>[!meta-dates] >- **Created:** 2025-07-09 >- **Last updated:** 2025-07-10 >- **Author:** TJ Trewin ## Initial thoughts At the time of writing, [Obsidian Bases](https://help.obsidian.md/bases) is in early access and brings a built in database feature for notes in Obsidian. I'm *very excited* for this feature and its potential uses for worldbuilding organisation and faster note creation. ==I'll update this and share some code examples as I learn more about it.== Bases seems to work with notes and their related properties (frontmatter), and also implicit properties (file properties, like the created/modified time) but seemingly not all things contained within notes like to-do lists, or the wordcount. You can filter bases to display files in certain folders, with certain tags, and also use boolean operators like: `AND` (where *all* of the following are true), `OR` (where *any* of the following are true), and `NOT` (where *none* of the following are true). There's also arithmetic, date, and comparison operators. A base without filters shows all the files in your vault (I wonder what the performance of this is like for massive vaults with tens/hundreds of thousands of notes?). Also, it will work with Obsidian Publish (the tool I'm using for this wiki)! 🥳 Which means I can also consider how to display things for other people, not just for my own use. ## Uses for different views Currently, a base can be displayed as a table or as cards, with more [views](https://help.obsidian.md/bases/views) in development. Bases have numerous [functions](https://help.obsidian.md/bases/functions). ### Table view The table layout displays each file as a row, and the columns are filled from the properties (previously called frontmatter) in your notes. >[!warning] >A small caveat to these: consider if you *want* each thing to have its own separate note - you might not want to have hundreds of individual notes for historical events or for items if that's not your preferred method of worldbuilding! #### Worldbuilding uses Here are some ideas that I'm going to try out in my worldbuilding vault (most of these are currently in a Google Sheet, so I'd love to have an offline version that's connected to all of my other notes in one place): - **Worldbuilding timelines** event name, start/end dates (which could be based on Earth dates, or using a column for year number, month number, day number), duration (calculated), era (calculated), related events/locations/characters - **Fact sheets for quickly referencing information** - **Locations:** location name, neighbouring locations, parent location, size, locales, languages, religions, groups, climate, local fauna/flora, allegiance/ownership, flag/crest, child locations/settlements, areas of interest - **Species:** name, size, type, speed, features, damage, lifespan, materials, known locations, origins, related species - **Groups of people:** names, birth/death dates, ages (calculated?), guild members, family members, military ranks, religious titles, deities of a pantheon - **Items:** name, size, weight, function/usage, damage, range, rarity, price, materials, difficulty of crafting - **Spells:** name, type, effect, requirements, range, damage/impact, difficulty, skill, class/school #### Fast note creation Once you set up a base and its columns you can add new notes directly from there. 😳 As an example, let's say you wanted to create 20 settlements in a region of your world. Making each note and having to open each one to add the properties can feel tedious, but if you set up the property columns in a base and create the notes there, then you can edit those properties directly from the base. You could use this for simple properties that you want to filter quickly (like type, population size, imports, exports), but there's nothing stopping you from adding longer, descriptive text properties for things like: brief history, current events, local cuisine. It all depends on how you prefer to use Obsidian for worldbuilding! #### Quick edits Any changes or additions to properties in bases are also reflected in the note, so you don't need to open each note if you wanted to quickly add/remove some tags or change the value of a property. #### Project planning and pacing Table view is also really useful if you prefer a more structured or project-based approach to worldbuilding, like for a TTRPG campaign, writing a novel, or game dev. You could set up columns for: creation date, due date, days remaining (calculated), status, last updated date - and then filter the areas you want to develop based on a timescale, or view your oldest notes and see if they need refreshing with new details. ### Card view The card layout displays each file as a card in a grid, and you can configure the image URL or attachment link in the view settings. #### Worldbuilding uses I think I'd personally get the most use out of this for quick visual reminders and navigation: - Maps of locations - Different species - Character portraits - Flags/banners/crests/logos of organisations and groups ### Predicted upcoming views #### Board view? I anticipate that there may be a kanban-style view that lets you drag & drop short card-style notes between columns. Typically this is used in project management (e.g. Ideas > Draft > In progress > Done for now), but it could be used for events within certain ages/eras to make a timeline (like [Microscope](https://lamemage.itch.io/microscope)) , or perhaps keeping track of character/group allegiances to certain powerful groups or entities. #### Map view? Part of the example code shown [here](https://help.obsidian.md/bases/syntax) includes a reference to maps, and though it's explained in terms of community plugin possibilities, I really, *really* hope it's included in Bases. 👀 >"A different view type such as a map could use this for mapping which property in the note corresponds to the latitude and longitude and which property should be displayed as the pin title. >In the future, API will allow views to read and write these values, allowing the view to build its own interface for configuration." ```yaml views: - type: map name: "Example map" filters: "has_coords == true" lat: lat long: long title: file.name ``` #### Chart view? This would be really neat to see filtered chart views for areas of my world such as: population demographics in different regions (species, ethnicity, religion, etc), This would also be a great visual aid for more of a project overview! I like to see how many of my notes have a particular template such as: species, character, location, item, etc. - it can give me an insight to what areas I love expanding on, and which areas might need some more love.