I am designing an Obsidian markdown worldbuilding system, a vault template and content creation guide for seeding a worldbuilding project in Obsidian, that I will release to the public very soon. Before I do, I want to check my methods against other peoples, measure if my processes are worthwhile, and possibly augment my system based on good ideas shared here.
How do you put Obsidian’s native features, or plugins, to work when worldbuilding? How do you choose to organize content, exhibit relationships, and author projects?
Here are some elements of my personal system, which will be expanded in the project I mean to share soon.
- 3 directories:
/assetscontains templates and other misc files,/datacontains maps, indexes, and other blocks which are linked throughout various files in …,/lorecontains wiki-style prose articles. - I prefer atomic note-style articles for
lore, 1 file = 1 distinct, indivisible concept. Heavy linking, embedded markdown links, and index files in/dataare used to compile various concepts where necessary. - I use nested tags, lots of nested tags, and have identified 6 top level tags that have so far been satisfactory for every worldbuilding project I have applied them to. Caveat: they are designed with broadly scaled and scoped worldbuilding in mind, are are less suitable for niche projects. Deeper levels of tags are typically project specific.
#energy: physics or magic stuff#life: persons, taxonomic clades, social groups#matter: objects and materials#space: locations#time: events and timelines#reason: traditions, credos, theories, practices, philosophies, branches of knowledge.
- I use several plugins to manage file relationships with metadata, automatically fill repetitive text like metadata properties, and automatically generate certain blocks of content, such as indexes, but I won’t go into those here.