diff --git a/CHANGELOG.yaml b/CHANGELOG.yaml
index 4e3abde9..769770bb 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.yaml
+++ b/CHANGELOG.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 0.37.0.dev:
   features:
+  - "System Prompt Template Variable: Added {{ system_prompt }} template variable for system prompt overrides. Use it to include the default system prompt within a custom override, at both the app and client level."
   - "Manual Scene Direction Turn: Added a button to the director scene tools menu to manually trigger a scene direction turn. Useful when scene direction is enabled but auto progression is off. Supports optional one-off instructions via Ctrl+click."
   - "Visual Scene Tools: Organized the visual tools menu into per-character submenus, matching the world scene tools pattern."
   - "Section Format: Per-client setting to control how prompt sections are formatted. Choose between Markdown (## headings) and XML (<SECTION>...</SECTION> tags). Found in the client configuration next to the data format setting."
@@ -27,6 +28,7 @@
   - "Contextual Generate: Fixed list-type generation prefilling an empty line after '1.', which caused some LLMs to produce empty lists."
   - "Advance Time: Fixed toolbar time advancement being completely non-functional due to a missing websocket handler. Also fixed invalid ISO 8601 duration strings for the 1 week and 2 weeks options."
   improvements:
+  - "System Prompt Override Indicators: The system prompt override list now shows a pencil icon next to entries that have an active override, making it easy to see which prompts have been customized."
   - "Search Strictness: The distance_mod embedding preset value is now a float (was int) with a range of 0.1–2.0, allowing both tighter and looser similarity matching. A 'Search Strictness' slider is now available in the Context Database UI, letting users tune search sensitivity on the fly. Changes persist to the active embedding preset immediately."
   - "Embeddings Device Switching: Changing the embeddings device (e.g., CPU to CUDA) no longer requires a restart. The old model is properly released from ChromaDB's class-level cache and GPU memory is freed before loading the new model."
   - "Context Formatting: The |condensed template filter no longer permanently compacts multi-line context (e.g., world info, memories, pins) into a single line when sending prompts to the LLM. Formatting is now only compacted temporarily for deduplication comparison and restored to its original multi-line structure afterwards."
diff --git a/src/talemate/client/system_prompts.py b/src/talemate/client/system_prompts.py
index 66551861..dbed704f 100644
--- a/src/talemate/client/system_prompts.py
+++ b/src/talemate/client/system_prompts.py
@@ -167,8 +167,16 @@ class SystemPrompts(pydantic.BaseModel):
 
         key = f"{kind}_decensor" if decensor else kind
 
-        if getattr(self, key):
-            return getattr(self, key)
-        if self.parent is not None:
-            return self.parent.get(kind, decensor)
-        return render_prompt(kind, decensor)
+        prompt = getattr(self, key)
+        if prompt:
+            pass
+        elif self.parent is not None:
+            prompt = self.parent.get(kind, decensor)
+        else:
+            prompt = render_prompt(kind, decensor)
+
+        if "{{ system_prompt }}" in prompt:
+            default_prompt = render_prompt(kind, decensor)
+            prompt = prompt.replace("{{ system_prompt }}", default_prompt)
+
+        return prompt
diff --git a/talemate_frontend/src/components/AppConfigPresetsSystemPrompts.vue b/talemate_frontend/src/components/AppConfigPresetsSystemPrompts.vue
index d2aae442..40c37193 100644
--- a/talemate_frontend/src/components/AppConfigPresetsSystemPrompts.vue
+++ b/talemate_frontend/src/components/AppConfigPresetsSystemPrompts.vue
@@ -13,6 +13,9 @@
                 <v-list selectable color="primary" v-model:selected="selected">
                     <v-list-item v-for="item in systemPromptKindList" :key="item.value" :value="item.value">
                         <v-list-item-title>{{ item.label }}</v-list-item-title>
+                        <template v-slot:append>
+                            <v-icon v-if="hasOverride(item.value)" size="x-small" color="highlight5">mdi-pencil</v-icon>
+                        </template>
                     </v-list-item>
                 </v-list>
             </v-list>
@@ -34,6 +37,9 @@
                         @blur="$emit('update', {system_prompts: config})"
                         :label="labelFromValue(selected[0], tab === 'decensor')"
                     ></v-textarea>
+                    <p class="text-caption text-grey mt-1">
+                        <v-icon size="x-small" class="mr-1">mdi-information-outline</v-icon>Use <code class="text-primary">{<!-- -->{ system_prompt }}</code> to include the default system prompt in your override.
+                    </p>
                 </v-card-text>
 
                 
@@ -106,9 +112,7 @@ export default {
             return this.tabs.filter(t => t.condition());
         },
         selectedKey() {
-            // selected[0] will hold the kind
-            // if tab is decensor, append _decensor
-            return this.selected.length > 0 ? this.selected[0]+(this.tab === 'decensor' ? '_decensor' : '') : null;
+            return this.selected.length > 0 ? this.buildKey(this.selected[0]) : null;
         }
     },
     data() {
@@ -148,6 +152,14 @@ export default {
             }
         },
 
+        buildKey(value) {
+            return value + (this.tab === 'decensor' ? '_decensor' : '');
+        },
+
+        hasOverride(value) {
+            return !!this.config[this.buildKey(value)];
+        },
+
         labelFromValue(value, decensor=false) {
             for(let item of this.systemPromptKindList) {
                 if(item.value === value) {