Understory
Every world has one.
While you write, your world is open beside the prose. The state of every entity at your cursor, accurate to this moment in the story, built from everything you’ve logged. Look at it, or don’t. Trust it, or override it. Understory holds what you decided is true and shows it where you’re working. The craft is yours throughout.
Free during alpha · No account required
One thing to know: the current alpha still ships under the old name, AxiomWeaver. The rename to Understory lands in the next release, same tool, same world beneath your story.
The Shattered Realm. 142 entities. 38 events logged.
The record at your cursor
The context panel shows the current state of your world at the exact point in your manuscript where you’re writing. Your character’s level, their active effects, what the ledger says is true right now. Not a tab to switch to. Not a wiki to consult. Already open.
Use as much or as little as you want
The entity scanner finds your characters as you write. The ledger tracks what you log. The context panel reflects what you’ve built. Nothing is required. You can ignore the Universe tab forever and still have a record of every name your manuscript mentions. The cursor comes first.
One day, your readers can come here too
The current medium (written word, audiobook) can only show the canopy. Understory holds what’s beneath. The reader platform, coming later, will let you take readers into the understory for the first time. No other medium has ever done this.
The act is tedious. The output is magical.
The ledger is a running sum of events, not a database you hand-maintain. When your character gains XP, you log the gain. The sheet updates. Every number traces back to a delta you wrote. Nothing is hand-keyed and left to drift. No black-box values. No numbers you have to take on faith.
No AI guessing at your canon. Understory uses deterministic pattern matching, strict, correctable, teachable. What you see is what the math says. What Understory holds is what you put there.
The record, open beside your prose
The context panel shows current state at your cursor. Every number traces back to a delta you logged. Every name the scanner found, without you having to go looking.
The editor
Your world, open beside the prose
The context panel shows the current state of every entity at your cursor, accurate to this exact moment in the manuscript. Not a tab to switch to. Already open. Already watching.
Entity detail
Every entity, in full
Characters, locations, factions, items, each with the fields your world actually needs. Every number traces back to a delta you logged. Nothing hand-keyed, nothing left to drift.
The scrubber
Accurate to your cursor
Move to any chapter and the world resets to that moment, what your characters had, where factions stood, what was still true before everything changed. Every contradiction visible before it makes it to the page.
Your world, structured the way you need it
Understory gives every part of your world the fields it actually needs. Build as much or as little as your story requires.
Every change, dated
Every entity in Understory has a dated change log, what happened to them, when, and what it means now. Scrub back to chapter one and see the world as it was. Every contradiction becomes visible before it makes it to the page. This is the engine.
Free while it’s in alpha.
Understory is free to download and use right now. If you’re in during alpha, you’re in, access carries forward when it leaves.
When it leaves alpha, it will be a one-time purchase. No subscription for the tool itself. The only subscription coming is the reader platform, because serving your world to readers costs real money to run. You’ll pay for that when you want it, not before.
Your world lives on your machine
No account required. Your entities, your events, your history, none of it leaves your computer without your say-so. Works without an internet connection. No analytics, no tracking.
The reader platform, when it comes, is opt-in. You decide what your readers can see.
Start building the world beneath your story.
Free during alpha · No account required
A Tiny Forest Labs product.