Narrative Foundry

Story planning / linked lore / shared worlds

Your story. Every thread connected.

Story planning and linked lore for writers, game worldbuilders and teams. Keep scenes, factions, claims and consequences connected on a server you control. Build a novel, campaign or game world with a shared record of what happens, who knows it and why it matters.

Explore the examples Try the creation process

Generic worked examples Follow a character, a disputed account and a scene through the workflow. Names and story details are invented to demonstrate the product.

Linked worldbuilding / illustrative diagramExample records, not a product screenshot.

01 / RECORD

Every fact has a home

Put a sighting, character, place or faction where the rest of the world can find it.

02 / DISTINGUISH

Belief is not canon

Keep evidence, confidence and perspective beside the claim instead of burying them in prose.

03 / TRACE

Consequences stay visible

See the scenes, maps, notes and decisions a changed fact can affect before you rewrite.

04 / DELIVER

Make the world usable

Move approved narrative onward through dialogue, review, translation, reader editions and handoff.

Generic worldbuilding examples

A character. A place. A reason to connect them.

Start with a character, a place, a faction and a scene. Link their records, attach sources to disputed details and review what changes as the story develops.

Illustrative coastal map linking a place, character, faction and sourced claim. — **Illustrative worldbuilding diagram.** Places have shared records that scenes, characters and maps can refer to.

Four connected records

Give each part of the story a home.

CHARACTER

Mara Vale

A harbour keeper with a role, relationships and a limited view of events. Keep what she believes separate from what the shared world record establishes.

FACTION

Tidekeepers

A local guild with its own aims and history. Link members and relationships to the same record so changes remain easy to trace.

PLACE

Quiet Harbour

A location shared by several scenes. Pin its existing record on a map while keeping descriptions, sources and revisions together.

SCENE

The Last Ferry

A departure depends on what the characters know about the harbour beacon. Link the scene to the people, place and claims it uses.

The Narrative Foundry difference

A source is evidence, not canon.

Worldbuilding becomes durable when a sighting, its source, its review and its consequences stay linked—even when the final answer is still unknown.

01
ACCOUNT
A character remembers an event.
Mara says the harbour beacon stayed lit through the night. Record her account without deciding that her memory is the whole story.
02
CLAIM
Give the account a source.
Keep the words, the speaker and the confidence beside the claim. A harbour ledger provides a second account to compare.
03
REVIEW
Let the team test the meaning.
Writers can compare the claim with other scenes and sources, then keep it unresolved, refine it or reject it without erasing its history.
04
CANON
Approve only what earned it.
A deliberate approval preserves a version of the world while later drafts keep moving. The record shows the difference.

Open the case file

The world is a system of connected decisions.

These generic examples show a shared setting, an attributed claim, a character record and the work affected by a revision.

01 World record 02 Claim ledger 03 Character record 04 Impact trail

Illustrative story example

Frame the setting before the first scene.

A world record starts with shared places, people and events. It gives a writing team a common frame while leaving room for different character perspectives.

One shared setting can hold several different accounts.

WORLD / EXAMPLE PROJECTDRAFT 01

SHARED FOUNDATION

A coastal setting

A harbour town, a local guild and a departure that brings their stories together.

Records: Characters / places / factions / scenes
Truth state: Working draft
Story pressure: A disputed account changes what a character believes before a departure.

Illustrative story example

Put uncertainty where everyone can see it.

A claim ledger keeps the sentence, the source and the review state together. It stops an evocative line in a scene from quietly turning into a universal rule.

A witness can be believable without being definitive.

Claim: “The beacon never went out.”
Source: Mara’s account · invented example
Perspective: Harbour keeper’s recollection
Confidence: Unverified
Review prompt: Compare the account with the harbour ledger before resolving the claim.

Illustrative story example

Keep a character and her claims connected.

Mara Vale is an invented harbour keeper. Her record holds her role, guild and scene links, while her account of the beacon remains a claim to review against a separate source.

