Kathala

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Open a real novel and scrub through it

The quickest way to understand Kathala is to use one. It ships a library of thirty-two worlds built from published books — Dracula, Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice, Treasure Island, The Odyssey, Journey to the West and others — with their chapters, cast, places, relationships and lore already mapped to individual scenes.

Open one in the browser, move the time cursor to chapter seven, and the whole workspace answers as of that moment: who has been introduced, where they are, what they are carrying, who has met whom. Nothing to install, no account, and the download is a few hundred kilobytes.

They double as a reading companion. A library world arrives in reading mode, so it will not tell you anything the book has not: characters, places, lore and subplots stay hidden until the story introduces them, and your place in the book is the cursor. You can read a novel with one open beside you and not be spoiled — and turn the same mode on over your own draft before handing it to a beta reader.

These are unofficial, fan-made structural references — no text from any book is included, and they are not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or publishers.

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Why Kathala?

Continuity becomes a memory tax as a story grows. Where was she when the letter arrived? Who had the dagger during the ambush? Had these two characters become enemies yet? Most tools make you answer those questions by searching or re-reading your manuscript.

Kathala records story state against exact scenes. Select a scene with the time cursor and the entire workspace resolves to that moment: characters move to their last-known locations, inventories change hands, relationships evolve, knowledge is revealed, and maps show the relevant world state.

It is both a story bible and a companion to your manuscript—not a replacement for Word, Scrivener, or your preferred writing environment.

Local-first and standalone

Kathala works without an account or hosted backend. Worlds are stored locally in IndexedDB and remain usable offline in the browser or desktop app.

• Export a complete world as a portable .pwk backup.
• Optionally split image data into a companion .pwb file.
• Bind a world to a local folder for automatic .pwk saves. That folder can be managed by services such as OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
• Import both .pwk and .pwb together when restoring a split backup.

World data stays on your device unless you explicitly export it, save it to a selected folder, link an external image, or copy content into another service. AI-assisted workflows use copy-and-paste prompts; Kathala does not send your manuscript to an AI provider itself.

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Screenshots

Dashboard and planning

See writing progress, story statistics, cast balance, plot threads, motifs, continuity warnings, and timeline relationships at a glance.

Manuscript and scene cursor

Organize chapters and scenes across one or more timelines. Selecting a scene moves the global time cursor to that exact story moment.

Map Explorer

Use any image as a map, nest sub-maps and floors, place locations and characters, draw routes and regions, measure distance, and replay movement.

Manuscript

Write scene prose in context, read the assembled manuscript, track revisions, find and replace across scenes, and export the result.

Characters and goals

Track identity, portraits, scene-specific state, inventory, location, relationships, history, faction membership, lore, and goals.

Character Arc

Compare character, faction, and plot-thread state across chapters or individual scenes, with overlays for status, POV, goals, and factions.

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What you can do

• Scrub through story time. The scene cursor drives every time-aware view. Snapshots carry forward until something changes.
• Build multiple timelines. Model parallel plots, flashbacks, frame stories, and eras with independent clocks and explicit relationships.
• Plan chapters and scenes. Use the Manuscript, its binder, the pacing curve, tension ratings, scene statuses, POV tracking, and Structure beat sheets.
• Write the manuscript. Store prose per scene, read it continuously, preserve revision history, set writing goals, and export to common writing formats.
• Track the cast. Record location, inventory, status, travel mode, alive/dead state, relationships, faction membership, and goals.
• Map your world. Add nested maps, city maps, building floors, locations, labels, routes, regions, scale, measurement, and scene-aware character paths.
• Model relationships. Track sentiment and strength with per-scene snapshots and visualize the cast as a graph.
• Manage story objects. Follow item ownership, condition, placement, and movement across scenes and timelines.
• Develop the world. Maintain Lore, Factions, Knowledge, Plot Threads, and Motifs & Themes with scene-based reveal and membership information.
• Use an in-world calendar. Place scenes on custom calendars and calculate character ages at the selected moment.
• Catch continuity mistakes. Detect impossible states, stale snapshots, premature knowledge, conflicting placements, and other inconsistencies.
• Replay the story. Animate scenes and character movement across maps and levels while notes appear in sequence.
• Undo and inspect changes. Use Ctrl/⌘+Z and Recent Changes to understand and reverse local edits.
• Search everything. Press Ctrl/⌘+K to find characters, scenes, items, locations, factions, lore, relationships, routes, regions, and more.
• Import or generate a starting point. Turn Markdown/plain text into a manuscript, generate structured data with copy/paste AI prompts, or start a sequel that carries the relevant world state forward.
• Hand it to a reader. Reading mode presents a world to someone who has not finished the book: the cursor is their place, everything the story has not reached is held back, and the writing tools are put away. It is a per-world setting, so it works on your own draft as well as on a library world.

