Worldbuilding FAQ

Short answers to the questions that come up once you’ve built a world or two. For how each tool works, see World Bible, Time Weaver, Relationship Web, Lexicon Engine, and Consistency Sentinel.

Do I need Pro for the worldbuilding tools?

Yes, and your 7-day trial counts. Building worlds is a Pro feature from end to end: creating a world, managing it, and everything inside it, including the World Bible, Time Weaver, Relationship Web, Lexicon Engine, and Consistency Sentinel. Reading a public world someone else shares, and following it, stay free. You can read more under Free vs. Pro.

What happens to my worlds if my Pro time ends?

They stay exactly as you left them. We never delete a world when a subscription lapses. On the free plan, editing and the worldbuilding tools are locked: the Worlds area shows an upgrade prompt, with your worlds listed below it. Each one keeps two actions so you are never trapped: Export, to download the whole world as a file, and Delete, to clear it out. Building and editing reopen the moment you go Pro again, with every world, entry, timeline, and relationship unchanged. Worlds you set public stay readable to visitors the whole time.

What happens when I delete an entry that’s used in relationships?

Deleting an entry moves it to trash rather than erasing it. While it’s trashed, its relationships and timeline appearances drop out of the graph and the canvas, so you won’t see edges pointing at a missing character. Restore the entry from trash within your plan’s recovery window and everything comes back exactly as it was. Nothing is truly gone until the recovery window closes.

How do I delete a whole world, system, timeline, or relationship graph?

Each one lives in that tool’s settings, and each goes to Trash so you can change your mind:

• A world: open the World Hub, then Settings and the Danger zone sub-tab. It takes its entries, timelines, relationships, and systems with it. Your written pieces stay.
• A system: open the system, then its Settings tab and Danger zone. Its rules and members go with it.
• A timeline: the More menu (the three-dots button in the action bar) in the Time Weaver, then Settings. Its events go with it.
• A relationship graph: the More menu in the Relationship Web, then Clear all relationships. The entries stay; only the connections clear.

All four ask you to confirm first, and all four are recoverable from Manage, then Trash, until your plan’s recovery window closes. For the window length and how restore works, see Saving and recovering your work.

Can two entries have the same name?

Names are scoped to a world, so the same name in two different worlds is no problem. Within a single world the tools work best when each entry has a distinct name, since the Consistency Sentinel and the Lexicon Engine reason about names. If you need two characters who share a name, give them different entry titles and note the in-world name in a field.

Do I have to set up a timeline before I can track how a relationship changes?

No. A relationship’s history stands on its own. In the Relationship Web you can record a change with just a date label and a sort number, no timeline required. If you do want to anchor a change to a moment, you can link an existing timeline event or create a new one (and even name a new timeline) without leaving the panel. The tools never depend on each other being set up first.

Can a world have more than one timeline?

Yes. Most projects keep a single main history, but a world can hold several: an earlier age, a parallel realm, or a subplot you want to reason about on its own. The Time Weaver lets you switch between them and compare two on a shared scale.

Do I have to switch tools to edit a character or fix the timeline?

Less and less. The worldbuilding tools read the same world, so a lot of the work now comes to you. In the Relationship Web, clicking a character opens a Details tab where you can edit their full record, the same fields as the entry manager, and a Manage timeline button beside the scrubber lets you add and edit events without opening the Time Weaver. When you do need another tool, the Tools menu in the header of every worldbuilding tool jumps you there for the same world, in a new tab, so you never lose your place.

How do I find a specific entry, system, or member in a big world?

Use Search this world. It sits at the top of a world’s hub page and in the header of every worldbuilding tool (or press Cmd/Ctrl+K while a world is open). Type a name and it searches across every entry type, your systems and their members, and your relationship types at once, grouped by kind. Click a result to jump straight to it. As a world grows past a few dozen entries this is the fastest way to get anywhere.

Can readers comment on or react to my world entries?

Yes, once the world is public. Each entry page has a reaction bar and a comment thread at the bottom. Any signed-in reader can leave a reaction or a comment; you and your collaborators see them like any other reader. Comments run through the same moderation as the rest of the site, you can delete your own, and a secret entry has no public page, so its thread is closed to strangers too. Reactions and comments are free for readers; you don’t need Pro to receive them.

Can I hide spoiler entries from readers on a public world?

Yes. Mark any entry secret (open it and turn on Hide from readers, or select entries in the full list and choose Mark secret). A secret entry stays fully usable for you and your collaborators in the tools, but a visitor never sees it: not on the public world page, not as its own page, and not through a link, relationship, timeline event, or backlink on a visible entry. A public world can hold secret entries, so you don’t have to choose between sharing the world and hiding the twists. Your own exports still include secret entries, since the file is yours to share. See Keeping an entry secret from readers for the details.

Can I search across all my worlds at once?

Yes. The Search all worlds bar sits at the top of Your Worlds, above the world list (or press Cmd/Ctrl+K from that page). One query runs across every world you own or collaborate on and groups the matches by world, so you can jump to an entry, system, or member without first remembering which world it’s in. To search inside one world, use Search this world on that world’s hub instead.

What’s on a world’s hub page?

Opening a world from Your Worlds lands you on its hub: a card for each part of the world (entries, systems, timeline, relationships, templates, images, updates, settings) with a live count on each, a Search this world bar, and a Recently edited row to pick up where you left off. Each card opens that tool already scoped to the world you’re in, so everything for a world stays in one place. A brand-new world shows a short Start here checklist instead, so you always know what to add first.

