a writing app for literary universes and RPG worlds
Your world has a memory.
Now your editor does too.
Write chapters, mark characters and places as links, and let Universos remember how it all connects — no loose index cards, no spreadsheet on the side.
The walls of Valdren tremiam sob o canto grave dos tambores de war. Serathine wore the armour of the Ordem, bearing the Dawnblade her mother left her. In the depths of the Fosso, something stirred with the echo of the drums — something the Order of the Grey Veil had served for centuries.
What Universos is
Universos is a free app for writing books and organising literary universes and RPG worlds. You write the story in chapters and mark characters, places, objects and factions as wiki-style links by typing [[. It runs offline on Windows and Android, with no account and no cloud.
- Who it is for — people writing a novel, a short story or an RPG campaign who are tired of keeping character sheets in a separate spreadsheet.
- Where it runs — Windows, through the Microsoft Store or its own installer, and Android as an APK. There is no web, macOS, iOS or Linux version.
- What it costs — nothing. No subscription, no paid tier, no expiring trial, and no cap on worlds, chapters or entities.
- Where the data lives — in a single
.universo.jsonfile on your device. The app never sends what you write anywhere. - What it exports — a real EPUB, with cover, table of contents, metadata and mentions turned into clickable notes. Also PDF for the printer, DOCX for revision and Markdown for plain text.
living references
Type [[ and the rest of the world appears.
Universos turns every name you cite into a link. Mention a character, a place, a faction — Universos already knows who it is, which category it belongs to and what its summary says. Pick from the list or create a new entry without leaving the text you are writing. And when the scene asks for another name, [[Johnny:: shows the nickname in the sentence and still links to the right page.
link "Valdren" · 1 result
everything in its place
A page for every character, place and object in your world.
Every Universos entity — character, place, object or faction — gets a two-column page. Summary, custom fields and "mentioned in" stay visible in a fixed sidebar — the main column is left free for prose.
Create your first pagemore than a mention
Labelled relationships: who is whose child, who rules what.
Universos separates mentions from relations. A mention in the text becomes a link automatically. A labelled relationship is your own choice — "serves", "rules", "child of" — and appears on both sides, each with its own description.
Map your world's relationsnothing gets lost
Every chapter and every entry keeps its own history.
Universos keeps a separate history for every chapter and every entity. Every time you save, a version is recorded. Follow the timeline, compare what changed word by word, and restore any earlier version in one click.
Download and start writingknow where everything is
Search by title, content and tag — and a portrait of your progress.
Universos search covers your whole world at once. Results grouped by the kind of match, with the passage highlighted. Plus a stats page with words per day, per chapter, and the days you have been writing.
Search inside your worldfrom world to book
From world to book — as EPUB, PDF, DOCX or Markdown.
A single screen, Publish, gathers everything that becomes a file: the metadata, the cover you build by dragging the title, which chapters go in and how the body text looks. The .epub comes out with a table of contents, metadata and mentions turned into notes — in the reader, tapping a character's name opens the explanation right there, without leaving the page. The .pdf comes out paginated for the printer, with a gutter margin that swaps sides on every sheet; the .docx goes to whoever revises with track changes, and the .md to whoever wants plain text. You can also export just the entity glossary, or just the chapters you marked as revised.
what you wrote, as an image
A passage you like becomes a post in one click.
Select a passage in the editor and Universos turns it into an image — as a story, portrait or post, in four themes. Characters and places become cards too, in the colour of their category. All generated on your own computer: nothing you write ever leaves it.
Make your first cardthe world tells you what is missing
Open the app and see what you could do today.
Universos looks at your world and points out what fell through the cracks: a character mentioned in twelve chapters who never got a description, someone you created who has not appeared anywhere. And it notices things only something that knows the connections would — who runs through the most chapters, two central figures who have never met.
Open Universos todayyour world from above
See your whole world in a single drawing.
Every character, place or faction becomes a dot, and every relation you created becomes a thread. Focus on one entry to see only its neighbourhood, open the whole world to find who ended up with no connection at all and which clusters formed on their own, or look chapter by chapter to see who turns up alongside whom. The map also points out the bridges: the entries that, if they left, would split your world into pieces that never touch.
Download and see your mapgenuinely yours
No server, no sign-in, no subscription. One file, your way.
One portable file
Everything is saved in a single local file. Sync it between computer and tablet however you like — Drive, Syncthing, USB. The app never decides that for you.
Windows and Android
A native installer for the desktop, an APK for the tablet. The same interface, adapted to touch where it matters — the sidebar becomes a drawer, targets grow.
No tracking
There is no account, no cloud, no data being sent. What you write stays on your device.
vocabulary
What each term means here.
- Mention
[[wiki]] - A name cited inside the text that becomes a link to that entity’s page. Typing
[[opens the list, and your pick becomes a link coloured by its category. - Entity
- Anything in your world with a page of its own: a character, a place, an object, a faction. It holds a summary, a description, custom fields and aliases.
- Category
- An entity’s type, with a name and colour you choose. The four examples — character, place, object and faction — are only a starting point.
- Typed relation
- A named link between two entities, such as "child of" or "rules". Each end is its own record, so the reverse label can differ from the forward one.
- Backlink
- The automatically computed list of where an entity was mentioned. It shows up as "Mentioned in", with a snippet of context around each citation.
- EPUB
- The open e-book format that Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books open or convert. Universos exports an EPUB 3 with cover, contents and metadata.
- Worldbuilding
- Building the world behind the story — geography, peoples, history, rules. It is the work that usually ends up scattered across notebooks and loose spreadsheets.
- Universe (the file)
- A whole world in one
.universo.jsonfile: chapters, entities, relations, tags and history. It is what you sync between devices however you like.
before you download
The questions everyone asks.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. Universos is free — no subscription, no paid tier, no expiring trial, and no cap on worlds, chapters or entities.
Does it work without internet?
It does. Writing, searching, exporting — all of it runs offline. The only connection the app makes on its own is a dismissible once-a-day check for a newer version.
Where does my data live?
In a single .universo.json file on your device. There is no account, no cloud, and the app never sends the contents of your world anywhere.
Can I write on my PC and carry on from a tablet?
Yes — by syncing that file with whatever you already use: Google Drive, OneDrive, Syncthing, a USB cable. The app doesn't make that choice for you.
Which platforms does it run on?
Windows, with its own installer and on the Microsoft Store, and Android, as an APK. There is no web, macOS, iOS or Linux version.
Is it for RPGs or only for novels?
Both. A chapter can be a session, an entity can be an NPC, and the categories are yours: beyond character, place, object and faction, you create whatever your world needs.
Can I export to Kindle and other e-readers?
It exports a real EPUB — chapters in order, table of contents, metadata and the cover you built. That's the format Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books open or convert.
How does Universos handle a long book?
With a 400,000-character novel, 80 entities and 20 versions in the history, the file is read in about 15 ms, the heaviest calculation behind a screen takes 4.4 ms, and saving takes 26.5 ms. Up to four times that size, times grow in proportion, with no sudden jumps. These measure the app's logic on a development machine; drawing the screen is not included.
How does it compare to Scrivener, Obsidian and World Anvil?
Universos puts the manuscript and the world wiki in one place, with typed relations and EPUB export, without a subscription and without the cloud. In exchange, it has no Obsidian plugins, no World Anvil maps and no Scrivener corkboard.