A VTuber website can be as simple as a page with your bio, social links, stream schedule, and model art.
But what happens when your VTuber has more than a short backstory?
Maybe you have original characters. Factions. Different races. Locations. Monsters. Historical events. A magic system. Story chapters. Items with their own histories. Or an entire fictional setting that keeps growing alongside your streams.
At some point, trying to fit all of that into an About page stops working.
That was one of the reasons I started building VestigeSoul.com into more than a normal VTuber website.
I wanted somewhere that could act as the main home for Vestige Soul, but I also wanted somewhere I could organize the world of Postremo Limine as it grew.
A few of my inspirations came from places like The Backrooms, the SCP Foundation, and League of Legends' old Universe approach.
I wasn't interested in copying any of those websites directly. What interested me was how they made large fictional worlds explorable.
Instead of dumping everything onto one gigantic "Lore" page, they separate information into characters, locations, stories, entities, classifications, organizations, and other pieces of the world.
That same basic idea can work surprisingly well for a lore-heavy VTuber.
Does a VTuber Actually Need a Lore Website?
No.
If your entire VTuber lore is:
I am a demon who escaped from Hell and now plays video games because the internet is more entertaining.
You probably don't need a 100-page wiki explaining it.
There is nothing wrong with simple VTuber lore.
A Carrd, profile page, YouTube description, or normal website About page might be more than enough.
A dedicated lore website starts becoming useful when your world has enough information that viewers might reasonably ask things like:
- Who is that character?
- What faction do they belong to?
- Where did that event happen?
- What exactly is that creature?
- What does this term mean?
- What happened before this chapter?
- Where should I start reading?
- Why does the VTuber have that item?
- How does this part of the world work?
That was essentially the problem I started running into with Vestige Soul.
Postremo Limine grew beyond just being a backstory for my VTuber.
There were characters, races, entities, factions, Nodes, technologies, strange phenomena, safe zones, relics, story chapters, and other ideas that all connected to each other.
At that point, the website needed to become an archive for the world, not just a promotional page for the streamer.
Think of Your Website as a Door Into the World
One of the biggest ideas I took from fictional archive-style websites is that browsing the website itself can become part of experiencing the setting.
The Backrooms Wiki, for example, lets readers explore things such as Levels, Entities, Objects, Phenomena, Tales, Groups, and Points of Interest rather than forcing everything into one continuous encyclopedia page.
The SCP Foundation takes a different approach.
Its primary fictional content is presented as documents from an organization cataloguing anomalous objects, beings, and phenomena. It also separates those documents from Tales, Groups of Interest material, canons, and other forms of storytelling.
League of Legends approached the problem from yet another direction with Universe. Riot described Universe as a central place where players could explore Runeterra's characters, regions, stories, artwork, and other material that had previously been spread across different places.
Those are very different fictional settings.
But they all taught me essentially the same thing:
A large fictional world becomes much easier to understand when people can explore it by category instead of being expected to read everything in order.
That became an important idea behind Vestige Soul.
Someone shouldn't have to read eight story chapters before they are allowed to learn what a Broker Wolf is.
Likewise, someone reading a character profile shouldn't need a 2,000-word explanation of the entire history of Postremo Limine just to understand that character.
Different pages should answer different questions.
Separate Your Main Story From Your Lore
This is probably one of the most important decisions I made with my own website.
Story and lore are not the same thing.
Your main story is where things happen.
Characters make decisions. People fight. Someone betrays someone. A location is discovered. Something goes horribly wrong.
The reader experiences events through a narrative.
Lore pages have a different job.
They explain the world surrounding those events.
For Vestige Soul, I use the Main Story for the chronological story of Vestige's journey through Postremo Limine.
Then I have a separate Lore section for concepts such as how the world functions, Safe Zones, Nodes, the Soul Cycle, technology, history, and other systems.
That separation gives me a lot more freedom.
Imagine that Chapter 12 introduces some strange machine.
I don't want Vestige to suddenly stop in the middle of the story and spend twelve paragraphs explaining the complete engineering history of that machine.
The story can show what the machine does.
A lore article can explain why the machine exists.
And a Codex entry can give the reader the important reference information about it.
Those are three different jobs.
