Rewriting My D&D Books in Obsidian

Artwork by Andreas Rocha

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my frustration that Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t provide PDFs of their 5th edition books. Instead, Wizards of the Coast locks all their digital content to a license on D&D Beyond. To be fair, the system works fine for what it is, but it leaves me uneasy. When I buy a book, I want to own it. What D&D Beyond sells me isn’t ownership—it’s access.

That means my library only exists as long as their servers stay online and supported. If the site shuts down one day, or if Wizards simply decides to shift their strategy, or even if the site goes down for routine maintenance, I lose access. And that’s frustrating.

PDFs and Ownership

Compare this to the dozens of other RPGs in my collection—Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Mörk Borg, Mothership, Dragonbane, Into the Odd, Dead in Space, 4 Against Darkness, and plenty more. Every single one of these games provides PDFs.

And PDFs are fantastic for tabletop play. I can:

• Actually own the file. It’s mine, forever.

• Bookmark, highlight, and annotate pages while studying or prepping.

• Search instantly for rules, spells, or monster stats.

• Organize my library however I want across devices.

• Bring it anywhere—whether on a laptop, tablet, or even just my phone when gaming at a friend’s place.

I still love physical books—my first read-through is always on paper. Nothing beats flipping through a well-printed rulebook. But when I’m running or playing a session, digital is simply more practical.

So yes, I understand Wotc’s hesitation with piracy. PDFs are easy to share. But they’re also the only big publisher refusing to provide them. Everyone else does, and the hobby is thriving. To me, that makes the “no PDF” stance feel like flawed logic.

So I decided to do something about it, rather than simply complain.

Enter Obsidian

That’s when I decided to rebuild Dungeons & Dragons for myself—digitally—in Obsidian.

Obsidian is one of my favorite tools. I already use it for work, personal journaling, recipes, and general life organization. It’s local-first, meaning I don’t need the internet to access my notes. I sync everything through iCloud, though you could use Dropbox, OneDrive, or Obsidian’s own paid sync. On top of that, it has an amazing plugin ecosystem, but the real magic for this project is its support for WikiLinks.

With WikiLinks, I can cross-reference notes the same way you’d click through Wikipedia. For example, if I write a monster entry that uses the Fireball spell, I can link directly to my Fireball note. Hover over the link, and the spell pops up instantly in a preview window.

That means I don’t need to retype Fireball’s description in every place it appears. I only need to write it once. After that, every monster, class, or rule that mentions Fireball can simply link to it. This “don’t repeat yourself” approach is perfect for a rules-heavy system like D&D.

I keep my setup fairly minimal—no heavy plugin reliance—so that my files remain portable Markdown. If I ever stop using Obsidian, the notes will still work anywhere else.

Building My Digital D&D Vault

So, where to start? My first thought was monsters or spells. But the truth is, almost everything in D&D builds on the rules glossary. Conditions, actions, saving throws—they all show up everywhere. So I started there.

Here’s the process I followed:

1. Copy from D&D Beyond – The free Basic Rules are available online. I copied the glossary entries into a Markdown file in Obsidian.

2. Clean the formatting – I wrote a quick script to remove external links and convert them into Obsidian WikiLinks. In about 15 minutes, I had a usable glossary. “This could also be done manually, but hey, I guess my web dev experience came in handy here”.

3. Expand to other categories – After the rules, I moved on to:

   • Spells (with metadata: level, school, casting time, duration, components, etc.)

   • Monsters (with CR, AC, HP, abilities, resistances, XP value, source book, etc.)

   • Magic Items (with rarity, type, attunement, description)

   • Lore glossary (places, deities, iconic NPCs like Vecna)

Each category has a dedicated template so I can add metadata consistently. That way, searching and organizing is a breeze.

As of now, I’ve created around 1,300 notes.

Vault Video Overview

The Hobby Within the Hobby

I’ll admit it—this is not for everyone. If you’re happy with your physical books, or if you’re fine using D&D Beyond or a VTT, there’s no reason to go down this rabbit hole. For many, it would seem like an unnecessary duplication of effort, even a waste of time.

But for me? This is part of the fun. Writing and organizing my own vault is a hobby within the hobby. I love tinkering with systems, documenting things, and building tools I’ll actually use at the table.

Now, when I flip through my notes, everything is linked together. Rules connect to spells, spells connect to classes, conditions connect to monsters—it feels alive, almost like my own personal encyclopedia of D&D.

And most importantly: it’s mine. I own it.

What’s Next

My next steps are polishing the vault further, filling in missing details, and refining the templates. Once things are in a cleaner, more complete state, I’ll share an update—and probably a video walkthrough so you can see how it works in action.

For now, I’m just happy with where it’s heading. It’s a lot of work, yes, but it’s deeply satisfying. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what this hobby is all about?

Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions, leave comments.