Worldbuilder’s Toolkit

Notes on worldbuilding software, kept since the early nineties.

Notes on the software that keeps an invented world consistent

I have been building worlds since the early nineties, first on paper and then through most of the software that has come and gone since. I run tabletop games and write fiction on the side, so I have needed these tools to hold up for both.

A world stops being memorable and starts being a database at roughly two hundred entries. Past that point two problems decide whether the project survives: finding the thing I already decided, and noticing when a new decision contradicts an old one.

Most tools solve the first and ignore the second. The ones I keep coming back to treat a world as linked entries rather than a folder of documents, so a place, a person and an event each have one page and know about each other. That structure is what makes a contradiction visible.

Everything here is something I use or have used long enough to have an opinion about.

The guides

Lore
The best tools for creating fictional worlds
Nine platforms for building a world, what each is genuinely best at, and the tradeoff each one asks you to accept.
 Lore
The best way to organise your worldbuilding
A structure that survives two hundred entries: what to make an entry, what to make a field, and what to throw away.
 Maps
Do interactive maps actually help with plot planning?
When a map stops being an illustration and becomes an index, and when it is just an expensive picture.
 Wikis
Publishing a world wiki your readers will actually use
Most published world wikis go unread. The ones that work answer a question the reader already has.
 Collaboration
Digital workspaces for managing massive fictional universes
What breaks at a thousand entries and several authors, and which platforms hold up.
9
platforms set up with the same test world
200
entries, three regions, one interactive map
Sep 2026
last verified across every review