This project is a compendium first and a game second. Every hero, villain, power, city, faction, and piece of world history lives as a file in a folder, and the folders are the skeleton of the world. If you have cloned Earth Prime to build on it, this manual is how that skeleton fits together, what each file type is trying to do, and the rules of thumb that keep a new entry from breaking the ones around it.
The world you are building on
Earth Prime is a late-stage DC Universe. The multiverse died in the Crisis, and a band of heroes wove the most vital pieces of every Earth into a single continuum. To the people who live there it is simply Earth — a world with decades of remembered history, where the great mantles exist, some of them already passed down, and the story still has room for new champions, new villains, and new crises. The setting is broad by design: Earth is the beating heart, but the files reach into space, other dimensions, and the oldest magics.
Everything you add becomes part of that history. The world remembers its own lore, and the table treats what you write as real. That is the core promise of the project — and the core constraint. When you create something new, the existing entries are canon you are building on, not suggestions.
Two voices, kept apart
Every file carries two kinds of content, and they must not bleed into each other:
- In-character (IC) — lore entries, character sheets, location descriptions, organization records. Written in third person, as a record inside the world: a Justice League database entry, a Daily Planet report, a government file. This is what players may read.
- Out-of-character (OOC) — anything behind the scenes:
dmNotes, dmHooks, dmSecrets, and the GM Instructions files. Written plainly, for the GM's eyes only. Never put a secret in a description field where a player could read it.
The folder map
Folders are the first layer of the type system. Almost every folder already exists — check before creating a new one.
| Folder | Holds |
|---|
/Characters/ | Everything with a name and a face, split into Hero's, Villian's, Side Characters, and Player Characters |
/Game Systems (GM Only)/ | Behind-the-scenes material: Items, Player Options (with Abilities, Occupation, Species), Glossary, Game Starts, GM Instructions |
/Locations/ | Places, nested by scale: /Universe Prime/ for cosmic worlds, its Earth/ subfolder for cities, bases, and sites |
/World Info/ | The world's knowledge: Lore Sheets and Organizations |
/Big Brain GM/ | The master GM instruction file |
The split is intentional: player-facing world content lives under Characters, Locations, and World Info; rules, options, and GM-only material lives under Game Systems.
Words that mean other words
The project uses a small index of terms. Keep it consistent everywhere:
| Say | Mean |
|---|
| Race | Species |
| Class | Occupation |
| Faction | Organization |
What to do first
Before writing your first entry, read the file type's schema (/file-types/<slug>.json gives the field list; /file-types/<slug>/schema.json gives the shapes) and open one existing file of that type as a style sample. Match the voice, the field usage, and the conventions. Then follow the one rule that governs everything else in this manual: when you add something, update everything that points at it. The next chapter is about that web of references.
