Templates and families

Templates

Open Templates from the World menu. A template gives an article its fields and the headings it starts with. There are two sorts.

Built in: Character, Location (with the variants Settlement, Region, District and Building), Faction (with twenty-three variants, from Realm and Noble house to Pirates and Family business; see Writing articles), Title (see Titles below), Species, Deity, Event, Item, Document, Handout, Route (a road or a sea lane between two places, see Maps and travel) and the plain Article, which has no fields and no headings. They are Canopy's own and the same in every world, so family trees, lives, maps and links can always count on them, and when Canopy improves one, every world gets it. You can't change them, but you can leave one out: choose it and switch off In this world. A world without gods switches off Deity, and it's gone from New article, the sidebar and the lists to pick from. Articles you already wrote of that kind keep working: Canopy says how many there are, and they still open, show their fields and turn up in search. Switch it back on at any time. Every world keeps the plain Article.

Your own: anything else, such as a Spell, a Ship or a Recipe. New template makes one; Premade templates are ready to add with one tap (Natural feature, Creature, Religion, Language, Culture and more; see Cultures below). Natural feature is for the land itself: a river, a mountain range, a glacier, a reef, and some thirty more, each a variant. Most variants simply say what the feature is; a few add fields, such as a river's Rises in and Flows into. Location stays for the places people live in and rule.

Choose one of your own templates to change it:

its name and icon;
its fields: text, a choice from a list, a link to another article (for example a ship's Captain), links to several articles (a ship's Crew), a list of values, or a picture (a portrait, a crest). A link field's Links to says which kind of article it suggests (Captain → Character), People (characters, deities and your templates that count as people), Places (locations, natural features, planes and your templates that count as places), or Anything;
what it Counts as: People (a Dragon can then rule a city or own a sword), Places (a Temple can then hold a relic or be part of a town), or Neither, which your own templates start as;
the headings a new article starts with;
variants: kinds of this template. A variant can simply say what something is, or add fields of its own. Variants fold up to their name; tap one to change it. Add a premade variant brings back premade ones you removed.

Changing a template never changes what you've already written. Fields you remove from a template stay in the article file, and the article still shows them to you as plain fields. The same goes for fields an import brought in (like "Created by") or that you added in Obsidian. Players never see these. To change or remove one, edit the article: they're under Other fields, each with a Remove button.

Worlds made before built-in templates existed may have changed one, for example a Character with a Mood field. Such a template is Canopy's own again when the world opens; nothing in the article files changes, and Mood still shows on each article that has one. A built-in template the world didn't have yet starts out switched off. A template of your own that was already called Title when Canopy's Title arrived is kept as Title (own), with its fields, headings and articles as they were.

Families

Characters (and anything else with family) have a Family box. While someone has no family yet, it waits as Family in the small Add line at the end of their page; tap it (or Edit family once there is some), then Add a relative: a parent, a child, a partner or a sibling. Type a name and press Enter to take the person highlighted in the list; a name nobody has yet comes last, marked Not written yet, and picking it adds them as a page to write later. Canopy keeps both sides in step, so Isolde's mother lists Isolde as her daughter. A Child gets the person's spouse or partner as their other parent too, when they have just one (not a former or a secret one), and the child has no other parent yet. If that's not right, open the child and take the other parent out under Edit family. Family tree draws the whole family. When a family is too wide to read as a tree (on a phone, or a big family on a tablet), it opens as the List, and says so; Tree at the top always draws the whole family. A house or dynasty gets a tree of all its members.

A Sibling shares the person's parents. When the parents aren't known yet, you can still add a sibling: the two are simply brothers and sisters, and the tree draws them side by side on one row, joined by a dotted line above (siblings, parents not known). Once you give them their parents, they share them like any siblings. In the file, such a sibling is a plain list of links, as siblings: in the frontmatter.

Print options on a tree page set what Print puts on paper: a Title, Dates on boxes (from Born and Died, or the person's dates on the timeline; the boxes show the years, such as 270 – 331 LA, and the List shows the full dates), and Fit on one page (a wide tree prints sideways; without it, the tree prints at full size over as many pages as it needs, starting under the title, and a page only ever breaks between two generations). Show chooses who it's for: Everything, secrets too; Without secrets, which leaves out relations that are secrets in your GM notes; or, for a campaign, What all its players know or what one player knows, which leaves out the people and relations they can't see.

