World Anvil competitions are events we organize to give you the opportunity to improve your worldbuilding! You’ll be competing with other worldbuilders, so you’ll get to see how other creatives approach the same topic as you. In the end, two winners will be chosen, who will win special profile badges and prizes from the competition sponsor!

Check the competition list to see current and past competitions!

The Leagues

premier league badge

This is what the Premier League badge looks like!

People who enter a competition are divided into two leagues: Premier and Standard. The Premier League is made up of people who’ve already won at least one competition—if you’ve never won one, you’re in the Standard League. Members of the Premier League have a special badge in their profile for easier identification. They are separated in this post because the judging processes are slightly different.

Judging the Standard League

The judging process begins when the sharing period of the competition closes. This is a period of about 5 days where you can no longer submit articles but—instead, you can share them around to get feedback and more eyes to your work. After the period ends, we take the following steps:

  1. The top 15 entries with the most likes are added to the longlist.
  2. The Forge Judges (read below) pick 10 additional articles and add them to the longlist. This is a total of 25 articles.
  3. If there is an external judge (for example, a sponsor), the Forge Judges create a shortlist of 10 articles, picking them from the longlist. The external judge will then pick their favorite out of these 10.
  4. If there is not an external judge, the Forge Judges decide among themselves the winning article.

The winner of the Standard League will be announced on stream and get a special winner badge. In the next competition, the winner will compete against the Premier League.

Judging the Premier League

The process for the Premier League is slightly different. After the submission deadline closes, these are the steps we follow:

  1. All entries from the Premier League are added to the longlist.
  2. If there is an external judge (for example, a sponsor), the World Anvil Team creates a shortlist of 10 articles, picking them from the longlist. The external judge will then pick their favorite out of these 10.
  3. If there is not an external judge, Dimitris and Janet will choose the winner.

The winner of the Premier League will be announced on stream, along with the Standard winner. They will also get a special winner badge for the profile.

What are Forge Judges and how to become one

The Forge Judges are a team of volunteers created for each competition. They are all members of the Premier League, which means that they’ve won at least one competition in the past (which makes them expert worldbuilders!). They are chosen at random from a list of interested users, with the limitation that someone can’t be a Forge Judge two competitions in a row. Each competition will have four Forge Judges, joined by a member of the World Anvil Team to act as a tie-breaker and facilitator. All judges will get the annual Forge Judge badge.

If you’re in the Premier League and would like to be a Forge Judge, make sure you’re regularly checking your email associated with your World Anvil account! This is where we’ll message you with the opportunity to volunteer when we’re looking for new judges.

Competition judges get a snazzy badge and, once the winners are announced, they are immortalized on the competition page! While the competition is running, though, you’ll be kept anonymous, to prevent people from pestering you!

How to enter World Anvil competitions

As long as you have a World Anvil account, you can enter any active competition! Just go to the list of competitions—if there’s an active one, you’ll see it at the top! Make sure to read the competition page, which includes the rules, the timeline, and everything else you need to know to enter. Then, start writing and submit the article before the deadline. Remember to check that the article is public and published!

Now that you know how judging works, you’re ready to take part in a competition! So grab your hammer and go worldbuild!