The Architect's Guide
Whether you are running a TTRPG campaign, writing a novel, or building a rich fictional universe, Nebula is your digital world-building companion. Master the tools of creation and bring your campaigns to life.
Campaigns
Players, Settings & Core
Entities & Links
Lore, Connections & @Links
Blueprint Architect
Custom Fields & Layouts
Interactive Maps
Pins, Snippets & Regions
Story Bindering
Session Notes & Formatting
DM Secrets
Hiding Info from Players
Campaign Management
Your Campaign is the root of your world. Everything you create—characters, maps, locations, and lore—belongs to a specific campaign. Nebula makes it incredibly easy to organize your thoughts and switch between entirely different universes from your main dashboard.
Inviting Players
You can invite friends to join your campaign as players. They will be able to see all public entities, view maps, and explore the connections, but they cannot edit anything unless they own the entity. Use the "Invite Player" link in your Campaign Dashboard.
Entities & Quick Linking
Entities are the building blocks of Nebula. They represent Characters, Locations, Quests, Items, and any other lore component you create.
The @ Shortcut
Whenever you are typing inside an entity's description or any custom text field, you can type the @ symbol to bring up a search menu. Start typing the name of another entity, and select it to automatically create an interactive link.
This will instantly register a relationship between the two entities, making them appear connected on the Relationship Map!
The Blueprint Architect (V2)
Nebula allows you to design your own custom layouts for different types of entities (e.g., custom character sheets, quest logs, or town profiles). Navigate to Architect from the campaign menu.
- Drag and Drop: Grab any field by clicking it and drag it to reorder the fields within the grid, creating a layout that perfectly matches your mental model.
- Dynamic Columns: Turn off sections (like the Portrait or Quick Actions) on the left sidebar. The layout will intelligently expand active fields to fill empty spaces, making your layout truly modular.
- Field Widths: Set a custom field to "Half Width" or "Full Width" to control how much space it takes up on the page.
- Icons: Assign Font Awesome icons (like ) to your blueprints to easily distinguish different entity types at a glance.
Pro Tip: You can duplicate an existing blueprint using the Duplicate button near the top right of the Architect. This is great for creating slight variations, like "Major NPC" and "Minor NPC" types!
Interactive Cartography
Upload "Map Snippets" to an entity (like a continent or a city) to enable the interactive map feature.
- Dropping Pins: Double-click anywhere on an uploaded map snippet to place a new interactive marker.
- Linking Pins: You can link a pin directly to an existing Entity in your campaign. The pin will automatically adopt that entity's color and icon!
- Dragging: If you misplaced a pin, simply click and drag it to its correct location. It saves automatically.
Story Bindering
The Story Binder is your centralized session tracker. Use it to log session recaps, prepare DM notes, or document player choices.
Markdown Support
The editor natively supports standard Markdown shortcuts as you type:
- Type # and press space for a Heading 1.
- Type ## and press space for a Heading 2.
- Type 1. or - and press space to instantly start a list.
- Wrap text in **bold** or *italic* syntax.
DM Secrets
As a Dungeon Master or Worldbuilder, you often need to keep specific information hidden from your players until the time is right. Nebula gives you absolute control over what is visible.
- Secret Entities: You can mark entire entities as "Secret". They will not appear in lists or search results for players. If a player stumbles upon a map pin linking to a secret entity, it will appear as "Unknown".
- Secret Fields: Look for the small Lock Icon () next to field names on the entity detail page. Clicking it will toggle it red (), meaning players cannot see the contents of that specific field.
- Inline Secret Text: When editing long text fields (like descriptions), highlight a specific sentence and click the "Make Secret" button in the floating toolbar. It will wrap the text in a red "DM Secret" box that completely strips the text out for players.