Making a world

A world on Worldtable is a design the engine runs: a map, the peoples who live on it, its magic, its places and their history, its notable figures, its money and its rules. You write it in words; the engine turns the words into a playable world with towns, roads, dangers and a storyteller who knows your canon. The combat, travel, economy and memory systems are the same ones Khorvale runs on.

Anyone with an account can build, from the Worlds page; one account can own up to five worlds. You don't need to be let into Khorvale first.

On the Worlds page, give it a name and an address (the address becomes part of its links, and can't be changed later), then Create world. The Studio opens with the wizard.

The wizard

One question a screen:

1. What is your world about? A sentence or two, and a genre.
2. How should it feel? Grim, heroic, mysterious, whimsical, epic, eerie, hopeful and more; pick a few.
3. The land. One land, whose regions share a landmass and roads, or islands, each region its own. How many regions.
4. Peoples and magic. Mostly humans, a few peoples or many; no magic, rare and costly, part of life, or everywhere.
5. How do places sound? A naming style, from Old English shires to Nordic fjords to Draconic hisses.
6. Anything else? Notes in your own words.

Worldtable then drafts the whole world in a minute or two, on your starter credit or your own AI key (see Your key). The draft includes the premise and tone, a founding event, truths about the world, each region's history, powers and taboos, the peoples and their homelands, the magic, realms beyond the map, money, a cast of notable figures and a first shelf of lore. Region and town names come from your naming style, and the map is generated to match.

You review it before anything is saved: Use this world, Draft again, or Change my answers. Using a draft replaces everything in the world with it. If you leave while it's writing, it keeps going for an hour; come back and it's waiting.

Everything stays editable. The Studio's tabs, in order:

World

Name, premise, genre, tone, the event history hangs on, truths that always hold, notes for the storyteller, art style.

Map

Draw the land and place the regions. Opens here.

Places

Each region's character, history, powers and taboos; realms beyond the map.

Peoples

Who can be played, how far they can grow, where they live, what they look like.

Cast

Notable figures the storyteller knows before anyone meets them.

Magic

Whether there is any, what it's called, its kinds and what each can do.

Lore

Facts the storyteller keeps straight.

Ask

Question your world as the storyteller would answer, and check the whole thing for contradictions.

Economy

What money is called and what things cost.

Rules

Death, danger, companions, pacing, rewards.

Players

Your key, invites, members, your public page.

Playtest

Play it, look back at earlier versions, or start play over.

Each is covered in The Studio, tab by tab and World rules.

Writing help

Most long text fields have a helper. An empty field offers Write one for me; a filled one offers Flesh it out, which keeps every fact and name and adds specifics, and Make it clearer, which says the same thing more plainly. Undo puts back what you had. It runs on your key.

• Changes save themselves a moment after you stop typing. The header says Saving, Saved, or Not saved with the reason.
• Earlier versions (in Playtest) keeps your last twenty saves. Restore brings one back; the version you had just before is kept too, so a restore can itself be undone.
• Edits reach play at once. Change a region's history and the next scene there is written from the new text.

Play in the header (or Enter in Playtest) saves and takes you into your world. Characters are kept per world, so your others are untouched. Anyone you've invited can play while the world is still a draft.

Start over wipes everything that happened in play: characters, the people met, places found, quests, events and changes to the map. Your lore, map, rules and players stay. You type the world's name to confirm, it can't be undone, and it's only available before you publish.

Publish makes the world live. It also fixes the map for good: the land's shape, where the regions lie, their terrain, borders and number of towns, the naming style, and where realm gates stand. Names can still change, of regions and of towns, and everything outside the map stays editable: history, peoples, cast, magic, lore, money, rules.

The map is fixed because people are playing on it. Characters stand in its towns, roads run between them, and places found and changed in play are laid onto it. After publishing you can also give the world a public page; see Public page.