Themes that match the genre

Kathala includes nine visual profiles—Dark Slate, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, Horror, Western, Action, Noir, and Romance. A world can override the global theme so each project keeps its own atmosphere.

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Try or download

Use Kathala in the browser at kathala.netlify.app or download the latest desktop build from the Releases page.

Current release asset patterns:

Platform	File
Windows	Kathala-*.Setup.exe
macOS (Apple silicon)	Kathala-darwin-arm64-*.zip
Linux (AMD64 Debian/Ubuntu)	kathala_*_amd64.deb

The browser and desktop versions use the same local-first data model. Browser storage belongs to that browser profile, so export regularly or configure a sync folder for additional backups.

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Quick start

1. Create a blank world, import a manuscript, generate a world from a synopsis, or import an existing .pwk backup.
2. Create a timeline, chapter, and scene. Scenes are the moments against which Kathala records state.
3. Add characters and locations, then save character state at the selected scene.
4. Add later scenes and record only what changes. Kathala carries earlier snapshots forward automatically.
5. Write scene prose, connect plot threads, add world knowledge, and use the Continuity Checker as the story grows.
6. Export regularly as .pwk, or .pwk + .pwb when using split image backups.

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Documentation

The User Guide is a screenshot-by-screenshot walkthrough of the time cursor, timelines, manuscript, maps, characters, planning tools, calendar, continuity system, folder sync, export, and every other major feature. Contextual help is also available inside the app from the ? button.

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Tech stack

Concern	Library
Desktop shell	Electron 41 + Electron Forge
Framework	React 19 + TypeScript
Build tool	Vite 8
Local database	Dexie.js 4 (IndexedDB)
UI state	Zustand 5
Routing	React Router 7
Maps	Leaflet + React Leaflet (CRS.Simple)
Relationship graph	React Flow 11
Styling	Tailwind CSS 4
Components	Radix UI + Lucide React
Testing	Vitest 4 + Playwright

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Development

npm install

npm run dev              # browser development server
npm run electron:dev     # Vite + Electron development
npm run preview          # preview the production web build

npm run lint             # ESLint
npm test                 # Vitest suite
npm run test:watch       # Vitest watch mode
npm run test:coverage    # Vitest coverage
npm run test:e2e         # Playwright end-to-end suite
npm run test:e2e:ui      # Playwright interactive runner

npm run build            # type-check + production web build
npm run electron:package # package the desktop app
npm run electron:make    # create installers for the current platform

@ is aliased to src/.

Project layout

src/
  components/  # application shell, navigation, time cursor, and shared UI
  db/          # Dexie schema, migrations, hooks, and the operation journal
  features/    # timeline, manuscript, maps, characters, history, lore, etc.
  lib/         # import/export, sync, continuity, analysis, and shared utilities
  store/       # persisted application and cursor state
  types/       # domain entity and operation interfaces

docs/          # user guide and maintained screenshots
e2e/           # Playwright end-to-end tests
electron/      # desktop entry point and packaging integration

The shipped books no longer live here. They are built, held to their authoring rules and published from Kathala-Library, which the app fetches the Library from at runtime; the rules and the tests that enforce them are in that repository's docs/AUTHORING.md.

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License

Released under the MIT License.

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Built conversationally with Claude Code.