World Editor Items

🎒 World Editor: Items

🛠️ Part of the World Editor guide.

Items are the objects of your world that someone can own: a sword, a potion, a key, a cursed ring. Each one is defined once on the Items tab.

Why it exists

Without items, a sword exists only in the prose, and the narrator forgets it a few turns later. An item is a fixed object with its own description, image and rules.

How to Add an Item

1. Open the Items tab. It sits right below Entities.
2. Type the item's name in the Filter Items box.
3. Select the + button (Add Item).
4. The new item opens in the panel. Give it an image on the Profile tab.
5. On the Descriptions tab, write the AI-Facing Description.
6. Select Save.

💡 Drag an item by its grip to change the order of the list. Use the row's buttons to duplicate or delete it.

The panel

The item panel works like the entity panel.

Tab	What it holds
Profile	The name, the images with their rules, and the image tags
Descriptions	The player-facing and AI-facing descriptions, in Advanced mode the AI-Facing Summary, and the Unidentified Name and Unidentified Description
Properties	Value, Stackable, Uses, When Empty, Bound, Slot and Slot Size
Effects	The stat effect rows: what the item does to its owner's stats
Placeholders	The item's own placeholders (Advanced mode only)

An image's Visibility Rule reads whoever owns the item. A Condition with no owner reads as Item Owner.

An item's placeholders roll once per playthrough. Every Item Copy shows the same value.

Unidentified items

An item can hide what it really is until the story reveals it. A cursed ring can look like a plain ring.

Field	What it does
Unidentified Name	The name the player sees until the item is identified
Unidentified Description	The description the player sees until the item is identified

• 🔒 Fill either field, and every copy of the item starts unidentified. A blank field shows the normal value.
• 👁️ The player sees only the unidentified face: in the Inventory tab, in the log and in Formaquestion.
• 📖 The narrator sees both faces, with the true one marked unknown to the player. It can reveal the truth when the story does.
• ✨ The item's effects apply while it's unidentified.
• 🔍 A reveal identifies a visible unidentified copy, from the story or from a script's reveal(). A hidden copy first comes into view and stays unidentified; a second reveal identifies it.
• 📦 Unidentified and identified copies never stack. An identified copy joins a matching stack in the same place.

Properties

Property	What it does
Value	What the item is worth. The unit is a stat, such as Gold, or your own text.
Stackable	Item Copies group into one row with a quantity. On by default.
Uses	How many times each Item Copy can be used. Leave it blank for unlimited.
When Empty	What a copy's last use leaves: Stays (kept at zero uses), Gone (removed), Becomes (turns into another item you pick) or Changes State (kept at zero uses with the word you type). Shows once Uses is set; it starts at Gone.
State	The word each Item Copy starts with, such as sealed or unlit. The story and scripts can change it. Leave it blank for none.
Bound	The player can't drop the item or give it away. The player can still pick it up, and the story can still move it.
Slot	The slot the item equips into. Not Equippable means it can't be worn or held.
Slot Size	How much of the slot's capacity the item takes, such as 2 for a two-handed sword.

⚠️ An item with Uses 2 or more never stacks, because each copy counts its own. Setting it turns Stackable off. Clearing it leaves it off until you turn it on. Uses 1 still stacks.

Item	Uses	When Empty
🧪 Potion that leaves a bottle	1	Becomes Empty Bottle
🍷 Potion with three gulps	3	Gone
🪄 Wand	3	Stays
✉️ Letter	1	Changes State "opened"
📯 Horn	blank	—

🧭 The Test Bench flags an item that Becomes an item you deleted.

State

• 🏷️ The player sees each copy's State beside its name in the Inventory tab. The AI sees it beside the name too.
• 🧱 Copies with different States never stack. "Lit" and "lit" count as the same.
• ✋ The Inventory tab has no control to change it. The story and scripts do.

Effects

An effect row changes one of the owner's own stats. Each row picks a stat, a facet, a timing and an amount.

Facet	What it changes
Value	The stat's current value
Min / Max	The stat's lowest or highest value
Regen	How much the stat recovers over time

Timing	When it applies
⚔️ While Equipped	While the item is equipped. Two equipped copies apply twice.
🎒 While Owned	While the owner has the item. Three copies still count once.
🧪 After Use	When the owner uses the item, for a set time or for good. A row here makes the item usable, even with Uses blank.
✨ On First Obtain	Once, the first time the owner gets the item. It stays after the item is gone.

• When an effect ends, it gives back exactly what it gave. A +2 that only fit +1 under the maximum takes back 1.
• A stat resting at its maximum rises with a Max effect, as it does with a trait.
• Starting items apply their effects when the game starts.
• An owner without the stat skips the row, and the log says so. The player's own stats come from the persona, not the Global Stats.
• The log names the item for each change. A hidden item shows as "An item".

