If you've been worldbuilding in Obsidian, you have spent months writing the hard part — the notes and the [[links]] between them. What you don't have is a way to see who your NPCs are to each other, mark which connections your players don't know about, or share a safe version with your table. Import the vault and you get all three, without rewriting a word.
Each .md file in the vault becomes a node named after the file, with the note body carried across as its description and your tags preserved.
A [[link]] that resolves to another note in the vault becomes a directional edge from one node to the other. Links to notes that don't exist are counted and shown, not silently discarded.
A type: field decides whether a note is an NPC, PC, faction, location or abstract. No frontmatter? Your tags are checked next. You can reassign anything in the review step.
You don't need to write your vault this way — this is just what gets recognised if it's there.
| In your note | Becomes |
|---|---|
type: npc in frontmatter | Node typed as an NPC |
tags: [faction] or an inline #faction | Node typed as a Faction (also: guild, org, organization) |
#location, #place, #region | Node typed as a Location |
#pc or #player | Node typed as a player character |
[[Lady Voss]] in the body | A directional relationship to that note's node |
| Any other tags | Carried over as node tags, usable for filtering and colour |
| Nothing recognisable | An Abstract node you can retype in the review step |
Obsidian's graph view is genuinely lovely and almost useless at the table, for one structural reason: a wikilink has no type. It can tell you the innkeeper and the guard captain are connected. It cannot tell you she's blackmailing him.
After import, retype the edges that matter: ally, rival, enemy, family, subordinate, romantic, secret. Set a direction, because trust usually isn't mutual, and a strength you can revise as the campaign erodes it.
Mark nodes and edges hidden from players, then share a link. The hidden parts are stripped from the payload before the URL exists — something you cannot do with a vault you either share or don't.
This isn't a migration and it doesn't ask you to leave. The import is read-only and one-way — your vault is never modified — so the sensible workflow is to keep writing long-form prose, lore and session notes where you already write them, and re-import when the cast has grown enough that you want to see the shape of it again.
Once it's in, the rest of the toolkit applies: relationship mapping, faction tracking, and the wider campaign manager.
The Spider's Web combines an NPC relationship mapper, session planner, initiative tracker, dice roller, and generators into one campaign manager for any tabletop RPG — in person or online. Free, no login required. Your data stays in your browser.
Start your campaign — it's free →