A UniverseBible is something created for the writers and production team of a series or franchise. While many of these have made their way into the public arena, they are really not intended for public consumption. As a result, they often contain material which is apocryphal, confusing, or outright wrong, especially when [[GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld the series gets passed off to another production team]].

A Universe Compendium on the other hand is a book or series of books which encapsulates much of the information in the UniverseBible, reformatted for consistency, with information added or removed for various reasons: It may go into more detail than the bible in some areas, or omit information that would be considered a {{Spoiler}}. Depending on the size of the UniverseBible, the compendium may be split into several books, each having considerably narrower scopes. They can include licensed supplements for paper-and-pencil RolePlayingGames, though these just as often qualify as {{Universe Concordance}}s.

Any details in a compendium which have not been established within the work are subject to revision, and cannot be assumed to be {{Canon}}, though it's still considered bad form for fanfic writers to contradict them, as such listings are treated as WordOfGod until otherwise {{Jossed}}. Canon writers get more of a pass because they presumably had [[FiveYearPlan plans]] for the series's future long before the compendium was published, and the compendium authors may or may not have consulted with them to avoid contradicting those plans. Sometimes, once such a book is compiled, writers will begin referring to it rather than the UniverseBible; while the Bible retains primacy, the ad hoc manner in which the Bible is maintained often makes it harder to use.

More common, and more necessary, for SpeculativeFiction shows, since a show with a mundane setting just has to keep track of the protagonists and their situations. The official counterpart of the UniverseConcordance.

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!!Examples
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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has five databooks released so far, [[ColourfulThemeNaming each named after a color]] -- Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Deep Blue. ''One Piece Green'' is notable for being published after the series' two-year TimeSkip, and features a subdivision of the first 597 chapters that is different from one on the manga site.
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[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Creator/MarvelComics started hiring especially well-known fansite creators to write their compendia on a certain series, bridging the gap between a Universe Compendium and a UniverseConcordance. There's also the famous ''ComicBook/OfficialHandbookOfTheMarvelUniverse''.
* Franchise/TheDCU similarly has its intermittently updated ''Who's Who''.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' has ''The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia''. While there are minor flaws, the book is dense with information on various aspects of the series. Despite missing both "Endangered Species" and "Chaotix Quest", this is pretty much ''the'' definitive book for the series before its ContinuityReboot.
* ''ComicBook/{{Lazarus}}'' has "Sourcebook" issues giving extremely detailed prose descriptions of the individual [[FeudalFuture Families and their territories]].
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[[folder:Film]]
* Numerous detailed technical books have also been released concerning the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe -- from ''Vehicles of Star Wars'' to in-depth manuals on the construction and maintenance of lightsabers.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* Creator/StephenKing's mythology for ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' got so out of hand that, when he sat down to finish the series, he hired someone to write him a "Concordance" summarising all the relevant information. He was so pleased with the end result that he had it published.
* ''The Literature/{{Discworld}} Companion'' has been around long enough to have had four new and expanded editions, with the last one being posthumous and, as "the Ultimate Edition", reinserting a lot of stuff that had to be lost from earlier editions to fit in the new stuff.
* ''[[Literature/WarriorCats Warriors]]'' had ''Secrets of the Clans'', which spawned a fanmade volume chronicling the madness of the fandom, ''Secrets of the Fans''.
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' SpinOff ''Literature/FactionParadox'' has a wildy metafictional version of this sort of book, called ''The Book of the War''.
* Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' Universe
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' had ''The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time'', and after the completion of the series, ''The Wheel of Time Companion: The People, Places, and History of the Bestselling Series''.
* Literature/TheRailwaySeries had ''The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways'' and later, ''Sodor: Reading Between the Lines,'' which covered the eponymous island so thoroughly that the actual stories formed a small fraction of the book. Sodor's history, geography, language, economy, industry and even geology were covered to a degree that would make Tolkien envious.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire''.
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* "The Blake's 7 Episode Guide", despite its name, contains a complete compendium for ''Series/BlakesSeven''.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' spawned a plethora of these. For each series, a "Compendium" documents the official storyline and major characters, while there are several "Technical Manuals" and other more specific guides which document the technology and standard props found in the series. One of the earliest of these was the ''Star Trek Medical Handbook'', an official guide to medical science in the 23rd century. The all-encompassing ''Star Trek Chronology'' and ''Star Trek Encyclopedia'' contain more or less every known fact about the Franchise/TrekVerse, the former organized historically; the latter, alphabetically. Of course (cynicism hat on) these were never quite up to date while the shows and movies were running: fans were obliged to pick up new editions periodically. And the partwork version (2 pounds per week for six years...) turned into an impenetrable mess of supplements, addenums, and stick-on corrections.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had three Watcher's Guides that are brilliant and quite comprehenisive, with annotated sections explaining the pop culture references in each episode, notable quotes, and actor interviews. ''Series/{{Angel}}'' had something similar; they were called "The Case Files."
