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Hey, I'm Sal 👋
I build, run, break, and fix Character Tavern. All of it. This page is the story of how a weekend project got completely out of hand.
What Character Tavern Stands For
Features come and go. These don't. Everything on this site, from character and chat downloads to the way we handle your privacy, traces back to one of them.
Independence
There's no corporation behind CT and KI. That's the reason all of this holds. No investors, no shareholders, no growth team. One developer and a handful of volunteers answering to the regulars instead of a quarterly report, and nobody who can force a pivot.
Ownership
Your characters and chats are yours. Both can be downloaded in open, SillyTavern-compatible formats and taken anywhere, at any time. If you ever leave, they leave with you. CT is part of the SillyTavern ecosystem, not a walled garden holding your creations hostage.
Privacy
What happens in your chats stays private. No data selling, no ad profiles, no one reading through them as a matter of course. Privacy isn't a premium tier here, it's the default.
Accessibility
Advanced AI roleplay shouldn't require technical expertise. Chat right in your browser, with a setup that's simplified and guided instead of API key homework. And when you want the deep end, the knobs are all there, including your pick of dozens of models. Easy to pick up, powerful for power users.
Freedom
Room to create the way you want. The rules that exist protect the shared library; they don't police your imagination.
Community
This place is made of people, not inventory. The library is built by the community, volunteers keep it safe, and a human reads every report. When the community pushes back on something, a person listens.
How Character Tavern Started
Character Tavern started in November 2023 as a random side project to learn TypeScript. That's it. That's the whole origin story.
Okay, there's slightly more. I was browsing chub at the time and thought the UI... let's say it wasn't for me. So instead of complaining about it like a normal person, I rebuilt the whole front-end and pointed it at the same catalog. "Chub, but with a better UI." A learning project. It was never supposed to be a platform.
Then people showed up. Then they wanted to make characters here, so I built the Creation Studio. Then they wanted to chat here instead of exporting everything to SillyTavern, so I built the chat. Then the library outgrew its origins and became fully community-made. Then... shenanigans.
Almost three years later, the TypeScript practice project has over 204K users and I still haven't finished learning TypeScript.
The Quest Log
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First commit. "Chub, but with a better UI" is born.
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The Creation Studio opens. The first characters made on CT itself appear.
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Chat launches, right in your browser. No SillyTavern required, no setup, no API key homework.
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We stop indexing chub. From here on, the library is community-driven.
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10K public characters made in the Studio. You people don't sleep either, huh.
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100K users. I re-ran the query three times to be sure.
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Kyara Intelligence launches, the AI engine that now powers CT and your own AI projects.
- Today
Still just me. Somehow.
Character Tavern in Numbers
characters in the tavern
adventurers
messages a day
Meet The Team
Sal
- Sal, Frontend Dev: makes the buttons
- Sal, Backend Dev: makes the buttons do things
- Sal, QA Department: finds bugs by shipping them
- Sal, DevOps: on call, currently asleep
- Sal, Design: has opinions about spacing
- Sal, The Intern: also me
No support desk, no one on call. Every report is read by a person, features ship on whatever evening I have free, and a Sunday bug gets a Sunday fix. Unless I'm asleep.
That's the honest trade: CT moves in bursts and support can be slow, but every decision is made by someone who actually uses the site. When the community pushes back, I listen.
The Moderation Team
Thank you for keeping the tavern safe on your own free time.
Say Hi
If you made it this far: thank you. Genuinely. Every character created, every chat started, every bug report (even the angry ones) is why this place exists.
Come hang out on the Discord server. I'm around more than is probably healthy.