Locations, Starts, and GM Instructions

Three file types exist purely to run a session rather than to document a rule: location, game-start, and gm-instructions. They're small in number today (one example each) but worth understanding before you add more, because two of the three carry designations the platform treats specially, and the third is explicitly not public reference material.

Locations

location (name, type, image, atmosphere, description, notes) is a place a Games Master can drop a scene into — a settlement, dungeon, wilderness stretch, or landmark, tagged loosely by type. Unlike creature or vehicle, it carries designation: "location", which is what lets the platform's map and travel tooling recognize it as a place rather than generic reference material.

Keep the split between atmosphere and description deliberate: description is what's objectively there (layout, notable features, who's present); atmosphere is the sensory/mood framing a GM reads aloud or paraphrases to set the scene. notes is the GM-facing grab-bag — per the seed example, "landmarks, inhabitants, secrets, hooks, exits, or table-specific details" — visible to anyone browsing the file, so keep genuine secrets out of it; a real secret belongs in a gm-instructions file instead (below), not in a location's notes.

Game Starts

game-start (name, image, description, designation: "game_start") is deliberately the thinnest schema in the project: two content fields plus an image. It exists to give a player or GM a one-click "begin here" — <@Tavern Start.game-start> is the pattern: a short, evocative description of the opening scene and situation, nothing mechanical. Don't pack rules or stat blocks into a game-start's description; link out to the character, location, and creature files a scene needs instead of restating them, once file mentions matter for the flow you're building — the point of a game-start is momentum, not exposition.

Add a new one when the project wants another distinct opening (a different tone, a different party composition, a different problem already in motion) — not as a place to summarize an entire adventure. If a start needs specific pre-built characters or a specific location, create or reuse those files and point the start at the scene verbally; there's no reference field wiring a game-start to a location or character today, so name them clearly enough in the description that a GM can find them.

GM Instructions

gm-instructions is markdown, no schema, designation: "gm_instructions" — and it is the one file type in this project that is not public reference. It configures how the GM agent behaves during actual play: when to call for a roll, how strictly to enforce a rule, what to reveal and when. <@Example GM Instructions.gm-instructions> shows the register: short, directive, written to the GM agent in imperative sentences ("If the user says they are using a skill... ask them to roll an appropriate skill check before resolving the outcome").

This is where secrets, twists, and adjudication judgment calls belong — the material the platform's handbook-writing conventions explicitly keep out of both handbooks. If you're ever tempted to add a paragraph to a rule file or a handbook chapter that starts with "as the GM, secretly..." — it belongs here instead. Conversely, don't put player-facing procedure in a gm-instructions file; if it's something a player is allowed to know and expected to use, it belongs in the Player's Handbook or a rule file, not buried in GM-only config where a player would never see it.

Adding more of any of these

There's no fixed count expected for any of the three. Add a location whenever the setting needs a documented place; add a game-start whenever you want a new "press play here" entry point; add or edit gm-instructions whenever the way the GM agent should run the table needs to change. None of the three currently reference each other or the compendium types with schema reference fields — keep cross-references as plain-text file mentions in the prose until a concrete need for a real reference field shows up (see Extending the System for how to add one if it does).