📜 World history & secrets

👤 For: Game Masters · 💳 Plan: All plans · 🔄 Updated 2026-10-14

Build a timeline of your world's defining events — each with a public summary the party can learn and a private GM truth only you see — then hide secrets behind those events and reveal them mid-campaign to drop loot, boons, or lore straight onto your players' phones.

World History & Secrets on the page of the demo world: an event with Edit, Secrets (1) and Delete, below it the expanded GM Secrets with the GM Truth and a secret with Reveal

What it does

World history is a per-world timeline. Each event carries two layers: a Public Summary (what the players may learn) and a GM Truth (the real story, never shown to players). Behind each event you stash one or more secrets — a hidden fact the party can uncover. When the party earns it, you press Reveal: the secret's status flips to revealed, an item reward lands in the campaign inventory, and a "world lore unveiled" note appears on the players' devices.

When to use it

Use world history when:

  • Your setting has a backstory that matters — a cataclysm, a fallen empire, a god's betrayal — and you want it on record instead of in your head
  • You want rewards tied to discovery: the party digs up the truth about an old war and finds the lost blade that ended it
  • You're running a mystery and want to control exactly when each piece of lore surfaces for the players

Where to find it

World history lives inside a world's detail view, not in its own nav entry:

  1. Open the Worlds & Planes editor.
  2. Open the world you want to work on.
  3. Scroll to the World History & Secrets section below the world's planes, pantheon, and races.

Step by step

Add a historical event

  1. In the World History & Secrets section, press + Event.
  2. Fill in the Title (required) — e.g. The Sundering.
  3. Optionally add an Era / Date (e.g. 1042 of the Third Age) and a Sort number that orders the timeline (lower first).
  4. Write the Public Summary — the version the party is allowed to learn.
  5. Write the GM Truth — the real story. This field is GM-only and never pushed to players.
  6. Optionally paste an Image URL for the event card.
  7. Press Save. The event appears as a card on the timeline with a secrets / revealed count badge.

Hide a secret behind an event

  1. On an event card, press Secrets.
  2. Press + Secret.
  3. Write the Secret text — the hidden truth the party can uncover.
  4. Pick a Reward Type (see the table below) and fill in the matching fields.
  5. Press Save. The secret starts as unrevealed.

Reveal a secret to the party

  1. On an unrevealed secret, press Reveal.
  2. Pick the Campaign whose party uncovers it. (The campaign must belong to this world — otherwise the reveal is rejected.)
  3. Optionally type a player name in Grant to Player to attribute the reward.
  4. Press Reveal. The secret flips to revealed, the reward is granted, and players in the live session get a toast.

💡 Tip: The reveal push only reaches phones during a live session for that campaign. Revealing between sessions still records everything — status, reveal log, and any item reward — so the lore is waiting in the players' inventory next time they connect.

Reward types

Each secret carries exactly one reward. What happens on reveal depends on the type:

Reward type Icon What you fill in What happens on Reveal
Item 🎒 Reward Label, Reward Detail, Item Image URL A new item is added to the campaign inventory (named after the label). It shows up in the player's items list.
Boon ✨ Reward Label, Reward Detail Recorded in the reveal log and shown in the players' toast. No inventory entry.
XP ⭐ XP Value The amount appears in the players' toast as +N XP. No automatic sheet change.
Info 📜 Reward Label, Reward Detail Pure lore. The secret text surfaces to players; nothing is granted. This is the default.

⚠️ Item is the only reward type that writes a real, persistent inventory entry. Boon, XP, and Info are announced and logged, but you apply them by hand to character sheets — Wovenkeep records the moment, it doesn't edit stats for you.

What the player sees

When you reveal a secret during a live session, players get a tappable note on their screen (with a short vibration):

A revealed world secret as a note on a player's phone

The note closes when tapped, or by itself after about seven seconds.

  • The event title and the secret text always appear.
  • For Boon, XP, and Info rewards, the reward line is shown in the note (+N XP, or the label/detail).
  • For an Item reward, the note announces the lore, and the item itself appears in the player's inventory rather than on the reward line.
  • The GM Truth field is never part of this push.

Revealing twice is safe

Pressing Reveal on a secret that's already revealed does not grant a second reward or create a duplicate inventory item. Wovenkeep returns the original reveal and leaves the inventory untouched. You can re-press without fear of double-dipping.

Plan limits

World history is part of the free GM prep toolkit — building timelines, writing secrets, and revealing them costs no Threads and works on every plan. The reward fields take image URLs you paste yourself; generating those images with the AI is a separate, Threads-based action (see Threads & costs).

Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause Fix
The Reveal dialog says "No campaigns linked to this world" No campaign uses this world yet Create or edit a campaign and set its world to this one, then reopen the reveal dialog.
Reveal fails with a "campaign does not belong to this world" message The chosen campaign points at a different world Pick a campaign that actually uses this world, or change the campaign's world.
The reward never reached the players' phones No active live session for that campaign at reveal time The reward and log are still saved. Start (or resume) the session — item rewards are already in the inventory; re-reveal is safe for the toast.
An item reward isn't in the inventory The secret's reward type isn't Item Boon / XP / Info don't write inventory. Edit the secret and set the reward type to Item before revealing.
Deleting an event also removed its secrets Events cascade-delete their secrets by design Re-create the secrets, or edit the event instead of deleting it.