Locations, places, organizations, creatures, events and entries

Beyond characters, a project keeps worldbuilding notes for locations, factions, creatures, events and anything else your world needs. Each record has a name, a description and tags, can be linked to other records, and differs in what it is for. Any custom fields you define for a kind of record appear on its Attributes card.

Which record type should I use? #

Use the one that matches what the thing is in your story:

If a record fits none of the others, make it an entry.

Can I change a record's type? #

Yes, for a character, creature, organization, entry or a record in one of your collections: open its menu and choose Change type…. Pick the new kind, and before anything changes you see what carries over — name, description, tags, image and existence dates where the new kind has them, and custom fields whose name and type match — and what is dropped, such as a character's birth date or a role that only exists between two characters. Its relations, history, ideas, comments and saved views that filter by it follow it; a character that becomes something else leaves the cast of its chapters and plotlines, and the dialog says how many.

Mentions keep their text, and an old link opens the new page. Locations, places, events, languages and world rules cannot change type, because they hang on a map, a date or a structure of their own. If you change your mind, undo the change from the archive within thirty days.

Locations #

A location is a region, a country, a city: somewhere on the map. Every location belongs to a map, and you create one by placing it there, as a point, a region you draw, a text label, or a set of points for something spread across the map. The location's page shows its description, the places inside it, and the plotline beats set there.

Places #

A place is a specific spot inside a location: a tavern, a throne room, the tree where it happened. The difference is scale and use. A place is where a scene happens; a location is where the place is.

Create a place with Create Place on its location's page. If the location has a city map, you can position the place on it; a place not yet on the city map is marked Unplaced.

If you are not sure which you want, use a location.

Organizations #

Guilds, houses, armies, churches, companies. An organization has members, each with a role, so "who is in the Silver Order" is a question the project answers rather than something you remember. Define the roles with Edit structure and add characters with Add member, or from the character's page with Add to organization.

With the timeline on, a membership has dates. Add member and Edit membership take one or more periods, each a role with an optional From and Until date, so "Mare led from 1999 to 2011; Laur joined in 2005 and has led since 2011" is written down as it happened. A character can hold two roles at once. Members still in the organization come first, with their role and, when dated, since when. Those who have left sit under Former members, folded until you open it, each with their roles and date ranges. To let someone go, choose End membership from the row's menu and pick the end date: the history stays. Delete history, in the same menu, removes the membership altogether and asks first. A character's page shows the same under Organizations, with Former organizations below. Every join and departure also appears on both storylines. Without the timeline, a member has one role and Remove takes them out.

Creatures #

Species and beasts. A creature is usually a kind rather than an individual: dragons in general, not this dragon. An individual with a name and a stake in the plot is a character, whatever species they are.

How do I add an event to the timeline? #

Give it a date. Events are what the timeline is built from: create one with Create Event, set its date on your world's calendar, and it takes its place there. An event can also have a colour and tags.

An event is worth creating when more than one thing points at it. A battle three characters remember differently is an event; something that happens in one scene is just that scene.

Entries #

The catch-all, for anything the other types do not fit: a magic system, a law, a recipe, a piece of history that is not an event. An entry has a name, a description and tags, and makes no assumptions about what it is.

Most projects end up with a few entries and then notice a pattern: five of them are all laws. That is the moment to give them a tag and filter the entries list by it.

When did a record exist? #

A creature, organization, location, place or entry can have Existed since and Existed until dates in its Details card, when the project has a timeline. The map uses them to show only what exists at the date on its slider, and the consistency check uses them to notice a chapter set in a city before it was founded. Characters carry birth and death dates, and an event has a date of its own.

The History card on each page records what changed and when, using storyline events, so a location's ruler or a faction's leader can change without losing the past. A language is a record of its own, with a module: see languages.

What is the consistency check? #

With the Lens module on, every character, creature, organization, location, place, entry and event page has a Consistency check card. It reads only that record and what is linked to it. It turns green when nothing contradicts anything, and otherwise lists what does not add up: dates that run backwards, a chapter set before a place existed or after a character died, a membership dated outside the lifespan of its character or organization, a parent younger than their child, a name that breaks the rules of its language, a character travelling faster than its speed rule allows, or another record with the same name. Each issue links to the records involved. Nothing is stored, so fix the data and the card clears the next time you open the page.

Tips #

• Link records with Related entries on any record's page, so a location knows which organization rules it and which events happened there.
• Use the same tags across record types for things like faction or era, so related records are easy to spot.
• A location with no relations shows up in suggestions as one to connect to the world.
• Send a character, event or plotline to the brainstorm board with Send to brainstorm when you want to think it through.
• Switch off the record types you do not need in modules; a contemporary drama may not need creatures or maps.

Related #

• Maps — place locations on a map of your world.
• Timeline — see events in order on your world's calendar.
• Relations — connect records and see the whole network.
• Characters — the people of your story.
• Modules — choose which record types a project uses.