A character record can hold a belief without making it world truth.

CHARACTER / MARA VALEIMAGINED

Faction: Tidekeepers
Claim state: Disputed account / unverified
Evidence: Character account and harbour ledger
Review rule: Compare both sources and keep the conclusion open for review.

Next: try the guided Mara Vale process.

Illustrative story example

Follow one fact across scenes, maps and revisions.

When an observation changes, the useful question is not only “what is true now?” It is also “where did the old assumption travel?” Linked records make the affected work visible before a rewrite lands.

Continuity becomes a traceable decision, not a scavenger hunt.

01Source noteBeacon ledger entry
02Mara ValeEntity record
03Ferry sceneCharacter knowledge
04Team reviewClaim remains unresolved

How to read this case study: all names, places, claims and events are invented to demonstrate Narrative Foundry’s workflow. Use the same record types for your own setting.

Interactive worked example

Turn a character note into connected lore.

A writer has a character and two conflicting accounts. Create the record, add its context, attach the sources and trace the scenes that need review.

Shared context

Characters, places, factions and scenes stay connected.

A character’s account keeps its source and review state beside it.

Illustrative workflow

The character, harbour and source accounts are invented.

They show how records connect in a generic story project.

Hosted 0.32.0 pilot

Linked records, claims, reviews and revisions.

The interaction below is a pre-filled demonstration, not a live editor.

Build Mara Vale, step by step

Choose a stage to reveal its worked example. Click a stage, or focus the selected radio and use the arrow keys. No information is saved from this page.

01Start a recordName the character 02Place it in the worldExplore connected records 03Source the claimAttach the account 04Link and reviewLeave canon undecided

01 / Start a record

Give the character a record of her own.

Begin with one lore entity. Mara Vale is an invented harbour keeper. Give her a name and a role before adding relationships and claims.

A short character note is enough to start a useful record.

Record kind: Lore entity / character
Working name: Mara Vale
Record state: Illustrative draft
Scope: One character and her account of an event

What this addsA findable entity record with a draft state. It says what the record is before it says what it means.

Next worked stage: choose Place it in the world above.

02 / Place it in the world

Connect the character to a place, a group and a scene.

Add a role, a faction relationship and a location. Link the scene that uses them so the next writer can follow the same context.

A category makes a record discoverable. It does not settle the question.

Explore the records connected to this character

Generic story exampleChoose a record to inspect its context. These controls reveal pre-filled examples.

01CharacterMara Vale 02FactionTidekeepers 03PlaceQuiet Harbour 04SceneThe Last Ferry

Character / example record

A harbour keeper with her own perspective

Mara remembers the beacon staying lit. Keep that recollection with her record and its source while the team reviews what happened.

Current character

Faction / example record

A shared history and a set of aims

The Tidekeepers maintain the harbour. Their records link members, responsibilities and events without replacing each character’s perspective.

Linked faction

Place / example record

One location, used across several scenes

Quiet Harbour holds the shared location notes. Maps and scenes refer to that record, keeping revisions in one place.

Linked place

Scene / example record

A departure shaped by what characters know

The Last Ferry uses Mara’s account of the beacon. A change to that claim gives the team a reason to review the scene.

Linked scene

The links provide context. The character’s disputed account remains a separate claim.

Current draft context: Tidekeepers · linked faction
Claim state: Disputed account / unverified
Field description: Harbour keeper; guild member; witness to the beacon event.
Scene anchor: The Last Ferry illustrative

What this addsA shared record for the character’s role, faction, place and scene connections.

Next worked stage: choose Source the claim above.

03 / Source the claim

Attach the account, not a verdict.

The source holds the words, perspective and confidence together. A believable witness can still be wrong, incomplete or describing an event no one else has seen.

A source gives a claim somewhere to stand. It does not make the claim canon.

