WorldEmber 2024
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WorldEmber 2024
10,000 words, 1 month, $1000+ in Prizes!Do you want to get your worldbuilding skills up to scratch? Join the fun!
CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNTWelcome to THE ULTIMATE WORLDBUILDING CHALLENGE!
Finish 2024 with an achievement — Start 2025 with a bang
We challenge you to write 10,000 words of original worldbuilding content this December. Check out the prizes and rules below!
All you need is a free World Anvil account, grab your hammer, and GO WORLDBUILD!
Did you win WorldEmber? Claim your digital certificate now!
...or get your PHYSICAL certificate of excellence to celebrate your amazing accomplishment!
Worldember Special Categories
Click on a prompt to write your response.
Let the games begin!
Myth
Vehicle
Tradition
Technology
Species
Settlement
Prose
Profession
Plot
Organization
Natural law
Military formation
Material
Language
Item
Geography
Ethnicity
Document
Conflict
Condition
Character
Join the Race!
Do you want to get your worldbuilding skills up to scratch? Join the fun!
CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNTHow it works
Participating in WorldEmber is super easy!
- Write 10,000 words of worldbuilding in new articles before January 4th to get the winner badge. There are also 25k and 50k goals if you're up for the challenge.
- Optionally submit articles to the special categories listed above. With Competitor mode enabled, your submissions will be judged and the winners will get a prize.
If you complete 10,000 words, you win and get a digital badge and certificate! And if you've opted into Competitor mode, you will have a chance to win a prize in the winners' raffle.
Prizes
Here are the physical prizes that will be raffled among Competitors with 10,000 words or more!
Click to see the raffle prizes!
Bundle: $20 USD gift card + PDF of Structuring life to support creativity by Sandra Tayler
Sponsored by Tillerz
Anthology bundle: In a Flash vol 1, In a Flash vol 2, and Written by Candlelight
Sponsored by George Sanders
Sponsored by E. Christopher Clark
Story Engine Deck + 3-expansion bundle (horror, mystery, character background)
Sponsored by Haly the Moonlight Bard
Sponsored by Haly the Moonlight Bard
Book Bundle: The Etymologicon (by Mark Forsyth), The Art of Language Creation (by David J. Peterson), and Tasting History (by Mark Miller and Ann Volkwein)
Sponsored by Angantyr
$50 gift card chosen from a variety of online shops (including HeroForge, Kobold Press, and more)
Sponsored by Michael Chandra
Additionally, if you write 10,000 words or more, you'll get a badge too!
There are three types of badge you can win on WorldEmber. First of all, we have the three word completion badges:
Click to see the badges!10,000 Words
Write 10,000 words and will have successfully completed WorldEmber!col3
25,000 Words
Write 25,000 words to earn the Award of Verbosity!col3
50,000 Words
Win 50,000 words (a full novel!) to earn the Award of Loquacity!col3
Additionally, these three unique badges are awarded either by Janet and Dimitris or based on a community vote:
Best Article
Awarded to the user who wrote the best article during WorldEmber, chosen by the community.
Best Body of Work
Awarded to the user with the best overall work this month, chosen by the community.col3
Human of the Match
Awarded by Janet & Dimitris to an all-around good spirit of WorldEmber — we see you!
Finally, each special category has their own badge too. These badges are also unique and will be awarded to each winner chosen by a community sponsor.
Join the community!
One of the best things about WorldEmber is the community support - everyone rallies together on multiple platforms! You can find our community on Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and our community stream. Use the hashtag #WorldEmber to share ideas and find one another, and download the official asset pack to fly the WorldEmber colors!
Rules
Timescale
Challenge begins: 30th November 2024, 7pm UK time/11am Pacific time
Challenge ends: 4th January 2025, 7pm UK time/11am Pacific time
Goal
The goal of WorldEmber is to write 10,000 of original worldbuilding during December—the site will automatically track your wordcount. Valid words are:
- Written in articles only.
- Written in articles that are new (i.e. created after WorldEmber launched), public (i.e. not private) and published (i.e. not drafts).
- Written in articles with over 50 words.
Detailed rules
- All worldbuilding should be new and original. Previously written content, placeholder text, and copying the same content over multiple articles is not allowed.
- Meta content isn't valid for your WorldEmber wordcount; this includes project updates, articles explaining your WorldEmber progress, and similar content.
- Only articles are counted. Any words written in timelines, statblocks, secrets, or other non-article elements don't count.
- Articles must be at least 50 words long to be counted (or 300 for a special category). There is no maximum word count.
- You can only submit one article per special category. This doesn't affect your total wordcount, as articles not submitted to a special category still count towards your WorldEmber progress.
- If you submit your article and subsequently remove it from the challenge, make it private, or make it a draft, it will no longer be eligible for the challenge!
- No art theft. You must have permission to use any art you post publicly on World Anvil, and all art must be credited using the artist credit fields or in the article footer.
- Only one account per person may enter WorldEmber. Note that the use of multiple accounts is against the World Anvil Terms of Service. Multiple users can write in the same world (for collaborative projects) and you can write in multiple worlds.
- 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.
- As always, World Anvil claims no ownership over your original work.
Questions & Feedback
If you've read through all the rules, checked the FAQ section at the bottom, and still have questions or feedback, here are some ways you can reach us!
- [email protected] - send us an email!
- Twitter - drop us a DM!
- Discord - hop into the help or WorldEmber channels and ping or DM the @Community Team!
- Facebook Group and Subreddit - ask your questions there if you prefer these platforms!