Build a Codex for Things People Will Want to Look Up
This is probably where the influence of SCP and The Backrooms is most obvious in my own project.
I like fictional databases.
There is something enjoyable about finding a strange creature, organization, or location and then discovering that it has its own record.
So I built a Codex for Postremo Limine.
Right now, my Codex separates records into categories such as:
- Characters
- Entities
- Races
- Factions
- Nodes
- Terminology
The site currently has dozens of individual records spread across those sections.
That sounds like a lot, but you don't have to start anywhere near that large.
A new VTuber lore website might only need:
Your VTuber, major companions, rivals, villains, gods, NPCs, or other important people.
Locations
Cities, kingdoms, planets, dimensions, dungeons, ruins, stations, or other important places.
Governments, guilds, corporations, cults, military groups, criminal organizations, or anything else that controls part of your setting.
Monsters, supernatural beings, anomalies, spirits, demons, aliens, or whatever fits your world.
Items
Weapons, artifacts, magical objects, technology, books, vehicles, or other things important enough to deserve their own records.
This is one people sometimes forget.
If your world has a lot of original words, give people somewhere to look them up.
Postremo Limine has terms such as Nodes, Limi-Anchors, Black Gates, Phase Echo Bleed, Relics, Divers, and others.
I understand those words because I created them.
A new visitor does not.
Your lore website needs to be designed for the person who doesn't already have your world memorized.
Give Your Entries a Consistent Format
Another useful lesson from archive-style fiction is consistency.
SCP became recognizable partly because its core documents generally use a recognizable structure and clinical presentation. Individual writers can tell wildly different stories inside that framework, but readers still understand what kind of document they are looking at.
You can do something similar without making your website look like SCP.
For example, all of your character pages might have:
- Name
- Race
- Affiliation
- Status
- First Appearance
- Abilities
- Background
- Relationships
- Current Role
Your location pages might instead have:
- Location Name
- Location Type
- Status
- Known Factions
- Threat Level
- Environment
- Known Entities
- History
- Notable Events
A creature could have:
- Classification
- Threat
- Habitat
- Behavior
- Abilities
- Weaknesses
- Known Encounters
The exact fields depend on your universe.
The important part is that readers eventually learn what to expect.
It also makes creating new lore much easier for you.
Instead of staring at a blank WordPress editor wondering what to write about Character #37, you already have a framework.
Create a Classification System If Your World Needs One
This one definitely isn't necessary for every VTuber.
But if your fictional universe contains monsters, anomalies, magic, dangerous locations, supernatural events, weapons, or similar things, classifications can make the world much more fun to explore.
SCP is probably one of the best-known examples of this idea. Its terminology and classification systems help communicate information about anomalous objects and phenomena quickly, although its systems have also grown considerably more complex over the years.
I eventually created classification ideas for Postremo Limine for similar reasons.
The useful part isn't just making cool labels.
A classification should tell the reader something.
Maybe your monsters are classified by danger.
Maybe magical artifacts are classified by rarity.
Maybe locations are classified by stability.
Maybe spirits are categorized by where they came from.
Maybe your VTuber agency has clearance levels and certain pages appear as classified files.
You can even work the classification into your website design.
Instead of writing:
This creature is extremely dangerous.
You could establish something like:
Threat Classification: Crimson
If readers already know what Crimson means, you just communicated something about the creature before they even read the article.
That is worldbuilding happening through interface design.
Give People a Clear "Start Here" Page
This becomes increasingly important as your site gets larger.
A new person visiting a lore site can very easily encounter this:
132 lore pages.
Cool.
Where do I start?
That is why I created a Start Here: How to Read the Vestige Soul Lore page.
My current recommended path is basically:
Start with the main story if you want to experience the world narratively.
Use the Codex when you want to look something up.
Read Lore entries when you want a deeper explanation of how the setting works.
Then use the blog for development notes, discussions, and other material surrounding the project.
You shouldn't assume visitors will figure out your structure themselves.
The SCP Wiki actually has the same basic problem at a vastly larger scale. Its newcomer guide exists specifically because dropping someone into more than ten thousand pages of material without direction would be overwhelming.
Obviously your indie VTuber site probably isn't going to contain ten thousand pages.
Mine certainly doesn't.