Claim: “The beacon never went out.”
Source: Mara’s account · invented example
Perspective: Harbour keeper’s recollection
Confidence: Unverified Compare with the harbour ledger

What this addsA sourced claim that can be challenged, corroborated or left unresolved while its original wording remains available for review.

Next worked stage: choose Link and review above.

04 / Link and review

Follow the implication, then leave the answer open.

Link the record to the material that refers to it, including what a character knows. Save a revision for review, then let the team decide whether the question stays open, changes or is rejected.

Approval preserves a deliberate version of the world. It never has to arrive early.

Connected records: Tidekeepers → Quiet Harbour → The Last Ferry
Knowledge trail: Character account → character knowledge → team review
Revision path: Save draft revision → passage comment → review inbox
Canon state: Not decided

What this addsA reviewable trace. An Owner may later approve an immutable project revision; this illustrative Mara Vale record stops before that decision.

Explore it again: choose Start a record above.

What this can turn into

One character, a usable trail.

Entity recordA named draft with world context
Sourced claimEvidence, perspective and confidence together
Linked materialScenes and knowledge that refer to it
Saved revisionA reviewable point in the work
Approved canon copyOptional Owner-approved project revision

One world, many ways to work

More than a place to keep notes.

Narrative Foundry is for teams that need the story, the evidence behind it and the work that follows to stay in conversation.

Faction bibles with friction

Give each faction a shared record for its aims, members, history and relationships. Link the scenes that depend on them so changes are easier to follow.

Game narrative with consequences

Build quests and dialogue as inspectable graphs, declare state and test bounded routes before handing a read-only story package onward.

Secrets that stay secret

Separate what the world record establishes from what a character, faction or party knows at a point in the story.

Series, campaigns and long arcs

Hold scenes, books, notes, sources and world chronology together when the story grows beyond one document or one person.

Revision without amnesia

Use saved revisions, exact-passage comments, comparison and approved canon copies to let a team change the work deliberately.

Localization and handoff

Prepare translations, short line recordings, reader editions and explicit exports while retaining a clear account of what each output carries.

Mysteries that stay unresolved

Keep rival accounts, incomplete evidence and later revelations connected without forcing a temporary answer into the shared world record.

Exceptions without retcons

Record a disputed allegiance or unexpected event as a claim, with sources and review beside the established world record.

Questions with a trail

Use linked records and backlinks to find the scenes, notes and maps that refer to a changing fact, then decide what needs attention.

The story planning workspace

World first. Everything else connects.

The examples above are illustrative. These six workstations describe the private 0.32.0 pilot. Its Creative Studio brings Plan, Write, World and Review together, with grouped tools and deliberate saves. Newer verified visual tools are awaiting rollout.

01 World 02 Plan 03 Create 04 Play 05 Review 06 Publish

Story planning / illustrative example

See the whole story without flattening it.

Arrange scenes across narratives, plot lanes and beats. Follow a character from a harbour meeting to a ferry departure, filter by faction or source, then reorder stacked cards without changing the reading outline.

Plot order, reading order and world time each have room to be different.

Part I / Crossing

01 — The last ferry

02 — A debt comes due

03 — The beacon

Nested chapters
and screenplay documents

SCENE / DRAFT 7

The Last Ferry

Mara reached the quay with a sealed letter and a question about the beacon. The ferry was already taking its last passengers.

The harbour ledger told a different story from the one she remembered.

LINKED: Mara Vale · Quiet Harbour · harbour ledger

Formatted proseLinked contextExplicit save

Scenes, beats and narratives

Build visual timelines and outlines with axis and density controls. Keep parallel threads readable, even when scenes share a beat or stack in the same place.

Documents and chapters

Write longer work in nested chapters, including screenplay documents. Focus and Paper views keep the ordinary prose editor and unsaved text intact. Format scene and lore prose, inspect explicitly linked saved references, and map chapters by hand to dialogue lines and actions before reviewing a one-way conversion.

Notes, books and series

Catch a thought or source in the notes inbox, then review its conversion into a scene or lore. Plan books across a series and give them image covers.

