Cloning copies parts of one campaign's setup into another campaign. If you have spent a long time building a stat system, an ability list, a shared item library or a cast of NPCs, you do not have to build it again for your next campaign, you can copy it across.

It is meant primarily for setup and not for saved games. Cloning copies the building blocks of a world. It does not copy your players, their characters, your maps, your quests or your notes, but continue reading below for full information.

Where to find it

Open your User Dashboard. At the top of the Campaigns card there is an orange Clone Campaign Data button. This is a personal tool, not a campaign one — it does not appear inside a campaign's left navigation.

Which campaigns you can choose

The page has two dropdowns:

• Copy from campaign — a campaign you own, or a campaign you are a member of whose Game Owner has turned on Allow cloneable data?. You must be a member of it either way. You cannot clone from a campaign you are not in.
• Copy to campaign — a campaign you own. You cannot clone into someone else's campaign.

The two must be different campaigns. If they match, Chronica stops and tells you to pick another.

Cloning, step by step

1. Choose the campaign to copy from.
2. Choose the campaign to copy to.
3. Decide whether to tick Overwrite previously cloned data?. Leave it unticked the first time. See 5.3.
4. Choose one section from the list. Only one can be cloned at a time.
5. Click Initiate Clone Data, check the campaign names in the window that appears, then click Confirm Clone Data.
6. Wait for the page to come back. Then repeat from step 1 for the next section.

Cloning one section at a time is deliberate. Each section is a large amount of work for the server, and doing them separately avoids errors part-way through.

What happens in the destination campaign

Cloning adds and updates. It does not delete your NPCs, entities, items, stat groups or abilities, and it does not rename the ones you built yourself. There are three things to know about, all of them covered where they belong:

• On a tier below Knight, cloning an Item Library clears Image Library pictures from every item and container in the destination library, not only the cloned ones. See 5.1.
• Currencies are matched by name, so a currency you created yourself can be matched and changed by a clone. See 5.1.
• Cloning an NPC or entity again with Overwrite ticked rebuilds its ability list from the source campaign, which drops any abilities you added to it by hand. See 5.3.

Most clones are recorded in the destination campaign's Activity Log, naming the section, the campaign it came from and that campaign's Game Owner. If nothing appears in the log, check that the clone actually had something to copy.

There are seven sections you can clone. Here is what each one brings with it.

Ability Types

Copies your Ability Type folders, the Ability Types themselves, and every Ability inside them, including their tags. The Ability Types arrive inside the folders they were in.

Stat Groups

Copies your Stat Group folders, your Stat Groups and every Stat inside them. The Stat Groups arrive inside the folders they were in.

NPCs

Copies your NPC folders and every NPC in the Codex, with their descriptions, notes, secrets, alignment, disposition, faction and status.

An NPC's stats and abilities come with it only if you have already cloned Stat Groups and Ability Types from the same campaign. Chronica matches each stat and ability to its copy in the destination campaign. If there is no copy to match, that stat or ability is left off the NPC. See 5.2.

Uploaded NPC portraits are copied. Pictures chosen from the Image Library are a different matter — see the note on images at the end of this section.

Entities

Copies Entity folders and every Entity, with the same rule about stats and abilities needing to be cloned first, and the same handling of pictures.

Item Library

Copies your Item Library folders, containers and items, including item names, descriptions, tags, weights, values and GM secrets. If the destination campaign has no Item Library yet, one is created.

Campaign Shops

Copies each shop, its containers and everything stocked in it, and reconnects the shop to its NPC if that NPC has already been cloned from the same campaign.

Three things are deliberately reset on the copy:

• The shop's till is set to zero. Money does not travel between campaigns.
• The shop owner is cleared. Player-owned shops are copied, but the copy has no owner, because the player who owned it is not in the destination campaign.
• Shop folders are not copied. Cloned shops arrive outside any folder, and you can sort them afterwards.

The currency warning above applies to shop stock as well, and shop item resource prices do not transfer either.

Currencies

Copies the denominations only — the names and values that make up your currency system. It does not copy anyone's money.

Currencies are matched differently from everything else. Chronica looks for a currency in the destination campaign with the same name. If it finds no match by name, it creates a new currency. If it does find one, it leaves that currency alone unless you have ticked Overwrite and the two values differ, in which case it changes the value to match the source campaign.

A note on pictures

Pictures you uploaded yourself are copied along with the NPC, entity, item, container or shop they belong to.

