Triggers

Runs once at the very start of a new play-through, so you can set the stage: hand out starting gold, add the first quest, open a menu, or tell the narrator how the story begins.

Pick game initialization to run it as soon as a new game loads, before the player’s first turn. Pick after player finish reading starting prompt to wait until the player has clicked past the last page of your opening.

If the trigger has an Inject command to narration LLM action, the first narration starts right away and follows your instruction, without the player typing anything. A play-through that already has turns won’t run a Game Initialization trigger you add later.

Fires on a steady rhythm as the story goes on. Every 1 runs on every turn; Every 5 runs on turns 5, 10, 15 and so on. A turn is one player message plus the narrator’s reply.

It’s checked when the player sends a message, before the narrator writes, so an Inject command to narration LLM in the same trigger shapes that very turn. It isn’t checked when the player picks from a menu.

Instead of a number you can type a whole-number variable like {{storm_every}} (it must start above 0), so other triggers can speed the rhythm up or slow it down. Great for weather that worsens, a hunger meter or a reminder every few turns.

Gives players their own slash commands, like /hint, /rest or /quests. When a player types / in the message box, your commands show up with their descriptions. Picking one adds it to the message as a badge, and the trigger fires when they send it.

Choose prohibit to make the command the whole turn: the text box locks until the player removes the badge, and only your trigger’s instructions reach the narrator. Choose allow to let the player type their own action next to the command, and both are sent together.

Create the command first as a COMMAND variable: a name of up to 12 letters, dashes or underscores, plus a short description. A few names Mana already uses, like /summary and /context, aren’t available. The first time someone plays, a Story Commands popup lists all your commands.

Reacts to the choice a player makes in one of your selection menus. A menu opens when a trigger uses Show Selection Menu to player, and the moment the player picks an option, every trigger listening for it runs.

Pick one option to react to that choice only, or Any choice to react to whatever the player picks. Make one trigger per option to give each choice its own outcome. If one of them uses Inject command to narration LLM, the story continues right away with your instruction, so each choice can steer the next scene.

Build the menu first as a MENU variable. The option list stays grayed out until you pick a menu.

Fires when one of your number or true/false variables reaches a value you choose, like affection reaching 10 or has_key turning true. Use it for milestones: unlock a scene, end a chapter, or play a confession once a meter fills up.

It’s checked whenever the player sends a message or picks from a menu (and along with your Game Initialization triggers at the start), and also the moment a Set Variable action changes that variable. The value can be a number, true or false, or math with other variables, such as {{max_health}} / 2.

It keeps firing on every check for as long as the comparison is true. For a one-time moment, end the trigger with Run/Modify Trigger set to Disable on the same trigger, as in the example.

Fires when the AI calls one of your tools while it writes a turn, so the AI can use your game rules by itself. Pick the TOOL variable to listen to. The trigger runs, the AI gets the result and carries on writing, so the story matches what really happened. Tool Calls above covers making a tool, with a full example.

The values the AI passes are written into their variables before the trigger runs, so its conditions and actions can use them. Answer with a Tool result action; without one, the AI gets a short summary of what the actions did. When several triggers listen to the same tool, they all run, top to bottom, and their results are joined.

A tool call runs in the middle of a turn, so a few actions work differently there: Rewind to last turn, Exit story progression and Show Failure/death Screen aren’t allowed (the AI is told they failed), Wait x seconds is skipped, an Inject command reaches the AI as a note in the tool result, and selection menus, lists, Story/System texts and media appear once the narration has finished.

A story with this event on any trigger plays in Realism mode, like one with Story Progression: when a player starts it, Hardcore and Agent Mode show “This story does not support this mode yet.” Tools work while the story is played on the website, not in the mobile app.

Fires after a turn whose narration put one of your characters on the player’s screen, in the dress mode you choose. Use it to react to a character showing up: play a special picture the first time they appear, or keep count of how often the player meets them.

Pick the character from the story’s cast, then any dress mode, or check up to two of clothed, undergarment and nude. Topless and bottomless count as nude; a named outfit counts as its base dress mode.

It reads the character tags of the text the player was shown (in Two Pass mode, the Scene Formatter’s, which can tag inactive characters too), once the turn has finished, so it runs alongside your Check Story Context triggers. It fires on every turn the character appears; for a one-time moment, disable the trigger at the end, as in the example. A Show Media in it waits for the player to read up to that character before the picture appears. An LLM Inject in it reaches the narrator on the player’s next turn.

