# Chronostates — Full Product Reference
> Make History Playable | https://chronostates.io

## Overview

Chronostates is a web platform for interactive alternate history. Users play through AI-generated historical scenarios, build custom worlds with branching consequences, generate AI-authored novels, and publish them in the ChronoSagas marketplace. The platform combines a game engine, a writing studio, and a publishing house in a single subscription.

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## Core Products

### 1. ChronoStates — Interactive Alternate History Game
- Play curated alternate history scenarios (e.g., Civil War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Fall of Rome)
- Each scenario has 10–100 AI-generated events with 4–7 choices per event
- Two play modes: Character (first-person) or Strategist (god-view)
- Free tier includes 5 prebuilt scenarios
- Events are generated dynamically based on prior choices and world state
- Consequences cascade across time: alliances shift, wars start/end, economies rise and fall
- URL: https://chronostates.io/chronostates

### 2. Create Your Own World — Custom World Building
- Create your own alternate history worlds from scratch
- Set custom premises, time periods, and divergence points
- Up to 10 story arcs per project
- Up to 200 AI-generated events per project
- Full world-building control: factions, characters, technology, culture, politics
- Available from Explorer plan ($30/mo) and up
- Requires an account; not a public page.

### 3. Book Pipeline — AI Book Generation Pipeline
- Multi-model book generation pipeline
- Drafter + reviewers (all paid tiers): a drafter writes the chapter in beats, three independent reviewer models return structured notes, and an expander rewrites the draft to full chapter length. Every chapter is reviewed by three independent AI models before the author sees it.
- Higher tiers unlock stronger models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek)
- Available from Explorer plan ($30/mo) and up
- Requires an account; not a public page.

### 4. The Architect — Conversational Worldbuilding Agent
- Chat-based AI agent that builds a full World Bible through natural dialogue
- Asks thoughtful, open-ended questions one or two at a time
- Adapts voice and questions to genre/tone (High Fantasy, Grimdark, Horror, Sci-Fi, etc.)
- Supports file uploads: PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD (text extraction), JPG/PNG (vision analysis)
- Template worlds for quick-start: Roman Empire Never Fell, Generation Ship, Post-Collapse Earth, etc.
- Async collaboration: invite co-authors to suggest edits, owner approves/rejects
- Export World Bible as PDF or launch directly as a ChronoStates game
- Available from Creator plan ($50/mo) and up
- Requires an account; not a public page.

### 5. ChronoLaunch — AI Book Marketing Engine
- Generates a Marketing Spine: comp titles, hooks, taglines, SEO keywords
- Produces 30 days of social media content (Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok)
- Email sequences for launch campaigns
- Multiple blurb variants (Amazon, Goodreads, back-cover)
- Guided 30-day launch timeline with daily tasks
- Available from Studio plan ($100/mo) and up

### 6. ChronoSagas — the bookstore
- Every book is FREE TO READ. No paywall, no cart, no purchase step for readers.
- PUBLISHING IS FREE. Any signed-in account can publish, on any plan or none. No listing fee, no minimum, no editorial gate.
- Authors retain full ownership of everything they publish.
- Authors who want to be paid buy a one-time $10 commercial licence for that work. It is charged once per work — never per chapter, and never again after an unpublish and republish. It unlocks exactly one thing: the author's own payment link on that work's public page.
- Permitted payment links: Ko-fi, PayPal, PayPal.me, Gumroad, Buy Me a Coffee, Patreon, Payhip, itch.io, Stripe payment links.
- READERS PAY THE AUTHOR DIRECTLY. Chronostates takes no percentage, is not a party to the transaction, and cannot assist with delivery, refunds or disputes. The $10 licence is the only money publishing sends to Chronostates.
- Works published free of charge must stay free: no soliciting payment, donations, tips or crowdfunding on the page or inside the story. This is confirmed by the author at publish and enforced afterwards.
- Fan fiction is always free and cannot be commercially licensed.
- Serials are supported: chapters release over time, and the public page lists what has been released and when.
- All fiction is welcome. Books are judged by readers, never labelled by process.
- Books: https://chronostates.io/books/{slug}
- Authors: https://chronostates.io/authors/{handle} — one public page per PEN NAME. An author writing under two names has two separate pages, deliberately unconnected.
- Store: https://chronostates.io/sagas

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## Feature Matrix by Plan

| Feature | Free | Voyager | Explorer | Creator | Studio |
|---------|------|------|------|------|------|
| Price | $0 | $10/mo | $30/mo | $50/mo | $100/mo |
| Scenarios | 5 prebuilt | All | All | All | All |
| Events/month | 10 | 100 | 100 | 150 | 200 |
| EOY Summary | 500 words | 1,000 words | 1,000 words | 2,000 words | 3,000 words |
| Custom Worlds (Create Your Own World) | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Book Generation (Book Pipeline) | No | Sample chapter only | 5/month | 5/month | 5/month |
| Image Generation | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audio Generation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Distribution kit | All plans | All plans | All plans | All plans | All plans |
| Content Library | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

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## How the writing is produced

Deliberately described by what it does rather than by model name. The specific
models change as the field does, and a crawler-facing document that names them
is stale within weeks — this file previously advertised models that have since
been retired from the platform.

### Event generation
A fast frontier model writes each event from the timeline's history, current
world state and prior choices, with two fallbacks behind it so a provider outage
does not stop a play session.

### Book generation
Every paid tier runs the same three stages: a drafter writes the chapter in
beats, three independent reviewer models return structured notes, and an expander
rewrites the draft to full chapter length. **Every chapter is reviewed by three
independent AI models before the author sees it.** Higher tiers write with
stronger drafters; Studio lets the author choose between frontier drafters.

### Bring your own keys
Any tier can supply its own API keys for DeepSeek, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and
Google AI. Keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM.

