The language of a living campaign.

Lore Atlas uses a small set of consistent concepts. These definitions explain how the interface uses each term.

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Access challenge: An optional skill check that must be passed or marked opened before Loot can be claimed.
Active quest: A quest the party is currently pursuing.
Atlas: The visual campaign map containing locations, threads, connections, and quest lanes.
Available quest: A quest the party can discover or accept but has not yet taken on.

Campaign: The owner-controlled container for an atlas, party, settings, sessions, handouts, and journal.
Campaign backup: A versioned private JSON file used to create a separate restored copy of an owned campaign.
Campaign clock: A Lore Atlas tracker for pressure or progress that can count up or down and trigger authored consequences.
Campaign consequence: A DM-authored state change that occurs after a challenge result or clock threshold.
Campaign Journal: The lasting player-safe history created from completed sessions.
Campaign template: A reusable campaign structure with progress reset and account-bound player data removed.
Character knowledge: A note that is associated with one claimed character instead of the whole party.
Claim: The act of associating a campaign character or Loot reward with a player character.
Clue: A thread representing discoverable information, optionally connected to a skill check.
Compendium: The searchable catalog of supported SRD and Homebrew creatures, equipment, spells, and rules references.

Decision history: The event record showing how clocks, locations, passages, beliefs, consequences, and routes reached their current state.
DM only: Content visible to the Dungeon Master but withheld from player-facing views.

Encounter: A thread containing creatures and the tools needed to balance and run combat.
Environment initiative: A battlefield effect that acts on its own initiative count during an encounter.
Event: A thread for something that happens or changes the state of the world.

Handout: An uploaded campaign image that can be organized, associated, revealed, and presented.
Homebrew: User or system-created game content that is not part of the bundled open rules sources.

Invitation link: A private campaign-specific URL that lets a signed-in user join as a player.

Location: The Atlas thread type used for a playable visit. Every Location step points to a reusable Place record.
Location state: A durable description of a place as stable, changed, tense, dangerous, closed, destroyed, or a DM-defined state.
Location step: A playable arrival, exploration, or return in the story flow that points to a reusable Place record.
Loot: A thread containing items, currency, access conditions, and assignment history.

NPC: A reusable non-player character record that can appear in multiple places and story threads, offer quests, and retain one identity.

Optional path: A connected branch the party may skip or miss without blocking the expected flow.
Outcome branch: A quest that unlocks after a parent quest is completed, failed, or abandoned.

Passage: A campaign route between locations with direction, duration, cost, risk, requirements, visibility, and current status.
Place: A reusable location record in the World Library. Places can contain smaller places and gather every story visit, NPC, route, state, and handout associated with them.
Planning marker: A player signal that a revealed thread should be revisited, watched, or discussed.
Player belief: A player-safe statement that records what the party or one character believes separately from what the DM knows is true.
Player Display: A temporary second-screen view containing only revealed, player-safe content.
Player preview: A DM tool for inspecting the sanitized player experience without another account.
Prerequisite: A thread that must be resolved before another thread can be completed or claimed.
Published Homebrew: A permanent, versioned Homebrew entry available according to its visibility and license.

Quest: An objective with available, accepted, active, completed, failed, or abandoned status.

Required path: A connection representing the expected route through part of the adventure.
Revealed: Content the DM has made visible to players.
Rules edition: The selected D&D rules generation used for characters, compendium content, and encounter calculations.

Session: A scheduled or live gathering that records activity and becomes journal history when completed.
SRD: A System Reference Document containing game material licensed for open use.

Thread: A playable card representing an Event, Location step, Quest, Encounter, Challenge, Clue, Loot, or Milestone.
Tonight’s Table: The private DM run sheet used to prepare one gathering.

Version: A permanent revision of published Homebrew that campaigns can choose to keep or upgrade.