# Terms of Service v0.8.9 **Effective date:** [09-08-2026] **Last updated:** [09-08-2026] These Terms of Service ("**Terms**") are a legal agreement between **[LEGAL ENTITY NAME]** ("**we**", "**us**", "**our**"), a [sole trader / limited company registered in England and Wales under company number [TBD]] with its registered address at [TBD], and you ("**you**", "**your**"). They govern your use of **The GMs Codex** desktop application (the "**Application**"), any hosted services we operate (the "**Hosted Services**"), and any access provided to you as a guest (together, the "**Services**"). By purchasing, installing, or using any part of the Services, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services. --- ## 1. Definitions - **Application** — the GMs Codex desktop software, licensed to you under Part A. - **Codex** — a world/project created in the Application, stored as files on disk. - **Your Content** — anything you create, upload, import, or store using the Services, including text, images, maps, and imported material. - **GM** — a user who holds a licence for the Application and controls one or more Codices. - **Guest** / **Player** — a person granted limited, read-only access to a portion of a GM's Content via an access token, without holding their own licence. - **Access Token** — a credential issued by a GM permitting Guest access to specified content. - **Hosted Services** — the optional, subscription-based synchronisation and player-facing hosting operated by us. - **Self-Hosted Deployment** — server software you run on your own infrastructure, as permitted under Part D. --- ## Part A — The Application Licence ### A1. Licence grant On payment of the applicable one-time fee, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual licence to install and use the Application on devices you own or control, for your own worldbuilding and game-running purposes, including commercial use of the *works you create with it*. ### A2. What this licence is not This licence does not transfer ownership of the Application. We retain all intellectual property rights in the Application itself. You may not: - (a) copy, redistribute, resell, sublicense, or make the Application available to third parties; - (b) reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Application, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law; - (c) remove, disable, or circumvent any licensing, activation, or access-control mechanism; - (d) share, publish, resell, or generate licence keys. ### A3. Licence keys and activation Your licence is delivered as a licence key. You are responsible for keeping it secure. A licence key is issued for your use; sharing it with others is a breach of these Terms and may result in the key being revoked. The Application is designed to verify your licence **offline**. Where an online check is available, it is supplementary; a failure to reach our servers will not, by itself, prevent you from using the Application you have paid for. ### A4. No feature gating We confirm that the one-time Application licence is not conditional on any subscription. Subscribing to the Hosted Services is entirely optional, and declining or cancelling a subscription does not disable, limit, or revoke your Application licence, nor your access to Codices stored on your own devices. ### A5. Updates and versions This licence covers the version of the Application you purchased and any updates we choose to make available to that version. We do not guarantee that future major versions will be provided free of charge. Any upgrade terms for future major versions will be stated at the time. ### A6. Our trade marks and branding "The GMs Codex", our logos, and our product names and branding are our property. Nothing in these Terms grants you any right to use them, except to accurately refer to the Application — for example, stating that a world you have published was made with it. You may not use our name or branding in a way that suggests we endorse, sponsor, or are affiliated with your product, service or community without our written permission. Names and marks belonging to third parties — including game systems, map-making tools and other software referenced in or compatible with the Application — remain the property of their respective owners. Nothing here grants you rights in them. --- ## Part B — Hosted Services (subscription) ### B1. What the Hosted Services are The Hosted Services are an optional paid service providing some or all of: synchronisation of your Codices to storage we operate; access to that data from additional devices; and hosting of player-facing content for Guests. ### B2. Subscription, tiers and billing Subscriptions are billed [monthly/annually] in advance. Tiers are determined by the number of Guests permitted to access your content. Campaigns and Codices are not limited by tier. **Subscriptions renew automatically** at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, until cancelled. We will make the renewal date and amount visible in your account, and will notify you before any price change takes effect. ### B2a. Account registration and security To use the Hosted Services you must create an account and provide accurate information, and keep it up to date — particularly your email address, which is how we send licence keys, billing notices and security alerts. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials and licence key secure, and for activity that occurs under them. Tell us promptly at [TheGMsCodex.gmail.com] if you believe your account or licence key has been compromised. You must be at least [18] years old to hold an account. ### B2b. Storage and inactive accounts We may set reasonable limits on storage and file sizes for the Hosted Services, and will publish them at [URL]. If limits change materially, we will give you notice. Where an account has been inactive and unsubscribed for an extended period, we may close it and delete hosted content after giving you **[90]** days' notice by email and a reasonable opportunity to retrieve your data. We will not delete hosted content without attempting to contact you first. You always retain your own local copies; hosted content is a synchronised copy, not the only copy (see H2). ### B3. Cancellation You may cancel at any time, effective at the end of your current billing period. On cancellation: - your Application licence is unaffected (see A4); - your local copies of Your Content are unaffected; - Guest access via the Hosted Services will stop; - we will retain your hosted data for [90] days, during which you may retrieve it, after which it may be permanently deleted. ### B4. Availability We aim to keep the Hosted Services available but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. The Hosted