Find Your Fae Court: a Free Fae Court Maker, With Your Own Realm Map

By Lindsay, Founder of Inkling · Updated October 2026

Every fae story starts with a court: a place with its own hour, its own hunger and one law nobody may break. Answer five questions and we will found yours, give it a name, and light it up in gold on a real fae realm map with six other courts around it. Save the card for your phone, or open that exact realm in the map maker and build the rest of the world.

How the court maker works

1. Answer five questions: when your court wakes, what it hungers for, the land it holds, who rules it, and its one law.
2. Keep the name we suggest, or give the court a name of your own.
3. See your court lit up on a fae realm map, with its lore and the moment your story starts.
4. Save your court card, a phone-sized picture made for sharing.
5. Press Build the rest of your realm to open that exact map in Inkling's map maker with your court named on it. Rename the other six courts, add places, and redraw any border.

Why these five questions

A court is more than a place on a map. In the old folklore, the fae were defined by their rules and their appetites far more than by their castles, and the courts that work best in fiction keep that. Each question gives your court something a story can push against:

• The hour it wakes sets its mood and its rhythm. A court that wakes in the dead of winter does not keep the same hours as one that wakes when the tide turns.
• What it hungers for is its economy and its danger. A court that hungers for secrets will take one from every guest, and your heroine has a secret.
• The land it holds is where your scenes happen: the cliffs where they meet, the forest where the path moves, the marsh that shows the wrong face.
• Who rules it is the politics. Twin heirs who trust no one make a very different book from a throne standing empty.
• Its one law is the engine. Break it and the story starts, which is why your result ends with the moment it breaks.

If you want to go deeper, our guide to designing fae courts builds a court from the ground up, with the folklore behind iron, names and bargains, and a court-design sheet you can copy.

From court to story

Your court card ends with a spark: the moment your story starts. Take it seriously. Write that scene first, even if it ends up in chapter four. Then decide who is standing on the wrong side of the law when it breaks, and who in the court is glad it did.

From there, the romantasy guides pick up: how to write romantasy, which tropes to combine, and how to pace a slow burn. If your story needs a map you can actually write from, with borders that mean something and the places where the romance turns, read how to map a fae realm. And if you just finished the new book and have eleven weeks until the next one, there is a plan to draft your own fae story before January 12.

What you can do in the map maker

Your realm opens as a real, editable map: seven courts with soft colour and borders, a key that lists them, castles and towns, forests and mountains already in place. You can rename any court, redraw part of a border by drawing a new line, split a court in two, stamp in towns, temples, ruins and creatures, and write private notes on any place. Tick a place as secret and the download menu offers a spoiler-free copy for beta readers. When you are ready, Write a story here starts a story named after the map, with its places already in the notes. The map maker page shows more of what it does.

Inkling is an independent writing app. A Court of Thorns and Roses and its sequels are works by Sarah J. Maas, published by Bloomsbury. Inkling is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sarah J. Maas or Bloomsbury. Every court, name and law in the court maker is Inkling's own.