Pictures chosen from Chronica's Image Library are only kept if the destination campaign is on a tier that includes the Image Library. If it is not, the record is still cloned but arrives without a picture, and you can add one later if the campaign moves to a tier that includes the library. See the pricing table for which tiers include it.

What cloning does not copy

Only the seven sections above can be cloned at this time. Everything else in a campaign stays where it is, including:

• Player Characters, and your players themselves
• Places, Domains & Regions, and Maps
• Quest Log, Plot Catalog and Encounters
• Kinships and Family Trees
• Campaign Calendar, Events and Attendance
• Adventure Notes and the Activity Log
• File Hub files
• Profile Templates
• Campaign settings, the campaign picture and the About text

Some sections depend on others. If you clone them in the wrong order, nothing breaks and nothing is lost, but pieces arrive empty and you have to clone again to fill them in.

Work down this list, cloning one section at a time. Skip any you do not use.

1. Currencies — first, so item and shop values are read against the right denominations.
2. Ability Types — before anything that has abilities on it.
3. Stat Groups — before anything that has stats on it.
4. NPCs — now their stats and abilities have something to match.
5. Entities — now their stats and abilities have something to match.
6. Item Library — after Currencies.
7. Campaign Shops — last, so shops can reconnect to their NPCs.

If you cloned in the wrong order

Clone the missing section, then clone the section that needed it again with Overwrite previously cloned data? ticked. The second pass finds the NPCs or entities it cloned before and fills in the stats and abilities that now have matches. See 5.3 for what else Overwrite changes.

Overwrite previously cloned data? only matters when you clone the same section from the same campaign more than once. The first time you clone anything, it makes no difference.

Chronica remembers which records in your campaign arrived by cloning, and which original record each one came from. That memory is what the checkbox acts on.

Two sections do not follow the table. Currencies are matched by name rather than by clone history — see 5.1. Campaign Shops re-copy every picture on every clone, ticked or not, so cloning shops repeatedly uses more of your file storage each time.

What Overwrite never does

• It does not delete records. Something removed from the source campaign since your last clone is not removed from yours.
• Apart from currencies, it does not touch records you created by hand. Only records that arrived by cloning are eligible.
• It does not act on records cloned from a different campaign. Each cloned record remembers the specific record it came from.

When to use it

Ticking the box is the right choice when the source campaign is a template you maintain, you have changed something in that template, and you want your other campaigns brought back in line with it. It is also how you fill in stats and abilities that were missing because you cloned in the wrong order — see 5.2.

Leave it unticked when you are treating the clone as a starting point and have since made the copy your own.

A template campaign is an ordinary campaign that you build to be copied from. There is no special campaign type and no setting that turns one on. It is a campaign you never actually play in.

Templates are worth the effort if you run several campaigns in the same game system, or if you set up campaigns for other people.

Building one

1. Create a new campaign and give it a name that makes its purpose obvious, such as "Template — 5e" or "House Rules Master".
2. Build the parts you want to reuse: your Ability Types, Stat Groups, Currencies, Item Library and any NPCs or Entities that turn up in every game you run.
3. Keep it tidy. Everything in the template gets copied, so anything half-finished is copied half-finished.
4. Clone from it into each new campaign, following the order in 5.2.

Keeping it up to date

When you improve something in the template, you can push that change out to the campaigns you built from it. Clone the section again with Overwrite previously cloned data? ticked. Read 5.3 first — Overwrite also replaces any changes you made to those records in the campaign you are updating.

Building a template for someone else

The Copy to campaign list only offers campaigns you own, so you cannot set up another person's campaign for them by cloning it yourself. Instead, turn on Allow cloneable data? in your template's settings and add them to it as a player. They can then clone from your template into their own campaign. 5.5 covers this.

By default, you are the only person who can clone from your campaign. The Game Owner can change that with a single setting.

Turning it on

1. Open the campaign and click Edit Campaign.
2. Find Allow cloneable data? under Preference Settings.
3. Switch it to yes and save.

Only the Game Owner sees this setting. Game Masters do not.

What it does

With it switched on, any player in the campaign can choose it in their own Copy from campaign list and clone its sections into a campaign they own. They do not gain any access inside your campaign, and the Copy to campaign list only ever offers people campaigns they own themselves.

It is the setting to use when you want to share a system you have built — with a co-GM starting their own game, or with a group of friends who all want the same house rules.

Turning it off again

Switching it back to no stops any new clones immediately. It does not affect anything that has already been cloned — those copies belong to the campaigns they were cloned into.