A fantasy map with changing borders is rare in novels for a boring reason: it is a lot of work. The map at the front of the book is drawn once and then quietly contradicted. Chapter 3 has the river as the border; by chapter 20 the border has moved, a duchy has changed hands and the capital has burned, but the map still shows the world as it was on page one. Writers who care about this end up keeping several copies of the same map, one per era, and redrawing every shared coastline each time.
Lokee keeps one map and records how it changes. You draw the world as it is at the start, then go to a later moment and change it from there on: a border moves, a town ends, a territory passes to a new holder. Earlier moments keep the map as it was. Characters and armies stand where their cards say they are at the moment you are viewing.
This guide walks through a small invented war, the Kingdom of Varre against the Ostmark League over a border province called the Sallow March, covers each control involved, then runs the whole war end to end. It assumes you have a map to work on; from a sketch to an editable atlas covers drawing and importing one.
Moments are world points
Everything on a map that changes over time is anchored to world points, the moments of your world's chronology on the Timeline. A border moves at a point; a territory changes hands at a point. If you have not used world points before, Three kinds of "when" explains them, and a calendar and timeline for an invented world covers dating them.
You can create moments without leaving the map. The time controls in the map toolbar are ‹ and › (Previous point, Next point), ▶ (Play through the moments) and + (New moment after this one). The + popover takes a name (the placeholder is "Name, e.g. 'Day 2, dusk'") and an optional date; "It comes right after the moment you are viewing, and the map switches to it." From Current, a new moment goes to the end. If the vault has no moments yet, + is all you see, and the first moment also creates the timeline. All moments in the same popover opens the Timeline, where moments are renamed, dated and reordered with ↑ and ↓.
For our war: Treaty of Teme, Ostmark crosses the river, Siege of Harlow, Harlow falls, Winter truce.
Current versus a moment: which world are you editing?
The Viewing control at the top of the map decides.
At Current, you edit the map as it is in every moment. A coastline you fix at Current is fixed everywhere. Use Current for the parts of the world that do not change in your story, and for correcting mistakes.
At a world point, the notice says what changes: "New shapes and 'Change from here' change the map from this moment on; earlier moments stay as they are." Shapes that existed before this moment are locked. Select one and the inspector explains: "This shape exists before Harlow falls. To reshape it from Harlow falls on, use 'Change from here' — earlier moments keep it as it is."
At a chapter, a point in the manuscript rather than in your world, the map does not change over time at all: "To change the map over time, view a point in your world instead of a chapter." While comparing two moments, the map is read-only too.
The lock is deliberate. The most common way a changing map goes wrong is a careless drag at chapter 20 that silently moves a border in chapter 3. With the lock, the past only changes when you go back to Current and mean it.
How do you move a border from one moment on?
Select a locked shape at a moment and the inspector offers two time actions.
Change from here ends the shape at this moment and creates a copy that starts here, already selected for you to reshape. Drag its corners, smooth or roughen it, rename it. Earlier moments still show the original. In our war: at Harlow falls, select the border of the Sallow March, choose Change from here, and pull the copy's eastern edge back to the hills.
End here removes a shape from this moment on: the town of Harlow burns, a fortress is razed, a bridge is cut. Deleting a shape while viewing a moment asks the same question in other words, "Remove this shape?", with End here — keep it in earlier moments or Delete everywhere.
Shapes you have already created at this moment are not locked, and the inspector offers Duplicate for them (Ctrl+D also copies a shape beside the original).
At Current, the inspector has a related control, Change from, with a list of points: it versions a shape from any moment without viewing that moment first. It is handy when you already know a border moves at Ostmark crosses the river and are drawing the rest of the map at Current.
New shapes: Always or From this moment
When you draw a new shape while viewing a moment, the toolbar's New shapes: switch decides how long it has existed. Always, the default, makes it part of the map at every moment, as if you had drawn it at Current. From this moment makes it appear only from the moment you are viewing: the siege camp outside Harlow, a new road, a wall built after the war.
Every shape also has an Exists section in the inspector, with From and Until lists of world points, each defaulting to Always. "'Until' is the first point where it no longer exists." Use it to set a span directly, for example a bridge that exists from Treaty of Teme until Siege of Harlow, or to check what Change from here and End here did.
