FAQs

What is Embers Design Studios?
We’re a small studio building digital tools for tabletop RPG players and Game Masters. Everything we make is designed to live at the table with you and to be fast and practical, built around how real games actually get played.

What tools does Embers offer?
Right now our suite has three applications: Embers Vault, your personal RPG content library; Embers Play, a campaign and session management tool; and Embers Imagine, a worldbuilding and creative content platform. They’re designed to work independently but become more powerful when used together.

Do I need to use all three tools?
Not at all. Each tool stands on its own. Plenty of people use just Vault to manage their characters and rules, or just Play to run their campaigns. Use whatever fits your table.

Does my entire group need to use the platform?
Nope. If you’re a player, Vault is the tool for you, put all your characters in there along with any house rules, and nobody else needs to use the system. If you’re a GM, you can run everything without requiring players to sign up. That said, the more of your group who uses Embers, the better the tools get. It’s never a requirement, just a bonus.

Are these tools system-agnostic?
It depends on the tool.

Vault and Play are built around game systems, designed to work with the rules, characters, and content of the game you’re playing. We support a broad range of rulesets including Dungeons and Dragons 5e/5.5e, Pathfinder 1e and 2e, and Savage Worlds.

Embers Imagine is fully system-agnostic. It’s a worldbuilding tool that works the same way regardless of what’s on the table.

Are the tools free? Nearly every feature across Vault, Play, and Imagine is available for free. The only restrictions are: free accounts can create up to 3 characters in Vault, 1 campaign in Play, and 1 world in Imagine, and all content on a free account is public. Paid accounts remove those caps and give you the ability to mark some content private. If you’re just getting started or keeping things simple, free gets you a long way.

How do I create an account?
Head to any one of our sites and login with Google or Facebook. The system does the rest.

Is my data shared between the tools?
Yes, in useful ways. Characters and content you create in Vault can be pulled into Play campaigns. Worldbuilding content in Imagine can be linked to rules and characters across the suite.

What rulesets are supported? Currently: Dungeons and Dragons 5e/5.5e, Pathfinder 1e and 2e, and Savage Worlds. We’ll continue expanding this list based on what our community is actually playing.

What’s an alias?
Your alias is your public-facing identity across the Embers suite. It’s the name other players and GMs see you by, separate from your account username. You set it up in Embers Play, but it follows you across all the tools.

I found a bug. What do I do? We’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach us right now is through our Patreon page. We’re a small team actively building all three tools and we genuinely read every message.

What is Embers Vault?
Vault is a digital home for your RPG content. You can store and manage your characters, reference game rules, browse spells and items, and build out the building blocks you use across your games. Think of it as the organized binder you always wished you had at the table, except it’s available anywhere you are.

What can I store in Vault? Characters, monsters, rules, spells, items, and more. Each piece of content is tied to a ruleset and belongs to your account. Rulesets keep things organized, so, for instance, your Dungeons and Dragons content isn’t cluttering up your Pathfinder content.

How many Characters can I create?
Free accounts can create up to 3 characters (including monsters). If you need more, supporting us on Patreon gives you unlimited characters.

I only see 2 characters, but on the screen it says I cannot create more.
The character limit is for the total number of characters across all Rulesets. If you have one 5e character and 2 PFRPG characters, you will see (3/3) on the Character page, even though you may see only 1 or 2 characters on the page.

Do you have any example characters I can look at?
Sure do. Here is…

• Khana, human paladin (requires you be logged in)
• Image of the Character Sheet

Can I use my Vault characters in Embers Play?
Yes. As a player, you bring your character to campaigns so your GM can see and interact with them. As a GM, you invite your players so you can see everyone’s characters quickly and easily. Character data always stays in Vault as the source of truth; Play just references it.

Does Vault include stock content, or is it only my stuff?
Both. Vault can hold content you’ve created yourself, and it also includes stock rules and reference content sourced from SRD materials and publisher data where licensing allows.

Can I share my Vault content with other players?
Sharing is managed in Embers Play. GMs can share rules (spells, feats, items, etc.) with their players through the campaign, so everyone at the table has access to what they need without each player needing to build their own library. These rules can be added to your characters and will update automatically as your GM makes updates to their content. Additionally, Vault content itself is public and while direct sharing isn’t a built-in feature yet, you can share a link to a piece of content and other users can clone it to their own account and use it from there.

What happens to my characters if I’m in multiple campaigns?
Your character lives in Vault and can be added to any campaign in Play. The character isn’t duplicated, each campaign holds a reference back to your Vault character. Updates you make in Vault carry through.

Is there a limit to how much content I can store?
Nope. We’ll keep an eye on this and may change it, but we have seen no need to do so yet.

What is Embers Play?
Play is a campaign and session management tool. GMs use it to create campaigns, manage encounters, track participants and their characters, and keep sessions organized. It’s the operational layer on top of the content you’ve built in Vault and Imagine.

How many Campaigns can I create? Free accounts can create 1 campaign. If you need more, supporting us on Patreon gives you unlimited campaigns.

Can my campaign be kept private?
Yes, but it’s a member feature. Campaigns on free accounts are public. If you support us on Patreon, you can mark your campaign private so only you and those you invite can see it.

Can players use Embers Play, or is it just for GMs?
Both. GMs create and manage campaigns, but players can be added as participants. Each campaign has roles: Game Master, player, and watcher, and what you can see and do depends on your role.

How do characters get added to a campaign?
Players bring their Vault characters into a campaign through a character picker. The GM can see who’s playing what, but the character data lives in Vault and is owned by the player. No duplicate records floating around.

What is a ‘watcher’ role?
Watchers are participants who are in a campaign without actively playing, maybe they’re observing, helping out, or following along with the story. They have view access but aren’t assigned a player character.

Can I run multiple campaigns at once?
Yes. Play supports as many campaigns as you need. Each campaign is fully independent with its own participants, characters, sessions, and encounters.

Does Embers Play have rules reference built in?
Yes. You can bring your Vault rules into any campaign, and we’ve done our best to put them right where you’ll need them during a session. No tab switching, no looking it up elsewhere.

Can I import or use content from other sources?
Play is designed to work with content from Vault and Imagine. If your content is in Vault, it’s accessible in Play. We’re not currently supporting direct imports from third-party platforms.