Story Codex & Cast Board
The two living references inside every save file — the characters you've met and the facts you've revealed, both built automatically from locked canon.
Every save file keeps two reference panels that grow as you write: the Cast Board and the Story Codex. You never have to maintain them by hand — they're built from the canon you lock, so they always match the story you've actually told.
Your story remembers itself.
Cast Board
The Cast Board is the cast of your playthrough: every character you've met or developed so far. Each one has a living sheet that updates as canon changes — not a static bio you type once and forget.
A character sheet tracks things like:
- Who they are — name, aliases, role, and where they stand in the world.
- Current state — alive, injured, trusted, suspected, what they want, what they fear.
- Relationships — trust, tension, attraction, loyalty, suspicion, and how those shift over time.
- Their arc — redemption, rivalry, romance, revenge, or wherever the story is taking them.
The console quietly sorts your cast into core, supporting, and background so the people who matter right now stay front and center. There's no cap on how many characters you can have — the cast grows with your story, never with your plan.
Story Codex
The Story Codex is the memory of your world's nouns — the places, factions, objects, powers, customs, mysteries, and events that come up as you write. After each Canon Lock, new entries appear and existing ones update on their own.
Each entry captures a short description, when it first appeared, its current status, why it matters, and what it connects to. The codex also keeps itself tidy for you: it spots duplicates, tracks aliases, links related entries, and flags continuity contradictions before they trip up a later chapter. That basic hygiene is always part of the codex — it's never something you pay extra for.
Built from canon, not by hand
Both panels are downstream of locking. A generated chapter only ever produces proposals; nothing reaches your cast or codex until you approve it and lock.
Draft is not canon until you lock it.
Spoiler-safe by design
Your codex and cast only ever show what you've encountered this playthrough. A cartridge may carry a whole world of characters and lore seeded in advance, but the counts and entries you see reflect what your story has actually reached — never material you haven't met yet. The console won't spoil your own story back to you, and what each summary shows stays separate from the hidden details behind it.
Open the same cartridge in a new save file and these two references start fresh, ready to remember an entirely different story.
Share the cartridge. Everyone writes their own save file.
Routes & the Route Lab
How Auto Route hands you three concrete next moves after every Canon Lock, and how the Route Lab lets you try alternate directions without risking your Main Save.
Safety & the Fantasy Contract
How Alcove keeps your story safe by default — fiction can go deep, you stay in control, and safety is never paywalled.