Worldbuilding timeline maker

One history, several calendars

In an invented world nobody agrees what year it is. A kingdom counts from its founding, a priesthood from a miracle, a chronicler backwards from a disaster. This page keeps one history on one line of years and writes each event's year in every count you tick, so you can check that the treaty a Saffrane scribe dates 509 is the same treaty a Hollin historian puts 120 years after the Ashfall.

The example world, the Inner Sea, runs 2,200 years over three eras: the Age of Tides (900 years), the Long Ash (600 years) and the Age of Charters, which runs on. Five peoples are its tracks, and each one rises and ends as a bar: the Orrel Thalassocracy, a league of islands that burns at Gull Reach; the Vey clans, who scatter in the ash and come back as the Vey Concord; the Kingdom of Saffrane; the Ember Synod, smith-priests who keep fire alive through the Long Ash and then dissolve themselves; and the Hollin Republic. It has two dating systems: the Saffrane Reckoning (SR) counts up from the kingdom's founding in Year 512 of the Age of Tides, and Before the Ashfall (BA) counts down to the eruption, its Year 1 being Year 900 AT, the last year before it.

A worked example. The Treaty of Wend is in Year 120 of the Long Ash: the 1,020th year of the history (900 years of the Age of Tides, then 120). Saffrane was founded in the 512th year, so the treaty is 1,020 − 512 + 1 = 509 SR. Before the Ashfall runs the other way: its Year 1 is the 900th year, Year 2 the 899th, and past its Year 1 it goes on as -1, -2, with no year 0, as BC and AD do, so the 1,020th year is -120 BA. The treaty's card reads 120 LA, and under it 509 SR · -120 BA. All of it is whole-number arithmetic on the one line of years, so a count never drifts by a year however far apart its events are.

How to build your world's timeline

1. Eras first. Under Tracks and eras, list your world's ages in order, each with a name, a short form and a length in years. The last one runs on with no end. Changing a length later keeps every event at its own era and year number.
2. A track for each nation or people. Give it a colour. Draw its whole life as one event with an end year, a bar from founding to fall, and its moments as events on the same track. A war or a treaty between two belongs to both: tick the other one under Also on in its editor and it is drawn on both, joined by a dashed line.
3. Each nation's own count. Under Dating systems, add up to four. Give each a name, a short form and the year its Year 1 falls in (typed in your eras), and say whether it counts up from there or down to it. A countdown suits years before a founding or a prophecy. Under each count, the panel shows where the first year of every era falls in it, so you can check it at a glance.
4. Type years the way your sources do. In an event's editor, the era list also holds your dating systems: pick Saffrane Reckoning, type 509, and the event lands in Year 120 of the Long Ash. Switching the list to another count only rewrites the same year in that count; the event does not move.
5. Show and read. Tick Show on events for each count you want on the cards. To read the year ruler in one nation's count instead of your eras, pick it under Label the ruler in. The era bands stay where they are.
6. Keep it. Everything saves in this browser as you go. Save file writes the whole world, dating systems included, to one file you can open on any of the timeline pages. Export draws the cards and ruler as they look on screen, as a PNG, an SVG or a print.

Print a blank timeline

Print a blank timeline (beside Export, and on the empty page before you have made anything) prints a sheet to fill in by pen: your tracks across the top, a run of rows down the side. The rows are years typed in this timeline's own eras, chapters 1 to 200, or up to 200 empty rows to date by hand. Years step through the timeline's one count of years and are labelled in its eras: with an Age of Kilns (AK) 300 years long followed by the Long Ash (LA), from 250 AK to 40 LA, 10 years a row gives ten rows, 250 AK, 260 AK and so on to 300 AK, then 10 LA, 20 LA, 30 LA and 40 LA. Tracks are this timeline's, names you type, or up to 40 blank columns. Eight fit a page; with more, the same rows print again on the next page for tracks 9 to 16 and so on, to lay side by side. Tick Print my events in place and each event is written in the row that holds its start year (or its chapter), under each of its tracks: a half-filled sheet for planning what goes in the gaps. A4 or US Letter, portrait or landscape; every page repeats the title, which rows and tracks it holds, and its page number. PNG and SVG save page 1; Print saves the whole run as a PDF. Nothing on the sheet changes your timeline.

