Start Here

Welcome to the Builder’s Manual. This project is a living campaign framework: its records keep established facts, current state, and future possibilities legible between sessions. You do not need to fill every folder or anticipate every rule before you begin. Start from what the campaign already knows, add only what supports play, and keep each fact in one authoritative home.

Your first steps

1. Take a quick inventory. Read the Campaign State and Campaign Clock first. Then review the current session history and the records relevant to the next adventure. Note what is confirmed, what is unresolved, and what needs attention soon. An empty folder does not necessarily mean the setting has no such people, places, or events; they may simply not need dedicated records yet.
2. Confirm the table’s rules and boundaries. Identify which official rules and character sheets are available, which campaign house rules are active, and what content the group wants to include. Keep optional systems—especially sensitive ones—off unless the group has agreed to use them.
3. Find the right record before creating another. Decide whether information belongs in current campaign state, a character or NPC record, a location, a quest, a scheduled event, a session log, or another existing type. A new file is useful when a fact has ongoing identity, decisions, or consequences; it is not necessary for every passing detail.
4. Separate fact from possibility. Mark rumors, plans, uncertainties, and unresolved questions as such. Do not turn a suggestion into canon without agreement, and do not record an NPC’s intention as an outcome that has already happened.
5. Add the smallest useful record. Record only enough to support the next meaningful choice: a goal and method for an NPC, a deadline and consequence for an event, an objective and lead for a quest, or endpoints and a baseline duration for a route. Link existing records instead of copying their mutable facts.
6. Check continuity before play. Make sure the clock, current location, active deadlines, and related records agree. After a meaningful scene or time advance, update the affected records and preserve important outcomes in the chronological log.

Choose the right home

Use the Campaign State as the compact view of what is true now: where the party is, what it knows, what is active, and what consequences need attention. It is a summary and navigation point, not a substitute for every detailed record. The Campaign Clock owns the calendar and monotonic in-world minute count. World Events own scheduled developments. Quests own objectives, leads, deadlines, and outcomes. Session Logs preserve the chronological history of major scenes and consequential rolls.

Use Character entries for player heroes and NPC entries for important non-player people. Factions hold collective goals and resources. Locations hold stable place identity and current local conditions; Travel Routes connect locations and describe journeys. Relationship Records own the evolving relationship between a pair. Pregnancy Records hold the history of a pregnancy when that optional campaign rule is active. Equipment entries define reusable gear; a character’s inventory records who actually carries it.

Keep canon clear

A rumor is not confirmed truth; a proposed event is not an event that has already happened; an NPC’s intention is not an outcome. Record uncertainty in the wording and status rather than silently settling it. If two records conflict, identify the disagreement, correct the record that owns the fact, and then update dependent summaries. Preserve the chronology of what changed and why.

Use references to connect records instead of typing the same information into several files. A route should point to its endpoint locations; a quest can point to related people, factions, and places; a relationship record should identify its two participants. This keeps records navigable and reduces stale copies. The type defines what a record means; an individual file stores one instance. Add content to a suitable existing type before proposing a new one. When a new kind of durable information has no good home, design its type around the decisions it must support—not around every detail that could theoretically be recorded.