Services may be unavailable due to maintenance, third-party infrastructure failures, or circumstances outside our control. We offer no commitment regarding up-time or service credits but will aim to restore any interuption to the hosted services as quckly as prcticable. ### B5. Fair use The Hosted Services are subject to reasonable use. We may contact you, and if necessary apply limits, where usage materially exceeds what is typical for your tier — for example, storage or transfer volumes far beyond normal worldbuilding use. ### B6. Suspension We may suspend or terminate Hosted Services access where: payment fails and is not resolved; these Terms are materially breached; or continued operation would expose us or other users to legal risk. Except in urgent cases we will give notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy. --- ## Part C — Guest and Player access ### C1. Nature of Guest access A GM may issue Access Tokens permitting Guests to view a defined subset of that GM's Content. Guests do not purchase anything, hold no licence, and pay nothing. ### C2. Guests are bound by these Terms By accessing content through an Access Token, a Guest agrees to Part C and to Parts F, G and H so far as they apply. Guests must not: attempt to access content beyond what their token permits; share, publish, or resell an Access Token or the content accessed through it; or attempt to disrupt or gain unauthorised access to the Services. ### C3. GM responsibility for Guests If you are a GM issuing Access Tokens, you are responsible for: - (a) who you issue tokens to, and revoking them when appropriate; - (b) ensuring you have the right to share the content you expose to Guests; - (c) any personal data of your Guests that you introduce into the Services (see F4). ### C4. No relationship with Guests We provide no support to Guests, make no commitments to them regarding availability of a GM's content, and may cease serving Guest content where the associated GM's subscription ends or these Terms are breached. --- ## Part D — Self-hosting ### D1. Permission to self-host You may run the server component on infrastructure you own or control, in order to provide synchronisation and player-facing access for yourself and your Guests, without any subscription to us. ### D2. Your responsibility A Self-Hosted Deployment is operated entirely by you. You are responsible for its security, availability, backups, lawful operation, and for the data of any Guests you grant access. We provide no warranty, support, or liability in respect of a Self-Hosted Deployment. ### D3. Limits You may not operate a Self-Hosted Deployment as a commercial service for third parties — i.e. you may not resell hosting of the Services to others — without our prior written agreement. --- ## Part E — Your Content ### E1. You own it You retain all rights in Your Content. We claim no ownership of the worlds, characters, writing, or images you create. ### E2. Limited licence to operate the service Where you use the Hosted Services, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to store, copy, and transmit Your Content **solely** to the extent necessary to provide those Services to you and the Guests you authorise. This licence ends when the content is deleted or your subscription ends and any retention period expires. We do not use Your Content to train models, and do not publish or share it except as you direct. ### E3. Your warranties You warrant that Your Content, and any material you import into the Services, is either your own or is material you have the right to use, store, and (where you choose) share with Guests. This applies to imported material — including images from external map-making tools, artwork, and rules or reference material from game systems, which may carry their own licence terms that you are responsible for complying with. ### E4. Acceptable use These restrictions apply to the Hosted Services and to any content you share through them. What you write privately in a Codex on your own machine is your business — we neither see it nor police it. You must not use the Services to: - (a) do anything unlawful, or facilitate unlawful activity; - (b) store or share material that infringes any copyright, trade mark, or other intellectual property right; - (c) store or share material that is defamatory, harassing, threatening, or that invades another person's privacy; - (d) harm or exploit children in any way, including sharing material that sexualises or endangers a minor; - (e) upload or transmit viruses, malware, or anything designed to damage, disable or gain unauthorised access to any system; - (f) interfere with or disrupt the Services, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to them, to another user's content, or to any account or token not issued to you; - (g) misrepresent your identity, or provide false information to us; - (h) resell, sublicense, or commercially redistribute access to the Hosted Services, or operate them as a competing service (see also D3). Mature themes in fiction are not prohibited — this is a worldbuilding tool and fantasy settings routinely involve conflict, violence and morally difficult subject matter. These restrictions concern real-world harm, unlawful material, and abuse of the Services, not the tone or content of your fiction. ### E5. We do not monitor content We have no practical ability to review content stored through the Hosted Services and are under no obligation to monitor it. You are responsible for what you store and share. Our right to remove content under E6 is not an undertaking to look for it. ### E6. Reporting infringement and takedown If you believe content accessible through the Hosted Services infringes your rights, contact **[TheGMsCodex@gmail.com]** with: 1. your name and contact details, and, if you are acting for someone else, who you represent; 2. identification of the work you say has been infringed; 3. identification of the material you are complaining about, with enough detail (such as a URL) for us to find it; 4. a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised by the rights owner or permitted by law; 5. a statement that the information you have given is accurate; 6. your signature (electronic is fine). This mechanism is available electronically to anyone, whether or not they hold an account, and may also be used to report content you believe to be illegal for reasons other than infringement. We will act on sufficiently detailed and substantiated reports in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner. We may remove or disable access to material while we look into a report, and will give the affected user a statement of reasons explaining what has happened and why, unless we are legally prevented from doing so. Both the