How it works
Your story first. The catalog is the demo.
One promise runs through everything here: a choice is real, priced flat, and refunded if the machine fails you. The main act is the story you begin yourself; the shared canon is free forever, as the worked example of what your book can be.
Beginning your own
Every commissioned novel starts as a conversation. The intake chat is free (capped at twenty messages): describe the book you want — genre, teeth, stakes, the axes you want your choices to move — and it converges on a brief you approve. A moderation gate reads the brief before any credits move.
Then the forge runs. Remix an existing published story for 50 ⬡, its world carried over verbatim and byte-verified, or start blank-page for 100 ⬡, everything imagined fresh. Either way you receive a real opening: a spine, acts, ending funnels, and a first chapter that ends in validated choices — usually about two minutes after you say go. One revision is included if the opening isn't quite yours yet.
Growing it, chapter by chapter
This is the loop that matters. You read your story; it ends at a choice point; you choose — and the next chapter is written from that choice, for a flat 15 ⬡, charged to you as the story's owner. No prompting, no settings, no blank page: the book grows naturally out of the decisions you make inside it, as deep as the story holds.
It stays a novel while it grows because the spine holds: the forge authored acts, canonical dimensions, and ending funnels for your story the same way our editors author them for the catalog, and the AI replans only the horizon ahead of you. When you steer toward an ending, you get one that was earned — on the record in your endings gallery, exportable as an edition.
Commissioned stories are private by default: they never enter the catalog, the shared maps, or anyone's recommendations. The platform's free-canon budget never touches them either — your book is yours in both directions.
The honesty gate
Chapter ends carry choice points, and every option declares the dimension changes it commits. Before a choice point ships, a deterministic validator diffs the declared branches: options that don't genuinely diverge on the story's dimensions are rejected and the draft is regenerated. The same gate runs on catalog chapters, fork pitches, and every chapter the forge writes for you. Honesty here isn't editorial taste — it's a failing test.
The flat prices, all of them
Remix a world — 50 ⬡
An existing story's setting, carried over verbatim into a spine that's entirely yours. The cheapest way to begin — and the reason the catalog doubles as a showroom.
Blank page — 100 ⬡
Everything forged fresh from your brief: world, spine, funnels, first chapter. One revision included. Refusal at the moderation gate refunds every credit.
Your next chapter — 15 ⬡
Each choice on your own story writes the chapter that follows it, flat, however many drafts the validator burned. The platform absorbs the variance; the ledger never surprises you.
Forks on the examples — 2 ⬡ + 15 ⬡
On shared stories: 2 ⬡ rolls three off-plot pitches for your exact position, 15 ⬡ commits a detour chapter that's yours alone, and rejoining canon over a personalized bridge is free.
Your Edition — 5 ⬡
Export any completed playthrough as an EPUB: the chapters you walked — commissioned or canon — your detours, your ending, under an epigraph naming the edition yours.
Refunds are automatic
Every priced operation reserves credits first and reconciles exactly; failures and refusals release the reservation in full. The ledger in your account shows every movement.
The examples, and why they're free
The shared catalog is the platform's proof of work: published interactive novels you can read end to end without a meter. Every reader walks the same canon, byte for byte — shared chapters are materialized once, the first time anyone reaches them, and the platform's own metered account pays that AI bill. Credits only ever price what's personal to you.
The examples earn their keep three ways. They're where you feel how machine-checked honest branching reads before spending anything. They're fork playgrounds — when none of a chapter's doors is the one you want, roll pitches and chart a private detour. And they're remix sources: any published world can seed your own commissioned novel for 50 ⬡.
The trailblazer flywheel
Detours on shared stories don't have to stay private. A finished fork corridor can be submitted for promotion: a human curator reviews it, and an approved corridor is grafted into the shared canon — free for every reader to walk, spoiler-masked like any other branch, and credited on the map: ⭐ First charted by you. Approval also pays a 25 ⬡ thank-you.
That's how the free tier compounds: readers wander for their own reasons, and the examples grow new canon where wandering proved worth it. (Commissioned novels stay out of this loop by design — promotion exists only on shared stories, and only when you submit a corridor yourself.)
The fine mechanics
What can a commission be about?
Anything the moderation gate passes — it reads your brief before any credits are spent, and a refusal is a full refund. The gate exists so the forge writes stories, not policy incidents; refusal messages never echo your text back.
How long can my story run?
The forge authors a complete spine — acts with ending funnels — so your story has a shape and real endings, not an endless middle. You choose your way toward one at 15 ⬡ a chapter, and every ending you reach is recorded in your gallery. Then commission the next book.
Can my story or my forks break anything for other readers?
No. Commissioned novels are separate, private stories; forks are a private layer over the canon graph — canon nodes are immutable and hash-chained. The only way reader-made content enters the shared story is the curated promotion path.
Why are prices flat when AI costs vary?
Because predictable is honest. A chapter is 15 ⬡ whether the model needed one draft or three regenerations to pass the validator — the platform absorbs the variance, and the ledger never surprises you.
What stops spoilers on the map?
A server-side rule, not a blur effect: titles of unvisited chapters and names of unreached endings simply never leave the server. The map shows honest question marks until you've earned the reveal.
What model writes the chapters?
Frontier models under our own keys, routed through our own gateway, with planning and prose split across model tiers by what each step needs. Every draft passes the deterministic validators before it reaches a page you read.
Order the book. Then argue with it.
Ask for an invite and bring the story you always wanted a say in.
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