World time and story time

Author world chronology separately from the reading outline. Historical events, relationships and what a character learns can change at different points in the story.

Structure you define

Field schemas apply to scene and lore records, not user-defined record types. Build them from shared property groups with defaults, read-only field policies, ordered typed links and bounded read-only collections; review migrations before a schema change applies. Constrained narrative expressions offer completion, highlighting and diagnostics rather than general-purpose code. Versioned templates and reviewed project designs carry a good setup forward.

Preferences that travel safely

Keep author preferences with import and safe reset flows. The grouped tool catalogue adds task search, activity filters and temporary pins for the current sign-in. These controls organise the workspace without changing the story.

Worldbuilding / illustrative records

Record what is true, what is believed and who knows what.

Start with your setting, then link characters, places and factions to the scenes that depend on them. Each claim can carry its source and perspective, so a character’s belief stays distinct from world truth.

A place belongs in the world once. The map only points to it.

Linked entities and relationships

Connect characters, places and factions to the scenes that depend on them. Typed historical relationships change over time rather than being overwritten by the latest version.

Sourced claims and belief perspectives
Character and party knowledge kept apart from world truth
Backlinks to every record that refers here

Maps, plans and alignment

Pin existing places on versioned maps without copying their lore. Draw layered floor plans as vector shapes. Place factions across Order, Change and Harmony, with Creation and Destruction on a separate axis.

Unknown stays unknown; it is not a moral score
Maps belong to the project, not to a place
Layers retain the structure of a plan

Images, files and presentation

Attach managed PNG and JPEG images, UTF-8 text and PDF files. Entities can have avatars and display styles; small WAV clips and silent WebM video are managed as media where they belong.

2 MiB per file; 200 files and 32 MiB per project
WAV up to 120 seconds; silent VP8 WebM up to 720p and 60 seconds
PDF and text files download rather than preview

Find a big world

Use a bounded typed query builder and save shared or personal views. Find a chapter by its saved title within the selected document, with ancestor context and the full outline retained. Folders, favourites, split panes, a pinned inspector and searchable pickers keep linked work within reach.

Loaded-project keyword search
Saved views and query-backed collections
Searchable Help matched to the version being used

Start from a project design

Reusable project designs carry reviewed schemas, shared groups and templates into a new story. The team can build a stable base before writing starts.

Worldbuilding stays explicit

Relationships, perspectives and chronology are authored records. Narrative Foundry does not infer a secret world model behind the work or decide which account of the world is correct.

A concrete record, from first note to linked lore

Make a new entity without losing the why.

Start a lore entity, give it a useful shape, attach the claim that makes it unusual, then connect it to the scenes and people that need to know about it.

A record can hold an exception without rewriting the whole world.

ILLUSTRATIVE STORY EXAMPLEIMAGINED · NOT CANON

CHARACTER · INVENTED EXAMPLE

Mara Vale

An invented harbour keeper whose account of the beacon differs from the harbour ledger. The claim remains open for review.

HARBOUR KEEPERWITNESSDRAFT

Record: Lore entity
Faction: Tidekeepers
Draft stance: Account disputed · unverified
Review: Draft · compare linked sources

SOURCED CLAIM

“The beacon never went out.”

Character account · made-up example

LINK IT WHERE IT MATTERS

TidekeepersScene: The Last FerryHarbour ledger

Illustrative character record, not a product screenshot. The character, scene and sources are invented to demonstrate linked lore and review.

Open a lore entity
Choose a character or entity record, then name it before writing a page of prose. Here, the new record is Mara Vale.
Give it a place in the world
Link the Tidekeepers faction and Quiet Harbour, then add a clear role and useful tags: harbour keeper, witness and draft.
Record the unusual thing
Save the character’s account as an unverified claim. Attach the harbour ledger as a contrasting source and leave the conclusion for review.
Connect and save deliberately
Link the entity to the scene and source that introduced it. A later writer sees the backlinks, revises the draft and only then takes it through review.