Split, eraser and Stick together over time
Partitions are a staple of wars and treaties. The Split tool cuts an area along a line you draw: "Draw a line across an area to cut it in two. The larger piece keeps the name and links." At a world point, Split respects time: a shape that existed before the moment ends there, and its copy from this moment is split, so earlier moments keep the whole province. That is how the Sallow March becomes Upper and Lower March at the Winter truce while staying one province before it.
The Terrain eraser and Stick together are different. They work on the geometry in every moment, so while you view a point Lokee stops you: "The eraser and Stick together change a shape in every moment. Use 'Change from here' first, or go back to Current." Use Change from here to make a copy that starts at this moment, then erase or close gaps on the copy.
Snap to borders ("Areas and walls you draw follow nearby borders exactly") is worth keeping on when you reshape a border, so the neighbouring province's edge still meets it.
Who holds a territory: Held by
Borders tell you where a line runs; holders tell you whose side it is on. Lokee colours areas by who holds them at the moment you are viewing, and that comes from relationships, not from paint.
Set it up once. In Settings → Structure → Relationship types, choose a type such as held_by or rules and set On maps to Says who holds it (belonging): "the second holds the first ('ruled by') — its areas are drawn in the holder's colour". Choose how it looks under Drawn as (Fill, Hatching, Cross-hatching, Dots or Border only) and optionally Dashed border.
Two belonging types let you separate sovereignty from occupation: rules drawn as Fill, occupied_by drawn as Hatching with a Dashed border. A province the League occupies but does not claim then reads differently from one it annexed.
Then link the area to an entity, the Sallow March as a place in your vault, with Link to an entity… in the inspector. A linked area gets Held by in the inspector, listing its holders at this moment or "No one holds it at this moment". With more than one belonging type, Held as picks which one. Change who holds it… picks the new holder; while viewing a moment, Lokee asks "When does this change?" with From this moment on or Always.
At Harlow falls, change the March's holder to the Ostmark League From this moment on. Earlier moments still show Varre's colour. The Held territory legend lists who holds what in view.
Because the holder is a relationship, the same change shows on the Graph and on both entities' pages, with its history. You can also record it from an entity page, by viewing the moment and using Began here… and Ended here… on the relationship.
Fronts and armies: a recipe, not a tool
Lokee has no special army or front-line tool. A war map is built from the pieces above, and that is a strength: every part of it is ordinary vault data that the rest of the app understands.
Fronts are lines with a time span. Put them on their own layer, call it Front, so you can hide or lock them. Draw each front as a Wall or a Road, label it "Front line" with label placement Along the line, and give each version a span: the river line until Ostmark crosses the river, the bent line from then on. Change from here does that for you when you reshape an existing front at a new moment.
Armies are entities. Create a type such as Army with a field of type Place, and create the Third Host, the League vanguard and so on. Draw and link the places they stand at: fords, hills, towns. At each moment, drag an army from the side panel or the map onto its new place and choose Moved here at this moment in the "Record this move" dialog. The move becomes a recorded change in the army's history; the earlier place stays in history. One small wrinkle: the side panel's drag hint reads as if you were moving the piece now, even while you view a world point. Ignore the wording; the dialog's Moved here at this moment is what records the move at the moment you are viewing. The same works for commanders, scouts and messengers. Following characters across the map covers people on the map in detail, including trails.
Territory follows the holders. Change Held by at the moments where land changes hands.
Then play it. ▶ steps through the moments one at a time, waiting for each view to load, and ❚❚ pauses. To see what changed between two moments, use Compare… in the Viewing control: the map shows arrows for everyone who moved between them.
Worked example: the Sallow March war, moment by moment
Here is the whole war, in the order you would actually build it.
At Current. Draw the stable world: the coast, the River Teme, the hills, the towns of Harlow and Teme. Draw the Sallow March as an area and link it to a Place entity of the same name. Create two Faction entities, Kingdom of Varre and Ostmark League, and give rules the map role Says who holds it (belonging), drawn as Fill. In the March's inspector, Change who holds it… → Kingdom of Varre, Always. The March fills in Varre's colour at every moment. Add a Front layer and draw the river front as a Wall along the Teme, labelled "Front line" Along the line.
Moment 1, Treaty of Teme. Press + and name it. Nothing changes on the map yet; this is the "before" picture, and it is useful to have a named moment for it.
