A year-long illuminated journal. Write, and a Companion is matched to your words. Updated regularly by one developer who answers every email.
Have you ever wanted to write your year as a book — your own story, in your own hand, paired with Companions no one else owns?
Lumen Grimoire is your year-long illuminated journal. Each day you write a reflection — what you're carrying, what you noticed, what kept you up — and the app brings forward a Companion from a deck of 366 original cards, matched to what you wrote. Across the year you collect them all. Across the year, you author your own book.
This is not a notes app. This is not a generic journal where entries pile up unread. Lumen Grimoire pairs your thoughts with meaning. Each Companion has its own archetype, mood, and place in the year. Each reflection becomes part of your codex — a personal manuscript no other user will ever have.
THE COMPANIONS
366 original cards, designed and created specifically for this app and nothing else — plus a special tribute card unique to the deck. Each one its own thing — an animal, a place, a moment of human experience — drawn with the richness of an illuminated manuscript. Four rarity tiers: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary. Real-time animated reveals powered by Apple's Metal framework bring every Companion forward with cinematic motion. Premium subscribers receive new Companions added to the deck each year — your codex keeps growing.
A DAILY PRACTICE
The first reflection of each day brings forward a new Companion, matched to what you wrote — never random. Write what you carried into the morning. Write what you noticed on the walk home. Write what kept you up. Tomorrow brings the next. Across a year, the year writes itself in your hand.
PYTHIA — YOUR LITERARY REFLECTION COMPANION (PREMIUM)
Pythia is an optional AI presence that weaves your reflections into something lasting:
- Stories — a brief literary narrative about the Companion that emerged from your entry, frozen on save
- Lenses — Pythia's Deeper or Wider perspective on any entry, an additional turn of light
- Chapters — once a week, Pythia composes the prose of your past seven days into a chapter of your story. Your week, written as literature.
- Whispers — a brief note linking your current entry to a past moment or Companion
- Patterns — what Pythia notices about you, surfacing over time
YOUR CODEX, IN TWO HANDS
- My Story — Pythia's woven narratives, frozen on save, organized chronologically
- My Book — your full reflection grimoire, organized by date and Companion
Everything stays on your device. No cloud sync in v1.0. No accounts. No login. No email. No tracking. No advertising. Quiet by design.
PRIVACY
Reflections are stored on your device only. Optional AI features send only the context needed to a secure proxy, and your data is never used to train AI models. Full details in Privacy Policy.
SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS
Lumen Grimoire is free to use. The free tier includes unlimited journal reflections, 1 Companion per week (Common and Uncommon rarities), and 1 daily Lens.
Premium unlocks 1 Companion per day across all rarities, Pythia's Stories on every Companion, Deeper and Wider Lenses, weekly Chapters, Whispers, Patterns, up to 20 Pythia interactions per day, and new Companions added to the deck each year as the codex grows.
Current pricing is shown in-app at the point of purchase. The Annual tier includes a 7-day free trial, the Weekly tier includes a 3-day free trial for new subscribers. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. Subscriptions auto-renew unless turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage subscriptions in your Apple Account Settings.
Privacy Policy: https://poised-plier-5c6.notion.site/Lumen-Grimoire-Privacy-Policy-33ad1b9444c38177925ee8eaecbacae7
Terms of Service (EULA): https://poised-plier-5c6.notion.site/Lumen-Grimoire-Terms-of-Service-33ad1b9444c381fab2b1cf87e2cc77e5
I love this app. I’ve been using it every single day to just get random little thoughts out of my head. It helps me make a journey out of days and gives me a reason to actually look back and see what happened. The music is phenomenal and really sets me in the mood to write something when I open the app. The Artwork does look a bit AI generated which I am normally against but I will say the companion cards and tarot card art is very beautiful. I almost wish I had a printed version of the tarot deck to use in real life! Some of the writings are nice to read back and see Pythia’s responses. Some are good, a few are a little… interesting. But I wouldn’t say any are ever bad. I did see a small issue of the last response on the five card draw rarely getting cut off. However the developer is extremely responsive and figured out and fixed the problem very quickly. Definitely looking forward to using this app the rest of the year. Looking back on it helps me realize how much I actually forget about in my thoughts and feelings.
Developer Response
Thank you for this — and for taking the time to write something so considered."It helps me make a journey out of days" is the thing I most hoped someone would eventually say out loud. That's the whole idea of the app, and seeing it come back in someone else's words is a strange and lovely feeling.Something you might like knowing: several of the companions are my own cats. Their expressions, their postures, the particular way one of them sits and judges me from across the room. They're in there, and I see them every time I open the app. Especially one… Ade.Thank you also for flagging the five-card draw getting cut off. That was a genuine bug and you helped me find it — fixed in 1.0.7.The music means a great deal to me too. It was chosen to slow you down before you write, so hearing that it sets the mood is a real compliment.As for a printed deck — you're not the first to ask, and I've started taking the idea seriously.And since you're planning to stay for the rest of the year: weather fables are coming. I won't spoil what they are, but the sky outside your window is about to start mattering.
Beautiful
Smeagalfan
The art work on this app is beautiful.
Developer Response
Thank you so much I hope you enjoy the journaling experience!
Won’t Load Past Tuning
CakeSniffers
It looks like a wonderful app, and I would like to try it but it gets to where it says”Tuning your Codex” and just stays there. I think 5 mins of waiting for it to load is too long, but I let it go even longer-nothing. I restarted it and started everything all over, again same issue. Just won’t go past that page. Kinda leary to get into the app and have problems like this later on and lose all my progress. Seems like it needs fixes.
Developer Response
1.0.5 is now live, and this is fixed.You weren't doing anything wrong. On certain display sizes the Continue button on that screen sat below the visible area, so it read as a loader that never finished — waiting longer was never going to help. The screen has been rebuilt so the content adapts to the size of your display and the button is always reachable.On your other concern: nothing was ever at risk. It was a layout problem, not a data one — entries are stored on your device and were never in danger.Thank you for the detail you wrote; it's what made this findable. If you'd like to give it another try, it should work now.
Well
AKA20152015
I can't get my keyboard to get out of the way trying to make my first addition so I didn't get past part 1. my keyboard (all of them) have absolutely no way for me to swipe it away or close it and the one keyboard that ever let me is deceased now. So I was unable to scroll down enough to insert my first entry and my emotion to it
Developer Response
Fixed in 1.0.5, now live.The issue was specific to third-party keyboards: they're taller, which pushed the mood picker below what the screen could scroll to, and there was no way to dismiss the keyboard to get at it — so a first entry couldn't be finished. Both fixed, and tested on device with a third-party keyboard installed.Thank you for the report and for coming back to update your review earlier. It's the kind of detail that makes a bug findable.
Lumen is now around a fifth of its previous download size! so it installs faster and leaves more room on your device. Every card and page is still there, in full quality! We always listen to feedback!
Your Wider Lens readings now arrive complete. Some longer entries were producing a final section that stopped mid-sentence — that's fixed, and Lumen will no longer save a reading that didn't finish.
Chapters no longer appear twice. If you travelled between time zones, some weeks were being woven a second time; those duplicates are now tidied away and nothing you've written has been removed.
Today's Companion now has room to breathe on smaller screens.
Version 1.0.7
The developer, Cristian Critelli, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
User Content
Usage Data
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
Cristian Critelli
Size
1.5 GB
Category
Health & Fitness
Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 14.6 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
