Available Free Last reviewed: 24 Oct 2026
Under “Characters” you manage all the characters of your project with profile, relationships and appearances.
A character is more than a name. The more you record about them, the better Illumentis can support you: you see which scenes they appear in, and the Illuminatio Engine checks, for example, their age and status against the text. Characters apply to the whole project, that is, to all the books in it.
You do not have to fill in anything in advance. A new character needs only a name, and you add everything else when you need it. If you like to be guided, use the interview, which leads you question by question through appearance, traits and way of speaking. The questions are fixed templates; Illumentis does not write anything for you.
Every character has a detail page with several sections. That is also where you decide which details guests may see. Name and status stay visible to guests.
In the project, open the “Characters” section and choose “New character”.
What you see afterwards: A dialog asks only for the name.
Enter the name and save. You can add everything else later.
What you see afterwards: The detail page of the character opens.
Fill in the sections of the detail page in the order that suits your writing, or choose “Start interview” in the list.
What you see afterwards: The interview shows “Question … of …” and lets you go back or skip.
On the detail page, choose “Save” to store the basic data.
What you see afterwards: “Saved.”
Under “Guest visibility for core fields”, set which groups guests see.
What you see afterwards: Guests only see the groups you have shared.
Owners and co-authors of the project create characters, edit them, move them to the trash and restore them, each within their project rights. Guests only see the fields that are shared with guests. They see name and status without a separate share.
Characters belong to the project, not to your account. They live in the project and travel with the project export. A character in the trash is kept for 30 days and can be restored during that time.
By default, a project can hold at most 20 characters unless the project owner has a studio subscription. The operators can change these values; Illumentis tells you the value currently in effect in the app once you reach the limit. Existing characters remain usable when the limit is reached. The “Save” button only stores the basic data. Relationships, knowledge, abilities and status effects have their own “Add” buttons.
“Save” only stores the basic data (basics, appearance, personality, speech, custom fields). Relationships, knowledge, abilities, suspensions and status effects are each saved with their own “Add” button. A notice reminds you of unsaved drafts.
Illumentis only writes them into the character’s fields when you choose “Apply”. You may skip individual questions.
Choose “Manage custom fields” in the list. You can create fields of the type text, number, date or yes/no. A field applies to all characters of the project, regardless of the book, and can be made visible to guests.
