DM-Pal

An offline-first desktop toolkit for Dungeon Masters, powered by a local LLM. Built with Tauri v2 + Rust on the back end and React 19 + TypeScript on the front. Every generator is grounded in your own world bible via a local RAG index — no data leaves your machine unless you point it at a remote API.

What's in the box

DM-Pal packs every tool a DM reaches for at and between the table, grouped into Session (live) and World (prep) tools:

Initiative Tracker — combatants, HP, conditions, death saves, turn timer
Dice Roller — notation parsing, advantage/disadvantage, roll templates
Encounter Builder — AI-generated encounters with a 5e XP budget
NPC Generator — portraits, personality, goals, stat blocks
Quest Designer — multi-step quests with twists and reward breakdown
Item Forge — magic items with art and structured mechanics
Image Generator — portraits, maps, scene art (macOS, via Ollama)
Session Logger — Markdown notes, multiple sessions, streaming AI summary
Soundboard — synthesized ambience/SFX with one-click scenes
World Builder — generated regions, landmarks, a draggable-pin map
Lore (RAG) — index your world bible, ground every generation in it
Calendar — custom fantasy calendars, weather, moon phases, events
Random Tables — built-in and custom tables, weighted rolls

A ⌘K command palette, History view (re-open any past generation), and persistent state round it out — reload loses nothing.

Quick start

Prerequisites

Rust + Cargo — https://rustup.rs
Node.js 20+ — https://nodejs.org
Ollama running locally (default http://localhost:11434)

Install & run

npm install
npm run tauri dev

On first launch open Settings (⌘,) and confirm the API URL, then pull a text model (e.g. llama3.2) and an embedding model (e.g. nomic-embed-text):

ollama pull llama3.2
ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Optionally, for image generation (macOS / Apple Silicon only):

ollama pull x/flux2-klein:4b

Where your data lives

All campaign data stays on disk under your OS app-data dir (default $APPDATA/dm-toolkit/, configurable in Settings):

File	Contents
`lore.db`	RAG chunks + embeddings (SQLite)
`generations.db`	History of every generated NPC/encounter/item/quest/…
`images/`	Cached generated PNGs, keyed by prompt hash
`dm-pal-state.json`	UI state (initiative, dice history, calendar events, …)

Settings → Data location lets you relocate everything to an external drive and migrates existing data for you.

Architecture

React 19 + TypeScript  ──invoke()/Channel──▶  Rust (Tauri v2)
  Zustand · framer-motion                          LLM (Ollama / OpenAI-compatible)
  react-konva (world map)                         SQLite (rusqlite, bundled)
  Tailwind v4 + glassmorphism                     RAG (brute-force cosine → sqlite-vec path)

Each tool is a self-contained component mounted behind a single renderView switch; the dashboard is a launcher of at-a-glance tiles. The design system is dark-only (navy + Cinzel + gold), self-hosts its fonts for true offline use, and meets WCAG AA contrast.

Scripts

npm run dev          # Vite dev server (frontend only)
npm run tauri dev    # Full app, hot-reload
npm run build        # tsc -b && vite build
npm run lint         # oxlint
node scripts/check-worldmap.ts        # world-map layout self-check
node scripts/check-encounter-budget.ts # XP-budget self-check
node scripts/check-dice.ts             # dice-notation parser self-check

Project layout

src/                 React front end
  components/         one file per tool
  lib/                pure logic + persistence hooks
src-tauri/src/       Rust back end
  commands/           Tauri IPC commands (llm, image, rag, data, generation)
  llm/                Ollama/OpenAI client + config
  rag/                embedding + cosine search
  generations/        history store
docs/                plan + UI/UX review

Roadmap

See docs/plan.md for the full plan and docs/ui-ux-improvements.md for the living UI/UX review with a prioritized checklist.

Planned / in progress: first-run model wizard, quest branching graph, world hierarchy tree, real ambience packs, GitHub Actions CI, code signing, and an auto-updater.

License

TBD. Built-in rule references use only 5e SRD / OGL / CC-BY content. Model files ship under their own licenses (e.g. Meta's Llama license) — accept them in Ollama before pulling.

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