The holiday season is here—and with it, one of the biggest worldbuilding challenges of the year: WorldEmber! This month also comes packed feature upgrades, so keep reading to learn all about what’s new on World Anvil!
As always, our team has been busy improving World Anvil this month!
🎲 RPG character changes
Let’s start with two changes to RPG characters to make the experience smoother and easier to use!
- As a GM, you can now easily see and edit your player’s character sheets! Check the guide to the campaign manager and how to add a character sheet to a PC for details.
- If a player character is connected to a character article, they will now share the same profile picture, which you (and the GM) will be able to update from both places.
🗺️ Map pin upgrades
We’ve upgraded how links in map pins behave while editing the map, to make your workflow faster!
- Clicking a linked article will open it for editing (without leaving the map).
- Clicking a link to another map will open that map in editing mode.
- Clicking a link to a category will open that category in preview (without leaving the map).
⏳ Timeline updates
We’ve made a bunch of small quality-of-life changes to timelines too! These include:
- ERAS! You can now have eras end on the same year as the next era begins. We implemented this after hearing your feedback, so thank you for letting us know what you need!
- EVENT PANEL! We’ve reorganized the event editing panel to make it easier to use and less overwhelming. Some options that used to be there are now in the “Advanced Options” section.
- Event descriptions can now align text to the left, right, or centre.
Check the guide to timelines for more information!
⚙️ General UI tweaks
We’ve upgraded the UI in general, and especially in the Search widget and the article editor!
- Search will now look for Manuscripts and also for notes.
- Statblocks will now appear in the “Continue Working” section as well.
- The Search bar will now appear even if the edit modal is open, without closing the editor.
- When editing an article, the article wordcount appears at the bottom of the edit modal, along with the last time the article was saved.
- If the autosave fails for any reason (connection issues, etc), the warning is now clearer and more noticeable, so you won’t lose your precious work!
🤩 New feedback modal
The new feedback system, featuring cute elf faces!
We’ve added a place to give us feedback DIRECTLY ON THE WEBSITE!
Find something you’re not sure how to use? Want to tell us how cool a new feature is? Click the Help button at the top right and click the feedback button to let us know how we’re doing, and how we can improve!
We’re ALWAYS trying to make World Anvil more amazing for your guys, and we read and discuss every single piece of feedback we receive. <3
📰 New “News” section in the menu bar
The News section has been moved to the top Menu bar! You can easily catch up to World Anvil News (such as this blog post!) from there. You’ll see not only our latest blog posts, but also ongoing challenges and competitions, AND the latest Learn guides we’ve updated.
Check out the Changelog page on World Anvil for the full changelog.
🗓️ December events
We have several awesome events this month, to to inspire you and help you achieve your goals!
- 🔥 WorldEmber: the largest worldbuilding challenge of the year is here! This month, we challenge you to write 10,000 words of worldbuilding—check the challenge page for details!
- ✨ Community Day: every third Saturday of the month (21st December!) is World Anvil Community Day! Here’s the programme:
- 🎓 New Year’s Resolutions & Strategies for seeing them through! (5pm UK/9am Pacific): Join this month’s Sage Roundtable to discuss setting goals and how to achieve them! Find the link in the Professional Portal (Sages only).
- 👻 Ghosts of WorldEmber’s Past (6pm UK/10am Pacific): Join us in this stream as we take a look back at the history of WorldEmber and the community!
- ☕ Inner Sanctum Coffee: if you’re a member of the Inner Sanctum, keep your eyes peeled for this month’s Coffee details on Discord!
Follow us on Twitch to learn when we go live!
🏆 Physical WorldEmber winner certificates
This year, if you win WorldEmber (i.e. get to 10k words or higher) you can purchase a physical certificate with gold foil, a wax seal, and written by a professional calligrapher. You can also get them as gifts for others, or (this year only) buy certificates to celebrate your previous WorldEmber wins.
Get yours to show off your amazing success to the world!
- Get your PREMIUM certificate, (LIMITED EDITION, only 79 left) with gold foil, a wax seal, and written by a professional calligrapher.
- Get your standard certificate, with gold foil.
🎁 World Anvil Gift Memberships!
‘Tis the season of giving! And a World Anvil membership is a gift of creativity and organization, perfect for the writers, GMs and aspiring worldbuilders in your life! Whether you’re looking for gifts for your loved ones, or wondering what to request from Santa (or Krampus, or whoever!) for yourself, you can find World Anvil Gift Subscriptions here.
🎥 November YouTube round-up
Here are all the videos that we released this month—check them out for tips, inspiration, and advice to power up your worldbuilding!
- What is the Triangle of Power? Learn how to fix over-powered magic items & tech with the Triangle of Power technique!
- How to create a fictional slang, idioms, and swearing: Take a look at this video to learn all about creating colloquial expressions for your world.
- How to use mythology to pull readers and players into your world! What’s mythopoeia, and how can it help make your world more engaging?
- How to write holiday one-shots: It’s the holiday season, so here’s everything you need to surprise your players with the perfect game!
Subscribe to our channel to see when we post new videos!
🌟 Community highlight
This month’s feature is Magic in Niorath, an overview of how magic works in the world of Niorath, by kefkejaco, who won the Pillars of Progress 2024 Award with this article! Here’s what they had to say:
The world of Niorath has always been in the back of my mind for a long time. It started with me drawing maps back in 2010 and eventually thinking of stories within that world. When I discovered D&D I really had to start writing stuff down. World Anvil was the perfect place to write everything down but I had never expected the growth it had after joining. All of the World Anvil challenges and its community proved to be a great help at working everything out and improving. It even led me to some worldbuilding I did not originally plan but that became my favorite parts of Niorath. Winning the award Pillars of Progress for my magic system felt like a culmination of a long path and I am so grateful for everyone in the community who helped me along the way ❤️
If you’re looking for a deep and extremely well-organized article about magic, check out Magic in Niorath now!
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