For the worlds only you can imagine
World Anvil brings your setting lore, interactive maps, timelines, novels, and RPG campaigns into one connected, creative home. Imagine it like a searchable Wikipedia, Google Maps and ancestry site… but of your very own world setting. Craft unique characters, astonishing locations, deep history, and intricate plots for your own unique world.
What makes great worldbuilding software?
A great worldbuilding software must be powerful and feature rich enough to help you track a whole living world setting through space and time. But more than that, it’s a space that’s inspirational, that helps you create and tell better stories. Worldbuilding software should keep your world coherent and connected as you build. And finally, it should help you with the next step - bringing your world to life as a novel, an RPG campaign, a video game or a piece of creative art in its own right.
Worldbuilding software should inspire you! Expertly-crafted prompts do exactly that, turning a blank page into a creative masterpiece. Your tools should light up your imagination, asking you better questions about your world. And you should be able to choose which are important to you, and which you answer next.
Worlds only make sense when they’re connected and organized. Who is a character without their mentor, their skills, or the culture they grew up in? History makes no sense without the people and organizations who shape it. You have to be able to follow a connection, or quickly search a detail, when inspiration strikes.
Great worldbuilding is full of stories, and those stories deserve to be shared: in a novel, around your RPG table, or by fans exploring your lore and art. A proper worldbuilding software helps you not just build wonderful worlds, but share and showcase them with those around you.
Inspiration, with room to breathe
A great worldbuilding app helps you develop and organize your ideas, without railroading you. And World Anvil’s worldbuilding templates are inspirational, not prescriptive. They give your characters, settlements, and organizations a useful starting structure and help you build your own vision. Expertly-crafted worldbuilding prompts, they invite you to consider which details will make part of your world memorable.
Start with the details that matter to you right now, whether that’s a city’s trade, a character’s motivation, or a core belief that divides two cultures. Then return and build out more when your story or campaign needs them. You don’t need to fill an encyclopedia before you can create. But you do need your work safe and organized, easy to find and pick up again.
Organization that tells a story
A basic document can store simple details, but a connected world shows where a character lives, who they serve, and why their family is at war. You can track their dynasty, and their dreams. World Anvil combines linked wiki-style articles, category pages and an advanced search so your notes become a setting you can navigate.
Then organize your articles into a table of contents you can navigate in seconds. Cross-reference information, instead of trying to maintain the same explanation across several documents. And when inspiration brings you back to an old idea, follow the connections around it to understand the ripple effects of what you’ve created.
Worldbuilding Example: Connections lead to Creativity
Geography you can really explore
Good worldbuilding software transforms your map from a static picture into a living world. Upload your map image to World Anvil, add markers, and connect each character and location to their articles.
Your readers can discover the reason behind a city’s name simply by clicking a pin. Players can review where they’ve been for a quick recap. And with secret pins, gamemasters can plan ahead, scanning the map for the party’s next dungeon, or deciding where the villain will go next.
And the best worldbuilding software gives your world a sense of scale. Link your maps together to move from a planet to a continent, to a city and even battle maps or blueprints of important buildings. This is how your map becomes a gateway to your world, and to your stories.
History and relationships
Believable settings have a past… but time can be tricky to track. Good worldbuilding software has different kinds of timelines for different kinds of events! You can keep track of centuries of events behind today’s conflicts. You can track a dynasty through its generations with a bloodline or family tree. And sometimes, you need to be able to see a simple series of events in chronological order - a timeline with list mode. These different views help you explore questions that a simple text document can hide.
Who inherited the crown? Which war changed the border? Why do two factions still distrust each other? Record the answers as historical events in World Anvil, and you can see them as a list, spanning across time, or even across time and space with Chronicles. That’ll give you the clearest picture of your world setting.
Events mean nothing without their history
A world worth sharing
The best worldbuilding software isn’t only about crafting. It’s also about creating and having fun. Creative processes must be enjoyable, and part of that is art and aesthetics!
World Anvil lets you present your lore as a visually exciting world people can explore. Craft illustrated articles, linked maps, incredible landing pages that entice in your audience… or simply make it more fun for YOU to create. Choose from a list of genre-themed world styles. Then customize the details, including fonts, colors and background images, with our easy slider system.
