The Characters and things section holds everyone and everything in your world that stands somewhere: the player, the people they meet, and the objects people care about. It is also where the card that tells the narrator who someone is gets written.

What it is for

A person is someone the narrator can write as. A thing is an object that has a place, such as a ledger on a table or a key on a hook. The narrator is told about each person in full, and about a thing only when it matters, so the cast you write here decides who the story can talk about and what each of them is like.

What is in it

At the top is the panel The player. It has two fields:

• Played by: Which person the player is. It must be a person, because the narrator is told about them in full.
• Standing in: Where the player starts. It is read from the player's own form below, so change it there.

Below it, everyone and everything is grouped by type. The Fantasy template has two types, person and thing. Each group has its own Add button, which adds someone new to that group and opens their form. The people group, because its people are written in full, has a second button, Add from my characters. Add your character to a world shows it. Above the groups, a box finds someone by a name or an id.

Choose a row and the form for that one opens below the list. In the editor's words, the form has:

• Name: What the narrator and the player call them.
• Id: A short name that rules use to point at them. Renaming it moves the player pointer and every inventory holding it. A rule that names it is reported, not rewritten.
• Type: Which group they belong to. Changing the type asks first, because it resets their attributes to the new type's defaults.
• Standing in: The place they start in. Pick one from the list, or nowhere for something that is carried or not placed yet.
• What a stranger sees: One line, no name. It is what the narrator writes before anyone has been introduced.
• The player already knows them: Tick Known from the start and their name is available from the first turn.
• Attributes: The notes the type declares, such as a person's mood and trust.
• Inventory: The things this person carries, ticked from the list of things in the world.

A person's form carries one more panel, Card. Its tabs are Who they are, Occupation and traits, What may change, What they know, Sections and Portraits. If the strip is too narrow for all six, scroll it sideways. Who they are is the one to fill first. It holds Pronouns, Identity, Persona, Voice and Public summary. The narrator reads Identity, Persona and Voice word for word every turn that person is in the room. The player reads only the Public summary.

• Occupation and traits: Their occupation, their traits and their abilities, chosen from the words your world defines or typed new.
• What may change: Marks an attribute that is expected to move, with a pace line in your own words.
• What they know: Things this person knows and will tell, each with the keywords that bring it in.
• Sections: Extra text the narrator reads only while a condition holds.
• Portraits: A tag and a reference, stored and nothing more. No picture is shown.

At the bottom of the form, Open in full opens the same person in a longer view, with the whole card on one page. Back to the list returns you here. A cross deletes someone, except the player.

In Saltmere

The Fantasy template comes with two people besides the player, Mother Orwen and Sern, and one thing, the reeve's tally. Their cards hold short notes meant to be replaced with your own words, and Saltmere leaves them as they are.

Saltmere adds a third person, Wren Hollis, copied in from the library. Her card holds her own text, so the shot above shows her Identity and not a note. She stands in The Saltmere light.

When to change it

Add a person for each character a player can meet, and write their Public summary and Identity first. Use a thing for an object a story hangs on. A first world can keep the template's cast and add one person of its own, such as the character you already made.