But even 30 or 40 pages can become intimidating to someone who just discovered you five minutes ago.
Give them a door.
Don't Make Readers Learn Everything Before They Can Enjoy Anything
This is something I think worldbuilders can get wrong very easily.
We become attached to everything we've created.
The 4,000-year history of the eastern kingdom matters to us.
The reader might just want to know why the cute moth girl has a sword.
Let them.
A lore website should work at different levels.
Someone might spend two minutes reading your VTuber's character profile.
Someone else might read your entire main story.
Another person might become obsessed with one faction and click through every character associated with it.
Someone might only care about your monsters.
That's good.
You don't need everyone to consume your fictional universe the same way.
In fact, allowing people to wander is part of what makes archive-style fictional websites interesting.
Link Everything Together
Once you start building dozens of lore pages, internal linking becomes extremely important.
Let's say a chapter mentions:
That name should be able to lead to the Wolf Market Authority's faction entry.
That faction entry might mention:
That can lead to the Broker Wolf entity page.
The Broker Wolf page might mention:
Market Standing
That can lead to a terminology page explaining the system.
Suddenly someone who arrived to read one story chapter has fallen down a lore rabbit hole.
That's exactly what I want.
A good lore website should encourage:
Wait, what's that?
Then give the reader something to click.
You are essentially creating your own fictional version of the Wikipedia effect where someone goes looking for one answer and realizes forty minutes later they have twelve tabs open.
For a worldbuilding project, that's a pretty good problem to have.
Your Homepage Should Introduce the World, Not Explain All of It
I don't think the homepage should become a gigantic lore document.
Its job is to make someone interested enough to explore.
My current Vestige Soul homepage introduces the VTuber, Postremo Limine, the Main Story, Codex, Safe Zones, characters, factions, streams, and community, but leaves the deeper explanations to their own sections.
Think of your homepage like the entrance to a museum.
You don't put every artifact in the lobby.
You show people what kinds of things are inside.
For a lore-heavy VTuber, that might mean prominently showing:
Your VTuber.
Your world's basic premise.
A Start Reading button.
A Explore the World or Open the Codex button.
A few featured characters or locations.
Your latest story chapter.
Your livestream information.
Then let people choose where they want to go.
Character Pages Deserve More Than a Biography
This is one area where something closer to League's presentation can be useful.
A character page doesn't have to be a wall of biography text.
It can be a hub.
A major character page could contain their artwork, basic profile, faction, relationships, history, appearances, abilities, related stories, associated locations, quotes, and links to other characters.
Riot's original description of Universe emphasized bringing together stories, characters, regions, artwork, and other pieces of Runeterra rather than treating lore as isolated blocks of text.
That's the part I find interesting for a VTuber project.
If I have a page for Vestige Soul, I don't want it to eventually contain only:
Vestige is a dark elf. Here is his biography.
I want the page to become a gateway to everything connected to him.
His story.
His relic.
His relationships.
His abilities.
The factions he encounters.
Major events.
Artwork.
Eventually, perhaps, his role in the game I'm developing.
A good character page can keep expanding alongside the character.
Locations Can Tell Stories Too
This is one of my favorite things about the Backrooms concept.
A place itself can be the subject.
You don't necessarily need a character standing there explaining everything.
The environment can tell the story.
Postremo Limine uses Nodes, which are unstable regions that make up parts of the world. My Codex currently includes locations such as the Hollow Metropolis, Muhan Apartments, Lost Forest, 1888 London, Endless White, and others.
Those pages allow me to treat locations as important pieces of the world instead of just backgrounds where characters happen to stand.
If locations matter in your lore, give them their own pages.
Tell readers:
What does this place look like?
Who lives there?
Why does it matter?
What happened there?
How dangerous is it?
How do you get there?
Can you leave?
What factions control it?
What creatures inhabit it?
Has your VTuber ever visited it?
A great fictional location should make someone want to imagine what it would be like to actually go there.
Let Some Pages Feel Like They Exist Inside the Universe
Not every page needs to be written from an omniscient wiki perspective.
This is another idea I like from fictional archive projects.
Some documents can exist inside the fictional world.
Maybe your faction wrote the report.
Maybe a researcher documented the monster.