How do I see the relationship map on a small screen?

Use the expand button in the corner of the graph to make it fill the screen, then Exit fullscreen (or the Escape key) to come back. You can pinch or scroll to zoom and drag to pan at any size. On a phone, panels like a character’s details open as a full-screen sheet with a clear close button, so nothing hides behind the top bar.

If I rename a character, will the Sentinel flag it as an error?

No. The Consistency Sentinel reads your draft against the World Bible and reports where the prose and the canon disagree. Renaming an entry updates the canon; it doesn’t rewrite your drafts. If your prose still uses the old name, that’s exactly the kind of name drift the Sentinel will point out, which is the help you want.

The Sentinel is flagging too much. Can I quiet it down?

Yes. Open the Scanners panel under the findings (in the editor panel or the full tool). Turn off any scanner that isn’t useful for how you write, or drop its sensitivity to Quiet so it reports only the surest issues. Set the ones you rely on to Strict to catch more. Your choices save to your account and apply on the next scan. The Consistency Sentinel guide walks through what each level changes.

Can I merge two worlds into one?

There isn’t a one-click merge today. The practical path is to pick the world you want to keep and add the entries you need into it, then retire the other. If you’re consolidating a lot, importing worldbuilding material into the world you’re keeping can save some retyping.

Can I link my stories to a system, character, or timeline?

Yes. Every system, world entry, and timeline has an Attributed pieces area, and each one has an Add pieces button with two ways in:

• Choose existing. Pick from the pieces you’ve already written. They show up in the list right away, and on the public world page under “Stories set in this world” once you publish them.
• Import new. Bring in a file the same way the importer works anywhere else. The imported piece is linked here automatically.

If the file you import also describes a system (or entry, or timeline) of its own, we ask what you’d like to do with it: update the one you’re looking at with the new details, create a new one, or skip those details and just keep the piece linked here. Updating only fills in what’s empty and adds what’s new, so nothing you already wrote gets overwritten.

To unlink a piece, hover its row in the list and use the small remove control. That only breaks the link. Your piece is untouched.

For a world as a whole, use Add or remove pieces on the World Bible Pieces tab, which is the same idea at the world level.

Where do I see which systems a character belongs to?

On the character’s profile. When you add an entry as a member of a system (a deity in a pantheon, a house in a faction), that link now reads both ways: the system lists the member, and the member’s profile gains a Part of these systems section that links straight back to each system. So you can start from a character and reach the magic system or pantheon they’re part of without hunting for it.

Can I change the fields on a built-in template like Character?

Yes. Open Templates (from the World Bible or the entries page), find the built-in under Built in, and click the pencil to edit it. The first edit makes a copy for this world and switches your entries of that type over to it, so your change is in place right away. Other worlds keep the default. A customized built-in shows a Customized tag; use Reset to default on its row to drop your changes and go back to the shared version (your entries move back to the default fields).

If you’d rather keep the built-in as is and add a separate type, use Duplicate as custom instead. That makes a brand new template seeded from the built-in, leaving the original untouched.

Why can’t I edit the demo world?

The sample world is read-only for everyone, so it stays a clean reference. Make your own world (it takes a moment) and you’ll have full edit access to everything in it.

I imported a map from another tool and the pins are in the wrong place. Why?

Inkbreaker stores pin positions as a fraction of the map (0 to 1) so they hold at any zoom. When you import from a tool that uses pixel coordinates (like World Anvil) or latitude and longitude (geographic maps), the importer converts those for you, using the base image’s size or the map’s geographic bounds. If pins land off, the usual cause is a missing image width and height in the export, so there is nothing to divide the pixels by. Open the map, set its dimensions, and re-import, or drag the few stray pins into place. See Interactive Maps for the full import behavior.

Can Inkbreaker suggest a diplomacy score for two factions?

Yes. When you score diplomacy between two faction entries in the Relationship Web, the editor offers Suggest from members: it reads the relationships you have already recorded between the two factions’ member characters (allies pull the score up, enemies pull it down) and proposes a number. It is only a starting point, never written without you, so adjust it if the alliance runs warmer or colder than its people. In the Diplomacy view, factions linked by positive scores also get a colored ring marking their alliance bloc, and the Consistency Sentinel can flag factions you have scored as allied whose people are written as enemies.

Can readers see my languages and faction diplomacy?

Yes, when your world is public. A public world page surfaces a Languages tab (each language opens to its notes and full dictionary) and, once you have scored faction-to-faction diplomacy, a Diplomacy tab with a scorecard of who stands where, from at war to allied. Both are read-only for visitors and both respect your secret settings, so nothing hidden leaks. Maps already work the same way. See Languages and Relationship Web.

How do I hide a language from readers?

Open the language and turn on Keep this language secret. A secret language and its whole dictionary stay off the public world page, the same way a secret entry or secret map does, while you still see it when you preview your own world. If you would rather hide a language without marking it secret, take it out of the world bible instead. To keep a faction relationship off the public Diplomacy map, mark one of its faction entries secret.

Where do I get help while I’m using a tool?

Every worldbuilding tool has a book icon in its header. It opens a reference panel with a quick rundown of the tool and a tip from Lupin. At the bottom of that panel, Browse the help docs opens the full documentation right inside the panel: search it, read an article, and step back to your tool without leaving the page.

In the editor’s tools panel the help link works a little differently. There the documentation opens in a new browser tab, since the panel is narrow and your draft may have unsaved words. Your piece stays put while you read.

See also: World Bible, Relationship Web, Entity Templates.