Fields are structure, not a cage

Use shared property groups and typed links to keep a repeatable entity record. The schema still belongs to a scene or lore record; it does not create a new database type for every character.

Claims carry their point of view

Mara’s account of the beacon is a claim to verify. Source, perspective and review state let the next writer compare it with the harbour ledger.

Links keep the consequences close

Scenes, factions, notes and related entities can point back to the same record, so a later change is easier to find before it surprises the story.

For stories people can play

Make the choices and their consequences visible.

Build quests and conversations as graphs with nested sections, reusable speakers and dialogue templates. Give a party typed state, add conditions and effects, then test declared routes through a bounded playthrough.

A branch is something you can inspect, test and hand over.

Illustrative dialogue flow in which a party chooses how to deal with a dockmaster, using conditions and outcomes. — **Illustration, not a screenshot.** A flow can contain reusable speakers, choices, conditions, effects and playtest routes.

Quests and dialogue graphs

Build nested quest and dialogue structures with reusable speakers and dialogue templates. Choice templates are not part of the current pilot, so each choice stays an authored part of its own flow.

State, conditions and effects

Declare typed party state, then use it to gate a route or change it as an outcome. Conditions and effects sit with the authored branch instead of hiding in prose.

Bounded playtests

Play selected routes through the graph, including declared co-op choices and clues split between players. A completed route helps inspect the flow; it does not prove every possible route is sound.

Story documents meet flow

Authors can map a chapter by hand to actions and dialogue lines and preview a one-way conversion. Narrative Foundry does not parse a screenplay into flow in the pilot.

Reader editions

Prepare spoiler-safe reader editions from the same world. They default to no material, then expose selected approved material to edition-local, revocable reader identities; readers do not become project members.

Handoff, not hidden integration

A versioned read-only narrative handoff can be made for other tools. It installs nothing into a game and does not change a connected project.

A shared world needs a record of change

Review the work without confusing a draft for canon.

Saved revisions, comments and explicit approval keep an active project legible. An Owner can approve an immutable copy of a saved revision as canon while the writing continues.

The answer to “when did this change?” is in the project, not in somebody's memory.

Illustrative review desk comparing two revisions of a scene with a linked source claim and an approved canon snapshot. — **Illustration, not a screenshot.** Comments can anchor to an exact passage; retained revisions and approved copies remain distinct.

Roles and deliberate saves

Owner, Editor and Viewer roles make responsibility clear. Editing uses explicit saves, with saved revisions and conflict review rather than silent merges.

Viewers see the current project and approved canon
Owners can approve an immutable saved copy
Conflicting revisions are reviewed before they land

History, comparison and comments

Keep the latest 100 saved revisions and restore one as a new revision. Compare retained revisions or approved snapshots, anchor comments to an exact passage and work through a review inbox.

Continuity and quality checks

Deterministic continuity warnings explain why they fired and keep recorded waivers. Project-wide diagnostics help find incomplete or inconsistent records; they do not decide creative truth.

Reviewed team editing

Teams can prepare batches of existing-field edits to projects, scenes, entities and notes. A batch can be prepared while disconnected after starting online, then is rechecked when it saves.

No live shared typing
Not general offline editing
Conflicts still need review

Recover from a mistake

Archive a whole project or move records to recoverable Trash. Optional encrypted browser autosave stores passphrase-protected snapshots of most unsent drafts; it cannot guarantee a save after a crash or protect an unlocked page.

Controlled removal and accounts

An Owner can purge a supported, directly trashed record or a canon-free archived project after scope review, exact-name confirmation and acknowledgement. Approved canon blocks purge. Account deactivation follows an explicit lifecycle, while administrator readiness checks keep operational state visible.

Extensions with a boundary

Operator-reviewed extensions are inert and data-only: they add settings and commands through a Project extensions panel, without arbitrary plugin code. Only the host's built-in plain-notes format can register in the normal Import and Export wizards. Scoped machine identities can be revoked by an administrator, and an offline starter kit supports package work.