A gate for the trigger’s actions: a number or true/false variable has to compare the way you set, or nothing happens. Use it so a /bribe command only works when the player has enough gold, or a reunion scene only plays if the player found the locket.

It offers the same comparisons as Variable status, and the value can use math like {{price}} * 2. It reads the value at the moment the trigger runs, including changes other triggers made a moment earlier in the same turn.

You’ll also find it in the If part of the If / Then and If / Then / Else actions, to check a value partway through a trigger.

A gate that looks at a Character list: it passes when the list contains a character (or does not contain them), or when the list is empty (or is not empty). Pick the character, or choose “character named by” and a string variable that holds the name. The name is matched the way Update List matches names: capitals don’t matter, and a first name is enough when only one character has it. A name that isn’t on the list simply counts as not there; nothing fails.

Use it to stop a tool trigger before it changes anything. If the AI model asks to hire a guard who isn’t for hire, or to message someone who isn’t one of today’s matches, a Character List Check catches it first, so a Tool result can tell the model and Skip Remaining Actions can end the trigger.

You’ll also find it in the If part of the If / Then and If / Then / Else actions.

Sends a hidden instruction to the AI narrator, so you can steer what happens next: a storm rolls in, a rival shows up, the hero’s plan fails. The player never sees the instruction, only the narration it produces. If it clashes with what the player typed, your instruction wins.

When the trigger ran from the player’s turn, the instruction joins that turn’s narration; with a prohibit command it replaces the player’s input entirely. When it ran from Game Initialization or a menu choice, it starts a new narration right away. Instructions from triggers that run after the narration go out with the player’s next turn.

It counts for that one narration only and isn’t saved into the story. Several Inject actions in one check are combined, in order. Use {{name}} to drop in a variable’s current value, and keep it short and clear.

Puts your own pre-written text into the story word for word, with no AI writing involved. You choose whether the player sees it, and whether it’s saved to story context so the narrator remembers it in later turns. Use it for chapter cards, clues, letters and notes, or quiet facts the narrator should know.

show + save: the player reads it and the narrator remembers it. show + don’t save: the player reads it but the narrator never sees it, good for tips and hints. don’t show: the narrator remembers it, but it stays out of the live story. When the same turn also gets a new narration, your text appears after it.

require makes the trigger’s remaining actions wait until the player has clicked through the text. Texts can be up to 5,000 characters, {{name}} fills in variable values, and they can use the same character and background tags as your Starting Prompt.

Changes your story’s Custom Instructions, the standing rules the narrator reads every turn, while the story is being played. Add a rule, remove one or swap one for another, so the narrator’s behavior changes as the story moves on: tougher fights after the player picks Hard, a curse that makes a character speak only in riddles, a darker tone for the final act.

Add puts your text on its own line at the start or the end. Delete and Replace work on all of the instructions or on specific text, which has to match word for word. The change lasts for the rest of that play-through; your original story isn’t edited.

Watch out for repeats: an Add in a trigger that fires every turn adds the line again every turn.

Lets your story notice what actually happened. After the turn’s narration finishes, the player’s decision AI (Jev by default) reads the last 3 turns and answers your questions, like “Has the player found the lighthouse keeper?” Each answer can run up to 5 of your triggers. Press the question count in the row to open the question editor.

Questions can be Yes / No (Yes when the AI is at least as sure as your setting, 50% by default), Multiple choice (2 to 20 options) or Score (2 to 10 levels, lowest first). You can add up to 50. Once a Yes / No question answers Yes, it isn’t asked again in that play-through. In the example, question 1 asks whether the player has found the hidden key (Yes runs a Key Found trigger), and question 2 asks who they suspect, with Butler and Maid each running their own trigger.

Only one per story. A trigger that holds it runs as a whole after the narration, and anything its answers inject goes out with the player’s next turn. Each check is an AI call that costs the player some coins (your In-Game Images/Video questions ride along in the same call), and it’s skipped if they can’t cover it. When the trigger’s conditions don’t pass, its questions aren’t asked that turn.

Answers the AI’s tool call. The text goes back to the AI as what the tool did, and the AI carries on writing from it, so write it as plain facts, like “You hired Brakk. You have 30 gold left.” {{name}} fills in variable values, after the trigger’s earlier actions have changed them, and a Characters list fills in the names on it. Up to 4,000 characters.

