🖼️ Scene push

👤 For: Game Masters · 💳 Plan: All plans · 🔄 Updated 2026-10-17

The scene push is the single most-used action in a Wovenkeep live session. It paints a full-bleed image with a title and read-aloud description onto every connected player phone in under a second — no apps, no sharing links, no fuss.

The 🎬 Push scene card with a title and description typed in, below it 📋 Prepared scenes (a pushed one is marked ✓ used)

What it does

Every time you push a scene, every player's phone immediately shows a card with your chosen image, title, and description. Players can tap the image to expand it fullscreen. Pushing text-only scenes (no image) works just as well — useful for travel montages, narration, or internal monologue.

When to use it

Use a scene push any time you want to anchor the players' imagination: walking into a new location, a dramatic reveal, a weather change, the start of a tense encounter. Prepared scenes push in one click if you prepped them in advance; on-the-fly scenes let you write directly during the session.

Anatomy of a scene push

A pushed scene has four parts:

Field Required What it does
Title recommended Bold Cinzel heading at the top of the scene card on phones
Description yes Read-aloud body text. Markdown supported (*italic*, **bold**, line breaks). On phones it starts collapsed; on the TV it appears only with Also show text on the TV.
Image optional Background image. Renders full-bleed up to 45vh; tap to expand fullscreen.
Overlay optional Particle effect layered over the whole screen — rain / snow / fog / embers / fireflies / none

If you omit the image, the scene becomes a pure text card. Text-only pushes are always free.

Step by step — pushing a scene on the fly

This is the path for scenes you write during the session rather than prep.

  1. In the GM tool, switch to 🎮 Live mode (if not already active).
  2. Open the Scenes & Sound section (first item in the live sidebar).
  3. Locate the Push Scene card. Fields are arranged top-to-bottom:
    • Title input
    • Description text box (3 rows visible, expands as you type)
    • Image URL (optional) with the button 🗂️ Choose from media
    • Overlay dropdown (defaults to None)
    • Checkbox Also show text on the TV (off by default)
  4. Fill in the fields. For the image you have two options:
    • Paste a URL — any secure image link
    • 🗂️ Choose from media — pick one of your pictures or portraits; the dialog can also upload a new picture, and you can drag a file straight onto it. The address lands in the field. See Choose from media.
  5. Click 📤 Push Scene.

The GM log on the right edge of the screen confirms with an entry like 🎬 The Shattered Gate. Every connected phone shows the scene almost instantly — a fraction of a second on Wi-Fi, up to about a second on mobile data.

💡 Tip: Open 🗂️ Choose from media and drag an image file from your desktop onto the dialog — Wovenkeep uploads it and fills the image field.

What the player sees

A pushed scene with fog on the player's phone

The scene fades up gently — subtle enough not to steal attention, clear enough that latecomers notice.

  • On phones the read-aloud text starts collapsed behind 📖 Read the text, so everyone looks at the picture and listens to you; anyone who wants to reread it taps the button.
  • On the TV only the image and title appear by default. For letters, inscriptions or riddle text, tick Also show text on the TV before you push: the text then appears on the TV too and opens straight away on phones. The checkbox applies to the current live session and is off again after a reload.

Pushing a prepared scene

If you prepped scenes during the planning phase (recommended for set-piece moments), pushing them takes one click and automatically triggers several things at once.

  1. In Scenes & Sound, find the card 📋 Prepared scenes below the 🎬 Push scene card.
  2. It lists every prepared scene of the campaign as a button — with icons for overlay and sound, and ✓ used once you pushed it. If you grouped your scenes into acts and chapters, small headings Act · Chapter sort them; scenes without a chapter come last under No chapter.
  3. Click a scene. It is pushed right away — with the title, description, image and overlay from prep.

The 📋 Prepared scenes card in Live: the headings Into the Dark · A Summons at Midnight, Into the Dark · Whispers & the Descent and Into the Dark · Into the Felsenkeller, each with its scenes as buttons with overlay and sound icons and 📤

The card is small and scrolls once you have many scenes. Players never see acts or chapters.