Secret relations

A family secret ("his true father is the old king") belongs in the GM notes. Write it as a secret in the GM notes of the article, then tap + Hidden family tie under it and choose the person and how they are related. It's the same list as in Edit family: Enter takes the highlighted person, so "Rusk" finds Captain Rusk, and someone who isn't written yet says so before you pick them. A tie needs both: if you choose how they're related but nobody yet, saving asks you to choose the person (or set the tie to (nothing)). The tree shows it to you as a secret, and players only see it if you share that secret with them (see Players and spoilers).

Keep the official story as a Rumoured parent ("everyone believes the king is his father"). Whoever doesn't know the secret, a player or a tree printed Without secrets, sees the rumoured parent simply as the parent, with a plain line: a "rumoured" mark would hint that there's more to know.

Organisations

A faction can be Part of another one: the Third Legion is part of the Imperial Army, which is part of the Empire. Set it in the faction's own Part of, or add it from the bigger group's Groups within list. Characters still say which group they belong to in their Faction.

Once a faction has groups within it, or is part of one, its page shows Organisation with Organisation chart: the whole organisation from the top, each group under the one it's part of, with who leads it and how many members it has. It reads top to bottom, so it fits a phone, and Print puts it on paper. A faction on its own shows nothing, so the chart only appears where you use it.

The sample world has one to look at: House Vey, with its Heron Guard and Lake Watch, the household of Ivy Hall, and the Grey Feathers, a hidden order within the guard that the players of The Drowned Crown don't have yet.

Titles that are part of a group show in its box on the chart, each with who holds it now, or vacant: in the sample, the Heron Guard has its Captain of the Heron Guard, and the Lake Watch a Keeper of the Ferry that nobody holds yet. When a group's Leader is a title, the chart says who holds it: Duke of Thornmere (Duke Aldren Vey).

A secret group stays secret. Players only get the groups you've shared with them: a group they don't have is left out of their chart and of the Groups within list, together with every group within it, and nothing on their side says it's there. Share it (from its page, or with the share button under each group in the chart, for your active campaign) and it appears for them. Show on the chart lets you see it as a campaign's players, or one player, see it.

Titles

A Title is an article like any other: Head Ranger, Duke of Thornmere, High Priestess of the Moon. It has four fields:

Kind of title: what sort of title it is, such as Duke. Write the kind once (what a duke is, what a duke may do) as a title of its own, and point each specific title at it: Duke of Thornmere is a duke, with its own seat and history. The kind's page lists its titles and who holds each. A title doesn't need a kind.
Before the name: what goes before the holder's name, such as Duke, Sir or Captain. Usually written on the kind, so every duke gets it; a specific title can write its own, which wins over its kind's. See Names with their title below.
Part of: the group it belongs to, the same field factions use. The group's page lists it under Titles, and its organisation chart shows it with its holder.
Seat: where it's held from, when that's not simply its group's seat. The place's page lists it under Seat of titles.

Holders

A title's page has a Holders box: who holds it now, in bold, and who held it before, newest first, each with their years (455 AK – 180 DY, since 180 DY). Who holds it "now" is worked out at your active campaign's present day, or else at Today in the world. When nobody holds it then, the box says Vacant now. Tap Edit holders to change the list: Add a holder, then their From and To in your world's dates (leave To empty while they hold it); × takes someone off. Next in line is the title's line of succession, in order: Add to the line, and the arrow moves someone up. Press Save when you're done.

On a person's page, the GM can give them a title in a few taps: Title in the small Add line at the end of the page, pick the title (or type a new one, which Canopy writes for you), say Since when if you like, and Give title. Their page then shows a Titles line with every title they hold; one they held before, or will hold later, has its years beside it. What they lead and rule through a title they hold now shows too: Rules: Ivy Hall, Thornmere; with two titles or more, each says which (as Duke of Thornmere). An Occupation that only repeats a title they hold isn't shown twice.