The Awards Ceremony
In February 1st, we'll throw an AWARDS CEREMONY! If you've won a prize, this is where you'll hear about it. The event will also feature raffles and the traditional Beautiful People event!
Follow us on Twitch so you never miss an update!
Resources & Guides
Feeling stuck and need some inspiration? We've got you covered:
- World Anvil's YouTube channel - for inspirational videos, and more tutorials!
- World Anvil's Twitch channel - for the latest streams—come and chat with the community!
- The Learn section - for how to use all the features of World Anvil!
- Article BBCode Guide - how to make your articles look amazing!
Additionally, if you're looking for ways to get free art or images for your articles, check out these resources:
- 5 best character portrait resources
- 5 best city map image resources
- 5 best landscape resources
- More free art resources for worldbuilding
How to submit to special categories
Go to the advanced edit of the article and uncollapse the Community Challenge panel on the right side of the edit screen to reveal the WorldEmber panel, which includes buttons with eligible prompts for your article. Click your chosen prompt to submit your article!
If you don't see the submit button, check that you have Community Features enabled in your account's Feature Settings!
FAQ
Yes! A stub is an article under 50 words, and it will be counted for WorldEmber if you follow these instructions:
- Open the article for editing.
- Click on Avanced Tools & Options on the right hand side.
- Click the SPECIAL ACTIONS panel on the right hand side.
- Click the Reset Date button. This process will update the creation date of the article to the current date.
The leaderboard information refreshes periodically, usually during our community streams, to prevent it from creating lag on the website. Check back later and it will have updated! In the meantime, why don't you grab your hammer and GO WORLDBUILD?!
Verbatim copying of previously done work (even your own!) is not in the spirit of the competition, but expanding on previous work — for example, creating a book bible extrapolated from the first draft of a novel — is just fine.
Nope! Wordcount is per author, so you can write across as many worlds as you like!
Multiple co-authors can write in a single world; their word counts are accumulated based on individual user, not the world they write in.
Use the button at the top of this page to check your personal progress, including every article that is being counted for WorldEmber. You can also view other users' progress pages by appending their username to the URL of this page (https://www.worldanvil.com/community/challenge/worldember-2024/homepage/).
In order to get any prizes on WorldEmber you will need to enable Competitor mode. To do so, go to your Account Features settings and make sure "Competitor mode" is enabled.
This affects both raffle prizes and special category prizes. If you want to have a chance to win a special category prize, you will need to submit to that category. But if you submit without Competitor mode enabled, your article will not be judged!
All users who get to 10,000 words or more will receive the completion badge regardless of the Competitor status.
The winners will be announced at the WorldEmber 2024 Awards Ceremony stream, a special live-streamed Awards Ceremony on our Twitch on February 1st. If you can't tune in live, we'll release a page on the community category of the Learn section with the winners, as well as in our social channels (@WorldAnvil everywhere!). Stay tuned on our social media for updates!
When will badges and prizes be delivered?Once the Awards Ceremony has taken place (on February 1st) and all the winners have been announced, we will start the process of giving out the badges and delivering the prizes. World Anvil has millions of users though, so this might take a minute. Please be patient!
After the Awards Ceremony (on February 1st), yes! If you make your articles private or delete them before the ceremony has taken place, you may forfeit your digital badge or your prize, as our team will be unable to check your work for cheating.
This restriction applies to articles submitted in Competitor mode. If you don't have Competitor mode enabled (and, therefore, are not opting in to get any prizes other than badges), you're free to edit your articles at any point.
To take part, simply write an article using the specified template. If you have Competitor Mode enabled, the judge of that category will choose the winner at their own discretion, by their own means. We recommend to keep special category articles below 2,000 words so that the judges aren't overwhelmed!
If you submit to a special category without Competitor Mode enabled, your article will not be judged.
Statistics
Authors by Words
(WE Winners+ only)
Top Authors by Total Likes
Top Entries By Likes
- 1 41 Slime in Yonderverse
- 2 34 Osao Ocean in Yonderverse
- 3 33 Time Ripped in Yonderverse
- 4 31 Dragon Forest in Yonderverse
- 5 31 Wake up! in Vaelis Arin
- 6 30 Paws and Claws in Alana
- 7 27 Chaos Magic in Niorath
- 8 27 God Snake in Yonderverse
- 9 27 Tellus in Solaris
- 10 26 Cognitive Code in Yonderverse
- 11 25 Inzisana - Sunfestival in E L A Q I T A N
- 12 25 Adamnification of Norrab in Yonderverse
- 13 24 Book of Chronology in Yonderverse
- 14 24 Solar Pulse in Solaris
- 15 24 Pilaquidae in Yonderverse
- 16 24 Shir'kardyr - The dance of bones in Aran'sha
- 17 24 Benthic Rainbow Worm in Yonderverse
- 18 23 Light a candle for a duckling in Alana
- 19 23 Seraph in Kena'an
- 20 23 The Scillari in Etrea
Top Authors by number of Entries
- 1 197
- 2 162
- 3 160
- 4 132
- 5 129
- 6 112
- 7 110
- 8 107
- 9 102
- 10 102
Condition
Important Document
Ethnicity
Formation
Item
Language
(Super)Natural Law
Building / Landmark
Geographic Location
Material
Military Conflict
Myth / Legend
Organization
Person / Character
Plot
Profession
Ritual / Tradition
Rank / Title
Settlement
Species
Spell / Ability
Technology / Science
Vehicle
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