* Various incarnations of ''Series/DoctorWho'' have had such books, the most recent including the "mostly InUniverse" trilogy of ''A History of the Universe in 100 Objects'' (the ''Doctor Who'' version of the Radio 4 series ''A History of the World...''), ''The Doctor: His Lives and Times'' (supposedly compiled by the Kovarian Chapter from River Song's research) and ''The Secret Lives of Monsters'' (supposedly a U.N.I.T. resource document).
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[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'', from Steve Jackson Games, has produced compendia for several literary [[TheVerse universes]]. Author David Brin provided much of the information in ''GURPS Uplift'', including data that had not yet appeared in any of his novels at the time of publication.
* Each Army Book/Codex in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' aren't "just" rulebooks, but also provide a broad overview of each faction and its major sub-factions, including histories, current actions, and important characters. ''[=40K=]'' takes it further, not only having quite a few dedicated Codices and supplements for individual sub-factions ([[CreatorsPet especially for Space Marines]]) but also a small library of reference books, like the artbooks for the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' series and ''The Sabbat Worlds Crusade'' for the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' series.
* A few of the game-worlds released for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' - Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, the Known World - started off as a Universe Compendium-style repackaging of settings in which their original creators had been running home games for years. Others were built up from premise to Universe Bible to Universe Compendium by D&D's design teams, and the Eberron setting had its Bible submitted to a world-building contest, then expanded upon into a full Compendium.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''The VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Database''
* The ones for ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' are particularly notable, as, in addition to the usual content, they have pages and pages of bibliography for the games. You can accuse them of being inaccurate to mythology, but you can't say it's because they didn't know better.
* A lot of Creator/SquareEnix games (before and after the merger) can have multiple guides for just one game. Best example would be the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' and ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series: the Ultimanias can almost have the weight of a phone book and are about the size of an average graphic novel released in the US (Japanese tankobon are smaller), filled with strategies, data on items/weapons/monsters, concept sketches of characters and locales, and interviews with key staff and/or voice members.
** One of the rare translated ones [[NoExportForYou (fan translated, of course)]] is ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}} Perfect Works'', which explains in detail a good deal of the game's [[MindScrew convoluted]] [[JigsawPuzzlePlot storyline]].
* The number of "side material" books for the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} is staggering, containing archives of the game illustrations, concept art, interviews, and entire short stories that tremendously develop several characters (most infamously, the transition of OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Tohno Shiki]] into a vampire assassin) which may or may not involve plotlines from possible sequels. All this, without mentioning the 'Dictionary' sections which expand the {{Canon}} into areas rarely mentioned in the original works. ([[FunctionalMagic Magecraft organizations, hierarchies, and systems]]? {{Alien Inva|sion}}ders?) One particular volume, ''Character Material'', is comprised almost entirely of completely new characters, characters only mentioned as an aside, or characters which previously were never illustrated.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' has several of these. Interestingly, most of them are presented through different formats and are written as if they are written by the characters themselves. As such, these compendiums also exist InUniverse.
** ''[[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red Touhou Bunkachou ~ Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red]]'' is a collection of newspaper articles and interviews written and conducted by the IntrepidReporter tengu Aya Shameimaru, featuring characters and events from ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'' to ''Imperishable Night''.
** ''[[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense Touhou Gumonshiki ~ Perfect Memento in Strict Sense]]'' is known InUniverse as the latest edition of the Gensokyo Chronicles, an encyclopedia of the various youkai, places, and personalities in Gensokyo, written by Hieda no Akyuu. It covers characters from ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'' to ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View''.
** ''[[https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/The_Grimoire_of_Marisa The Grimoire of Marisa]]'' is a screenshot collection of the various spellcards present in the games up until ''Subterranean Animism'', which Marisa has turned into a scrapbook as references for her magical studies.
