Your partner asks how old Mara was when she left the observatory. You know the answer exists. It’s in a Google Doc called “mara FINAL (2)”, or in a Discord message from March, or in the notes app on a phone you no longer use. You check all three, find two different ages, pick one and hope nobody remembers.

Once you have more than a couple of OCs, you end up building a filing system, usually by accident. This guide compares the places people actually use in 2026 for what roleplay needs: keeping details straight, showing partners the right parts, writing from a phone and not losing everything when a site closes. We also read 56 recent Reddit threads where writers asked exactly this question and counted what they use.

Where to keep OCs and worldbuilding: the short answer

  • Free, simple and easy to share with a partner: Google Docs.
  • Everything linked, offline and saved as files you own: Obsidian.
  • A public wiki for your world, with maps and timelines: World Anvil. Keeping it private is paid.
  • Guided templates for characters and places, with a phone app: Campfire. The free plan has caps.
  • An art-first gallery for your OCs: Toyhouse, if you can get an invite.
  • For roleplayers, characters and worlds next to your partner search: FictionCore. Free and private until you choose to share an entry; you can show a partner one character, or attach a world to a plot or a group ad. Available on Google Play for Android.

Sites close, so keep a copy

Charahub, once a go-to site for OC profiles, shut down in March 2019. Amino went dark in December 2025 with no export, and its communities and profiles went with it. In September 2024, Notion stopped serving users in Russia and closed their accounts after a short window to export.

None of this means you should avoid online tools. It means that whatever you choose, one copy of your characters should live somewhere you control: files on your device, or exports you refresh now and then.

Five questions to ask any tool

  1. Can you keep it private for free? Some tools charge for privacy.
  2. Can you share one character without the rest? A partner needs a profile, not your spoilers.
  3. Does it work on your phone? That matters if you write replies on the go.
  4. Can you get your work out? Export or plain files decide whether a shutdown hurts.
  5. Does it connect to the roleplay? Links between characters, worlds and plots save you from re-explaining your setting.

Eight tools for OCs and worldbuilding, compared

Tool Best for Watch out for
Google Docs Free documents you can share by link Docs multiply, and links between them are manual
Notion Character databases and templates Cloud account; the free plan caps uploads at 5 MB
Obsidian Linked notes saved as files on your device Setup takes time; sharing one note isn’t one click
World Anvil A public world wiki with maps and timelines Free plan is public with ads; no phone app
Campfire Guided templates and a free phone app Free plan stops at 10 characters and 5 locations
Toyhouse Art-first OC profiles and galleries You need an invite code to join
Kanka Shared lore for group campaigns Built around tabletop campaigns; ads on the free tier
FictionCore Characters and worlds tied to roleplay, free and private Android only; no export button yet

Prices and limits below were checked on the official pages on 18 October 2026.

Google Docs: the default

For many writers, character sheets start here. Docs is free with a Google account, whose 15 GB of storage is shared with Gmail, Drive and Photos. You can share a document by link so someone can view, comment or edit, and version history lets you undo a bad afternoon. The phone apps work well enough for a quick check mid-scene.

Best for: writing a profile fast and sending your partner one link.

Watch out for: documents multiply, and connecting characters means pasting links by hand. A shared link shows everything in that document, so keep a separate “public” version for partners if your notes hold secrets.

Notion: databases and templates

Notion turns notes into databases, so you can keep a table of characters with properties such as age, faction or status and filter it. The free plan gives individuals unlimited pages, uploads up to 5 MB, seven days of page history and offline access to pages you choose to download.

Best for: a cast list you can sort and filter, built from your own templates.

Watch out for: everything lives in an online account, and access can depend on where you are, as users in Russia learned in 2024. Large images and longer history need a paid plan.

Obsidian: files you own

Obsidian is a free note app that keeps your notes as plain text files in a folder on your device. You link notes to each other, and a graph view shows how characters, places and events connect. The mobile apps for iOS and Android are free. Sync between devices costs $4 a month billed yearly, or you can sync the folder through a cloud drive you already use; that works best between computers, so check Obsidian’s sync guide before relying on it from a phone.

In our Reddit sample, Obsidian came up in 44 of 56 threads, more than any other tool.

Best for: big worlds where everything links to everything, and anyone who wants their work as files.

Watch out for: setup, folders and plugins take time. Sharing one character with a partner isn’t a single click: you send the note or a PDF, or pay for Publish.

World Anvil: a world wiki with everything

World Anvil is a wiki-style worldbuilding site with article templates, maps and timelines, and it says it has more than 3.5 million users. The free plan allows two worlds, up to 42 articles and 100 MB of storage (1 MB per upload), shows ads, and keeps everything public: private worlds and articles, secrets and an ad-free site start with the Master plan at $54 a year, billed yearly. Any plan can save or print pages, but the full world export, a ZIP archive with JSON and HTML, is for paid members. According to its FAQ, there is no mobile app; you use the site in a browser.

Best for: a group setting players can browse, or a public portfolio for your world.

Watch out for: privacy costs money, phones get the website only, and it’s a lot of machinery for a single OC.

Campfire: guided templates

Campfire splits writing into modules: characters, locations, timelines, maps, relationships, species, magic systems and more. Its free plan covers 10 characters, 5 locations, 5 encyclopedia articles, 2 maps and a 25,000-word manuscript. Projects stay private on every plan, collaborators are unlimited, and the free CF Creators phone app lets you take notes anywhere. Paid plans remove the caps, monthly, yearly or for life.

Best for: structured character sheets with prompts, and writing on a phone.

