Every world is full of things that are not people: wolves in the forest, bandits on the road, a silver dragon in the mountains. In Chronica, these are Entities, and they live in the Entity Codex.

In August we rebuilt the Entity Codex. The biggest change is simple: your players can now see it. You decide which creatures they see, and when.

Entities and NPCs

Entities and NPCs are easy to mix up, but the difference is simple:

• The Entity Codex is for kinds of things: "Wolf", "Bandit", "Silver Dragon".
• The NPC Codex is for specific, named people: "Balto", "Frank", "Quintellion".

If your players will meet six of something and none of them has a name, it is an entity. If one bandit survives and becomes a recurring villain, give him a name and an NPC profile.

Build it once

Each entity has a name, a type, a disposition, a picture, stats, abilities, a description, and notes. You only need a name to start, and you can add the rest later.

Disposition shows how this kind of creature usually feels about the party: Unknown, Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral, Friendly, or Ally. It shows as a color on cards and a badge in the table, so you can see the dangerous ones quickly.

Need a family of similar creatures? Build your Wolf, then click Duplicate. Rename the copy to Dire Wolf or Winter Wolf, and change only what is different. The copy keeps almost everything, including stats, abilities, tags, and the picture. It does not copy extra images or links.

The copy also keeps the original's Secret? setting. If you copy an entity your players can already see, they can see the copy too. If the copy is a surprise, turn Secret? back on.

A Bestiary your Players can Discover

Every entity has a Secret? switch. New entities start as secret, so nothing is shown to your players until you choose to show it.

Here is a good way to use it: when the party meets a new creature, turn off Secret? after the session. Over time, the codex becomes a record of everything your players have discovered. It works like a field guide that fills up as they explore.

Players can read the description and notes. The Game Master Secrets box is only for you. Even when an entity is visible, players never see what you write there. Use it for the twist: the "bandits" are really cultists, or the statue in the hall can move.

Want to check what you have not revealed yet? Open Search and set Player Visibility to "Game Master only".

Folders, groups, and tags

Sort entities into folders by type, by region, or by story arc. Put folders into groups when the list gets long. The sidebar shows how many entities are in each folder, and a filter box appears when you have more than six folders.

Tags help you find things across folders. Tag every flying creature with flying, then click the tag to see all of them at once, no matter which folder they are in.

There are also Secret Tags, which only Game Masters can see. Use them for things like act-three or actually-a-devil. They are a separate field, so a spoiler cannot end up in the public tags by accident.

Three ways to view

• Card shows large picture cards. This view is the best for browsing, and the nicest one to show your players.
• Compact shows smaller cards, so more fit on the screen.
• Table shows a list. This view is the best when you know what you are looking for.

Chronica remembers the view you chose. Each person has their own setting, so your choice does not change what your players see.

All Entities shows the whole codex as a paged table with a column for each entity's folder. Search results also appear here. You can search by name, type, disposition, folder, tag, description, or notes.

Everything in one place

Each entity's profile page shows its picture, stats, abilities, tags, and extra images. You can also save links, like a wiki page or a homebrew stat block.

The profile also lists Mentions. When you type @ in an adventure note, quest, place, or other page and link to an entity, that page shows up on the entity's profile. It is the fastest way to answer the question "where did we see this creature before?"

How to get it

The Entity Codex is part of our paid tiers. You can see what each tier includes on our pricing page. If your campaign is on a paid tier, open Entity Codex in your campaign's left menu to start.

We would love to see your bestiaries. Come share them, or tell us what you would like to see next, on our Discord server. We also post our newest updates there first.

Happy adventuring! :)