Moment 2, Ostmark crosses the river. + again. Select the river front, Change from here, and drag the copy's middle west of the river. Create the Army entities and put the League vanguard at the ford: drag it onto the ford, Moved here at this moment. Draw a siege camp outside Harlow with New shapes: From this moment.
Moment 3, Siege of Harlow. Move the Third Host to Harlow with Moved here at this moment. With the Front layer locked, nothing else moves by accident.
Moment 4, Harlow falls. Select the March's border, Change from here, pull the eastern edge back to the hills. On the March, Change who holds it… → Ostmark League, From this moment on. Select Harlow, End here: the town is gone from this moment on. Move the Third Host back to Teme.
Moment 5, Winter truce. Use Split across the March along the new line. Earlier moments keep the whole province; from here there is an Upper and a Lower March. Set the Lower March's holder to Varre From this moment on, so the truce line shows as two colours.
Play it. Back to Treaty of Teme, press ▶, and watch the front bend, the colour flip, the town vanish and the province split. Then Compare… Treaty of Teme with Winter truce to see the arrows for every army that moved.
Five moments, and nothing was redrawn. The coast, the river and the hills were drawn once.
Common mistakes on a fantasy map with changing borders
Fixing a border at Current. You notice the March's edge looks wrong while viewing Harlow falls, go to Current, and drag it. Now the border is wrong before the war too. If the border was right before and wrong after, the fix is Change from here at the moment it changed.
Painting instead of holding. You colour the March in League colours by hand at Harlow falls. The paint applies in every moment, and the Graph knows nothing about it. Use Held by.
Drawing new shapes with Always on. The siege camp appears at the treaty, before the war began. Check New shapes: before you draw at a moment, and use the shape's Exists → From to fix the ones you got wrong.
Erasing at a moment. The eraser and Stick together refuse while you view a point. That is the app saving your earlier moments; make the copy first.
One moment per day of a long war. Sixty moments with nothing recorded at most of them make ▶ slow to watch and the Timeline hard to read. Start with the turning points, and add "Day 12, dusk" only where something moves.
Fronts on the terrain layer. A front you can't lock or hide gets dragged while you reshape a province. Give fronts their own layer.
What Lokee doesn't do here
There is no army unit, no supply line, no battle resolution and no front that moves itself between moments. Each version of a front is a line you drew. The map also does not measure: no distances, no area of a province, no "how many days' march". If your war turns on marching speeds, keep those in a note on the army's card and date the moments accordingly. Comparing two moments is only possible through the global Viewing control; there is no side-by-side map view beyond that, and renaming, dating and reordering moments happens on the Timeline, not on the map.
In five minutes
- At Current, draw one province as an area and link it to a Place entity.
- In Settings → Structure → Relationship types, give one type the map role Says who holds it (belonging).
- Change who holds it… on the province → a faction, Always.
- Press + on the map to make a moment, then Change who holds it… → another faction, From this moment on.
- Press ‹ and › and watch the colour change between the two moments.
Exporting and sharing
Export offers PNG image, SVG image and Map file (JSON). On the free cloud plan, PNG exports carry a small Lokee mark and SVG is part of the paid plans; local vaults in the desktop app export without the mark. Pricing has the details.
Maps travel with the vault. Export, import, restore points and sync all carry them and their images, so a changing map is backed up together with the history it depends on.
Habits for maps that change
- Draw the stable world at Current first. Coastlines, mountains and rivers that never move belong at Current, so every moment shares them.
- Make moments coarse, then fine. Start with the turning points of the war. Add "Day 2, noon" later with +, between two others, and record only what changed then.
- Keep fronts on their own layer. Lock it while you edit territory, and hide it for a political map.
- Change holders, not colours. Painting an area a new colour changes it in every moment; changing Held by changes it from a moment on and keeps the history.
- Branch a what-if. If you want to see the war where Harlow holds, branch a timeline at
Siege of Harlow; the map's ‹ › steps along whichever timeline you are viewing. See alternate histories and branching timelines.
The public war map timeline page runs a four-day siege built exactly this way, a front line drawn as a wall in two versions, a ford that changes hands, commanders and scouts moving dawn and dusk, and you can step through it without an account. For the reference behind each control, see Changing the map over time, People on the map and Track a war day by day in the help. If the map is the first thing you are building for a new world, how to start worldbuilding argues for settling the story's questions before the coastline.