance and copyright notice confirming they are user-created and independently published without rights-holder endorsement. Authors must confirm they have the legal right to publish their content, and visitors may report potential copyright concerns for moderation review.

Get unstuck

A draft when you need one, that you edit rather than accept.

AI Oracle

Chat with the AI about your world. Ask questions, brainstorm ideas, or get help writing descriptions directly from your notes. Use the system proxy for free access, or add your own API key for direct connection.

Campaign Generators

Generate NPCs, factions, settlements, dungeons, and magic items directly inside your vault. Every draft is reviewed before saving — nothing is written until you confirm.

Secret Societies & Cults

Use Campaign Generators to create a cult, sect, conspiracy, or hidden order as a Faction draft. Choose its public face, danger, and relationship to the truth; the result includes doctrine, rituals, recruitment, hierarchy, a sacred object or site, clues, conflicts, and follow-up ideas. Review it before saving, then link its leader, meeting site, rivals, and rumours to the rest of your vault.

AI Suggestions

The AI finds new links in your notes and suggests connections you might have missed.

Reviewing Drafts. Draft entities stay separate from your active lore until you review them. Open the Review tab in Entity Explorer, or use the draft controls in the entity panel, to approve or reject them.
Oracle Connection Modes. The Oracle works in two modes: System Proxy (free, uses shared access) or Custom API Key (direct connection to OpenAI/Luna). The status badge in the Oracle sidebar shows which mode is active.
Oracle Memory. The Oracle remembers your chat and the notes it has already seen, so each new question only sends what changed — replies come back quicker and use less of your quota. To do this on the free System Proxy, your conversation and the notes it references are briefly stored on the AI provider's servers (up to 55 days) and then expire. Your vault always stays on your computer; only the chat does this. To keep everything fully on your device, use your own API key instead of the System Proxy.
Oracle Automation. Entity Discovery controls whether Oracle surfaces discovered records as suggestions. Connection Discovery controls whether Oracle surfaces link suggestions after it creates or updates a record.
Proactive Discovery. While you chat, the Oracle can identify new characters, locations, and items. In Settings, choose whether discoveries are off, shown as chips for review, or saved automatically as drafts.
AI Description Revision. Instantly generate or refine entity descriptions. The AI produces both a player-facing 'Chronicle' and a GM-facing 'Lore' entry based on your existing notes, tags, and connections. Review and save changes directly within the entity detail view.
AI Generated Art. Save art made by the Artificial Intelligence (AI). You can drag any image created by the AI onto an entry to save it as their portrait.
Instant Visualization. For Advanced Tier users: Instantly generate visuals for your lore. Look for the DRAW button on Oracle responses, entity panels, Zen mode, and graph nodes. The AI uses Art Direction from normal notes or entities, then Category Defaults and the active Default Art Style.
Drawing Gods and Legends. A picture of a god should not look like a picture of a villager. Label an entity 'deity', 'god', 'divine', 'immortal' or 'titan' and its images are drawn in materials beyond mortal making, lit from within, and framed from below. 'legendary' or 'demigod' does the same a step down. Everything else is drawn as ordinary, and the entity panel shows which one is in effect. You can also set it for a single picture under Advanced art direction when you review a prompt.
Adventure Idea Generator. Generate campaign-ready adventure concepts tailored to your world theme. Each scenario features an initial situation, primary pressure, key locations, important NPCs & factions, threats, discoveries, complications, stakes, and non-linear outcomes.
Quest Hook Generator. Create a playable quest hook with a clear inciting event, threat, complication, twist, and meaningful reward. After generating a hook, choose Generate Plot Twist to carry that exact result into the Plot Twist generator and develop its next reversal.
Encounter Generator. Generate a playable combat, social, exploration, environmental, or mixed encounter -- not just a monster list. Each output includes an at-a-glance summary, a player-facing description, participants and their motives, environment, non-combat approaches, a complication, and outcomes/rewards. Threat is described in fictional terms so it works with any RPG system.
Dungeon & Delve Generator. Draft multi-sector subterranean complexes, ancient ruins, precursor alien vaults, or cybernetic facilities. Each output includes architectural atmosphere, key sectors/levels, inhabitant factions, central secrets, hazards, treasures, and adventure hooks.
Sci-Fi World Generator. Create campaign-ready planets, moons, and artificial worlds with a clear physical identity, societies shaped by their environment, resources, dangers, notable locations, mysteries, conflicts, and adventure hooks. Start it from Campaign Generators for a standalone world, or open it with existing system context to develop a world that fits the star, orbit, factions, and conflicts already in your campaign. Drafts remain local until you choose to save them.
Fictional Languages. Design structured language profiles (conlangs) with pronunciation guidance, naming structures, example names, phrases, and a glossary. When generating an NPC, faction, settlement, or ship, choose one saved Naming language to apply its rules. No language is applied automatically.
News Sheets (In-World News). Create an in-world news sheet for your campaign — a lead headline, short articles, street rumours, classifieds, and adverts, all written the way the publication's owner would allow. The handout part is safe to show players; the GM section keeps the truth behind the stories and the adventure hooks. Generated inside a vault, the sheet reports on your existing places, factions, and events.
Plot Twist & Complication Generator. Start with an existing premise, scene, or campaign problem and generate a coherent reversal or complication. The generator preserves established facts, identifies an assumption that can be overturned, adds foreshadowing and consequences, and gives the players new choices. Add campaign context or constraints when you need the twist to fit an existing storyline.
Delve Spatial Canvas Builder. Transform dungeon concepts into interactive spatial canvas maps. Open a generated dungeon concept and click 'Build Delve on Canvas' to create a .canvas layout with sector group frames, tactical Area role badges, custom passages (hidden, locked, vertical), and context-aware stocking. Every new delve ends with a dedicated Climax Area chosen by AI from the Location's established canon. Its editor records what is at stake, the players' decision, and possible outcomes, so the finale can be a confrontation, negotiation, ritual, revelation, crisis, siege, escape, or another decisive turn rather than a required boss fight. When the layout is ready, use Finalize Dossier to create a linked GM Note containing the original briefing, every populated sector and Area, room-level connections, climax outcomes, a fitted image of the complete map, and a link back to the canvas. Finalize again after edits to refresh the image and update the same Note.