Privacy starts in the project

Project ownership, roles, review and approval apply before material becomes canon. Optional AI tools are present but their services remain off. Selected results need a person’s review and save; approved canon is never an AI target.

Bring the story to its readers and collaborators

Translate, record, export and explain the gaps.

Choose project languages, work through translations, attach short line recordings and prepare reader editions. When material leaves the workspace, the export describes what it can and cannot carry.

The file gets a clear account of what made the journey.

TRANSLATION WORKBENCHEN → FR / 34 OF 68

Source	Translation	Review
RECORDER 04The signal is not for us.	RECORDER 04Le signal ne nous est pas destiné.	Reviewed
RELAY TECHThen who is it for?	RELAY TECHAlors, à qui est-il destiné ?	Ready

Short WAV voice-over / selected line / reviewed take

Translation workbench

Choose project languages, translate selected material and use spelling checks with operator-installed dictionaries plus per-language lists of invented words. Translation glossaries are not implied by those word lists.

Spreadsheet round trip for translations
Coverage reports and reader editions
People retain final translation status

Voice-over and recording scripts

Attach short WAV recordings to individual lines and locales, then exchange recording scripts and return selected work. The pilot supports up to 25 locales and 1,000 captured lines under the same media caps and ordinary review.

Readable exports

Import and export native JSON, then export Markdown, RTF, OPML and a linear DOCX reading copy of a selected branching flow. RTF and OPML can carry selected saved documents or complete top-level chapter branches in authored order. Every output reports its known omissions.

Structured handoff and data

Use typed XML, typed spreadsheet export with safe reimport, saved export rulesets that can assemble dependency-closed packages, and a versioned read-only narrative handoff. These outputs preserve selected data; they do not install or run inside another tool.

Controlled RTF and OPML import

Preview the supported RTF text subset or selected OPML outlines, then acknowledge the complete text and loss report. Create a separate unapproved workspace, append a new reference document to the current workspace, or add chapters to an explicitly selected saved document.

OPML document mapping preserves selected chapter hierarchy
The separate Inbox-notes mapping flattens selected nodes
Existing-document appends retain its metadata and chapters
Unsupported content is refused; no proprietary project format is imported

Flows and maps as vector documents

Export a selected saved flow or map version as an XPS vector document, with retained map layers and an omissions report. Labels are drawn shapes rather than searchable text; unsupported glyphs block the export. Map images are omitted, and oversized exports are refused.

Reviewed screenplay import and flow mapping

Inspect a supported .fdx screenplay of up to 500 paragraphs and import chosen headings, action, character cues, dialogue and parentheticals into a screenplay document, retaining the original and loss report. A title page or unsupported paragraph kind refuses the file; styles are dropped.

A separate conversion review can map up to 100 selected paragraphs to a straight-line flow using actions and existing saved speakers. It does not infer speakers, choices or branches.

Portability has limits

Native copies omit actual attachment bytes and approval authority; a full installation backup is separate. DOCX and RTF have not been checked in desktop word processors, and Narrative Foundry does not promise lossless third-party round trips.

Native JSONMarkdownRTFOPML 2.0DOCX reading copyTyped XMLSpreadsheetsRead-only handoffXPS diagramsControlled .fdx import

Tabs work without scripts: choose a section to keep the page focused, or use your keyboard to move between the radio controls.

Hosted tools / services disabled

Optional help, with a person in charge.

The 0.32 pilot includes these desks and reviewed draft workflows. Its AI services remain off, and its desk checks used simulated responses. A separate private profile has now passed an isolated live test.

Service off

Costs shown before anything goes

Before an optional AI service drafts material, a request desk shows the saved passages selected, where they would go and the estimated cost. Each request is reviewed, then confirmed once; usage and budgets stay on record.

A charge the server cannot confirm stays marked unknown until an Owner reconciles it.