Guide

For the beta · last updated September 2026

Worldline is a place to build a fictional world and publish it: an encyclopedia, a timeline, maps for every period, languages, and stories written inside the world. You can do all of it by hand. AI tools are there if you want them, and everything they write is labelled.

If you want to see a finished world first, open The East Asian Worldline, the example world this guide refers to.

1. Start a world

1. Sign up from the top of any page. You need an email and a password. You can also start without an account; see open worlds below.
2. On the home page, press Start a world and pick one of two ways in:
   • Write it by hand. Free. You start with an empty world and add things as you go. A name is enough to begin.
   • Import your notes with AI. Upload notes you've already written, as a PDF, Markdown or text file. The AI builds a first draft: an overview, the points of divergence, a timeline, encyclopedia entries sorted into categories, and draft maps. This uses credits (see section 9). The price is shown before you start.
3. Choose a map: the real-world map (you colour regions year by year), a map made in Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator, or a picture of a map you drew yourself.
4. Choose who can see it: Draft (only you), Unlisted (anyone with the link) or Public (listed on the home page). Keep it a draft until it's ready.

Everything can change later in World settings: the name, the overview, tags, the language you write in, and who can see it.

Open worlds

An open world has no author: anyone can edit it, including people who aren't signed in. If you start a world without signing in, it's an open world. Signed in, you choose under Who can edit: Only me or Anyone (open world).

• Every change goes into the world's history, and anyone can press Undo to take back the last one.
• Some things can't be undone that way, so in an open world only the site's admins can do them: delete the world, delete a whole language with its dictionary, delete a translation, or change who can see it.
• Writing a story, and deciding what's canon, still needs an account.

2. Add encyclopedia entries

Open your world and go to the Encyclopedia tab, then press + New entry.

• Name and Other names. Any time one of these names appears anywhere in your world, it links to the entry by itself. You don't need to add links by hand.
• Category. Pick one, or make one with + New category…. Categories can sit inside other categories.
• Summary. One or two sentences, shown in lists and on red links.
• Infobox. Short label and value pairs: founded, capital, script, and so on.
• Paragraphs, under headings of your choice.
• Related entries, shown at the bottom of the article.

If you leave the article empty, the entry becomes a red link: it has a name but hasn't been written yet. Red links are useful. They mark what's missing, and other writers can claim one by writing a story about it.

To change an entry, open it and press Edit entry. Every change is saved as a version, and Undo on the world page takes back the last one.

3. Timeline and loose ends

The Timeline tab holds your events. Press + Event, give it a date as it's written in your world, and link the entries it involves.

Loose ends are the open questions in your world: things you haven't decided, or contradictions you've noticed. Add them with + Loose end. Readers see them too, and anyone can write a piece that ties one up.

4. Maps

A world has one map per period, called map years. Press Add a map year to make one. Ticking Start from the map of the year before saves redrawing everything.

Press Edit map to paint. Pick a state, then colour provinces with the Brush, fill a connected area with Fill, or drag the view with Move. A holding can be marked as a colony, a vassal, occupied or claimed, and each is drawn differently.

Map modes show other layers on the same provinces: religion, culture, language, script, economy, or subdivisions inside a state. Add one with + Map mode. Groups can nest, so a subdivision can sit inside a state and a sub-culture inside a culture sphere.

5. Languages and scripts

Under Language & script, press New language. Each language page has:

• Script: letters, each with an image you upload, or a font file for the whole script.
• Sounds: consonants, vowels and notes.
• Grammar: sections of text. A line starting with | makes a table.
• Dictionary: add words one at a time, or paste a whole spreadsheet (word, meaning, part of speech, pronunciation).
• Texts: example sentences with a word-by-word gloss and a translation.
• Write in it: type in the Latin alphabet and see it in your script.

6. Writing in a world

The Writing tab holds stories, novels, poems, essays, scripts and in-world documents such as letters, edicts or newspapers. Press Write something.

• Anyone who is signed in can write in a public or unlisted world, not only its author.
• New pieces start as fanon. The world's author can raise a piece to accepted or canon.
• When a piece adds something new to the world, like a person, a place or an event, the AI can turn it into proposals for the encyclopedia (see section 7). The world's author accepts or rejects each one. Without AI, the author adds the new entries by hand.

7. Using AI, or not

AI is optional, and you decide per world.

Working without AI

In World settings, switch off Use AI tools in this world. No AI buttons appear in that world after that. A world the AI has never written into is marked No AI for readers.

What the AI can do

• Import your notes into a first draft of the world (section 1).
• Add something new to the encyclopedia: describe an idea in a few sentences, and it drafts the entries for you to check.
• Draft map modes such as religion or culture from what the world already says.
• Read the state names off a map picture you uploaded.
• Suggest tags so people can find your world.
• AI writing help in the editor: continue a passage, rewrite it, or change the style. It proposes changes and you decide which to use.
• Add to the encyclopedia with AI: read a finished piece of writing and turn what it adds into proposals.

How AI content is labelled

• A world with any AI-written content carries an AI-assisted badge. So does a piece of writing if you used the writing help in it.
• In the encyclopedia, text the AI inferred rather than took from your notes is shown in blue and marked AI inference, with a link back to the passage it came from.
• Readers can press Hide what the AI wrote to see only what the author wrote.
• When you rewrite an AI paragraph, it counts as yours.

The community rules require AI-written text to be labelled, and the site's labels do that for you.

8. Translation

Public and unlisted worlds are translated automatically, so readers can pick their language from the menu. These translations are made by AI, marked as AI translations, and free for readers. They update after you make changes.

In World settings → Translations you can translate by hand, correct the AI's translation line by line, or add another language. The AI never overwrites a translation you wrote yourself. If you'd rather readers only see your original, switch off Let readers read AI translations for free.

9. What's free, and possible plans

Free, and staying free: reading, writing, editing, the map editor, language pages, and everything else you do by hand. Automatic translation for readers is free too, within the site's limits for very large worlds.

AI tools use credits. Each one shows its price before you start. Prices follow what the AI actually costs to run, so a small job costs a few credits and importing a long document costs more.

Free tries. Anyone without credits gets a few AI runs free, even without an account. They cover the smaller jobs, such as the assistant, tag suggestions and reading a map picture. Importing notes is a much bigger job, so it needs an account and credits.

Possible plans after the beta. Nothing is decided and nothing is charged today. The options being considered are:

• Credit packs: a one-time payment that adds credits to your account.
• A monthly membership: credits every month, plus a supporter badge.

Payment would go through Stripe, so card details would never reach this site. Prices will be posted here before anything is charged, and reading and writing by hand won't cost anything.

10. Your account

• Two-step sign-in: turn it on in Your account with an authenticator app. Keep the recovery codes somewhere safe.
• Your public profile lists your public worlds and writing.
• See something that breaks the rules? Use Report on the page. Reports are read by people.