What fires automatically on a prepared scene push

Beyond showing the scene on player phones, Wovenkeep chains these side effects immediately — no extra clicks:

  • Background sound — the sound chosen for the scene starts automatically and loops: a soundscape (e.g. tavern, forest, dungeon, battle), one of your own uploads or an AI sound. It plays on all phones — or on the TV, if 📺 Sound via: is set to TV (see Sound on the TV).
  • Encounter auto-start — any combat encounters linked to the scene with auto-start enabled launch as a single combined combat (all auto-start encounters merge into one initiative tracker). Combat encounters without auto-start appear as a floating offer button you can trigger manually at any point during the scene. Social, exploration, trap and puzzle encounters never start a fight — each leaves a line such as 🪤 Trap: Collapsing cellar stairs in the 📋 Log (see Encounter types).
  • Clues for this scene — if clues are linked to the scene, the card 🔍 Clues for this scene appears with each clue's saved state: ✓ Found as a button for planted clues, ✓ Found or 🌾 Harvested as text for the others, and 🔍 As handout for every clue.
  • Lair-Actions panel — if the scene has a lair defined, the Lair-Action button panel loads in the initiative tracker automatically.
  • Scene clocks — the card ⏳ Clocks switches to This scene: … and shows the scene's clocks; all other clocks stay below under Other clocks (see Clocks in the live session).
  • Scene marked as used — the scene is flagged as used in your prep tracker so you can see which set pieces you've visited.
  • Secrets badge — if the scene has a secrets field, it appears in the GM log entry (players never see it).

Own and AI sounds: A sound file chosen for the scene — uploaded or made with AI — plays on push just like a soundscape and takes its place. You choose it in the scene's 🔊 Sound list, see Scenes (prep).

The card 🔍 Clues for this scene after pushing the cellar entrance: two clues, the first already ✓ Found, the second with ✓ Found and 🔍 As handout

Where prepared scenes come from — 📋 Prep → Preparation → 🎬 Scenes & Sound. Acts and chapters are optional; see Scenes (prep).

Overlays — particle effects

The overlay dropdown adds an environmental layer on top of the scene image. It works with or without an image.

Overlay What it looks like Best for
None Nothing Default — most scenes
rain Falling drops, slight angle Rainy weather, melancholy
snow Slow downward flakes Cold biomes, winter
fog Drifting white haze Mystery, undead, swamps
embers Slow-rising orange particles Fires, hot caves, forges
fireflies Drifting yellow sparkles Forests at night, fey realms

Overlays are layered over the scene image (so they're visible even on a full-bleed background) and persist until you push a new scene with a different overlay or set it to none.

You can also trigger an overlay independently of a scene push — use the quick-tap row in Scenes & Sound:

🌧️  ❄️  🌫️  🔥  ✨  ⏹

One tap per icon — same overlay set, applied without changing the active scene.

Pushing an image from an NPC or item

Want to show a player "what the wizard looks like" mid-session? Push the portrait as a scene: click 🗂️ Choose from media in the Push Scene card and pick the portrait (or paste its image URL), add the name as the title, and hit 📤 Push Scene.

Discord push (optional)

If you've connected Discord (Discord settings), there's a 🎮 Discord switch below the Push Scene button (tooltip "Also send to Discord"). When on, every scene push also posts to your configured Discord channel as an embed:

  • Image as the embed image
  • Title as the embed title
  • Description as the embed body

Useful for hybrid games (some players in person, some on Discord) or for sharing a recap with players who couldn't attend.

Plan limits

Scene pushes are free and unlimited on every plan — with or without an image, including the free Adventurer plan.

What Adventurer (free) Game Master / Storyteller / Guild Master
Text-only scene pushes Unlimited Unlimited
Image pushes Unlimited Unlimited
Image suggestion (AI) per image 5 Threads 5 Threads

Once Tantu suggests an image (AI), subsequent pushes of that same image are free — the Thread cost is for the suggestion, not the push.

See Threads & costs and Pricing.

What gets recorded

Every scene you push is recorded in the session event log. After the game, Session Log shows you the full scene order — handy for writing the recap or just reconstructing what happened.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause Fix
Image doesn't appear on phones, text does Linked from an insecure or broken source Upload it into your Media Library and use it from there
One phone is stuck on the old scene That phone briefly lost connection Have the player rescan the QR code
Image is rotated 90° on iPhone The photo's built-in orientation tag Re-save the image (or upload it as PNG/WebP instead of the original photo)
Push check shows one phone as slow Player is on weak mobile data Suggest Wi-Fi; the slow phone still receives everything, just with a short delay
Sound doesn't start on prepared scene push No sound is chosen for the scene (— No Sound —) Pick a sound in the scene's 🔊 Sound list, see Scenes (prep)
Encounter didn't auto-start Encounter is not linked to the scene, auto-start is off, or its type is not ⚔️ Combat In 📋 Prep → ⚔️ Encounters, open it with ✏️: choose ⚔️ Combat, link the scene and tick ⚡ Auto-Start, then 💾 Save
No 🔍 Clues for this scene card No clue is linked to the scene, or you pushed it from 🎬 Push scene Link the clue to the scene in Foreshadowing and push it from 📋 Prepared scenes
Lair panel didn't appear Scene has no lair defined In Prep → Scenes → cast, add a lair to the scene