You can only add it to a trigger with a Model calls a tool event; elsewhere it’s grayed out in the Add menu. If that trigger runs some other way, like from Run/Modify Trigger outside a tool call, the result is skipped. If several triggers or results answer the same call, their texts are joined in order. Without any, the AI gets a short summary of the actions that ran, or is told that nothing handled the call when no trigger ran or its conditions didn’t pass.

An action that fails, like a name that isn’t on the list, adds an Error line to the result, but it doesn’t undo the actions before it or stop the ones after it.

To handle a “not enough gold” case, give the tool a second trigger with the opposite condition, or use If / Then / Else with a Tool result on each side.

Changes one of your variables, like gold, affection or a quest flag. The new value sticks for the rest of that play-through, so later triggers, conditions and texts all see it.

For numbers, type math using other variables: {{gold}}+10 adds 10, {{gold}}-10 takes 10 away, and ({{hp}}*2)/3 works too. Whole-number variables are rounded. For a BOOL, type true or false. For a STRING, type any text; {{name}} inside it is filled in.

Only INT, FLOAT, BOOL and STRING variables can be set here; lists change with Update List. When the value changes, triggers with a Variable status event watching it are checked straight away.

Changes what’s on one of your lists. On an Objectives list you can add a new objective, which becomes a current goal, or mark one as completed or as failed. On a Characters list you can add or remove one of your story’s characters, pick some at random into another Characters list, move every character into another list, or clear the list. A Status list isn’t offered here: change the variables its rows show with Set Variable instead.

The change happens quietly, apart from a small “Objective Updated” badge the player sees for a few seconds when an objective changes. Add Show List after it if you want the player to see the whole list.

When marking, you can pick Last added Objective to mean whichever objective was added to that list most recently. A list holds up to 50 items.

With picking random, up to the number you set (a number or an {{int}} variable) are chosen from the characters not already in the other list, like a tavern rolling which guards are for hire. They come off this list unless you choose keeping them on this list too. With moving every character, everyone not already in the other list moves there. Picking and moving stop when the other list is full (50); anyone who doesn’t fit stays on this list. Clearing every character empties the list.

To add or remove the character named by a STRING variable, pick a Characters list to look the name up in. Capitals don’t matter, and a unique first name or whole word is enough (Brakk finds Brakk Ironjaw). When nothing matches, the action fails with a message listing the names on that list; in a tool call, that message goes back to the AI so it can try again.

Pops one of your lists up on the player’s screen, like a quest log. An Objectives list shows current goals first, then finished ones marked Completed or Failed. A Characters list shows its own title and the characters on it. A Status list shows a character sheet: its rows in order, with a first Character row as the header. The player closes it when they’re done reading.

It shows the list as it is at that moment, so put Show List after any Update List or Set Variable in the same trigger.

A Status list’s rows are set up on the variable: Character (a portrait and name), Status (a name, a current and a max value, and the HP, Mana or Trust style of its bar), Money (a name, an amount, and a gold or cash icon) and Text List (a name and a list of short texts). Values are a number or {{int}} / {{float}} math like {{hp}} or {{gold}}+10, and names and texts can show {{name}} values, so the sheet changes when you set those variables. Typing {{sheet}} in a text gives the same values in one line, like HP 84/100 · Gold 1,240.

Tip: pair it with a /quests command set to prohibit and nothing else in the trigger. The player can then check the list any time without starting a new turn, because nothing is sent to the narrator.

Opens one of your menus as a popup so the player chooses what happens next: pick a class, choose a path, answer a riddle. The player has to choose; the popup can’t be closed without picking.

This action only opens the menu. What each choice does lives in separate triggers that use the User makes menu selection event. The trigger doesn’t wait for the player’s choice: its remaining actions still run right away.

Build menus as MENU variables: a title, an optional description and 1 to 20 choices, in a Text or Image layout. Only menus without problems show up in the picker, so give every choice a title or description, and in the Image layout every choice an image.

Puts one of your uploaded images or videos on the stage and adds it to the Story Media section of the player’s Gallery, where they can see it again later. Choose behind the story text to keep the text on top, or and hide the story text to also hide the text box while it is up, so nothing covers the picture. Videos loop with sound, and you can set their volume from 0 to 300%.