Maybe the character page is actually a personnel file.
Maybe the location record was recovered from someone who disappeared.
Maybe half the information is censored.
Maybe different factions completely disagree about what happened.
That gives you another storytelling tool.
You can have:
Normal lore pages that clearly explain your world.
And:
In-universe documents that show how people inside that world understand it.
Those don't always have to agree.
That can create mysteries without requiring you to hide absolutely everything from the audience.
Keep the Blog Separate From the Fictional Archive
I also wouldn't put every website update into your lore system.
That's what the blog is for.
My blog contains things like discussions about VTuber lore, why I use a voice changer, the development of my project, stream updates, and how I'm turning the lore into an indie game.
Those aren't Codex records.
They're me talking about the project.
That's an important distinction.
Your blog can be the out-of-universe side of your website.
The lore explains the world.
The blog explains why you're building it.
That also creates opportunities to write searchable articles like this one that introduce people to your project even if they've never heard of your character.
Someone might search for information about building a VTuber lore website.
They find this article.
Then they discover Postremo Limine.
Then they open the Codex.
Then they find a character.
Then maybe they watch a stream.
That's a much better discovery path than expecting someone to randomly search:
Vestige Soul Postremo Limine lore
when they don't know either of those names yet.
Don't Build 100 Empty Pages Just Because You Can
This is another lesson I've learned while building my own site.
It's very easy to overbuild the structure before you have the content.
You make:
- Characters
- Factions
- Countries
- Continents
- Planets
- Magic
- Weapons
- Technology
- Languages
- History
- Religion
- Politics
- Bestiary
- Timeline
- Organizations
- Artifacts
- Food
- Currency
- Calendar
And then almost every category contains one unfinished article.
You don't need that.
Build the structure around the world you actually have.
If your setting currently has four important characters and three locations, start there.
You can always create another archive later.
My own Codex has expanded as Postremo Limine has expanded.
That is much easier to manage than trying to design the final encyclopedia for a fictional universe that might still be changing five years from now.
Your Lore Website Doesn't Have to Be Finished
This is probably the most important part.
Your lore is going to change.
Mine has.
Names change.
Ideas get rewritten.
Characters that seemed important disappear.
Random side characters become important.
You discover that something you wrote six months ago makes absolutely no sense anymore.
That is normal.
A lore website should be built to evolve.
That's actually one of the reasons I prefer having this information on my own website instead of creating one giant PDF containing "The Official Vestige Soul Lore."
I can update a character.
Add a faction.
Rewrite a definition.
Create another Node.
Link an old chapter to a new Codex entry.
Add something from the game.
Expand the world as I actually create it.
The website becomes a living archive instead of a finished lore bible.
What Should a VTuber Lore Website Include?
If I were starting again with a completely new lore-heavy VTuber, I wouldn't build everything I have now on day one.
I'd start with six things.
1. A Homepage
Introduce the VTuber and give visitors a reason to care.
2. A Character/About Page
Explain who the VTuber actually is.
3. A Start Here Page
Tell new people how to explore the project.
4. A Main Story Section
Only if you actually have an ongoing narrative.
5. A Small Codex
Start with characters, locations, factions, creatures, or whatever matters most to your setting.
6. A Lore Section
Use this for world systems and deeper explanations that don't belong inside character profiles or story chapters.
Then expand when you actually need to.
You can add maps, timelines, relationship charts, classifications, interactive elements, secret pages, audio logs, videos, art galleries, games, or almost anything else later.
Make the Website Part of the VTuber Project
This is ultimately the direction I'm trying to take with Vestige Soul.
I don't want VestigeSoul.com to exist just because someone said:
Every content creator needs a website.
The website itself is part of the project.
Streams are one way into Vestige Soul.
The main story is another.
The Codex is another.
The lore archive is another.
Eventually, the game will be another.
Someone may discover one part and move into the others.
That is what made projects like the Backrooms, SCP, and large fictional universes interesting to me in the first place.
There isn't necessarily one correct doorway.
You find something strange.
You click it.
You learn something.
That introduces another question.
You click again.
And before long, you're exploring a world.
That's what I want from a VTuber lore website.
Not just a page explaining who my character is.
A place where the character's world can actually live.
