# Lore

Lore is background the narrator should know: histories, customs, gods, the reason nobody
fishes the north cove. It is only shown when lore is on in [Setup](/docs/world-systems).

## How it's used

Entries are **looked up each turn**. Only the ones relevant to what is happening reach the
narrator, so a hundred entries cost no more per turn than five. Write as much as the world
deserves.

Relevance is found two ways: by the **name** and its **aliases** matching what players type,
and by **meaning**, so a question about "the old gods under the sea" can find an entry named
*The Drowned Ones* even without the words matching.

## An entry

- **Name**: what the entry is about. *The Drowned Ones*.
- **Aliases**: other ways a player might refer to it. *the ones below*, *sea gods*, *the Choir's
  masters*. More phrasings mean the entry is found more reliably.
- **Body**: what the narrator should know. Write it as background, not as a scene:

> The Drowned Ones were Gull's Rest's gods before the chapel was built. The old families still
> leave salt on the sills at new moon. Nobody under sixty admits to believing in them.

## What goes in lore, and what doesn't

| Put it in | Because |
|---|---|
| **Lore** | background any scene might touch: history, religion, customs, rumors |
| **A character's GM notes** | secrets one person holds |
| **A location's description** | what you see and hear standing there |
| **A location's lore** | the history and talk of one place, known whenever the party is there |
| **A faction's relations** | how two groups treat each other |

Lore is for things that are **true** in the world. What a character merely believes belongs in
their memories or description.