Most importantly, with a great worldbuilding software, you should be in control of who sees what… without having to duplicate your work! Use advanced privacy controls to keep your ongoing notes private, while sharing basic information with your readers or players. You can even share secret lore with your beta readers, Patreon supporters or Kickstarter backers.
A home for all your creativity
Develop your world bible and write with World Anvil’s novel writing software, Manuscripts. Cross reference your setting and stories in one easy-to-organize platform.
Use the RPG campaign manager to turn your setting into your next campaign! Manage your players, and build locations, characters, and conflicts into your next adventures.
World Anvil runs in your browser, so you can create anywhere. Start with one article, then build out your next big idea with maps, history, and other tools as you need them. Follow a simple starting path.
A little clarity
Worldbuilding software is a connected suite of digital tools that serves writers, RPG game masters and game studios. It helps them create, store and organize their fictional universes. Worldbuilding software must contain features like interconnected wiki-style articles, interactive maps, family trees, timelines, chronicles, diplomacy webs and autolinking to deserve the name. Worldbuilders must keep track of every aspect of their worlds, through time and space. They also need to share or hide every aspect of their worlds with others, to help them connect with their fans and community while keeping their notes secure.
The best worldbuilding software is the one that works for you! World Anvil is the most highly rated by professionals (including NYT bestsellers like Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance, and professional GMs like Ginny Di). World Anvil is used by over 3 million people, and it’s the most complete, powerful and feature-rich worldbuilding software on the market. Basically if you need it, World Anvil does it.
No. Start with one character or location and link a second article when it becomes useful. The wider toolset is there for your next step; it is not a checklist you must complete.
Worldbuilding software can be incredibly helpful whether you’re just starting out or you’re a published author or professional GM. Best-sellers like Tracy Hickman, Chris Fox and Miles Cameron all use worldbuilding software (specifically World Anvil), while Brandon Sanderson created his own private solution. For Game Masters, you need worldbuilding software because there’s just more information than you can hold in your brain at once! It helps you keep track of your ever-evolving collaborative world and prevents retcons and misunderstandings. Basically, it helps you run a better RPG game.
Worldbuilding software is used by writers, game creators and GMs to worldbuild, organize, store and share their fictional world settings. Usually worldbuilding software contains a suite of powerful tools like wiki-style articles, interactive maps, timelines, family trees, diplomacy webs and more. The best worldbuilding software also contains, or integrates with, novel writing software or RPG Campaign Management software, so creators can craft their final novels or campaigns in the same place as they store their lore.
Yes, it should be! Worldbuilding is complicated but the best worldbuilding software makes it easier, not harder. Worldbuilding software should have tutorials to help you achieve your creative vision quickly. For example, World Anvil has a “Get Started” series for new users, and a “How to Start Worldbuilding” course for new worldbuilders.
You can start creating with a free account on World Anvil. Memberships add features and storage space, including advanced privacy options. See the current plan details.
Built with our community
We are dedicated to maintaining and upgrading World Anvil, so it’s always the best possible experience. Explore our changelog to see what’s changed, and what new worldbuilding tools you have access to.
We craft World Anvil for ourselves and our community, so community suggestions are critical! You can share and vote on the changes you want to see, to shape where the ultimate worldbuilding software goes next.
Create a free World Anvil account and start building your dream. Get even more tools, storage and advanced privacy options with a membership. Focus on the tools you need to realize your vision.
Choose your creative home
Your imagination is bigger than a page of notes. You need a home for your worlds, your stories, and the adventures you haven’t yet dreamt of.
For the campaign that keeps growing
Bring your RPG session prep, your player discoveries, your shared lore and your future adventures into one creative home.
Compare with KankaFor a world with more to hide & share
Connect your world’s map to timelines, family trees, characters and factions. Get inspired by expertly created worldbuilding templates, and craft a world your audience can fall in love with.
Compare with LegendKeeperFor stories that live beyond mere pages
Develop your worlds, draft your stories with Manuscripts, and turn your expansive world setting into a multimedia experience for your readers and your RPG players.
Compare with CampfireYour next creative chapter
Explore our worldbuilding software, prepare your next adventure with the RPG campaign manager, or compare worldbuilding tools.
Begin with your burning idea, the part of your world you can’t wait to dive into. Give it a home, build a connection, then let the next idea follow.
Every great world starts somewhere
Dive deeper and learn about how World Anvil can help you!
