Lore Graph

Projects are mostly relationships, causality, facts, and changes over time. A graph model fits this better than a folder of notes.

Nodes

A node represents a meaningful resource in the project.

Common node types:

• Character
• Faction
• Location
• Item
• Secret
• Event
• Scene
• PlotThread
• Continuity
• Publication

Edges

An edge represents a relationship between two resources.

Examples:

Character -> belongs_to -> Faction
Faction -> controls -> Location
Character -> knows -> Secret
Event -> reveals -> Secret
Event -> advances -> PlotThread
Scene -> occurs_at -> Location
Character -> opposes -> Character
Faction -> funds -> Faction

Why This Matters

Graph relationships make questions easier to answer.

Examples:

Who knows this secret?
Which factions control locations near this city?
Which characters are connected to this plot thread?
What events were caused by this faction?
Which scenes can reveal this secret?

Implementation Note

The service does not have to use a graph database on day one. A relational database can model nodes and edges with tables.

A simple start:

entities
  id
  project_id
  entity_type
  name
  body
  metadata

relationships
  id
  project_id
  source_resource_id
  relation_type
  target_resource_id
  visibility
  metadata

The current code starts with entity-to-entity relationships. The target model should leave room for resource-to-resource relationships so events, facts, scenes, and publications can participate in the graph when needed.