Upload the picture or clip first as an IMAGE or VIDEO variable. It stays on the stage while the player reads the text it came with. Their next >> (or a tap on the picture) takes it away as the story moves on, and so does their next command (do, say, Continue, a menu choice) or closing it. Newer media replaces it at once; nobody has to close the old one. When one pass shows several, the first appears and each >> or command shows the next before the story text moves on. In a Character on screen trigger, the media waits until the player reads up to that character’s part of the narration.

Put a Story/System text (shown) right after it in the same trigger and the media appears with that text: it takes the stage when the player reaches the text and stays while they read it, and the next >> or tap moves to the next text and its own media in one press. So “photos of A, text about A, photos of B, text about B” shows each set with its text instead of all the sets first.

Want media to appear by itself when the story reaches a moment? Use In-Game Images / Video instead.

Puts up to 10 of your uploaded images on the stage together. The player browses them with the purple < and > buttons at the sides of the screen, or by swiping the picture left or right; a small counter at the top shows which one they are on. Every image unlocks in the Story Media section of the player’s Gallery, as with Show Media to player, and you can again choose to keep the story text on top or hide it.

Pick each picture from your IMAGE variables with Image, in the order the player should see them (videos are not offered here; use Show Media to player for those). The whole set leaves the stage the same way a single picture does: their next >> or their next command takes it away, and so does closing it.

Brings a character into the story or benches them. Active characters are the ones the narrator can use; an Inactive (benched) character stays out of the story until another trigger moves them back. In Two Pass mode the Scene Formatter still knows benched characters, so if the narration features one anyway, their sprite shows and Character on screen fires, but they stay inactive. It’s the same switch as Move to Active / Move to Inactive in Character Management.

The change happens before that turn’s narration is written, so a character you activate can show up in that very turn. The editor’s Characters section shows who is active and who is inactive at the start. The change lasts for the rest of that play-through.

Instead of the character you picked, it can move every character in a Characters list at once (say, the whole party), or the character named by a STRING variable, looked up in a Characters list the same way as in Update List.

Rewrites a character’s background, personality or sample dialogue, the same three texts you fill in for each character in your story setup. The narrator and the rest of the AI read the new texts from then on. Write only the ones you want to change; a text you leave empty keeps what the character has now.

For each text, choose replace, add at start or add at end. Replace swaps the whole text for yours. The adds keep what the character has and put your text on its own line before or after it, the way Modify Instructions adds to the custom instructions, so a trigger can reveal one more secret without rewriting the rest.

The change is for that play-through only: your template, and everyone else’s play-throughs, keep the original. It lasts until another Change Character rewrites it, and Rewind to last turn puts the old texts back. The change happens before that turn’s narration is written, so the very turn that changes a character already uses the new texts.

The texts can use {{variables}}, filled in with their values when the action runs (later changes to the variable don’t change the text again). {{user}} stays the player’s name, as in your story setup. Like Move Character, it can change the character you picked, or the character named by a STRING variable, looked up in a Characters list.

Puts the background you choose on the scene instead of leaving it to the narrator. Next turn makes the narration that’s about to be written use that background. Immediately swaps the background the player is looking at right now.

Add also puts it on your story’s list of backgrounds, so the narrator knows the place and can return to it later. Don’t Add shows it as a one-off. Day or night art follows the story’s own time of day.

Switches the era of the player’s play-through between Fantasy, Modern and Futuristic. When the narrator brings in a new place or character that isn’t in your story yet, Mana picks a matching one from its library, and the era decides what fits.

Use it when the story jumps through time or between worlds, like stepping through a portal from a medieval kingdom into a neon city. Backgrounds and characters already in the story stay. The change lasts for the rest of that play-through; your original story never changes.

Rolls a random whole number and picks a branch based on the result, so the same moment can play out differently every time. Set the range (1 to 100 by default), then give each branch a rule like is less than 30 or is between 30 and 70, and its own actions. Press + Add RNG Branch for more branches.

Branches can’t overlap: if two of them cover the same number, the editor points it out and won’t save until you fix it. Both ends of the range can be rolled. If no branch matches, nothing inside runs and the trigger moves on.

Every new turn rolls again, but Redo replays the result the player already got. A branch can hold an If / Then or If / Then / Else, but not another Use RNG.

Makes part of a trigger depend on a check, without needing a separate trigger. Put one or more Variable checks in the If box and actions in the Then box. The Then actions run only if every check passes; otherwise they’re skipped and the trigger carries on with its next action.

