The Canvas
What the Canvas shows for a chosen Secret, how to read it, and when to use it instead of the list views.
Ultimo aggiornamento 04/06/26
Wyrdli · Aiuto e documentazioneWhat the Canvas shows for a chosen Secret, how to read it, and when to use it instead of the list views.
Open a Campaign three weeks into prep and the lists already look daunting: forty-odd NPCs, two dozen Locations, a Secrets tab with three arcs running. The list views answer "what did I name that Clue?" The Canvas answers "does this arc actually hold together?"
The Canvas is a visual editor for one Secret at a time. Instead of scrolling through lists of Clues and Scenes, you see the shape of the arc itself: where the Clues live, how they connect places, and which Scenes feed which Clues into the party's hands.
At the top of the Canvas is a Secret selector. Pick one Secret and the Canvas draws the discovery network for that arc alone: the Locations it touches, the Clues that lead into it, the Scenes anchored where they belong. Pick "all Secrets" and the Canvas draws every arc at once, layered together. The selector is how you switch between "what does this one arc look like?" and "how does the whole Campaign hang together?"
Three things are visible on the Canvas:
Locations appear as the points on the surface, labelled tiles you can drag into place.
Clues appear as labelled lines between Locations. A Clue that lives at two Locations is drawn as a line connecting them; a Clue at one Location appears as a stub attached to that Location.
Scenes appear pinned to the Locations where they happen, with a marker that shows which Clues each Scene activates.
If a Clue is unactivated, meaning no Scene currently makes it available, the line is drawn dimmed. That visual difference is the Canvas's quickest health signal: dimmed lines are paths the party will never walk.
The Canvas isn't just a viewer. It's the surface where you actually draw the arc:
Drag a Location to lay it out the way the story flows for you. The harbour at the bottom, the lighthouse at the top, the Alderman's house in the middle.
Drop a Scene onto a Location to anchor that Scene there.
Draw a Clue from one Location to another to create a Clue that lives at both places. Its "points at" target is the Secret currently selected at the top.
Right-click an empty part of the Canvas to spawn a new Location at that spot.
The layout you drag into place is saved. Open the Canvas tomorrow and your map looks the way you left it.
The Canvas is for designing the shape of an arc, laying out the route the party will follow. The list views (Clues, Scenes, Locations under their respective tabs) are for scanning, filtering, and bulk edits. Use the Canvas to think; use the lists to find a specific row and change one field on it.
If you're asking "is this arc solvable?", open the Canvas. If you're asking "what did I name that Clue?", open the list.
The point of the Canvas is to see the holes before the table does. A dim line is a Clue with no Scene to activate it. A Secret with only one line drawn into it is an arc one bad roll from collapsing. A Location with three Scenes stacked on it is a place the party will keep returning to: make sure it has the depth to repay that.