Going Public
Public Realms
Publishing a realm gives it a home on the open internet: a preview page anyone can visit, a guest view for signed-in players, and a way for fans to follow along as your audience.
Anyone
Sees your realm's public preview page: cover, synopsis, stats, and recent session teasers.
Signed-in guests
Can step inside and browse the Gamestream and the parts of your Compendium you have made public.
Audience
Guests who choose to follow your realm. They keep access, applaud sessions, and get notified.
Publishing is free and only takes a moment, but a few things need to be in place first, and a few more are worth a look before strangers arrive.
Be the realm owner
Only the realm's owner can publish it or take it private again. Admins can manage members, but they can't change public settings.
Create a creator profile
Every public realm is credited to a creator. Your profile needs at least a creator name and a profile image before the publish setting appears.
Add a cover image
Optional, but strongly recommended. The cover image headlines your preview page and shows up when your link is shared on Discord or social media. Without one, the page falls back to a plain dark background.
Review your Compendium
Anything marked Public to Realm becomes visible to every signed-in guest once the realm is published. Check that nothing secret is flagged that way.
Decide on session rumors
Your rumors setting decides whether the public sees vague in-world rumors or real session summaries. Pick the one that suits your game.
See Creator Profiles, Public Compendium, and Session Rumors for the details behind each step.
Open your realm, choose Configure Realm from the portal, and find the Publish realm setting. Check Make realm public and save. You can also publish a brand-new realm straight from the creation form in the H.U.B.
If you don't have a creator profile yet, you'll see a Create Profile button in that spot instead. Fill it out and the publish setting unlocks.
View Public Realm
Once published, this button opens your preview page in a new tab. Copy the address from your browser to share it.
Synopsis
A short, optional description of your world's current state, up to 350 characters. It appears on the preview page and is used as the page's description in search results.
Member notification
Everyone already in the realm is notified that it's now public, so your party isn't caught off guard.
Your preview page lives at realmsofshod.com/realm-summary/… and can be opened by anyone, signed in or not. It's a highlight reel, not the realm itself. It never shows transcripts, notes, or individual Compendium entries.
Cover and title
Your realm's cover image and name, front and center.
Stats
Number of sessions, public entities, public relationships, members (including audience), and hours played. Entity and relationship counts only include items marked Public to Realm.
Creator
Your creator name, linking to your public creator profile.
Synopsis
The synopsis you wrote in Configure Realm, shown exactly as written.
Recent Sessions
Up to three of your most recently finished sessions, each with a title, length, date, and a short teaser. Whether that teaser is a rumor or a real summary depends on your session rumors setting.
See behind the scenes
Takes a signed-in visitor inside the realm as a guest. Signed-out visitors are asked to sign in first.
Become Audience
Lets a visitor follow your realm. See Audience for what that means.
The preview page refreshes automatically. Changes to your synopsis, cover, or sessions can take a couple of minutes to appear.
Any signed-in user can open a public realm without joining it. They're treated as a guest and see a banner reading You're browsing as a guest. with a Become Audience button. Guests are read-only visitors.
Guests can
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Gamestream | Scroll the timeline, including session rumors or summaries and backstory explorations. |
| Compendium | Browse entities and relationships marked Public to Realm. Nothing shared only with specific players is ever shown. |
| Transcripts | Only when session rumors are turned off for the realm. |
Guests cannot
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Participate | Chat in the Gamestream, applaud, roll dice, or join live sessions and video. |
| See private tools | Notes, character details, story tools, party members, or realm settings. |
Public preview pages, and the creator profiles behind them, are automatically listed in the Realms of Shod sitemap so search engines can find them. Your realm's title and synopsis become the search result, and your cover image becomes the link preview. Your realm is listed as soon as you publish it; search engines then crawl on their own schedule.
Uncheck Make realm public and save. Here is what changes:
Preview page
Stops working and shows a "page not found" message. It may take a few minutes for cached copies to disappear.
Guests
Lose access right away and are sent back to their H.U.B.
Audience and members
Keep their access. Following a realm is a real membership, so it outlasts the public setting. Remove anyone you no longer want from the Party Members panel.
Search engines
The realm is dropped from the sitemap, and search engines remove it the next time they check.
Deleting your creator profile makes every one of your public realms private at once.