Quill & Compass

A campaign app for D&D game masters

Every legend needs
a hand to write it.

Heroes, maps, the clash, and the chronicle — Quill & Compass is one place for the whole campaign. You run it on the desktop; your players join free in a browser. Begin: forge your party, and travel the map.

Who leads the party?

Pick one — they take the front of the road.

↓ scroll to travel the road

The first waypoint

They ask the innkeeper
her name.

You never prepped her, and the party has just decided she matters. One press: a name, a manner, a secret, something on tap. Shops, rooms and chests, the same. Who the duke really is stays yours.

Act IIThe road

The lair

It has been waiting.

The fire, at the day's end

Nothing worth
remembering gets lost.

Your notes, quietly sorted and cross-linked as you write them, so the name you dropped eleven sessions ago is still findable in one search. You write it; the Quill keeps it straight.

Behind the curtain

This is the actual app.

Screenshots from a real campaign — not mock-ups. The Game Master runs the desktop app; players join free in a browser, with nothing to install.

For the Game Master

  • The map annotation editor open on an imported dungeon map titled Undercroft 24x16: a wall-mask brush painted in a pale band along the stone walls of three rooms, the first two already traced into a thin gold light-blocking outline and the third half done, a blue door segment set into the gap in the middle room's east wall, and a toolbar listing Wall Mask, Draw Door, Draw Window and a freehand brush.
    You paint the walls; it traces the rest — a brush dragged over the stonework becomes real light-blocking geometry. Doors and windows are their own tools, so a shut door can hide a room and still let the sound through.
  • Two screens side by side in the same live session on a forest map with a stream and a muddy road: on the left the Game Master's desktop app with the weather dial open and set to Storm, on the right a player's browser map window — rain is falling across the map in both, and the party tokens are labelled Egbert the Fairly Powerful, Alan Peck, Roland Gusset and Prudence Wallop.
    One dial, every screen — the GM turns the weather to storm and the rain arrives on the players' maps in the same moment. Left, the GM's app; right, a player in a browser.
  • The Mind Map view: named NPCs, players, locations and events plotted as a linked constellation, with a chapter timeline across the top and entity counts down the left.
    Everyone and everything, linked — every name you write is matched to the people, places and factions you already recorded, so you can see the campaign instead of remembering it.
  • Combat running on a swamp map the app drew, with a causeway across dark water: Roland Gusset, Alan Peck, Egbert the Fairly Powerful and Prudence Wallop on the near island, two Lizardfolk and a Giant Frog on the far one inside the red ring of a Fireball cast by Prudence Wallop. A result card shows all three saved, taking 7 damage each; tokens are ringed in health bars and the initiative panel lists the turn order with Prudence Wallop up.
    The fight, on a map the app drew — this swamp came out of the map generator. Tokens carry their health; the initiative order keeps the turn honest.
  • The journal, showing a list of session notes with folders and system collections down the side.
    Notes that stay findable — folders, collections and entity links, so a name from eleven sessions ago is one search away.
  • The Lectern reading view: a prepared passage shown in large type for reading aloud, split into beats.
    Read-aloud without the fumble — prepared passages in large type, broken into beats, on a screen only you can see.

For your players

  • The Roll and Reference panel: a dice pool builder, every saving throw and skill modifier laid out, a roll history, and a row of dice material choices.
    They roll their own dice — every save, check and attack to hand, with the history kept. Quill & Compass never rolls for a player.
  • A character profile page showing portrait, backstory and appearance for the character Thorne.
    A sheet worth looking at — the numbers for play, and somewhere for who the character actually is.
  • The inventory and equipment view, with equipment slots and a carried item list.
    Kit that keeps itself straight — equipment slots, carried weight and what each thing actually does.
  • A spellbook view listing prepared spells and available spell slots for the character Lyra.
    Spells, slots and all — prepared list, slots tracked, no separate spreadsheet.

Why a GM switches

You paint the walls. It works out the rest.

Scrub a brush over the walls on your imported map and Quill & Compass traces that paint into real line-of-sight. No clicking hundreds of wall corners, one at a time, for every map you own. Doors and windows are their own tools — and each can block sight, light, sound and movement separately, so a shut door hides the room while the party still hears the chanting through it.

Light decides what is seen.

The dwarf sees sixty feet down a black corridor; the human beside her sees nothing until a torch is lit — and the torch is read from what the character is carrying, not typed in by hand. Ground the rogue already scouted stays revealed for everyone.

Your players get the same world, minus your secrets.

One campaign bible, with a hidden-or-revealed switch on every entry. Players open the same linked map of NPCs, places and factions — filtered before it ever leaves the server, so the secret never reaches their machine. Reveal it the moment they earn it.

Drop a monster in mid-session and it can fight.

The party goes somewhere you never prepped. Summon a creature and it arrives with a real stat block and real attacks already attached — not a blank token you fill in while five people watch you type.

What the GM can set

That weather sequence is a real control, not a cutscene.

  • Six weathersclear, cloud, rain, storm, snow, fog
  • Four hoursdawn, day, dusk, night
  • Fog of warline of sight per token, darkvision aware
  • Light & torchesplaced lights, flicker, walls that block
  • Ambient sounda bed per place, cued from the same panel
  • One dial, every screenyou change it; the table sees it

How it works

  • The GM buys it once. No monthly bill, no per-seat charge.
  • Players join free. A link and a web browser — nothing to install and no account to pay for.
  • Your maps stay yours. Bring the images you already own; the app adds the lighting, walls, weather and fog.
  • The dice stay yours too. Players roll for themselves. Always.
  • One person builds it. No investors, no subscription. Who, and why →

Players start free in the browser today. Game Master licences £29 for the first 200, £39 after. See pricing

Two halves of one story

Gather your party.

You write. The Compass keeps the map. Begin the journey — it remembers everyone who walks it.

Players can start free in the browser now — a free account, nothing to install. Leave your address and we’ll tell you the moment Game Master licences open.

GMs buy once. Players free. £29 for the first 200 Game Masters. £39 after.