### The Architect Worldbuilding Agent
- AI model: Claude Haiku 4.5 (all tiers — cost-efficient, fast)
- Vision: Accepts image uploads for world inspiration
- Tone profiles: High Fantasy, Grimdark, Cozy Mystery, Hard Sci-Fi, Romance, Horror, Steampunk, Post-Apocalyptic, Political Thriller
- Usage limits by tier: Creator 500 msgs/mo, Studio 500 msgs/mo

---

## Technical Architecture

- Framework: Next.js 16 with App Router, React 19, TypeScript
- Database: Supabase (PostgreSQL)
- Auth: Supabase Auth (email + OAuth)
- Payments: Creem (Merchant of Record) for subscriptions and book sales; author earnings accrue to a payout ledger
- Hosting: Vercel (inferred from Next.js)
- LLM Integration: Anthropic SDK, OpenAI SDK, custom DeepSeek/Grok/Gemini providers
- Encryption: AES-256-GCM for BYOK API keys

---

## BYOK (Bring Your Own Keys)

Users on Explorer plan and above can supply their own API keys for:
- Anthropic (Claude models)
- OpenAI (GPT models)
- DeepSeek
- xAI (Grok)
- Google AI (Gemini)

Keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM and never sent to the client.

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## Free Demo Scenarios (No Account Required)

| Scenario | Period | Premise |
|----------|--------|---------|
| The Gettysburg Gambit | American Civil War, 1863 | Lee's forces win at Gettysburg. What happens next? |
| Cuban Midnight | Cold War, 1962 | 13 days from nuclear war. Advise President Kennedy. |
| First Contact: 1492 | Age of Exploration, 1492 | Indigenous Americans had gunpowder. How does contact play out? |

Play at: https://chronostates.io/demo/[scenario-slug]

---

## Content Policies

- No AI labelling: books are not tagged by how they were written
- Users own their created worlds and generated books
- Adult content: Platform has a content rating system (Clean / Moderate / Mature / Unfiltered / Literary Dark)
- Fan fiction with IP transforms available for derivative works
- DMCA compliance: Platform responds to valid takedown requests

---

## API & Integrations

- No public API currently available
- Substack and Patreon posting (Publisher plan+)
- YouTube and TikTok connectors (Studio plan+)
- Export formats: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, JSON, Markdown, HTML

---

## Pricing & Billing

- Free plan: No credit card required
- Paid plans: Monthly subscription via Stripe
- Cancellation: Anytime from billing settings
- Downgrade: Takes effect at next billing cycle; existing data is never deleted
- Upgrade: Prorated charge immediately

---

## Contact & Support

- Email: chronostates@gmail.com
- Website: https://chronostates.io
- Privacy Policy: https://chronostates.io/privacy
- Terms of Service: https://chronostates.io/terms
- FAQ: https://chronostates.io/faq

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## Key Pages

#### Bookstore

- /sagas — ChronoSagas — the bookstore. Original stories and shared universes, free to read.
- /sagas/browse — Browse and filter every published book by genre, length and format.
- /authors — Every author publishing on ChronoSagas, with their books and worlds.
- /sagas/faq — How ChronoSagas works — publishing, reading, licensing and ownership.

#### Product

- / — Chronostates — build alternate history worlds, play them, and turn them into books.
- /features — What the platform does: worldbuilding, play, the book pipeline, audio and video.
- /pricing — Subscription tiers, what each includes, and how Chronocredits work.
- /blog — Writing on alternate history, worldbuilding and the craft behind the platform.

#### Try it

- /daily — A new alternate-history decision every day. No account needed.
- /demo/what-if — Write your own what-if premise and play the first events of it, free.
- /demo/gettysburg-gambit — Playable demo — what if the Confederacy had won at Gettysburg in 1863?
- /demo/cuban-midnight — Playable demo — advise Kennedy through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- /demo/first-contact-1492 — Playable demo — what if Indigenous Americans had gunpowder in 1492?

#### Company

- /about — About Chronostates.
- /faq — General questions about accounts, billing and the platform.
- /contact — How to reach us.
- /privacy — Privacy policy.
- /terms — Terms of service, including the rules for publishing free and commercial works.

### Genre pages

- /sagas/genre/alternate-history — Alternate History
- /sagas/genre/science-fiction — Science Fiction
- /sagas/genre/fantasy — Fantasy
- /sagas/genre/urban-fantasy — Urban Fantasy
- /sagas/genre/romantasy — Romantasy
- /sagas/genre/space-opera — Space Opera
- /sagas/genre/dystopian — Dystopian
- /sagas/genre/post-apocalyptic — Post-Apocalyptic
- /sagas/genre/steampunk — Steampunk
- /sagas/genre/cyberpunk — Cyberpunk
- /sagas/genre/mythology — Mythology & Legend
- /sagas/genre/paranormal — Paranormal
- /sagas/genre/romance — Romance
- /sagas/genre/historical-fiction — Historical Fiction
- /sagas/genre/mystery — Mystery
- /sagas/genre/thriller — Thriller
- /sagas/genre/crime — Crime
- /sagas/genre/horror — Horror
- /sagas/genre/adventure — Adventure
- /sagas/genre/literary-fiction — Literary Fiction
- /sagas/genre/western — Western
- /sagas/genre/military-fiction — Military Fiction
- /sagas/genre/political-thriller — Political Thriller
- /sagas/genre/young-adult — Young Adult
- /sagas/genre/short-fiction — Short Fiction
- /sagas/genre/nonfiction — Nonfiction
- /sagas/genre/other — Other

### Machine-readable

- /llms.txt — Short product summary
- /llms-full.txt — This document
- /sitemap.xml — Sitemap index (books, authors, genres, blog, static)