Your campaign
remembers
what happened.

Skald is a campaign workspace for game masters, built around one loop: prepare the session, run it, capture what the table actually did, then consolidate those events into canon you’ll see the next time you prep.

synced to the cloud · system-agnostic · built for solo GMs

§ 02 — the loop

Most tools help you prepare. Very few help you keep what the table changed.

Four stages, one continuous cycle. Everything a stage produces is the next stage’s input — and the fourth stage feeds the first.

stage 01 of 04 · prep
Decide what might happen.
Build the session from the campaign you already have — the NPCs, places, factions and unresolved threads it touches. Write the prose that only matters to you, and leave the rest open. Prep is a set of linked possibilities, not a script.
carries forward →
session outline · linked entities · open threads · your private notes
stage 02 of 04 · run
Keep up with the table.
Run mode is the same campaign at table speed: initiative order with hit points and conditions, and lookup that finds any NPC, place or thread in one field. Larger type, larger targets, nothing to navigate.
carries forward →
initiative log · what you looked up · when the session ran
stage 03 of 04 · capture
Write it down without leaving the session.
When the party does something you didn’t plan for, log it in a line. Capture sits inside the running session, against the round you’re in, and it accepts fragments — a name, a decision, a promise made. It is not a form.
carries forward →
timestamped events · named entities · loose ends flagged for later
stage 04 of 04 · consolidate
Turn what happened into canon.
After the session, review what you captured as a set of proposed changes: a faction’s standing shifts, a thread resolves, a new one opens. Each one is accepted, edited or discarded by you. Nothing enters canon on its own.
carries forward →
updated entities · resolved and new threads · a recap that matches what actually happened

↺ the next session starts here

Accepted changes are already in place the next time you open prep — the standing you shifted, the thread you opened, the promise the party made in round three.

§ 03 — one event, end to end

The party made a deal you didn’t plan. Here’s where it goes.

Session 12 of a campaign in its sixth month. Follow one decision from prep to canon.

before the sessionstep 1 of 5 · prep

A hostile Baron and an open thread

You prepared Baron Thistlewood at standing −2, and the poisoned well still unresolved since session seven. You did not prepare an alliance.

what this shows — prep is structured and connected, and deliberately left open-ended.

21:39step 2 of 5 · run

Mid-scene, you check what he wants

The party offers the Baron the Cabal’s name in exchange for the well. One field, one query, and the note you wrote in prep is in front of you at run size. You say yes.

what this shows — what you wrote during prep is retrievable in seconds, without leaving the session.

22:04step 3 of 5 · capture

One line, inside the session

You log the trade as it happens and mention the Baron inline. The round and the entity travel with the note; the table never waits for you.

what this shows — capture costs almost nothing at the table, and is structured enough to be useful later.

after the sessionstep 4 of 5 · consolidate

Skald proposes; you decide

The capture comes back as three proposed changes, each showing the old value beside the new. You accept the Baron’s standing and the new thread, and edit the Cabal down to wary.

what this shows — nothing enters canon on its own — the review is where you stay the author.

session 13step 5 of 5 · prep again

The consequence is already there

Three weeks later you open prep for session 13. The Baron’s debt is an open thread, his standing reads +1, and the Cabal is wary — because you accepted it, not because a tool guessed.

what this shows — the loop closed, and the campaign remembered what the table did.

§ 04 — what’s in it

Built for the two halves of the job.

Connected campaign entities

NPCs, locations, factions, items, plot threads and sessions are real records, not pages of text. Link them however the campaign actually works — a faction that owns a place, an item three people are hunting, a thread that runs through nine sessions — and see what any change touches before you make it.

From capture to canon

Everything logged during a session comes back as a reviewable set of changes, each one showing exactly what it would alter and which captured line it came from. Accept, edit or discard them one at a time. Your campaign’s history stays something you wrote.

Fast in-session lookup

One field finds any NPC, place, item or thread, sorted by what you touched most recently — for the moment a player asks about something from four sessions ago.

Initiative and combat support

Initiative order with hit points, conditions and round tracking, at run-mode density: bigger type, bigger targets, one-handed. It stays beside the session rather than replacing it.

Session planning and timeline

Sessions are records, in order, with what was planned, what was captured and what was consolidated. The campaign’s history is browsable as a sequence, not a folder of files.

Search and wiki-style mentions

Type @ anywhere you write and mention any entity inline. The mention is a real link both ways, so the NPC you mentioned knows the session mentioned them.

how it behaves

GM-private and player-safe

Secrets, motives and the things you haven’t revealed are marked private and stay visually distinct from what’s safe to read aloud.

On every device

Your campaign is saved to your account and syncs as you work — prep on the desktop, run from a tablet at the table, check a name on your phone.

System-agnostic

Skald structures campaigns, not rules. Stat blocks and mechanics are freeform text, so it doesn’t care which edition you run.

§ 05 — how it’s built

The tool doesn’t run your campaign. You do.

You are the author.
Skald doesn’t decide what your world does. It keeps track of what you decided, and shows you the parts you may have forgotten.
Anything proposed is only proposed.
Changes to canon are presented as a review, with the old value beside the new one, and nothing is written until you accept it. If a proposal is wrong, editing it is the normal path.
History stays readable.
A campaign’s record is only useful if you can still understand it in a year. Sessions, entities and changes stay plain, linked and editable.
Private stays private.
The distinction between what the table knows and what you know is part of the data model, not a habit you have to maintain.
Then it gets out of the way.
When the session starts, the interface should be a glance and a tap. Prep is where the thinking happens; run mode is where it stops asking anything of you.

§ 06 — coming next

In development

Forgehelm: a new virtual tabletop, built to work with Skald.

Forgehelm is a 2.5D virtual tabletop that runs in the browser, for game masters and players. It has shared maps, tokens, fog of war and dynamic lighting, all in real time.

Use it alongside Skald and the two stay in sync. What you prep in Skald is on the table when you open it. What happens at the table comes back to Skald as part of the campaign.

Optional. Skald works on its own, with or without a VTT.

A location you prep in Skald opens as a map on the table.
Tokens carry the NPC’s entry, so the name, stats and secrets are one click away.
What the party uncovers comes back to Skald as places they now know.
Events at the table go into the session log, ready to consolidate.

Six months in, the campaign still knows its own history.

Start the next session where the last one actually ended — with the standings you shifted, the threads you opened, and the promises the party is still owed.

Skald is in active development. Your campaigns are stored in the cloud and follow you across devices.

Your campaign remembers what happened.