Existential Hope Worldbuilding Course
TOOLBOX
TOOLS
Description text if needed
Video
Tool
Price
Description
An open-source video editor with a simple interface. Great for basic editing and stitching together worldbuilding trailers or timeline videos without cost.
An AI-driven platform that turns text (articles/scripts) into short videos with stock footage. Useful for generating quick concept videos or lore summaries of your setting.
A beginner-friendly, template-based video editor in the browser. Helps you quickly produce promotional or world introduction videos with minimal editing skills.
A web-based video creation suite with collaborative features. Good for team-based worldbuilding projects needing quick video memes or timeline visuals.
A generative AI tool that creates short video clips from text prompts or images. Great for visualizing scenes from your world or animating concept art.
Another text-to-video AI platform that can produce stylized video clips. Handy for test-driving futuristic or speculative visuals in your narrative.
A rumored/placeholder platform from OpenAI, not publicly released. Potentially for advanced AI-driven video or content creation (details unclear).
An AI-powered suite (including Gen-2 text-to-video) for editing, compositing, and generating video content. Lets you prototype cinematic shots for your sci-fi/fantasy realm.
Lets you generate videos with AI avatars speaking your script in multiple languages. Useful for creating in-world “news broadcasts” or character introductions.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Text
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Price
Description
AI chatbot that can assist with idea generation, lore development, or refining text. Useful for brainstorming plot points or fleshing out world details.
Another large language model for writing support, generating dialogues, or summarizing research. Helpful in shaping in-world documents or character backstories.
Another large language model for writing support, generating dialogues, or summarizing research. Helpful in shaping in-world documents or character backstories.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Image generation
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Description
OpenAI’s text-to-image tool producing illustrations or realistic art from prompts. Great for concept art of characters, locations, or artifacts in your world.
Open-source text-to-image model. Highly customizable via community models. Perfect for generating consistent style art or large amounts of concept imagery.
Offers a range of design features; also has a text-to-image feature. Useful for quick graphic design tasks (banners, thumbnails) for your world’s presentation.
Canva’s built-in AI image generator. Simple prompts for quick backgrounds, character sketches, or promotional images.
Microsoft’s free interface to DALL·E 3 with daily prompt limits. Great for quick experimentation or for those who want no cost AI art.
Adobe’s generative AI system for image creation and text effects. Integrates with Photoshop and Illustrator to produce on-brand, polished assets for your world’s visuals.
Popular with game artists for fine-tuning a desired style or referencing an existing style. Handy for detailed character or environment designs.
Web-based interface for stable diffusion-based models. Has a friendly UI and daily credit system, suitable for casual exploration of world visuals.
Straightforward web-based text-to-image using multiple models. Good for quick concept generation or background art with minimal fuss.
Renowned for high-quality, artistic outputs via Discord-based prompting. If you need premium art or you want to refine a consistent style, it’s a strong choice.
AI writing + image generation platform, known for anime-style or fantasy art. Good for stylized scenes or consistent character designs.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Information collection and presentation
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Price
Description
A straightforward online word processor with real-time collaboration. Good for drafting world bibles, chapters, or collaborative world notes.
Basic presentation and spreadsheet tools. Handy for making timelines, mind-maps, or quick pitch decks about your world.
All-in-one workspace with pages, wikis, and databases. Perfect for building interactive encyclopedias for your setting, linking characters, places, and events.
A Markdown-based knowledge base with a graph view to visualize note connections. Ideal for complex lore structures and worldbuilding networks.
Microsoft’s digital notebook. Organize text, images, sketches, and audio across different sections. Great for storing research clippings or reference art for your world.
A digital bulletin board. Can be used for brainstorming, mood boards, or collecting references in a visual format for your world.
Note-taking app with powerful search (including text in images). Good for collecting web articles or research about real-world analogs to your fictional societies/tech.
Kanban-style project management tool. Ideal for organizing worldbuilding tasks, story arcs, or character arcs in a board-based layout.
A visual organization tool (like a digital whiteboard). Perfect for mapping out plot structures, mood boards, or concept sketches in a freeform layout.
A spreadsheet-database hybrid. Great for tracking complex relationships (factions, timeline events) or collating world details systematically.
Placeholder for a paid project management or collaboration suite. Could be used for team-based worldbuilding to coordinate schedules, deadlines, and tasks.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Worldbuilding/Scenario planning (Futuristic / Sci-Tech)
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Description
A collaborative cause-and-effect scenario-mapping tool. Useful for fleshing out near-future or sci-fi settings by visualizing how technology, society, and economy interconnect.
Systems mapping and relationship visualization. Ideal for complex tech-driven worlds where numerous factions, policies, or technologies interact.
