Writing articles

Everything in a world is an article: a character, a town, a war, a song. Press New article, give it a title and start writing.

Templates and fields

An article's template (Character, Location, Faction, Event…) gives it a few fields, such as Home or Leader, and some headings to start from. Fields that point to another article become links, and the other article lists this one back (a town shows its Inhabitants, a faction its members). You can fill such a list from either end. To put a whole house in a faction, open the faction and tap Edit members (or Members in the small Add line while it has none), then pick people one after the other: Enter takes the person highlighted, and a name nobody has yet comes last, marked Not written yet, and becomes a page to write later. Each person's own Faction field is set, just as if you'd set it on their page, so someone who was in another faction moves over; Canopy says so. Tap × beside someone to take them out, and Done when you're finished. Headings you don't fill in are left out when the article is read, so a short article never looks unfinished. Only the template's own headings are left out: a heading you wrote yourself, or one you typed into by accident, always shows.

• Article is a plain page: no fields and no headings, just your text.
• Title is for a rank or office, such as Head Ranger or Duke of Thornmere: who held it and when, and who's next in line (see Titles).
• Handout is for letters, maps and notes you give to players: who it's From and where it was Found at, then the text itself.

A field that links to another article offers a short list as you tap it: only the kind of article it links to, so a Character's Faction lists your factions and Home your locations. Next to each name is what it is: its variant (Settlement), or else what you wrote as its kind (Castle). Type a few letters to narrow it and tap a name. If it isn't there yet, choose New faction "…" (or new location, new character…): Canopy writes that article straight away, with only its name, for you to fill in later. You can still type any other article's name by hand. A field with several links, such as a culture's Species, shows the names you picked, each with × to take it off; tap the box under them to add another.

Fields about someone (a location's Ruled by, a faction's Leader, an item's Owner, a document's Written by, a handout's From) list people: your characters and your deities, so a city can be ruled by a god. They list titles too, so a town can be ruled by the Duke of Thornmere, whoever holds it: the page shows the title and its holder, Duke of Thornmere (Duke Aldren Vey) (see Titles). Each name says which it is (Deity, Title), and New character "…" makes a character. A deity's page lists what it rules, leads and owns, like a character's, and so does a title's.

Fields about where something is (a location's Part of, a character's Home, a faction's Seat, an event's Place, an item's Kept at) list places: locations and, if your world has them, natural features and planes. So a town can lie in a mountain range, a District can be part of a town, and a throne can be kept in that district. New location "…" makes a location. Each place lists what lies in it and what's kept there.

A Building is a location too: an inn, a temple, a smithy. Choose the Building variant and set its Part of to its town or district, and its Owner to whoever runs it. A town, a district or any other place lists its Buildings on its own page, apart from its Places within, and a character lists the buildings they own under Owns. To add buildings from the town's page, choose Add › Buildings (or Edit buildings), then find a place or type a new name. A place without a variant becomes a Building when you add it there.

A new article starts as a plain Article, unless you start it from a place that already says what it is (a template under Start a new article on the world's start page, or a name pinned under People). Pick another under Template; the starting headings change with it until you've written something.

When you tap a template's heading with nothing under it yet, such as Notable places, and start typing, your words go on the line below it, so you write in that section and the heading stays as it is. To rename one of those headings, select its words and type the new name. A heading you wrote yourself, or one with text under it, you change by tapping in it and typing, as usual. The Preview leaves out empty template headings, just like the article page.

Portraits, crests and pictures

A Character has a Portrait, a Faction a Crest and a Location a Picture: a picture field. Tap Choose a picture to pick one of the world's pictures (it opens on the matching group, such as Portraits) or Add a picture to add a new one, with Who made it? as always; a picture added here goes in that group. Change and Remove sit beside the chosen picture.

The picture shows with the fields in the article's key, the tinted band under the title, like the legend of a map. On a phone the picture sits beside the fields so the text starts soon; on a tablet or bigger the picture comes first and the fields run across in columns. The text follows, with the related articles (Life, Family, Organisation…) beside it, in columns of their own on a big screen. It's small in hover cards and in the family tree's boxes when there's room. Tap it to see it full size, with its credit line. In the sample world, Aldren Vey has a portrait and House Vey a crest.

In the file it's a link to the picture, portrait: "[[Aldren Vey.webp]]", which Obsidian shows too. A template you make can have a picture field too: choose Picture (a portrait, a crest) under Holds (see Templates and families).

Some templates have variants, picked under Variant. A Faction can be a Realm, a Noble house, a Tribe or clan, a Religious order, a Cult, a Knightly order, a Military unit, a Mercenary company, a Guild, a Merchant company, a Criminal gang, a Thieves' guild, Pirates, a Secret society, a Spy network, a School or academy, a Mages' circle, a Council, Rebels, an Adventuring party, a Crew, a Druid circle or a Family business. Most variants simply say what the group is; a few add fields, such as a Secret society's Public face, a Noble house's Motto or a Religious order's Faith, which links to a deity (and the deity lists it under Orders and cults).

A Realm has three fields to help you think about how it's ruled, all optional. Who rules (One, Two, Three, A few, Many, Everyone or Nobody) and How they came to power (By birth, Chosen by vote, By force, By magic…) only change the order of the ideas for Rule. Tap Ideas next to Rule to see them, each with a short line saying what it means: the ones that fit your answers come first, and All ideas shows the rest. Type to narrow the list, or tap an idea to put it in the box. Nothing is filled in for you, and your own words are always fine: type anything, such as Council of three witches, whatever your answers say. In the file it's plain text, rule: Triarchy. The ideas are a fixed list that comes with Canopy. Under Templates in the World menu you can switch off built-in templates your world doesn't need, and make your own (see Templates and families).

