Dimitris and I LOVE getting to meet you guys. Actually one of the best things about the World Anvil community is that every time we do a Meetup in real life, we meet people who are just as awesome as they are online!

And this April was no exception! Dimitris and I were so excited to come to visit you all in Los Angeles, on the D20 at Sea cruise, in Sacramento, and even in our biggest meetup of all, Seattle!

So what happened at the World Anvil meetups?

For those of you who couldn’t make it—this is what kept us busy! First of all, everyone introduced themselves, including some wacky facts (and let me tell you, you guys are pretty wacky and we love it!) Then we encourage you to write elevator pitches for your worlds (check out our blog on how to do that!).

But the main part of the meetup was—in true World Anvil spirit—a collaborative worldbuilding game. Together, we began by randomly rolling up some aspects of a world and trying to make sense of them. Gradually, we split into smaller and smaller groups, building land masses, species, and cultures.

Los Angeles: the RoboWorld of Necro-Fungus

The crew from Los Angeles met on a chilly Saturday in Bixby Park. After our introductions—and a few juicy shares about upcoming worldbuilding features—the sun and the hummingbirds came out… just in time for our collaborative worldbuilding game! Some pretty weird rolls landed us in a ring world with many suns, carnivorous cordyceps-like fungal reefs that eat blood, and robots that steal bird teeth to survive!

Dramatic Dragons (amazing username, right?) said:

This event was fantastic, and it was great to spend time with other worldbuilders! Plus hearing some of the upcoming features was great. I truly enjoyed the collaborative worldbuilding game.

A photo of the attendees of the WA Worldbuilding Meetup LA April 2023

World Anvil’s worldbuilding meetup in LA, 2023! You’ll never guess who *demanded* the dino-claws… 😉

Sacramento: FREE THE OILIES! 

It was a gorgeous summer evening in Sacramento’s Land Park, where we met for our second community meetup. Deterred only by mosquitoes (we passed the bug spray around—thanks Ademal/Jacklyn for bringing it) we rolled up a fascinating world of controlling insects, liberated avians, and, most memorable, sentient Oil!

This meetup also had the most community-brought snacks by far: chocolate brownies and spam/tofu musubi. Definitely a welcome addition after a few hours of intense worldbuilding fun.

Sai-Tyme said:

I enjoyed meeting new people, agile worldbuilding in a game format, and of course seeing Dimitris and Janet IN PERSON!

FREE THE OILIES! Our Sacramento worldbuilding group was a blast! And definitely had the most snacks, too!

Seattle: the Otter Supremacy 

Our third meetup was at the top of the Insignia South Tower in Seattle, with incredible views of the city. A massive thank you to Guoccomolé for securing us the room! The final group came up with a comet-bombarded hellscape world of underground chasms, precious resources, and an Otter Supremacy on the brink of collapse and revolution.

EVTaurus said:

It was spectacular! Meeting those near me, actually getting to Seattle for once, and seeing how easy it is to socialize among true peers. My only “complaint” is that we couldn’t do more!

Shhhh – worldbuilding in progress! Our biggest group of all, Seattle, proved that collaborative worldbuilding is fun no matter how many people join in! And the view from this gorgeous location was spectacular too (you can just see the waterfront on the left)!

The d20 at Sea Cruise

We were so thrilled to be invited as Guests of Honor at the D20 at Sea cruise! As well as our very first Keynote speech, we gave packed seminars on Worldbuilding for GMs, Getting Started as a GM, and Creating Compelling Characters. Oh, and we even got to meet some Anvilites—old and new!

Strixxline said:

The talk was great! The breakdown of the process was super helpful and gives me a great idea for how I want to further develop my world!

Playing “One Quiet Year” with DrunkenPanda and Strixxline.

Special shout out to Marc, aka DrunkenPanda, who came to THREE meetups this year, and also to three meetups last year! Marc is an incredible human, and we were honored to get to spend so much time with him 🙂 Also to Barron and Ademal (below), with whom we got to go on an actual American Road trip, and make characters in their campaign setting & system, Ethnis!

Me, Dimi, Barron & Ademal in front of the Golden Gate Bridge! It was a bit of a hike up that hill, but worth it 🙂

So when’s the next meetup?! GENCON 2023!

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us this time—it was such a pleasure to meet you all! We’ll be doing another meetup in the USA this year, during GENCON 2023, which is held in Indianapolis at the beginning of August (3-6th). The event will be outside of the actual convention (probably in a park somewhere), so you won’t have to buy a ticket to come. More details to come soon.

If you ARE attending GenCon, we’ll also be running worldbuilding seminars—so why not sign up for one? You’ll see them in the GenCon events roster when it opens.

Were you at a World Anvil meetup? Wanna find others? 

If YOU attended a meetup and want to find others who were there, drop your name, which meetup you attended, and your World Anvil world URL or author page into the comments so you can connect! Even if you missed out on attending, it’s a good way to find and create friendships with other worldbuilders in your area.

Call me sappy, but my dream is that our wonderful online community starts helping people connect in real life, too! After all, virtual is great, but there’s something special about meeting people in the real world.

It’s been so fun sharing these experiences with you beautiful beans—so much love to you all <3