How Tome & Quill works
What each part of the app is for, how a DM and a player move through it, and the keys that save a click. Press ? on any page for the shortcuts.
Worlds
A world is the setting your campaigns share: one map, the people and factions in it, its lore and its history. Only you, its DM, can open your worlds; players see the parts you reveal through a campaign.
The world map editor
A new world gets a map generated from a seed: coasts, rivers, mountains, realms, roads and towns. The editor's panels paint terrain, redraw realm borders, place pins and labels, and found or raze towns. Each edit is saved as a step on top of the seed, so the map redraws around your changes and the timeline can show the world before them.
Drag to pan and scroll to zoom; with the map focused, the arrow keys pan, + and - zoom and 0 resets the view.
Settlements, interiors and battlemaps
Click a town on the world map and choose Enter to open its street plan: walls, gates, districts, buildings and the people who live there. Buildings open into interiors, and any place can hold a gridded battlemap for a fight. Each scale is its own map in the same world, and you decide which of them players may enter.
Campaigns
A campaign is one table playing in a world. Its hub is where the DM plans: the party, the next session, notes and what the players have been shown.
Inviting players
From the campaign's invite page, create an invite link and send it to your players. Anyone with the link can ask to join; a seat is confirmed when you approve the player's character. Revoke a link from the same page when the table is full.
Sessions and schedule
Schedule sessions from the hub. Players answer whether they can come, reminders go out before each session, and after it you mark who attended and write a recap for the party.
Play
Play is the player's side of a campaign: the next session, the world as the DM has revealed it, the lore and people met so far, a journal and the party's character.
Joining a campaign
Open the invite link your DM sent and sign in with your email: no password, a link arrives in your inbox. A short onboarding asks about your experience and comfort levels so the DM can plan around them, then you bring or build a character for the DM to approve.
Battles on the tabletop
When a fight starts, the DM runs it on a battlemap: tokens, initiative, conditions, measuring and fog of war. Players follow the fight on the same map and see only what the DM has shared with them. The keys the runner accepts are listed under the map.
Characters
Build D&D 5e characters step by step, keep them on a printable sheet and take them from one campaign to the next. A character belongs to you, not to a campaign.
The character sheet
The sheet tracks hit points, spell slots, conditions and equipment during play, and exports to PDF. Characters are stored in this browser and saved to your account when you are signed in, so they follow you to another device.
Leveling up
Level up from the sheet with a guided wizard that asks only the choices your new level brings. To try a different path without losing the current one, branch the build.
Tools
Table tools that work without an account: dice, initiative, encounter budgets, names, NPCs, loot, ability scores, a bestiary and the world map generator. Most of them remember their last state in this browser.
Compendium
The rules reference: spells, monsters with full stat blocks, magic items, conditions and a rules glossary from the D&D 5e System Reference Document. Press / on the compendium to jump to its search box.
The DM's loop
Running a game moves between the world and the table. A typical cycle:
- Build the worldCreate a world, generate its map and shape it in the editor. Add people, factions and lore; everything starts hidden from players.
- Open a tableStart a campaign in that world and invite your players. Approve each player's character to confirm their seat.
- Prepare a sessionSchedule it, check who can come, and get the places, people and battlemaps you need ready in the world.
- Run itReveal places and lore as the party finds them, run fights on the battlemap, and grant inspiration.
- Close it outMark attendance, write the recap, and let the world change between sessions: its timeline keeps every edit.
The player's loop
Players see the same world as their DM, but only the parts the DM has revealed to them.
- JoinOpen the invite link, sign in with your email and answer a few questions for your DM.
- Bring a characterBuild one or pick one you already have. It stays yours and can move to your next campaign.
- Before a sessionSay whether you can come, read the last recap and see what changed since you last looked.
- At the tableExplore the revealed world map, follow the battle on the shared battlemap, and track your character on its sheet.
- Between sessionsKeep a journal, look back over the people and factions you have met, and watch the world fill in as your DM reveals more.
World terms
The words the world, campaign and play pages use for records, reveals and changes, each in one plain sentence.
Engine terms
- Lore
- Written notes about the setting: places, history, hooks and secrets.
- World lore
- Lore every campaign set in this world shares.
- Campaign lore
- Lore that belongs to one campaign only.
- World canon
- The world's own records, shared by every campaign set in it.
- Add to world canon
- Copy this campaign record into the world so every linked campaign can use it. The campaign keeps its copy, and the world copy starts DM only.
- From a campaign
- Added to world canon from a campaign record, which keeps its own copy.
- Adopt
- Turn a generated feature into a record you can name, edit and reveal. It keeps its place when the map is regenerated.
- Reveal
- Show this to players. Nothing reaches a player until you reveal it, and a link between two records shows only once both ends are revealed.
- Reveal related
- Offer the records linked to this one for reveal in one step. You pick each one; nothing is revealed on its own.
- Chronicle
- Everything that has changed in this world, newest first and grouped by era: map edits, place edits, events and conflicts.
- Compare moments
- Pick two points in the chronicle and see what changed between them.
- Conflict
- A regenerate could not carry one of your edits along. It stays as it was until you decide.
- Show on map
- Open the map centred on this place.
Who can see a record
- DM only
- Only you can see this. New records start here.
- Hidden
- Players cannot see this, as with DM only. Use it for something you shared and took back.
- Shared
- Every player in the linked campaigns can see this.
- Targeted
- Only the players you pick can see this.
Rumors and falsehoods
- Rumor (unconfirmed)
- People in the world say this, but it is not confirmed. It may turn out true or false.
- Proven false
- This is wrong. Players who learned it believed a lie until you reveal the truth.
Where a record came from
- Generated
- Made by the world generator and not yet changed by you.
- Adopted
- A generated feature you made into a record. Its name and place are now fixed.
- Written by you
- You created this by hand.
- From play
- Came out of world events or a session rather than the generator or your pen.
Quest status
- Rumored
- Heard of but not taken up. The party may never pursue it.
- Active
- The party is pursuing it now.
- Resolved
- Finished, whichever way it ended.
- Abandoned
- Dropped before it was finished.
Settling a conflict
- Keep mine
- Keep your version. The regenerated change skips it.
- Take the new version
- Replace your version with the regenerated one.
- Keep as a loose note
- Keep your text as a free-standing note that no longer follows the generated feature.
- Mark merged
- You reconciled the two versions by hand; close the conflict.
Keyboard shortcuts
Press ? on any page to see these in a sheet. Shortcuts are ignored while you type in a field.
Anywhere
- Show keyboard shortcuts
- ?
- Close a dialog or menu
- Esc
Compendium
- Jump to the search box
- /
Initiative tracker
- Next turn
- N
- Previous turn
- P
Battle runner
- Next turn
- N
- Previous turn
- P
- Delay behind the next actor
- D
- Move selected token, or pan the focused map
- ←or↑or→or↓
- Zoom the focused map
- +or-
- Reset the map view
- 0
- Remove selected token
- Del
- Measure
- M
- Preview player fog
- F
- Deselect and clear the ruler
- Esc
Battle viewer
- Pan the focused map
- ←or↑or→or↓
- Zoom the focused map
- +or-
- Reset the map view
- 0
- Measure
- M
- Clear the ruler
- Esc
World map
- Pan the map
- Arrows
- Zoom the map in or out
- +or-
- Reset the map view
- 0