Watch out for: a roleplay cast outgrows ten characters quickly. Elements you create in the phone app beyond the free limits become read-only on the desktop and browser versions.

Toyhouse is built around characters: profiles, image galleries, folders, tags and worlds, with access limited to the people you choose and automatic watermarks. You can link related characters and run world forums for roleplay. It is still in invite beta, so you need an invite code to register.

In our sample, Toyhouse came up in only 7 of 56 threads overall, but in 6 of the 8 threads from r/OriginalCharacter.

Best for: art-heavy OCs and showing them off.

Watch out for: the invite requirement, and the fact that it’s a showcase first and a notebook for lore second.

Kanka: shared lore for groups

Kanka is a worldbuilding and campaign manager built for tabletop groups. The free tier has unlimited entries and campaigns and uploads up to 3 MiB, and it shows ads; premium starts at $4.16 a month, billed yearly.

Best for: a group roleplay where several admins keep one shared encyclopedia.

Watch out for: its structure follows tabletop campaigns, which suits some text groups better than others.

FictionCore: characters and worlds next to the roleplay

FictionCore is our app for text roleplay: adult roleplayers use it to find partners and groups, share plots and build characters and worlds. Here, characters don’t sit in a separate notebook. They work for your roleplay: you can attach a character to a plot, a world to a group ad, and send a partner a link to one entry.

Its Worldbuilding section holds characters, places, items, factions, species, events and free-form lore, grouped into worlds, plus types you name yourself. Each entry has a description and its own details, and characters get traits. You can link entries, even across worlds, and see them on a connections map. The editor has rich text and 50 built-in fonts, and no AI writes or generates anything for you.

Here’s how FictionCore answers the five questions:

  • Private for free? Yes. Nothing goes public until you publish it, and the core of the app is free.
  • Share one character? Yes. Publish an entry to the Codex on your profile, or share it through a link you can revoke later. Publishing a world doesn’t publish the entries inside it.
  • On your phone? Yes, it’s a phone app. There’s no web or desktop version.
  • Get your work out? There’s no export button yet, but you can request a copy of your data by email: the Privacy Policy follows the EU’s GDPR, and under the Terms you keep the rights to what you write. Keep your master copy anyway.
  • Connected to the roleplay? That’s the point. You can attach a world and characters to a plot and reuse the same character in many plots. A group ad can carry your world and a cast list showing which roles are open and which are taken.

Watch out for: it’s Android-only for now. It has no geographic maps or timelines. Images are reviewed before they become public, which can take several days. How FictionCore works has the full tour.

What 56 Reddit threads say people use

We collected threads posted between 26 October 2025 and 18 October 2026 on r/worldbuilding, r/fantasywriters, r/OriginalCharacter, r/writing, r/writers, r/FantasyWorldbuilding and r/FictionWriting. In each one, someone asked how or where to keep characters, lore or story notes. Together they hold 1,033 replies, not counting the original posters or moderation bots. We counted each tool once per thread, and a mention isn’t always a recommendation.

  • Obsidian leads. It came up in 44 threads (79%), ahead of Google Docs (34), Scrivener and spreadsheets (23 each), Notion (19), World Anvil (18), Word and paper notebooks (17 each), OneNote (14), Campfire (10) and Toyhouse (7).
  • Almost nobody uses just one tool. A typical thread named four different tools, and 44 of the 56 named three or more.
  • Communities differ. Obsidian appeared in 25 of 27 worldbuilding threads and World Anvil in 13. In the eight threads from r/OriginalCharacter, Google Docs and Toyhouse each appeared in six.
  • Paper is alive. Notebooks and binders came up in 17 threads.
  • Old sites linger. Charahub, closed since 2019, still came up in three.

One reading of those numbers: people think in one tool and show their work in another.

A setup that survives

  1. Keep a master copy you own. Files on your device, or documents you export now and then.
  2. Write where it’s comfortable. A phone app for quick notes, a bigger screen for long lore.
  3. Show partners a public version. A profile page or a link to one character, with secrets kept back.
  4. Connect lore to the roleplay. Attach the world to the plot or the group ad, so new partners don’t need a lecture before the first scene.

For what to put inside a profile, A character you want to keep writing builds one around a single scene, and our character sheet guide has three templates worth keeping.

Questions roleplayers ask

What is the best free app for organizing OCs?

The two named most often in our sample are Obsidian and Google Docs. Docs is the easiest to share with a partner; Obsidian links everything and keeps your notes as files. Notion’s free plan suits people who like databases, and Campfire’s free plan works for up to ten characters. If you roleplay, FictionCore keeps characters and worlds free and private, right next to your partner search.

Is World Anvil free?

Yes, with limits: two worlds, up to 42 articles, 100 MB of storage, ads, and everything public. Private worlds and articles start with the Master plan at $54 a year, billed yearly.

Is there a Toyhouse alternative without an invite?

Toyhouse is unusual in combining OC profiles with galleries. Without an invite, people use a Google Doc or Notion page per character, a Carrd page as a showcase, or World Anvil’s character articles. FictionCore’s Codex shows published characters on your profile.

How do I share a character with my partner without spoilers?

Keep two versions: a full private one and a public one. In Google Docs that means two documents. World Anvil hides secrets on paid plans, Toyhouse can restrict who sees each character, and FictionCore publishes only the entries you choose and gives you a link to a single character that you can revoke later.

Does FictionCore create characters with AI?

No. FictionCore has no AI writing or generation: you write your own characters and worlds, find partners and roleplay with them on the platform you choose.

Whatever you choose, put Mara’s age in one place, and make it a place you’d still have if every site closed tomorrow.