After Use effects

An After Use row also picks a Duration: Permanent, or an amount of story time in minutes, hours, days or weeks.

• 🧪 Use shows on an item with Uses, After Use effects or a When Used script. It spends one use.
• 🔋 The last use runs When Empty on that one copy. A copy that Stays keeps Use off until a script recharges it.
• 📯 An item with Uses blank can be used any number of times and never changes.
• ⏳ A timed effect ends once the story clock passes its duration, and gives back exactly what it gave.
• 🔁 A second dose while the effect runs restarts its timer. The effect doesn't stack.
• ♾️ A Permanent effect never ends, and each dose applies it again.
• 🎲 Each Item Copy keeps its own uses. Giving one wand away moves only its own count.

Trait effects

A trait effect row gives the owner a trait while its timing holds. Each row picks a trait and a timing.

• 🧬 The trait comes from the owner's own list: an entity's traits, or the played persona's. An owner without that trait skips the row, and the log says so.
• 🔒 The trait stays on while any source holds it. A trait the owner picked stays when the item leaves.
• 🚫 An item grant counts toward no Pick Count and switches off no other trait in its group.
• ⏳ The trait's own requirements still apply. A granted trait whose requirement fails turns on once it holds.
• ✋ The player cannot switch off a trait an item holds on.
• ✨ On First Obtain grants the trait for good.
• 🧪 After Use grants the trait for its duration, or for good when Permanent.
• ⚙️ Automatic traits are not offered: they turn on by their own rules.

Requirements

Requirement Rows on the Requirements tab set what an owner needs to equip the item. Any one row that holds is enough. With no rows, anyone can equip it.

• 🧑 A Condition with no owner reads the item's owner.
• 🗡️ The item's own effects never count, in either direction. A +2 Strength sword cannot meet its own Strength 5 requirement, and a cursed -2 Strength sword cannot fail it. Every copy of the same item on that owner is left out.
• ⛔ Equipping fails, and the log names the requirement, when no row holds.
• 🔄 An equipped item unequips on its own once no row holds, and its effects reverse. One unequip can set off another; the game settles them all, up to 10 rounds.

Scripts

The Scripts tab runs code on the item's events. It shows in Advanced mode.

Timing	Runs when
When Gained	An owner or a location gains an Item Copy
When Lost	An owner or a location loses an Item Copy
When Equipped	An Item Copy is equipped
When Unequipped	An Item Copy is unequipped
When Used	An Item Copy is used

• 🧑 owner is the Item Copy's owner, and empty while it lies at a location. self is the item.
• 🔗 A script that gives or takes items runs those items' scripts too, 3 levels deep at most.
• 🌱 Starting items run no script.

The Scripts Guide lists what an item script can read and write.

Slots

Slots are the places an item can be equipped, such as Hand or Ring. You set them once for the whole world, on the Overview tab under Slots. The player and every entity share the same slots.

1. Open the Overview tab.
2. Under Slots, select Add Slot.
3. Type the slot's name.
4. Set its capacity: how many item units fit. A Ring slot with capacity 2 holds two rings.

When you delete a slot that items use, the editor asks first. Those items become not equippable.

Starting Items

Starting items are the items a new game begins with. You can place them in three spots:

Where	Where to set it
👤 The player	Overview tab, under Persona Items. The player gets them whoever they play.
🧑 An entity	The entity's Items tab
📍 A location	The location's Items tab. They lie there for anyone to pick up.

Each row picks an item, a quantity and Hidden. A hidden item is there, but the player doesn't see it until the story reveals it.

• When the player plays a world entity, that entity's starting items are the player's.
• Two rows of the same stackable item on one owner become one stack. A hidden row stays its own row.
• A persona-only entity that nobody plays gets no items.

⚠️ Starting items appear only in a new game. A saved game never gains the items you add later.

Items in the story

After each turn's narration, the Inventory prompt reads the turn and records what it did to items. It can give, take, move, equip, unequip and use an item, change its State, and reveal a hidden or unidentified one. It sees the items of the player, of the people here, and of the location.

• 🧪 A use follows the item's When Empty. For a plain item the story made, the story says whether the use kept it or used it up.
• 🔤 A name in the story matches your item when it's the same name, ignoring case and spaces. "iron sword" is your Iron Sword. "iron swords" is not. An unidentified copy also matches its Unidentified Name.
• ➕ A name that matches no item makes a plain item with that name: it stacks, it can be used, and it has no slot and no effects. The same name later reuses it.
• 🎒 The step runs only while the world has items or the game holds any. A world with no items never sends it.
• ⚖️ The story can take a Bound item. Only the player's buttons can't.

The step's prompt is on the Prompts tab in Settings, under Inventory.