Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Mon Mar 4th - Sun Mar 17th

Worldbuilding Awards 2024

Vote now for the best worldbuilders of the year!
The Worldbuilding Awards is our annual contest to spotlight the best worldbuilding of the year! This is your chance to spotlight your hard work to the world and to get inspired by the amazing worldbuilding that other worldbuilders have created. Submit your worldbuilding between January 4th and February 8th, 2025 and keep reading to learn how to win!  

How to enter?

Entering the Awards is super easy! Follow these steps:
  1. Choose which categories you want to submit to and prepare your worldbuilding accordingly.
  2. Once the submission period opens, submit your work to the form that will be linked from this page.
  3. During the two voting phases, share your work so other people can vote for it! The entry with the most votes in each category will win.
  The rest of this page will explain everything you need to know to enter!  

Detailed information

Rules

  1. You can submit to any number of categories, but you can only submit one entry per category.
  2. Work that has been nominated or won non-major categories in past Worldbuilding Awards/Best of World Anvil competitions (from 2020 onwards) may not be submitted.
  3. Work that has won a major category in past Worldbuilding Awards/Best of World Anvil competitions (from 2020 onwards) may not be submitted.
  4. Entries to the Awards may only be submitted to one category.
  5. You may not edit your entries while they are being judged: entries that don't go to the second voting round can be edited after March 8th. Entries in the second round may not be edited until the end of the voting round on March 22th.
    • For full world submissions, this rule applies to the world homepage, meta, and primer/introduction article (if any), as well as the world CSS theme.
  6. All submitted works must be public (not private) and published (not draft). You may not set entries as private or draft while they are being voted on.
  7. All art used must be clearly labelled with the artist's name, e.g. beneath the image, in the author's notes, footer, global footer, or similar. If you are the artist, you must credit yourself. You must have explicit permission and rights of the original artist to use their work.
  8. Duplicate votes (i.e. multiple votes submitted by the same person) will be removed.
  9. The World Anvil Team reserves the right to disqualify entries deemed to be problematic regardless of the vote results. Please take a look at the Etiquette policy to learn what's considered problematic content on World Anvil.
  10. Similarly, World Anvil retains the right to arbitrate and/or change the rules where necessary to uphold the spirit and integrity of this event and the community. We will communicate changes as necessary.
  11. As always, World Anvil claims no ownership over your original work.

Categories

Article Categories (click to expand)
Note: In the submission form, you will be asked to explain with a short sentence why your entry fits the category. Each article category has a non-exhaustive list of examples. You can submit articles of any template in any category as long as they fit the topic.

Heart & Minds Award 2024: An article touching on intellectual, sociological, spiritual, or cultural accomplishments and traditions of a people in your world.
Examples: a cultural group, a subculture, a coming-of-age celebration.
Rise of Nations Award 2024: An article relevant to the history of civilizations and peoples of your world and their legacies.
Examples: an important historical figure, an old settlement, a relic or ruin, a museum or archive.
Wondrous Nature Award 2024: Your natural world in all its glory; an article describing anything from species to locations, to natural and supernatural events, and bizarre naturally-occurring materials.
Examples: A floating archipelago, a walking plant, weather phenomena, mineral resources.
Strength & Honor Award 2024: An article relevant to the interactions of the people of your world; diplomacy, war, trade and collaboration, and the people who drive and engineer them.
Examples: a peace treaty, a famous trader, a battle, a technology used in war.
Pillars of Progress Award 2024: An article describing a technological or scientific (including metaphysical) accomplishment, or celebrating creations developed by the people of your world.
Examples: A new technology or spell, a place famous for technological or magical progress, a famous scientist or scholar.
Myths & Legends Award 2024: An article describing an aspect of your worldbuilding that's mythical or fictional within the construct of your world, even if it's based on true events.
Examples: A legendary hero, an order of legendary knights, a creation myth, an urban legend.
  Non-article categories (click to expand)
Time and Space Award 2024: This award is for the best Chronicle created on World Anvil.
Minimum content requirement: 20 events and 1 map
History Award 2024: This award is for the best Timeline created on World Anvil.
Minimum content requirement: 20 events and use the new timeline format introduced this year.
Cartography Award 2024: This award is for the best Interactive Map created on World Anvil.
  • All map-types can be submitted—there is no stipulation of image-type (dungeon maps, battle maps, region maps etc).
  • Minimum interactive requirements are 30 pins, each with a title and description of around 120 characters, 2 marker groups, and no less than 50 words of description for the map itself.
  • You must either own full rights to the map outright, or have the artist's permission, to submit any map illustration you have not made yourself.

 
  Major Categories (click to expand)
Best Worldbuilding Article 2024: For the best article on World Anvil overall; articles submitted here can be about any topic.
Most Beautiful World 2024: For worlds that deserve their own spot in an art gallery. Best World 2024: Best overall world, considering both its content and design. There are no topic or format limitations
Best Newcomer: Awarded to the best world created by a user who joined World Anvil on January 1st, 2023 or later.

Voting and judging process

The winners of the Awards will be selected based on a vote open to the public, including people without a World Anvil account. This is the full schedule of the event:

Submission phase: January 4th-February 8th
Use this time to submit your entries using a form that will be shared when the event begins. Only submit the form once; duplicate answers will be automatically removed.

First voting round: February 15th-March 1st
Votes can be cast by any person using a widget added to the entry itself. The top 5 winners of each category will form a shortlist of nominees.

Second voting round: March 8th-March 22nd
Only the shortlisted entries will be available for voting in the second round. This vote will happen on a form.

Awards Ceremony: April 5th
The winners of the Awards will be announced in the Awards Ceremony on April 5th.

Prizes

The following digital prizes will be awarded:
  • Participation badge: awarded to all submitters.
  • Nominee rosette: for shortlisted works.
  • Winner rosette: for the winner of each category.
Additionally, winners will also get: Please note that these prizes require significant time to prepare, so delivery might take some time!



FAQ

Can I submit NSFW content?
NSFW entries will not be elegible for these Awards. This includes sexual themes or erotica, and depictions of extreme violence or gore.

How do I submit an entry?
Use the form that will be published when the event starts in January 4th, 2025, and only submit your entries once; duplicates will be removed. Entries must be submitted with their ID code, as well as their view link. The form itself contains instructions with screenshots to get the ID for each type of entry.

Where can I check if I've won or been nominated in previous years?
The Worldbuilding Awards Showcase has the list of all winners, and you can find all nominees here.

How are my creator rights affected by these Awards?
By entering the Worldbuilding Awards, you allow World Anvil to use your content for promotional purposes. However, your creator rights are in no way affected by this and you can revoke this permission at any time with reasonable notice. Check our copyright page for more information about how we handle copyright on World Anvil.
Why can't past winners (or nominees) submit the same entries again?
We started the Worldbuilding Awards to celebrate the amazing creativity of our community. This restriction is intended to make sure that more people have a chance of winning, rather than the same names each year. Of course, past winners can still submit content that hasn't been previously nominated and, for major categories, you can even re-submit past nominations! (see rules 2 and 3).


Got questions not answered in this page?
You can email us at [email protected].