The difference from the Conditions panel: conditions decide whether the whole trigger runs, while If / Then only controls the actions inside it. The checks happen when the trigger reaches this action, so a Set Variable earlier in the same trigger already counts.

The editor won’t save an If / Then until it has at least one check and one Then action. The Then box can hold a Use RNG, but not another If / Then or If / Then / Else.

Works like If / Then, with a fallback. When every check passes, the Then actions run; when any check fails, the Else actions run instead. Exactly one of the two lists runs, which suits success-or-failure moments like opening a lock with or without the right code.

Like If / Then, it needs at least one check before the editor will save it. Then and Else can each hold a Use RNG, but not another If / Then or If / Then / Else.

Lets one trigger control another. Run starts the named trigger right now: its events are skipped, but its conditions still have to pass. Disable switches a trigger off so it can’t fire, and Enable switches it back on. Then this trigger carries on with its next action.

Pick the trigger from the menu; type to filter the list. The first option, This Trigger, means the trigger the action is in, even after you rename or duplicate it. Renaming a trigger updates references to it by name for you, and a reference to a trigger that no longer exists shows in red.

A trigger can disable itself with Disable This Trigger, the usual way to make a moment happen only once. Enable is also how you switch on a trigger you set to Disabled in the Triggers list. On/off changes last for the rest of that play-through, and a trigger can’t Run itself, so it can’t loop forever.

Pauses the trigger for a moment before its next action, for dramatic timing like a fuse burning down. Type the seconds (decimals like 1.5 work) or a number variable like {{delay}}.

While it waits, the player can’t send another turn or pick a menu choice. Most results of a trigger appear once it has finished, so the pause shows best next to things that happen on the spot: a Story/System text set to require, a background used Immediately, or a Failure/death Screen.

This turn gets no narration. In a Tool Call trigger the AI is used for its tool call only: it stops after the call that ran this action (no second call, and no Two Pass formatter call), and nothing it wrote is shown or saved. From a player-send pass or a menu choice that starts a turn, no narrator call is made at all. Your Story/System texts and media are what the player gets this turn, and they are what the next turn’s narrator reads, together with the tool call and its result.

Use it when a tool’s result is better told by your own texts than by the AI: a dating app’s new matches, a shop’s stock list, a status screen. Pair it with Show Media or Show multiple Images followed by a Story/System text (shown) for each item. It has no effect in a trigger that runs after the turn (Check Story Context, Character on screen, In-Game Images / Video): that narration is already written. The turn still costs the AI call that made the tool call.

Stops the trigger right there, so none of the actions below it run. It’s most useful inside an If / Then or Use RNG branch as an early exit, and even from inside a branch it stops the whole trigger.

Only this trigger stops. Other triggers still get their turn, and if another trigger started this one with Run/Modify Trigger, that one carries on as normal.

An action that does nothing, on purpose. Every Use RNG branch needs at least one action, so use it to fill the quiet ones, like the “no encounter” part of a roll.

Unlike Skip Remaining Actions, it doesn’t stop anything after it. It’s also a handy placeholder while you’re still building a trigger.

Ends the run with a game-over screen: a skull, your title and message, the line “Rewind to an earlier moment to continue your story.” and a Rewind Story button. The player can’t keep playing until they rewind to an earlier moment. Use it for deaths, failed missions or bad endings.

Both the title and the message are needed, and {{name}} works in both. As soon as the screen shows, this trigger stops, no other triggers run, and the player’s turn isn’t sent to the narrator. The popup can’t be closed and is still there after a reload.

Undoes the turn in progress. It stops any narration being written, removes the player’s latest turn and puts everything back the way it was after the last completed turn: variables, custom instructions, which triggers are on and which characters are active. Use it to enforce story rules, like “the hero can’t leave the castle before midnight”.

It works best in a trigger that runs after the narration, such as one run by a Check Story Context answer, so the narration that broke the rule is removed too. As soon as it runs, no other triggers run in that check.

To explain the rewind, put a Story/System text set to require right before it, as in the example. The player reads it before the rewind happens.

Makes the story leave its Story Progression nodes and carry on as a normal Realism story for this play-through. Use it after a final node, or as an open-world choice, so players can keep playing freely once your planned story is done.

If the player later rewinds to before the exit, story progression comes back. In a story without progression nodes it does nothing.