Draft:World Anvil


World Anvil
Type of site
Worldbuilding toolkit, novel writing software and RPG Campaign Manager
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)Janet Forbes and Dimitris Havlidis[1]
CEOJanet Forbes
URLwww.worldanvil.com
AdvertisingYes, for free users
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional but required to create and publish content
Usersover 3 million users[2]
LaunchedOctober 25, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-10-25)[3]
Current statusActive
Supports additional languages through community translations

World Anvil is a online toolkit for worldbuilding founded in 2017. The site lets users write and publish articles, as well as interactive maps and timelines, for their fictional worlds.[4][5] It also has tools for writing and managing tabletop roleplaying games and novels,[6] and serves as a social networking site for worldbuilders.

The site is freemium, users can create up to 2 worlds, one interactive map, one timeline, and 42 articles for free.[2]

History

World Anvil was part of a boom of online worldbuilding and roleplaying tools that emerged in the late 2010s. [7] The site was created by Dimitris Havlidis to help Janet Forbes organize her worldbuilding for her novels. World Anvil as launched in October 2017 as an invite-only site. A month later they were overwhelmed by invitation requests, and decided to go into open beta.[3] The site quickly expanded and added new features.[8] By May 2018 they had 55,000 users.[9]

Development

In 2020 World Anvil released several new interactive charts for paid subscribers. The new Family Trees and Diplomacy Webs show the relations between characters and organizations, and are auto-generated when a user adds family relations to a character, or diplomatic relations between organizations.[10][11][12] They also released a fully custom content tree. The content trees can be embedded as a list, a static chart, or an interactive chart.[13] All of the charts can be embedded into articles.

In July 2022 World Anvil announced the release of the Chronicles feature, a new form of timeline with an integrated map. Timeline events could be connected to pins on the interactive map, showing where an event happened. The Chronicle could also swap between different maps as the viewer scrolled through time, allowing the worldbuilder to visually represent changes to the world. The feature recieved mixed reactions, many were positive, but wished for better integration with the existing timeline features.[14] World Anvil responded to some of these concerns by sharing their roadmap for the feature. The ability to import existing timelines and show a chronicle as a regular timeline was intended as part of version 1.0.5.[15] In September 2023 they confirmed that they had not yet begun work on the update,[16] and in 2025 they confirmed that there were no updates yet as they were focused on other parts of the site.[17]

In April 2024 they announced changes to free accounts, reducing the limit of free articles from 125 to 42.[18]

Features

World Anvil was created to help build fictional worlds, and hosts each world as a subdomain on their site. A user can make articles based on over 25 templates, each of which include prompts and suggestions for what the user can add. It has been described as a self-created encyclopedia[7], and as wiki-like.[8][19] Unlike a wiki, only the creator of a world can write and edit it, though they can invite other users as editors and co-authors.

Users can follow other worlds, and can notify their followers about new articles and updates to their world.

The toolkit also includes

  • RPG Campaign Manager
  • Interactive Maps, which the user can upload to the site and add pins to
  • Timelines, which can be created on the site and presented as a series of events or as a series of pins

Many of the features require a paid subscription, such as

  • Manuscripts, online novel writing software. Manuscripts can optionally be published on World Anvil, or exported as HTML.
  • Chronicles, advanced timelines with multiple timelines, and an integrated map
  • Chosing a different theme, or creating your own with css
  • Family trees, diplomacy webs[10] and other content trees

Reception

Brandes Stoddard reviewed the site for Tribality, and gave it an score of 9/10. He called World Anvil "a very dolled-up setting-and-campaign wiki" and highly praised the article templates, saying the site was "prompting you to think more deeply about what you’re writing and make sure that you’re making everything as interesting as possible. To put that another way, they’ve paid attention to GMing and world-building best practices, and coded that into each template."[20]

World Digest included it as one of their 101 best websites, including World Anvil on their list of Best Genre/Niche websites in 2020[21] and 2021[22], calling it the ultimate tool for writers of speculative fiction.