Private by design

No account and no upload: the timeline is saved in this browser on every change, and nothing you type leaves your device. This page keeps its own saved world, separate from the one on the story timeline and the timeline for writers, but a saved file opens on all three. A damaged file, or one from a newer version of this page, is refused with a message and never replaces your work.

Share a read-only link: Share packs the whole timeline into a link that ends in #share= followed by the timeline itself, compressed. Whoever opens it sees it drawn on this site, read-only: the tracks, your eras, every event and its sheet, the characters’ ages, and for a timeline with chapters, story order beside world order on the timeline for writers. Dragging moves the view, never an event. They can zoom, export or print it, or keep their own copy with Save a copy to my timelines, which never replaces a timeline they already have. Browsers never send the part of an address after the # to a server, so the timeline is not uploaded to dankstory.com when you make the link or when anyone opens it. A damaged, cut-short or newer link is refused with one sentence and changes nothing kept in the browser.

What it cannot do yet

Dating systems: a timeline holds at most 4 besides its own eras. A fifth cannot be added, and a file with more is refused whole rather than cut short. A dating system is one unbroken count of whole years. It has no months or days of its own (a full date belongs to the timeline's calendar, from a calendar file), and it cannot restart: a regnal count that begins again with each ruler needs one system per ruler, or an era per reign. It has no end year either, so it runs on in both directions: years before a forward count's Year 1 show as negative numbers, and a countdown goes on past its Year 1 as -1, -2. It follows the timeline's own Count a year 0 setting. Characters' birth years, spreadsheet columns and dates read from a family tree are read in the timeline's own eras only, never in a dating system, and Save events as spreadsheet writes years in the eras only. Every file saved now is version 5 of the file format (version 4 added the dating systems, version 5 the chapter titles of the plot grid), which an older copy of this page (an old tab left open, say) refuses rather than half-reads.

Years are the smallest unit unless you add months from the calendar maker, and events in the same year keep the order you made them in. Tracks have no start or end of their own: a nation's lifespan is the bar you draw on its track. A timeline holds at most 40 tracks, 40 eras and 5,000 events. On a phone, a long line of counts on a narrow card is cut short with …: a wider screen and every export show it whole.

The blank timeline labels its rows in the timeline's own eras only, never in a dating system or with months and days, and it does not restart the count at the start of an era (from 295 AK, 10 years a row, the next row is 5 LA, not 1 LA). It holds at most 500 rows of years, 200 chapters or empty rows, and 40 tracks. On the half-filled sheet an event is placed by its start year (or chapter) only: a span is not drawn down the rows it covers. A cell prints at most six events, then “+ N more”, and a title longer than two lines of its column is cut short with …. Events outside the rows, or with no chapter on a sheet of chapters, are left off and counted under the preview. PNG and SVG are of page 1 only, and the sheet's settings are not saved.

Share links: anyone who has the link can open and read the whole timeline, notes too unless you tick Leave out the events’ notes: it is not secret, so pass it on as you would the file. A link is a copy of the timeline as it was when you made it, and later changes need a new link. Above 2,000 characters some chat apps, forums and forms cut a link short and it no longer opens; the example world here (30 events on 5 tracks) makes a link of about 2,260 characters, or about 1,700 with notes left out, and the panel warns you and offers the file instead. A link carries the characters the timeline holds, with their birth and death years, so their ages show; the family tree file they were copied from is never in a link and is not needed, so a person who was never copied into the timeline has no age in the view, and the view says when a timeline carries no characters at all. A link never carries pictures: a timeline holds none, and the portraits in a family tree file stay in that file. A link holds at most 512 KB of timeline once unpacked. A timeline with chapters opens on the timeline for writers and any other on the page it was made on. A copy saved from a link is listed under Your timelines on the three timeline pages, and only clearing this site’s data removes it.