A field about someone can name a title as well as a person: a location's Ruled by, a faction's Leader, an item's Owner. The page then shows the title and who holds it: Ruled by: Duke of Thornmere (Duke Aldren Vey). When the title changes hands, every place it rules follows, without changing them one by one. In the sample, Thornmere and Ivy Hall are ruled by the Duke of Thornmere, and House Vey is led by it.

In the file, holders and the line of succession are plain lists, oldest first, which Obsidian shows as list properties:

holders:
  - "[[Aelar Vey]] (455 AK – 180 DY)"
  - "[[Aldren Vey]] (180 DY – Winter 212 DY)"
  - "[[Edric Vey]] (from Winter 212 DY)"
succession:
  - "[[Edric Vey]]"

The brackets may also say since 590 AK or until 612 AK, or be left out. Renaming someone keeps their place in the list.

Names with their title

While someone holds a title, Canopy names them with it, in two forms:

Short: the kind's Before the name, then the name: Duke Aldren Vey. It's used wherever Canopy names someone in a few words: the page heading, the sidebar and lists, fields such as Leader and Ruled by, the family tree, the organisation chart, search, the world book and the player handbook. A title with nothing before the name leaves the name as it is.
Full: the name, then the title itself: Aldren Vey, Duke of Thornmere. It shows where there's room for a formal line: on the card that opens when you hover over a link, and for a person who leads a group on the organisation chart. On the person's page the title goes on its own line under the heading, and the Other titles line lists any others.

In the sample, Aldren Vey holds the Duke of Thornmere, whose kind Duke says Duke before the name; Captain Brannoc Reed holds the Captain of the Heron Guard, a kind of Captain.

Only what Canopy writes itself changes. The article is still called Aldren Vey, links and the file keep that name, and text you wrote stays exactly as you wrote it. Search finds him as Aldren Vey and as Duke Aldren Vey. A name that already starts with the style (Captain Brannoc Reed) doesn't get it twice. Someone holding several titles at once is named after the first on their Titles line (the one they took most recently) that has something before the name.

The title counts only while it's held, at your active campaign's present day or else at Today in the world: before 180 DY he is plain Aldren Vey, and from his death in Winter 212 DY his heir is Duke Edric Vey. Players whose campaign is still before that never learn when Aldren's rule ends or who comes next. Players see a name with its title only when they have the title and the person, and the holder took it by their campaign's present day; otherwise they see the plain name, so a name never gives a title away.

Players get titles like anything else you share. They only see holders and people next in line whose pages they have, nobody who takes the title after their campaign's present day (or after Today in the world when the campaign has none), and not when a holder they know of will give it up. A title they have shows no vacant: they may just not know who holds it. A secret claimant or true heir belongs in a secret in the title's GM notes, to share when the time comes.

Cultures

Species and culture are different things: the elves of an old forest and the elves of a young city are one species but two cultures, and a half-elf raised in a human city has an elven parent but a human culture. A world that wants to write cultures apart adds the Culture template from Premade templates. A world that doesn't never sees it, and a Species keeps its Culture heading either way.

A culture has four fields, all optional:

Species: who lives it. It can name several, since a culture can mix species. Pick one, then tap the box again to add the next; × takes one off.
Homeland: the place it comes from.
Languages: the languages it speaks, if your world has the Language template.
Faith: its religion, if your world has the Religion template.

Its headings are Values and customs, Daily life, Names, Arts and crafts and History.

Once your world has the Culture template, a Character has a Culture field next to Species, and a Faction has one too. The culture's page lists its People and Factions, and each species lists its Cultures. To give someone a culture on a phone, open the culture and tap People in the small Add line (or Edit people), then pick them one after the other; or set Culture on the person's own page.

In the file, the culture's species and languages are lists of links, which Obsidian shows as a list property and which follow a rename:

type: culture
species:
  - "[[Elf]]"
  - "[[Human]]"
homeland: "[[The Silverwood]]"

In the sample world, the Silverwood Elves are the culture of Aldren Vey, Saelith of the Silverwood and House Vey; Elf lists them under Cultures.

Players get a culture like any other article: only when you share it. A person's or a faction's Culture naming one they don't have is left out for them, and so are the species, homeland or people on a culture's page that they don't have.