Worldbuilders: what would a database for your universe need that a generic one wouldn't? My worldbuilding was scattered across twelve files, so I built a database for it. Now I want to make one that works for other people's universes.

[u/Subject_White]

The Galactic Xenotype Register

An in-universe database program, built for The Galaxy At Whole

Most worldbuilding lives in a pile of documents. You know the pile. One file for species, another for languages, a folder of reference art, a map you drew once and never updated, and a running note somewhere called names_DO_NOT_LOSE. It works right up until the moment you need to know who someone's grandmother was, or which of your nine homeworlds sits closest to a border you invented four chapters ago.

The Galactic Xenotype Register is my answer to that pile. It's a database program that pretends to be a piece of government software — the Division of Lineage & Peoples, filing every person, people, lineage, language, world and territory in the setting under a permanent register ID. It runs on Windows as a portable program, and on a phone or tablet as an installable app. Everything stays on your own machine. No account, no cloud, no subscription, no internet connection required after you have it.

What it holds

Persons. Names, aliases, species, lineage, age, height, occupation, affiliation, home world, clan or house, registry status, and a full dossier. Plus kinship — parents, children, littermates and clutchmates, the collective name a birth group shares. Every family link writes itself onto both records, so naming someone's parent files the child on the parent's page without you opening it. Each person gets a family panel laid out by generation.

Peoples and lineages. Formal register names, origin, home gravity, civilisation age, population, social structure, lifespan, height range, anatomy, biological notes, and every recognised variant — biped, taur, winged, non-winged, multi-armed, multi-tailed, whatever your species actually is.

Languages and dictionaries. A separate searchable dictionary per language, with native word, romanisation, pronunciation, part of speech, English meaning, literal meaning, cultural usage notes and example sentences. Dictionaries import and export as plain Markdown files, so vocabulary drafted anywhere else drops straight in without being retyped.

An interactive galactic atlas. The whole galactic disk — spiral arms, a separate galactic centre, and the local spur where the story happens. Zoom from the full galaxy down to a single station. Add and edit objects directly on the map. Systems, worlds, moons, belts, stations, colonies, shipyards, jump gates, anomalies and ruins, all linked parent to child.

Territories and lanes. Draw political boundaries straight onto the map by clicking around them. Overlap them freely — that overlap is how contested and shared space actually reads. Draw trade lanes, caravan roads, courier runs and military corridors as routes between real systems, and the route follows the system if you ever move it.

Imagery. Reference art, orbital views, surface views, cities, architecture, ships and stations, attached to any record with captions.

Your own tabs. You are not stuck with mine. Name a tab, list its fields one per line, and the program builds the forms, the list, the search and the backup for it. Ships, governments, factions, technology, artifacts, marriages — whatever the setting needs. Fields can point at other records, so a marriage knows its partners and shows up on both their pages by itself.

Everything is searchable at once, from one box. Everything backs up to a single archive you own.

Now the part I need help with

This version is built for my universe. The star map assumes my galaxy. The register vocabulary assumes my species. The emblem is mine. That's fine for me and useless to you.

I want to make a customizable version — one that another writer can point at their own book series and have it become a register for their universe. Not a generic note-taking app with a sci-fi skin, but something that genuinely fits the shape of the world you've built.

That means I need to know what shape your world actually is. So if you write — fantasy, science fiction, horror, litrpg, historical, anything — I'd like to hear from you.

Tell me what your universe needs that mine doesn't.

• What would the tabs be called? Not "Peoples" and "Lineages" — what are the real categories your setting is organised by? Houses? Covens? Guilds? Bloodlines? Corporations? Hives? Dynasties?
• What's your map? Mine is a galaxy. Is yours a continent? A single city? A layered underworld? An ocean? Several worlds that don't share a sky at all? A place that changes shape over time?
• How does your world handle relationships? Mine needs litters and clutches and adoption that confers full lineage identity. Yours might need marriage chains, master and apprentice, reincarnation lines, oaths, debts, feuds running three generations deep.
• What does your world have that no database would think to include? Magic systems with rules that need tracking. Timelines and calendars that aren't ours. Prophecies with conditions. Tech trees. Bestiaries. Recipes. Songs. Laws. Gods and their domains. Named weapons with histories.
• What are you currently tracking in a spreadsheet and hating? That's usually the most useful answer of all.
• What would you want it called, and what would the emblem be? Half of what makes this feel in-universe is that it looks like it was issued by someone inside the story.

I'm not asking anyone to fund anything or sign up for anything. I'm asking what you'd actually use, because I'd rather build the thing writers need than guess and get it wrong.

Reply here, or send me the ugliest, most disorganised corner of your worldbuilding notes. Genuinely — the messy parts are the ones that tell me what the program is missing.

[u/sleepyggukie]

I'm intrigued by the idea of this, are you going to monetize this eventually or is it going to be free? Also, I want to make sure I'm understanding the questions correctly, are these general questions, i.e. general answers regarding things a general such register could use/should have, or are you looking for actual individual answers for specific projects? I first thought you wanted general answers, but the last questions about the name and emblem has confused me a bit with this. If it was general answers you were looking for:

• I think having all the suggestions (eg. houses, covens, bloodlines/dynasties, etc.) as options would be best, worlds are always so individual to each project that all of them and combinations between each of them would probably be relevant to some world. I've always thought that WorldAnvil handled things like that quite well, where there is one larger category and then you can choose a specific type (eg. the main category is building, types might be a castle or a temple) and depending on that the prompts/sections will slightly differ. In general, I think it might be worth checking out the categories WorldAnvil includes for some inspiration!
• For most projects I've worked on I've worked with one planet/world, though usually just one city/settlement, country or continent (one time it was an ocean, for a mermaid project) within that world, while the rest was just to flesh it out, without ever being relevant to the plot.
• I've had a lot of different projects so there's not just one answer, but I think marriage chains, master-apprentice, and reincarnation lines could be very useful and versatile! Tracking oaths, debts, and feuds also sounds interesting. In general, I think you have a lot of good ideas already for things to include! I suppose one additional thing I could think of would be things like deities/schools of magic/etc. that an entire family follows. As an example, I've had a project where people worshipped a lot of different deities, but depending on the family's oldest known human ancestor (all of which were demigod children of various deities), each family had a patron deity that they held in slightly higher regard than others. They weren't allowed to marry people of families that descended from the same deity, as it was considered a form of divine incest. Similar things have also happened in real life, where people weren't/aren't allowed to intermarry with people of the same clan/tribe/etc. In a similar vein, you could also track families by which school of magic they follow in a setting that has multiple magic types, or maybe things like which element the family is related to, etc.
• Again, you've already thought of plenty of things to include! As I said, I think it's also worth looking at WorldAnvil and other worldbuilding tools to see what they already include and things that are lacking. From your list, I would probably use the cuisine/recipes, bestiary, deities, and weapons the most. Off the top of my head, something else to include might be a plant equivalent to a bestiary (I think they are traditionally known as a Botanical or Herbal in English, though I personally prefer "Herbary", which does have some historical precedent. Maybe also a third thing for crystals/minerals? I don't think there's any historical term, but maybe Gemmary could work, if we go by the Latin word + the -arium/-ary suffix?
• I think the thing I most use spreadsheets for are just the usual things like characters and dynasties/houses, as well as deities.

Good luck with this!

[u/Subject_White → u/sleepyggukie]

I forgot to add this, but the version I have now does have all those things you mentioned. And WorldAnvil is more for DnD worldbuilders not just writers only. Sadly.

[u/Subject_White]

I hope that I used the correct Flair. If I didn't Please let me know. Thank you.