Lost Kingdom has been in something of a developmental hiatus recently. There’s a good reason for that – Dimitris and I have been dealing with Lost Kingdom’s new sister World Anvil – the realization of many of our dreams.
Whether you’re a writer, a DM or a worldbuilder, World Anvil can help. It’s an application which allows you to organise and build up your worlds, keep track of your developments, and showcase your work. And it’s free to use!
If you’re a Writer
Whatever your genre, World Anvil helps you document and develop your characters, setting and plot arcs. It’s a fully searchable World Bible, and you can even publish your chapters online. You can use Timelines and interactive maps to keep track of when and where everything happens. This is great not only for developing your world, but also for recovering those details when you come to write a second draft, or even a second book in the setting!
If you’re a DM or Storyteller
World Anvil is a game-changer in the best way possible! The Digital Storyteller’s Screen streamlines your game and keeps your information at your fingertips, whether playing online or round the table. The planning and write-up features help keep your game on track, and you can showcase what you’ve done to date. Your players can have access to their character sheets online, and attach journals of their adventures. On top of that, World Anvil offers a host of worldbuilding features – timelines, interactive maps and way more – to help you build up your homebrew world as your PCs explore further afield.
World Anvil, the features
Templates designed for worldbuilding
Our templates (all 24+ of them!) contain worldbuilding prompts, helping you to build more depth and detail in your world. You can write as much or as little as you like in each article, edit them later, and there’s a generic template too.
World Anvil Templates, 8 more coming within April 2018
Link all your articles easily and quickly. Even you haven't written them already!
Search all your articles using just 3 letters
Mentions – the best cross-reference system ever
You can reference other articles using the mentions system (‘@’ then three letters), helping you create a fully integrated world and avoid replicating information. Want to mention something that you haven’t created yet? You can do that too, then create the missing article with just one click!
Search your content in seconds
What was the name of that character, again? You can search your content in seconds, so you never need to worry about recovering those minor details in a hurry. You can also use tags, making things even easier to find in a moment.
Interactive Maps
With World Anvil’s interactive maps you can drop linkable pins, which can lead to articles (for example, detailing a location, landmark or scene summary) or even to another map (a city district map, for example). They’ll help you plot character movement, visualise your world more clearly, and even introduce it to others.
Timelines, a visual history
With Timelines, you can easily note down historical or current events. You can divide them into Eras, and even create Parallel Timelines for different species, organizations, or realities.
Pictures, sound and more…
Whether you’re publishing chapters, a campaign setting, or inviting people to enjoy your worldbuilding, World Anvil helps your work stand out on the page. You can format your text - bold, italics, headers, and more - and easily embed images, quotes and even sound tracks from Spotify or Youtube, to create a deeper sensory experience.
Make notes with the Notebook
Our easy notebook feature allows you to leave yourself notes that you can flesh out later into full articles. Perfect for the worldbuilder on the go!
World Anvil Timeline of Skeigham by Vertixico
Categorise and Organise your work
Categories help you to organise your work into subjects, keeping your thoughts in order; popular examples include Characters, Locations and Monsters. By setting “previous” and “next” articles, for example when publishing chapters or a campaign setting, you can guide your readers through your work.
Campaign Manager Features
Plan your game sessions with ease:
World Anvil makes game preparation really easy. You can plot out your story arcs using the Plot Article mechanics, and use tools like interactive maps and timelines to help organize your campaign. You can prepare all your NPCs, spells, magic items and more as articles, and even add RPG stat blocks.
Character sheets & stat blocks
With online character sheets, it’s way easier to keep track of what your players can do. Although the players can access their character sheets, you can always see them. Players can also write journals about their backstory or their adventures to date, and fill in a host of other details.
Interactive Statblock. You can create your own for your Homebrews!
The Digital StoryTeller Screen (DSTS) - the DM’s best friend
World Anvil Campaign Manager Party Screen
During a session, as a DM, you can:
- Have access to all your PCs and their character sheets during the session
- Have all your worldbuilding information (NPCs, monsters, plots etc) at your fingertips
- Pin relevant relevant articles, images and maps from your world to the corkboard
- Our easy RPG Blocks (available for some systems, including Dungeons & Dragons 5e, or you can create your own for any system) let you use NPCs or Monsters from the SRDs
- Write yourself notes to keep track of what’s going on (e.g. Party at Tavern in New Ayresdale - The Heron’s Wing)
- Easily share images and information with players via the Handout Screen
- Pass private digital notes to players to let them know secrets or privileged information
- Roll attack or damage during combat with a single click
- Use the DSTS dice roller, including rolling with modifications
- Embed sound (Spotify or Youtube) directly to the DSTS screen, to create instant atmosphere
All this functionality appears on a single screen, so you don’t have to keep swapping windows on your computer, and can focus on running your amazing campaign (and keeping those wily players under control).
Player screen during session
In addition, during a session your Players can:
- Use their character sheets to roll their stats. - initiative, attacks, damage, saving throws and more
- Use the dice roller widget to roll dice with modifiers
- Make their own notes about what happens during the session
- Track their spell-slot usage, ammunition, inventory etc.
- Access the digital handout screen - excellent either for around-table or online play
These features help streamline the session and game mechanics, so your players can enjoy the game and focus on their character’s actions and reactions.
Session Reports
Writing a session report helps you and your players keep track of what happened, and helps you plan for the next session. Because of the DSTS note system, it’s really easy.
Journals and Write Up
Players can write their own journals, which are attached to specific sessions. These journals include all the WA article features - images, quotes, soundtracks, etc. - making them complete and characterful.
Show your game to the world:
Create a public profile for your campaign, including information such as which system you’re using and what genre you’re playing in. You can embed videos of previous sessions, both to show the world and to document your game so far. You can advertise for players to join the party and even schedule sessions with your players. People can follow your world to keep up with what’s new, and leave comments to show their love.
Campaign Public Page RPG Sessions List
Guild Perks
Once again, all of the above are completely FREE. Guild Memberships (paid memberships) are geared towards worldbuilders who require advanced functionality, want to keep things Private, or who want to monetize their work.
Control what stays Private
Keep your work private, even from us! You’ll be able to control who sees what within each of your worlds.
Alternative Themes for Guild Members
Make it pretty
Change the way your pages look by using themes (CSS templates) to perfectly match the tone and setting of your world, from wooden boards to circuit boards.
Monetize your work
Allow Private Subscribers – for example, paying supporters on Patreon – exclusive access to parts of your content. This is a great way to reveal behind-the-scenes worldbuilding content to paying supporters, or even release chapters in advance.
Coauthors
Coauthors allows multiple writers access to work on the same world, perfect for any kind of collaborative writing.
Other Guild Perks
There are a bunch of other Guild Perks, including Infinite Worlds, extra space for your images and maps, a word count feature, and access to special content.
For our various tiers of Guild Membership, check out our Patreon Page.
Come and join us!
You, the people of Lost Kingdom, are by far our biggest and longest-standing readership and we love you for it! Come and join us on World Anvil and let's build our worlds together!
Create your World Anvil Account!
This is beyond amazing. I won’t need it for my first novel, as it’s simplistic in nature, but for my second epic LITRPG novel this is going to be invaluable. I won’t be using it for a few more months but thank you in advance!