World Anvil News: October 2025

The spooky season is here, and that must mean… Spooktober is back! Here’s what’s coming this month on World Anvil.

🎲 Legend in the Mist character sheet

Thanks to the amazing Tillerz, you can now create your Legend in the Mist characters on World Anvil, with full integration with our campaign manager! Check this example character to see what it will look like, and the player workflow if you haven’t used World Anvil before!

👀 Major releases… very soon!

Last month, we announced we had two features being tested:

The sidebar menu lists: No more cluttered unorganized lists of maps/timelines/etc—organize ALL THE THINGS!
An updated image management system: Upload, organize, and manage your images with a new UI designed to let you focus on what matters.

And we’re currently in the last rounds of bug-fixing for a major update to the Notebook—create, edit, and view your notes from ANYWHERE on World Anvil! We expect these features to go out during October… and we couldn’t be more excited. So many new toys to play with!

But we have even more ideas and plans for the future, so if you’re an Alchemist, more features might go into beta soon enough! (Read this if you’re not sure what an alchemist is!)

Check out the Changelog page on World Anvil for the full changelog.

🗓️ October events

October is the spookiest month of the year, so it’s time for the spookiest challenge… with a unique Tolkienesque spin!

👻 Spooktober: For this challenge, we give you 21 spooky words—create something based on at least 13 of these to get the participation badge. And to celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Return of the King, all prompts are words borrowed from The Lord of the Rings! Check the challenge page for details.
✍️ NovelEmber Prep: Get ready to write 50k words (or to complete your rebel goal) for our November writing challenge! Check our NovelEmber prep advice, and the NovelEmber page for more information.
✨ Community Day: this month’s World Anvil Community Day will be on October 18th! Here’s the programme:
- 🐺 Werewolves! We’ll sit down with Kel McDonald to talk about werewolves and how to integrate them into your worldbuilding.
- 🎓 Sage Seminar: The Three Ts of Taste. Join this month’s seminar to learn all about the step 0 of marketing: finding your ideal reader profile! You’ll find the link in the Professional Portal.
- ☕ Inner Sanctum Coffee: if you’re a member of the Inner Sanctum, join the bi-monthly Coffee, at 10am UK/2am Pacific and 4pm UK/8am Pacific! The link will be shared on the Discord channel on the day.

Upcoming Events on World Anvil!

Here’s a list of our upcoming challenges and community events, to help you get ready:

October: Spooktober (check the challenge page!)
November:
- NovelEmber – write 50k in a month… or go rebel!
- Get ready for WorldEmber with WorldEmber Prep.
December: WorldEmber is coming….

All our challenges launch first on community live stream, so follow us on Twitch to get the news first!

👻🎂 Birthday & Spookiful People: Nevermore Noir Soirée!

On November 8th, World Anvil turns 8 years old… and we’re celebrating in style—in spooky style! We’ll have a special birthday full of celebration of everything we have all accomplished. But the most important part of the celebration will be YOU!

Your quest, if you choose to accept it, is to take a selfie that follows the Spookiful People theme in some way. We encourage props, costumes, cool lighting, and anything else you need to show your boo-tiful face! 👻 Here’s how to enter:

Take a photo of yourself in a way that’s (at least tangentially) related to the theme: Nevermore Noir Soirée. You can edit your picture, but you have to be in it! (Your face can be hidden by masks etc. if you prefer.)
Just post your picture! You can EITHER post on the website community stream—be sure to use the hashtag #SpookifulPeople25—or in the Discord #spookiful-people channel when it opens. Or both!
You have until November 8th to post. You’ll even get a shiny digital badge for your profile!

All pictures tagged with #SpookifulPeople25 will be shown on stream during the Awards Ceremony, and Dimitris & Janet will choose their favorite! Follow us on Twitch to be on top of everything World Anvil!

📹 YouTube video round-up

Need a little push to improve your worldbuilding? Or want some advice from a professional worldbuilder? Here are our latest YouTube videos:

6 tips to make low-magic settings feel weird & wonderful: The magic system in your world doesn’t have to be flashy to be impactful. This video explores how to create low-magic settings where every spell has a significant cost and consequence, making your story or campaign more enchanting.
5 brainstorming hacks for worldbuilders: In this video, we’ll share 5 tried and tested techniques for creative brainstorming, helping you solve problems and come up with fresh ideas in a hurry. And they’re tailored especially for worldbuilders, authors, and gamers!
Immediacy in worldbuilding: ditching filter words: There’s a hidden saboteur lurking in your writing – it’s in your worldbuilding descriptions, your prose, even in your RPG alouds. But Janet is here to show you WHAT these words are, HOW to spot them, and WHY they need to get the chop!
The Canadian Caper | worldbuilding high-stakes heists: Did you know there’s a wild – but 100% true! – story about how the CIA saved 6 people from capture, interrogation, and possible execution… WITH THE POWER OF WORLDBUILDING! And you can use this crazy-but-true story as a blueprint to create an exciting, high-stakes rescue mission!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay on top of all our latest videos.

🌟 Community highlight

What if Carthage had traveled to the Americas? And what if Alexander the Great lived a longer life? These are the questions that inspired the massive Roman History timeline, a central piece of the alt history world of Terra Occidentalis and winner of the History Award in the Worldbuilding Awards 2025. Here’s what kefkejaco, the author, had to say:

Terra Occidentalis came into being during one of the challenge months from my love for history. After writing mostly about my fantasy world that orignated from my DnD campaign I wanted to make something more grounded in realism. As the ancient era was my favorite period of history since I was a small child, also helped by holidays to the Greek Isles, I thought it would be a nice idea to make an alternative history.

The most intersting starting points that would be different were “what if Alexander III lived a longer”, and “what if Carthage managed to travel to the American continent”. This quickly led to me using World Anvil to create timelines and maps ultimately culminating into the Greek Timeline and Roman Timeline, the latter of which is featured here.

For me it was a fun time creating this alternative timeline. It did, however, take quite a lot of work as it resulted in me doing deep-dives in histories from that time period, looking up ancient migration movements and also looking up the origin of many place names and how other nations would call certain places if history went differently. In this regard World Anvil timelines were a great help as they made it easy for me to see the larger pictures of what events transpired at around the same time and what events could influence others. Hearing that the timeline won the award was amazing, knowning that my hard work payed off and that people also like my non fantasy work.

So thank you all who voted for me! Even though many will of you will perhaps have noticed I have been quite absent this year it is with good reason as there are many preparations for the upcoming birth of my son. Once the dust has settled a bit I will be sure to return in full force and hope to write even more for both Terra Occidentalis and Niorath!