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Sat Mar 7th - Sun Apr 5th

The Call of Cartography

A fantastic challenge to flesh out a region in your world! We want to see a great map, and hear about your most prominent, fascinating and original landmarks!
This event has ended!
Scroll down to see all submitted entries
 

Description

“I’ve always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going — in a sense it’s three tenses in one.” - Peter Greenaway

  Maps have changed over time, but have never grown outdated, and never cease to be useful! In both war time and peace, for commerce and for exploration, maps are a key element to any adventure. While their medium may change - be it on a piece of parchment or a personal phone - the map always remains.   It's time for the "Call of Cartography" challenge! We at World Anvil have joined forces with map-making titans Caeora and DungeonFog, and we want to see a map of your world and hear about the geographical wonders represented therein. Your world setting can be of any size - a universe of galaxies or a single continent - but for this challenge we want you to focus on a single small region or island.   Create a map of the region with pins that point out various interesting features of the landscape (both hand-drawn maps and those made with map-making software are fine). Then, embed your map in the article you'll submit, and describe your amazing region and fascinating landmarks in more detail!

Ortelius World by Abraham Ortelius


Standard League Winner
Pouaseuille

Premier League Winner
Stormbril

Prizes

All participants will receive the challenge participation badge. The winner will receive an extra shiny badge, have their article featured, and will be shouted out on the weekly World Anvil update stream and on the official World Anvil social media accounts.   INTRODUCING NEW PRIZES AND RAFFLES!
The Winners of the Premier and Regular league will get a Dungeonfog Membership, and a copy of Caeora's Blood Grotto setting!   There will also be a Guild Member-only Prize Draw for all entrants, no matter if they made it into the shortlist or not!   In addition to the above, Caeora will create two custom Project Deios region map assets for each winner! This includes the league winners and the prize draw winner!   World Building Magazine Feature!
In Addition to the amazing prizes already on the table, the winners of the leagues will have a chance to be featured in the World Building Magazine! This not only includes having your work published, but also the ability to have your work edited by the professional folks at WBM!   Premier League Features
Every week following the adjudication, a Premier League entrant who made the shortlist will be featured on World Anvil for a week! We'll shout out and showcase these fantastic entries on the weekly update stream (Saturdays, 7pm GMT | 11am PST)!

The Brief

World Anvil, Caeora, and Dungeonfog want to see a map of a region in your world, and read about the geographical wonders that lie within!   Create your map, upload it to World Anvil, and then embed it into a geography template! Use the map pins and the prompts in the geography template to delve into some of the wonders of your region. They can be natural or man-made, large or small. Try to keep the scale of the map to at least a region or larger!   The map can be any style and genre, and you can spin the geography article from any perspective. Perhaps it's in the style of a tourist brochure, guiding the reader into their world as if it was an adventure in itself. It could be informative, the log of an explorer documenting their discoveries. It might be written like a tabletop RPG microsetting, with details of hooks, history and obstacles of the different locations.   Please make sure to embed your map into your geography article. Geography articles without a map will not be eligible to win.

What to include in your article

A Map

As the definition of Cartography is "the science or practice of drawing maps," this competition requires a map as part of your entry! This map should serve as the central point of your Geography article. If an aspect is mentioned in the article itself, we should be able to tie it back to your map! You can create your map by whatever medium you like (hand-drawn, mapping software etc.) but it must be your own work. Auto-generated maps can work, but you must state that it is an auto-generated map and what tool you used!  

Region Introduction

Include an introduction of the region you are detailing. This might be a short history, and/or a short geographical overview of the region. Perhaps it is the marketing piece for why people should visit this location, or a report of the risks and dangers of the area?  

Deep Dives

Dive deep, and elaborate on the areas you label in the Map! Got a unique world wonder or fantastic city structure you want to spend a paragraph about? It can be informative or flavorful!

The Rules

How to Enter

Firstly, all competitors will need a World Anvil account (don’t worry, it’s free!) to get started. Once you’ve logged in and created your first world, you’re ready to enter the competition.   Write your entry using the Geography template on World Anvil. Be sure to upload a map and embed it into your article.   Once you have finished your entry and are ready to submit it, make sure that your article is not a draft and then click on the button on the right-hand side to submit it to the challenge.  

Adjudication Criteria and Process

A shortlist of the top twenty entries (as organized by community likes and ten from each league) will be compiled by the Master of Games. The Master of Games or guest judges will choose the winner. The winner will be announced by the World Anvil Team on the following weekly update stream.   Entries will be judged on a number of criteria, including originality, presentation, and thoroughness.   Any work you submit, as long as it was owned by you originally, is still owned by you even if you win!
Timeline Event
March 7th - April 4th Competition is active and opened!
April 4th - April 11th Sharing period, give feedback, make minor edits.
April 11th - April 25th Adjudication and Judging
May 9th Winner Announcement Date! (Subject to change)
 

Guest Judges

The Guest Judges for this challenge are the ever fantastic Caeora, and Till from the Dungeonfog Team - both professionals in the field of fictional cartography! Don't miss out on the chance to get your work judged by these fantastic world builders!  

Other Rules

  • Articles for Submission must use the Geography Template
  • Articles for Submission must have an embedded map
  • Articles must be submitted before the closing time, else they will not be judged
  • Articles will be taken from a shortlist of likes, the top ten from each league will be judged by the Master of Games.
  • Guild Member submissions will be added to a raffle pool, this can be won even without entering the shortlist
  • You will be able to submit your article only if it is public!
  • Only one article may be submitted per author, this does not mean one article per world. Think of the Coauthors!
  • Articles will have a week-long period after the deadline to make small edits, share, and get feedback from the community. This period will end when the shortlist is compiled. The purpose of this deadline is to let people focus on writing and sharing separately.
  • Articles can be no longer than 2500 words in length!
  • Word Count will be counted by copying all words present in the article's body and sidebar into a word counter. BBCode does not impact word count, attached articles do not impact word count.
For any further questions or clarifications about this challenge, message the Master of Games, Barron, on the World Anvil discord!

Social media sharing

Because community likes are an important part of the competition, competitors may wish to share their entries on social media to garner more interest from the community. Entries which are tagged with #CallofCartography and mention @WorldAnvil might get shared by World Anvil social media!  

Leagues

There are two leagues that will be independently judged. The Regular and the Premier League. The Premier League consists of all the authors who have previously won a competition.   Winning a competition in the regular league will promote you to the Premier League for future challenges.

Useful Resources

Timelines
Generic article | Mar 1, 2024

Learn how to create and use timelines on World Anvil.

Looking for inspiration or seeking some ideas?
Check out Worldbuilding Magazines fantastic publication all about cartography!
Read all about it here!
 

Timeline

March's Competition will be open on 7th of March at 2100 Portland Time and closed on April 4th at 23:59 Portland Time. The Shortlist will be compiled on 11th of April!

Challenge entries

by elTunas