Your data stays yours

Local files you own, and all of it works with the AI switched off.

Total Privacy

Your notes stay on your device. We use local storage for maximum security with no cloud accounts required.

Load and Save Folders

Use the linked folder as an external copy of your world. Save writes your internal archive to the folder for backups or editing in tools like Obsidian. Load pulls folder changes back into the app when you want to bring them in.

AI Disabled

Prefer a non-AI experience? Enable AI Disabled in Settings to disable all AI-powered features. The Oracle remains available for utility commands like /roll, /create, /connect and /merge.

Codex Interchange Format (CIF) Import

Drop a .cif.json or .cif.zip file exported by another compatible worldbuilding tool to bring its entities, hierarchy, links, and images into your vault — entirely offline, with nothing sent anywhere. A raw Thread Weaver campaign export works too — it's converted to CIF in your browser automatically before the same review step. ZIP packages carry pictures: each one is checked against its declared fingerprint before import, attached to its entity, and stored once even if you re-import. Broken files are rejected before you ever see a review screen, naming what's wrong. Re-importing a later export matches existing entries by their stable identity (never by title), so you can update, skip, or create per entry and see exactly what changed. Relationship labels like 'mother of' become real family links, the same as anywhere else in the app.

Save to Folder. The 'SAVE TO FOLDER' button writes your internal work to the linked folder. It only enables when you have unsaved changes, keeping the folder copy current.
Load from Folder. Use 'LOAD FROM FOLDER' in the Vault Selector to refresh your internal archive with changes from the linked folder. A safety gate warns you if unsaved internal work would be overwritten.
Smart Importing. Safe file loading. If a file import stops, just pick the file again to finish where you left off.
The Shelf. Send an entity — or a whole selection — to the Shelf, switch vault, and import it there. Stat sheets, images, sound bites and links all come across. The Shelf lives in this browser only: it is not a backup, and it cannot send anything to another person or another device.

Ready to start?

Join the next generation of storytellers. Start building your world with absolute privacy and smart tools.

Enter the Codex