reporter and the affected user will be informed of the outcome. If you believe your content was removed in error, contact us and we will reconsider. We may suspend or terminate accounts of users who repeatedly infringe others' rights. --- ## Part F — Data protection ### F1. Privacy Policy Our handling of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy at [URL], which forms part of these Terms. ### F2. Roles For account and billing information, we act as a **data controller**. For Your Content stored on the Hosted Services, we act as a **data processor** on your instructions. ### F4. Guest personal data Where you invite Guests, any personal data about them that reaches the Services is introduced by you. You confirm you have a lawful basis for doing so and for sharing it with us as your processor. ### F5. Sub-processors We use third-party infrastructure providers to operate the Hosted Services (including hosting, storage, authentication, email delivery and payment processing). A current list is available at [URL]. ### F6. Security We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect data. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. --- ## Part G — Consumer rights, refunds and cancellation ### G1. Statutory rights Nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer under the law of your country of residence, which cannot be excluded or limited. Where anything in these Terms conflicts with a mandatory consumer protection that applies to you, that protection prevails. This matters in particular in Australia, where consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law cannot be excluded, and any statement that a purchase is "non-refundable" is prohibited regardless of what these Terms say. ### G2. Digital content and the right to cancel Where you are a consumer, you normally have 14 days to cancel a purchase of digital content. By downloading or accessing the Application immediately, you may be asked to acknowledge that you lose that right — where that acknowledgement is given, the cancellation right does not apply. ### G4. Cancelling a subscription You can cancel at any time from your account settings, without contacting us and without a fee. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. --- ## Part H — Warranties, liability and indemnity ### H1. Provided "as is" Except as expressly stated and to the fullest extent permitted by law, the Services are provided without warranties of any kind, including fitness for a particular purpose. We do not warrant that the Services will be error-free or uninterrupted. ### H1a. Third-party sites and services The Services may link to, or interoperate with, websites, tools and services we do not operate — including map-making software, game systems, community platforms and payment providers. We are not responsible for their availability, content, accuracy, or practices, and a link does not imply endorsement. Your use of them is at your own risk and governed by their terms. ### H2. Backups are your responsibility The Application stores Your Content as files on your own device and includes local snapshot functionality. **You remain responsible for maintaining your own backups.** Neither the Application's snapshot feature nor the Hosted Services are a substitute for a backup regime you control. ### H3. Limitation of liability To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us in the [12] months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) [AMOUNT]. We are not liable for loss of data, loss of profit, or indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. ### H4. Indemnity You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from Your Content, from material you import, or from your breach of these Terms — including claims brought by Guests you have granted access to. --- ## Part I — Termination We may terminate these Terms where you materially breach them and fail to remedy the breach within [NUMBER] days of notice. On termination, your right to use the Hosted Services ends. Your Application licence survives except where terminated for breach of Part A. You may stop using the Services at any time. Provisions which by their nature should survive (including Parts E, F, G, H) survive termination. --- ## Part I2 — International use The Services are offered worldwide. This Part sets out terms that apply because of that. ### I2.1 You are responsible for local law We make no representation that the Services are appropriate or available in every country. If you use them, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with your local law. ### I2.2 Sanctions and export restrictions You may not use the Services, and we may not supply them to you, if you are located in, ordinarily resident in, or acting on behalf of a person in a country or territory subject to comprehensive sanctions, or if you appear on any applicable sanctions or restricted-party list. By using the Services you confirm this is not the case. ### I2.3 Taxes Prices are stated [inclusive] of applicable taxes as shown at checkout. Where a third party acts as merchant of record for your purchase, that party is responsible for charging and remitting applicable sales tax, VAT or GST. ### I2.4 Language These Terms are provided in English, and English is the authoritative version. Where we provide a translation, it is for convenience only unless local law requires otherwise. ### I2.5 Data location Content stored through the Hosted Services is held in [REGION]. If you require your data to remain in a particular jurisdiction, check this before subscribing. See the Privacy Policy for international transfer safeguards. --- ## Part J — General **Changes.** We may amend these Terms. Material changes will be notified at least [NUMBER] days in advance; continued use after they take effect constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept a material change to the Hosted Services terms, you may cancel. **Entire agreement.** These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy [and any Data Processing Addendum], constitute the entire agreement between us. **Severability.** If any provision is found unenforceable, the remainder continues in force. **Assignment.** You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a sale or reorganisation of our business, on notice. **Governing law and jurisdiction.** These Terms are governed by the laws of [England and Wales]. **If you are a consumer**, nothing in this clause deprives you of the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your own country as well as ours. We will bring any proceedings against you in the courts of your country of residence. **If you are a business**, the courts of [England and Wales] have exclusive jurisdiction. **Contact.** [TheGMsCodex@gmail.com]