Obsidian D&D Template: A Campaign Vault Loaded with a Playable Mini-Campaign

An empty campaign vault teaches you nothing about running one. This Obsidian D&D template comes loaded with The Salt Road Conspiracy, a complete original mini-campaign — three narrated sessions, eight NPCs, four locations, three encounters, three player characters and the lore tying them together — so every query, link and prep workflow is demonstrated on real play data. Run it as written, strip it for parts, or delete it and keep the structure. Everything is original and 5e-compatible: the vault contains no text from any published rulebook.

What's inside this Obsidian campaign template

One note per entity, one folder per type:

• Sessions/ — three session notes, from Blood on the Brine to Salt in the Wound: recap, scene log, clues handed out, and a "next time" block.
• NPCs/ — eight characters with role, location, status and faction frontmatter, from harbormaster patron Maera Wace to Iselle Carrow, the conspiracy's author.
• Locations/ — four linked places along the Salt Road between Saltmere and Vellharrow.
• Encounters/ — three with original stat blocks: two already run, and the Counting House Break-In prepped with status: ready, runnable tonight.
• PCs/ and Lore/ — the three-character party, plus the factions and history that more than one note needs to agree on.
• DM Screen — the Dataview dashboard: NPCs by location and by faction, recent sessions, ready encounters, party roster.
• Templates/ — five, one per entity type: session, NPC, location, encounter, PC.

Running a D&D campaign in Obsidian, session by session

Most Obsidian D&D setups collapse because notes pile up without conventions; here the conventions ship pre-applied, mid-campaign. The loop: after each session, write the recap while it is fresh, log which clues actually reached the players, update the status frontmatter of any NPC the session changed, and let the "next time" block become your prep list. Before the next one, glance at the DM Screen — it already knows which encounter is ready and where everyone is. The example campaign is captured mid-loop on purpose: session three is written up, the break-in is prepped, and the party sits one bad decision from the endgame. Open the graph view too — a campaign vault should look like a web, and this one does.

Plugins the campaign vault uses

Dataview is the only requirement — every table on the DM Screen runs on it. Two optional plugins are pre-listed in the vault config: Leaflet, which turns map images into pannable, pinnable maps once you add some (nothing in the vault depends on it), and Initiative Tracker, which runs turn order in the sidebar and pairs well with the encounter notes. The core Templates plugin comes pointed at Templates/.

Install the D&D template in Obsidian

Download the zip, unzip it, choose Open folder as vault, enable community plugins, install Dataview, and open the DM Screen in reading view — every table should be populated. The same vault sits on GitHub. Template insertion is covered in core Templates vs Templater. And if your world outgrows a single campaign — regions, deep history, factions that exist whether or not the party meets them — the worldbuilding vault applies the same relational-frontmatter method at setting scale. The D&D, TTRPG and worldbuilding category holds both.