World Anvil won "Best Aid/Accessory – Digital" at the ENnie Awards in 2019.[23]

References

  1. ^ "The World Anvil Team". World Anvil. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  2. ^ a b "World Anvil FAQ". World Anvil. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  3. ^ a b Janet Forbes. "World Anvil – a Love Story". Mythic Scribes. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  4. ^ Root-Bernstein M (August 30, 2019). "Creating Imaginary Worlds across the Lifespan". In Russ SW, Hoffmann JD, Kaufman JC (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Lifespan Development of Creativity. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108755726.019. ISBN 9781108755726. Retrieved 2026-05-04 – via ResearchGate.
  5. ^ Richard, Moriah (May 25, 2021). "Organization for Writers and World-Builders". writersdigest.com. Writer's Digest. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  6. ^ Krum, Rebekah; Raley, Christopher (2024-08-11). "The Best Alternative Games to D&D Beyond". CBR. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved 2026-05-04.
  7. ^ a b Himmelsbach, Monika (2020-01-29). "How we roll online - Digitale Tools im Rollenspiel" [How we roll online - Digital Tools in Role-playing]. Merz - Medien + Erziehung (in German). No. Jg. 64 Nr. 1 (2020): Wie analog ist digitale Gewalt?. Merz - Medien + Erziehung. doi:10.21240/merz/2020.1.21. Retrieved 2026-05-04.
  8. ^ a b Leslie, James (March 3, 2018). "Worldbuilding: World Anvil is a Haven for Writers and Homebrew Content". nerdarchy.com. Nerdarchy. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  9. ^ "World Anvil Milestone and Video for GMs". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. 2018-05-24. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  10. ^ a b Girdwood, Andrew (2020-08-23). "World Anvil introduces interactive diplomacy webs". Geek Native. Geek Native. Retrieved 2026-05-04.
  11. ^ Forbes, Janet (March 18, 2020). "Family Trees for Writing and Gaming? Now on World Anvil!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
  12. ^ Hummet, Roc (August 18, 2020). "Diplomacy webs: interactive organizations!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
  13. ^ Forbes, Janet (April 11, 2020). "Content Trees to Organize your Worldbuilding!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
  14. ^ Hummet, Roc (June 11, 2022). "Map Your World's History through Time & Place". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  15. ^ Hummet, Roc (June 24, 2022). "Chronicles Roadmap—see what's coming next!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  16. ^ Hummet, Roc (September 25, 2023). "Chronicles Roadmap—see what's coming next!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  17. ^ Hummet, Roc (June 24, 2022). "Chronicles Roadmap—see what's coming next!". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  18. ^ "Update: Free Account Changes". World Anvil Blog. World Anvil Blog. 2024-04-08. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
  19. ^ Fischer, Nele; Mehnert, Wenzel (March 2021). "Building Possible Worlds: A Speculation Based Framework to Reflect on Images of the Future". The Journal of Futures Studies. 25 (3). Department of Education and Futures Design, Tamkang University: 4. doi:10.6531/JFS.202103_25(3).0003. Retrieved 2026-05-04.
  20. ^ Stoddard, Brandes (April 18, 2019). "World Anvil – Product Review". Tribalty. Tribalty. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
  21. ^ Lipp, Cassandra (2020-08-19). "Writer's Digest Best Genre/Niche Websites 2020". Writer's Digest. Writer's Digest. Retrieved 2026-05-04.
  22. ^ "Writer's Digest Best Genre/Niche Websites 2021". Writer's Digest. Writer's Digest. Aug 21, 2021. Retrieved 2026-05-07.
  23. ^ "2019 ENnie nominations and winners". ENnie Awards. Archived from the original on 2020-07-08. Retrieved 2026-05-02.

Category:WorldbuildingCategory:ENnies winnersCategory:Role-playing game websites

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