Creator Guide

How to build worlds and mods that tell great stories

What you are building

Nova Celora has two creation tools: Worlds and Mods. Worlds define the story setting, narrator, and rules. Mods are session-level plugins that extend or modify how any story plays.

Worlds — the story foundation

When a player starts a story in your world, every turn the AI sees a prompt assembled from seven layers. Each editor tab feeds a specific layer:

1. STRICT RULESMod prompts + World Rules + language directive + formatting templates. These take precedence over everything below.

2. SYSTEM PROMPTYour world's narrator voice, pacing, and directives. This IS your narrator.

3. WORLD SETTINGYour worldContext — pure canon, no instructions.

4. RECENT HISTORYThe last ~20 turns (players can adjust this in play settings). Short-term memory.

5. DISTANT MEMORIESVector search across past beats — automatic.

6. RELEVANT LORELore entries triggered by player keywords.

7. CURRENT STATEStructured JSON — items, relationships, locations, custom domains.

Which tab controls which layer

Editor Tab	Affects
General Settings	Layer 1 (language) + display
AI Core	Layer 2 (systemPrompt) + Layer 3 (worldContext) + Layer 1 (formatting)
World Lore	Layer 6 — keyword-triggered injection
World Rules	Layer 1 — modifies state + input before AI
Landing Page	Pre-game UI — not in prompt
Mods (separate editor)	Layer 1 — their systemPrompts are concatenated into rules at session start

Mods — reusable story plugins

Mods are created separately from worlds. Each mod has its own system prompt, optional rules, and optional lore entries. When a player activates a mod for their session, the mod's instructions are injected into Layer 1 — they can add dice mechanics, change the narrative tone, track custom state, and more. Mods override the world's system prompt when they conflict.

Create and manage mods from the Mods page. See the Mods tab in this guide for details.

Most important fields (in order): systemPrompt → worldContext → Lore entries → World Rules. The systemPrompt IS your narrator. Everything else supports it.