The summary

The Summary is a sentence or two shown in hover cards, search results and lists. If you leave it empty, the first sentence of the text is used, wherever it sits: headings with nothing under them yet are skipped. Players never get a sentence from a passage that's only for you or held back for later.

Players see the summary whenever you share the article with them, so never put a secret in it. Secrets go in the GM notes (see Players and spoilers).

Links

Type @ and a few letters to link to another article; pick it from the list with a tap, or with Enter for the highlighted one. Typing [[ works too. The list also has the names on your To write list, such as names pinned on a research board, marked To write; any word of the name finds it, so @Hask finds Hask the Ferryman. If nothing has that name yet, choose Not written yet: the link is marked as not written yet, and following it starts that article for you. Esc closes the list and takes the @ away, so the name stays plain text.

Hover a link (or press and hold on a phone) to see a card with the other article's summary. At the bottom of an article, Mentioned in lists the articles that link to it, and also the GM notes, campaign beats and research boards that link or pin it. Those last ones are yours alone: players only ever see articles they were given.

To write

Names you've linked or pinned but haven't written yet collect in To write, under the article groups in the sidebar (it's hidden when there are none). Each name shows where it's mentioned: in articles, GM notes, beats or on a research board, with the note you wrote on its board card. Write it opens a new article with the title already filled in, and with the template its board column suggests: a name pinned under People starts as a Character, one under Places as a Location. The note on its board card (ch1 p.8 – runs the abbey) comes along as an Only for you line at the top, so page references stay yours even after you share the article. A name that was a slip, like Captain Brannoc for Captain Brannoc Reed, or Old Fen for Old Fennick: tap It's one I wrote… and pick the article you meant. Every link and board pin with that name now points at it, and the name leaves the list; nothing new is written. What your players get doesn't change: if you had shared or handed out the name before it was written, which gave them nothing, Canopy says so, so you can share the article yourself. The world's start page tells you how many are waiting. Players never see this list.

Articles you've started but that still have fewer than 50 words of your own also collect in To write, under Started, still short. Only what you wrote counts: a template's empty headings, todos and pictures don't. Each one shows how many words it has and how often it's linked. Sort them by Most linked, Recently edited, Shortest or A to Z; Canopy remembers your choice on this device. Write more opens the article to edit. Some articles are meant to be short, like a minor innkeeper or a coin: tap It's finished and it leaves the list. The same choice is on the article's own page while it's short, under Edit, with Not finished to put it back. It's written in the article's file as finished: true, so Obsidian keeps it too. Players' characters stay off this list, and players never see whether an article is finished.

Characters your players play (the ones they named when they joined, or you set under Players) aren't yours to write, so they aren't counted. If they have no article yet, they wait in a small group of their own, Your players' characters, with the player's name.

Todos

To leave yourself a note of something still to do, write a line that starts with - [ ] anywhere in an article:

- [ ] Name the landlady of the inn on the jetty

It shows as a checkbox on the article's page, and every open todo also collects in To write, under the article it's in. Tick it there or on the page when it's done: Canopy writes - [x] into the article, the way Obsidian does, and it leaves the list. Todos are yours alone: players and readers never get them, ticked or not, even in an article you shared.

The toolbar

• Heading, Bold, Italic, List, Quote format the text. You can also type Markdown directly (## Heading, **bold**).
• Link starts an @ link.
• Picture puts one of the world's pictures in the text, or a new one you add. It's kept as ![[Name.webp]], so Obsidian shows it too. When reading, the picture is as wide as the text with its credit line under it (Picture: Hyperion, and the AI placeholder badge when it is one); tap it to see it full size.
• Later hides a passage from players until a date in your world, until an event has happened, or until you release it (see Time and the timeline).
• GM only marks lines that only you will ever read, even when the article is shared. That holds inside a list too: a list item that is a GM only quote is left out for players, and the rest of the list stays.

On a phone the toolbar takes two rows: the writing buttons on top, Later, GM only, Undo and Redo below.

A Later or GM only passage carries on to the next line when you press Enter once. Press Enter twice to end it: what you write next is normal text again. Pressing Later or GM only just after a passage starts a new one below it, never one inside it.

You can also type them by hand, the way they're saved: a quote (a line starting with >) whose first line is just Later, Later: with a date, a name or a link to an event (Later: Fall 212 DY, Later: [[The Fall of Ivy Hall]]), Only for you or GM only works the same as the buttons, in any capitals. Canopy saves it with its marker, so Obsidian and your players read it the same way. A quote that only starts with the word, like Later, the king died., stays an ordinary quote.

Focus hides everything but the writing, and the editor counts your words (on a phone the count shows in Focus). A long article gets a Contents box from its headings.

Other names

Also known as gives an article other names (a nickname, an old name). Search and links find it by any of them.

Deleting an article

Delete is next to Edit on the article's page. Canopy first tells you what deleting touches: which articles link to it, whose family it's in, and, for each campaign, who has it, where it's handed out, pinned or someone's character. Press Delete for good to go ahead, or Keep it.

Deleting removes the article and its GM notes; you can't undo it. To keep a copy, choose Download as zip in the World menu first. Players lose it, and it's taken out of beats' handouts, so a new article with the same name is never handed out by mistake. Everything else stays: links to it, family links in other articles, research board pins and player characters keep its name, as not written yet. It goes on To write, so you can write it again.