** ''[[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism Touhou Gumonkuju ~ Symposium of Post-mysticism]]'' is a sequel of sorts to ''Perfect Memento''. Following the religion arc, [[Characters/TouhouFuujinrokuMountainOfFaith Kanako Yasaka]], [[Characters/TouhouSeirensenUndefinedFantasticObject Byakuren Hijiri]], and [[Characters/TouhouShinreibyouTenDesires Toyosatomimi no Miko]], held a debate regarding faith, religions, and how they affect Gensokyo, moderated by the series deuteragonist Marisa Kirisame and recorded by Hieda no Akyuu. In-between the symposium sessions, encyclopedic profiles of characters between ''Mountain of Faith'' and ''Ten Desires'' are included.
** ''[[https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Alternative_Facts_in_Eastern_Utopia Touhou Bunka Shinpou ~ Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia]]'' is the sequel of ''Bohemian Archive'', a collection of various articles written by Aya Shameimaru about the characters up to ''Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom''. Unlike its predecessor, ''Alternative Facts'' articles are written in an exaggerated, rumor-mongering tabloid style, some of which Aya outright made up. InUniverse, this book was cancelled and never got published.
** ''[[https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/The_Grimoire_of_Usami The Grimoire of Usami ~ Secret Sealing Club's Otherworld Photography Record]]'', like ''The Grimoire of Marisa'' is a spellcard collection book. Following the events of ''VideoGame/HifuuNightmareDiaryVioletDetector'', Sumireko ended up with a lot of danmaku photos in her smartphone. When Reimu saw them along with fireworks photos, she got an idea to hold a danmaku contest that doubles as a fireworks festival, setting the frame for the spellcard showdown. It contains spellcards of characters up to ''Hidden Star in the Four Seasons'', with commentaries from the various playable characters (who are acting as judges). However, while the contest is going on, some unsatisfied figures seem to be planning some nasty things...
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has ''Literature/HyruleHistoria'', which is part a compilation of development info and part a Universe Compendium, mostly because it discusses the official ''Zelda'' timeline.[[note]]Or, more correctly, its ''three'' timelines.[[/note]] There is also the later ''The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia'', an encyclopedia of enemies, items, dungeons, ''et cetera''.
* ''[[http://themechanicalmaniacs.com/articles/officialGuide.php The Official Guide to]] [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Mega Man]]'' straddles the line in that it was pretty much made from the ground up by Capcom ''U.S.A.'' instead of actually using the Japanese source material, detailing things such as the government, the military, and how Mega Man himself can't speak under normal circumstances.
* ''[[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age:_The_World_of_Thedas Dragon Age: The World of Thedas]]'' is the official universe bible for the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series. Two volumes were released in 2013 and in 2015, with more presumably on the way.
* ''[[http://www.puffin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781409392699,00.html The World of]] VideoGame/AngryBirds'' is narrated by the Mighty Eagle himself, detailing the characters and the areas of the game. It also reveals information such as the King Pig having never tasted a single egg in his life.
* The ''Literature/WorldOfWarcraftChronicle'' series, so far, has been well received for tidying up the ContinuitySnarl that the ''Franchise/{{Warcraft}}'' franchise had accumulated over the years of evolution and retcons, and for turning it into a single coherent picture at the cost of establishing much of the continuity from the earlier games to only have happened in BroadStrokes. Two volumes were released in 2016 and 2017, covering events from the distant past up until ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'', and the third volume to be released in 2018 is supposed to cover the events of ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' and beyond.
* ''Hand in killer7'' resembles one of these for ''VideoGame/{{killer7}}'', but it contains a good deal of original information, some of which is contradictory or omits key details. In practice, it's more like a work of its own that must be decoded by the viewer, an extension of the game rather than just a compilation of info.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has two:
** 2013 saw the release of ''The Elements of Harmony: The Official Guidebook'', a book styled after the book Twilight reads in the very first episode that covers the whole settings, all the characters, and all the episodes up to the end of Season 3.
** In 2017, a sequel book, titled ''The Elements of Harmony: Volume II'', was released. It covers all the settings, major characters and events of Season 4 up until Season 6.
* ''Franchise/AdventureTime'' has ''The Adventure Time Encyclopedia'', written in-character by the universe's [[SatanicArchetype Satan-figure]] Hunson Abadeer.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse: Guide to the Crystal Gems'' is a brief overview of most information about [[StarfishAliens gems]] shown in the first two seasons. It's written in-character, [[UnreliableNarrator which serves to excuse]] one major, deliberate error ([[spoiler:that Steven and his mother are Quartz-type gems]]).
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' has the two volumes of ''The Allspark Almanac''.
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