Aggregates futurist articles, signals, and data for horizon scanning. Good for building realistic near-future scenarios grounded in emerging trends.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Worldbuilding (Fantasy/Sci-Fi)
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Price
Description
A dedicated worldbuilding platform with structured article templates, timelines, and interactive maps. Ideal for fantasy or sci-fi “story bibles.”
Similar to World Anvil, focusing on collaborative map-based worldbuilding. Helps you create a wiki of locations, characters, and timelines.
A modular writing + worldbuilding suite with character sheets, timelines, maps, and more. Good for large, multi-arc fantasy or sci-fi epics.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Storytelling
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Description
Offers a space to collaboratively build narratives online, potentially for interactive or social storytelling. Great if you want feedback or co-creation of story arcs.
An open-source tool for creating interactive, branching stories (choose-your-own-adventure style). Ideal for designing nonlinear plots or testing narrative possibilities in your world.
A powerful desktop writing app with a binder system for scenes/chapters and research. Perfect for complex novel or script projects in a heavily detailed world.
Focused on timeline management. Allows custom fantasy calendars and linking events to characters and arcs—great for tracking multi-generational stories or elaborate plotlines.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Diagram/Data visualization tools
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Description
An online tool for flowcharts, diagrams, maps. Good for mapping organizational charts of factions or visualizing your world’s political/economic systems.
A lightweight, web-based drawing tool within Google’s suite. Useful for quick sketches or collaborative diagramming (maps, relationship charts).
A hand-drawn style whiteboard tool. Great for brainstorming or making informal “concept art” of your world’s layout, regions, or technology.
A real-time collaborative whiteboard. Ideal for team-based worldbuilding sessions, where multiple users can simultaneously map out ideas, flowcharts, or timelines.
A more formal diagramming platform with templates for flowcharts, mind maps, etc. Handy if you prefer structured representations of your story or world elements.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Design tools
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Description
A collaborative UI/UX design tool, also great for making mood boards or visual mockups of futuristic tech interfaces in your story.
A simplified online design suite from Adobe. Offers quick graphics, social media posts, or promotional visuals for your setting.
Focused on infographics and data visualizations. Perfect if you want to present your world’s demographics, timelines, or history in a chart-based narrative.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Meme creation tools
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Price
Description
A classic meme generator site. Good for lighthearted worldbuilding, quick in-universe jokes, or promotional memes.
An iOS/Android app with built-in meme templates. If you want easy, on-the-fly creation of humorous in-world references, this is a casual go-to.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Data & Forecasting
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Price
Description
Crowdsourced forecasting platform. Users predict future events/outcomes, aggregated into probability estimates. Perfect for adding real-world “future probabilities” to near-future worldbuilding.
A public version of the Good Judgment Project. Similar to Metaculus—forecasts on policy, science, and global affairs. Helps gauge likelihood of certain tech or geopolitical developments.
An open-data platform on global issues (health, energy, economics). Offers charts, interactive graphs, and downloadable datasets—ideal for grounding your future setting in factual stats.
Presents data visualizations on global development (population, health, income) in a simple, interactive format. Great for establishing baseline stats in your near-future or alt-history scenario.
A data science community with free datasets and competitions. If you want to analyze raw data or apply machine learning for deeper insights into your world’s hypothetical trends, start here.
A massive collection of global development indicators (GDP, education, population). Perfect for realistic economic or societal aspects in near-future or parallel-world scenarios.
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid
Tech Trend & Insight Summaries
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Description
A curated collection of articles, papers, and resources focusing on long-term survival, advanced technologies, and existential risks and possibilities. Inspires positive or utopian angles on futuristic worlds. Helps integrate valuable information into your scenario narratives.
Online publication offering short articles on recent scientific breakthroughs and emerging tech trends—across AI, space, biotech, etc. Great for quick, digestible updates to spark plot ideas or world details. Provides real-world context for near-future or hard sci-fi concepts.
Covers exponential technologies (AI, robotics, biotech) and their social implications, stemming from the Singularity University’s community. Useful for visionary or transformative future settings. Helps you track cutting-edge developments that can drastically change your world’s trajectory.
Annual coverage of 10 major tech breakthroughs with concise overviews of how they work and potential impact. Excellent for identifying key tech drivers to incorporate in near-future or advanced worlds. Each summary offers a snapshot of a game-changing innovation.
Market intelligence on tech sectors (AI, blockchain, health). Releases infographics and short briefs on funding rounds, startup trends, etc. Helps shape economic and corporate angles in your world—who’s investing in what, where disruptions may come from, etc. Good for building plausible corporate/political ecosystems.
Visualizes how emerging technologies progress through a “hype cycle” (Innovation Trigger → Peak of Inflated Expectations → Trough of Disillusionment → etc.). Useful for pacing your tech adoption timeline. You can see where a technology might be in the cycle—helping make your world’s tech diffusion more believable (hype vs. reality).
- Free
- Limited free use
- Paid