A working GM toolkit
Prepare sessions and use the digital Storyteller Screen alongside your world’s articles, maps, and statblocks.
Your next creative home
World Anvil vs Kanka
Choose World Anvil when your ambition reaches from tonight’s session to a setting full of stories. Prepare, run, write, and share with a connected set of creative tools.
Why choose World Anvil over Kanka?
Build the campaign.
Keep the whole world.
Depth with a purpose
Develop history, dynasties, cultures, and conflicts that give every adventure something to build on.
Room for the next story
Take the same setting into Manuscripts or a public world your audience can explore.
More than player handouts
A campaign manager
built for your side of the screen.
Choosing World Anvil over Kanka makes sense when you want campaign preparation and a detailed creative setting to work together. Your world articles are useful at the table: they hold the people, places, clues, and context behind your session plan.
Use the digital Storyteller Screen to keep your preparation within reach. Add statblocks and link the locations and NPCs that matter. The benefit is practical: when your party changes direction, the world behind your adventure is still there to draw on.
Connected at every scale
A character is more
than a list of connections.
An allegiance becomes interesting when you understand the history behind it. World Anvil lets you develop a character’s biography, follow their family, place their home on a map, and connect them to the conflicts around them.
Use rich articles for the detail and visual tools for the wider picture. This is the reason to choose depth: it gives you the context to improvise a believable response when your players do something you never expected.
Beyond the next session
One setting.
More stories to tell.
Your campaign might inspire a short story, a novel, or a setting you want to share beyond the table. World Anvil gives those ambitions a place alongside the world you have already built.
Write with Manuscripts and develop a world homepage where readers can discover your lore. Choose World Anvil when you want your campaign’s creative work to keep serving you as your project changes.
Start small. Keep your possibilities open.
You need a first idea.
Not a finished universe.
World Anvil has a broad toolset because creative projects grow in different directions. Begin with something you are excited about, give it a useful connection, and choose the next tool when the work calls for it.
That is the advantage of choosing World Anvil: you can develop a rich setting, tell stories in it, and bring it to an audience without having to decide its final form on day one.
A simple first project
- Create one personGive them a goal and a reason it matters.
- Add one placeDescribe the location standing between them and that goal.
- Make the connectionLink the articles. Your world has already begun.
A little clarity
Your next chapter,
without the guesswork.
Does more depth mean I need a bigger first session?
No. Start with your next adventure and the few articles it needs. Add timelines, family trees, and other tools when they answer a question your campaign is asking.
What does a free account include?
A free account lets you begin creating and explore World Anvil. Features, capacity, and privacy vary by membership. View the current plans to choose what your project needs.
Built with our community
Your world grows.
So do your tools.
Always moving forward
Explore the changelog for improvements to writing, worldbuilding, and the everyday experience of creating. See what has changed and put it to work in your world.
Your ideas have a voice
Use community suggestions to share the changes you want to see and support ideas from other creators. Your experience helps shape what comes next.
Begin for free
Create a free account and start with a small project. Explore memberships when you need more capacity, privacy, or advanced tools. Choose the tools that serve your next step.
Make room for your next idea
Why choose World Anvil?
Look beyond your first page of notes. Choose a home for the world, the stories, and the adventures still to come.
For the campaign that keeps growing
World Anvil
vs Kanka
Bring your session preparation, living lore, player discoveries, and future stories into one creative home.
Compare with KankaFor a world with more to reveal
World Anvil
vs LegendKeeper
Connect your atlas to timelines, family trees, rich worldbuilding templates, and a world your audience can explore.
Compare with LegendKeeperFor stories that live beyond the novel
World Anvil
vs Campfire
Develop your world, draft with Manuscripts, and bring the same setting to readers and the gaming table.
Compare with CampfireYour next creative chapter
Follow your
next idea.
Explore our worldbuilding software, prepare your next adventure with the RPG campaign manager, or compare worldbuilding tools.
Begin with the part of your world you cannot wait to create. Give it a home, make a connection, and let the next idea follow.
Every great world starts somewhere
Let yours start here.
Start Creating! It’s FreeDive deeper and learn about how World Anvil can help you!