WAWA 2022 | Nominations & Reading Challenge

A friendly reading challenge and summary of my nominations!

As with any other challenge, I think it's quite important to have a little look around. Go poke through some other entries. Especially when you're standing against several of them yourself!

I was nominated for two categories in the Worldbuilding Awards, and I'm just so over the moon thrilled and also terrified!
To keep the competition anxiety at bay, I'm just indulging in a little exploration of my fellow nominees' work and thus bring you this collection of content and my thoughts!

by Strixxline

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I welcome you to check out all of my submissions for the awards over at my article: Worldbuilding Awards 2022 | Malkora's First! Of course, I only got nominated for the two categories I'll be diving into below, but I figure sharing all of my entries may be fun :)

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Most Beautiful World 2022 Nominees by Strixxline

Most Beautiful World!

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Malkora by... Me!

I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into fiddling with my CSS, so you can only imagine how thrilled I am to see my name among the nominees for Most Beautiful World!
As with any creative venture, I know I have plenty of room for improvement, and I always see new things I want to create or add to give my world a more tailored aesthetic. I'm getting there slowly, but surely!

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See my article entries!

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Iskani Concepts by Polina Arteev (strixxline)

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My Fellow Nominees!

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Arda Almayed by TC

I will admit, I spent a lot of time staring at these article submissions. The art in them is so lovely, and they're very inspiring! Especially the character art!
As I mentioned above, I want to give my world a more tailored aesthetic, and this art is doing exactly that for Arda Almayed! Just scribbling in my little imaginary notebook that I DO need more custom artwork in my world...

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See TC's article entries!

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Shadowfire by Ononomad

This world has the most delightfully clean aesthetic, and I'm so excited to see it among the nominees! It's a world I always enjoy opening articles from!
It's worlds like this that make me teeter constantly on the line between minimalist and maximalist design. I love fantasy clutter, but a good clean user experience is another one of my dearest loves...

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See Ononomad's article entries!

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Numidius by Zimo

There are so many lovely images scattered throughout Zimo's articles, and they add so much! I love seeing pictures breaking up text blocks, and the aesthetic of the whole world truly is lovely.
The pop-out sidebar is a really cool addition, as well! It's so fun to see the ways people get creative with CSS and layouts to make elements more interactive! I once again pull out my imaginary notebook to scribble in some notes about experimenting with CSS some more...

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See Zimo's article entries!

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Vazdimet by MHBiscup (Solarcat)

I adore any world with a visual theme that just screams out its genre, and this one sure does scream science fantasy! There's so much custom and commissioned art in this world and in these articles and it's just all so cool!!
Those faction icons really do have a powerful grip on my being... They remind me that I need to get myself back into creating my little deity symbols before too long. Every world deserves some delicious-looking graphic design!

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See Solarcat's article entries!

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Cartography Award 2022 Nominees by Strixxline

Make sure to open the embedded maps below with that little "Open full size" button for the best viewing experience! They're all so amazing!!

Cartography Award 2022!

I'm a huge lover of narrative elements which turn the presentation of information into an in-world experience, and that's what I worked to achieve with my map! Viewers of my map could be anyone in Malkora, from students to adventurers, who have stumbled upon a very distraught cartographer.
They won't learn everything about Malkora from this map or the person who created it, but it will still leave them knowing a little bit about several major locations!

I'd like to thank Dimitris in particular for sending me on the mission to map my world this year, because look at where it got us! I had a lot of fun working on my map concept and then bringing it to life, and placing each pin helped me learn something new about my own world.

Toggle different marker groups to see subregions and settlements scattered throughout the primary regions of Nefyran!

Ink-Stained Map of Malkora

Open full size

This map may be a ruined cartography project, but you find that it is still quite useful in getting to know at least one corner of the world — the continent of Nefyran.
Luckily for you, the poor cartographer whose work has been ruined is not too distraught to tell you at least a little bit about some of the regions and some of the places within. Just don't be too pushy.

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Map of Cathedris by Stormbril

As someone who finds themselves ever-enamored by stained glass art, both physical and illustrated, seeing this map really blew me away! The map itself is gorgeous, and seeing the smaller portraits of the god-husks arranged around the map just had me panning around and staring for quite a while before I finally managed to move on!
The whole aesthetic of Cathedris is stunning to me, so you'll catch me peeping this map here quite a bit even after the awards are over! I must learn more!
Open Map of Cathedris

World Map

Open full size

Built by an unknown artisan, this world map of Cathedris has become the canonical map of the entire world. It brings every single God-husk in and represents them in beautiful stained glass, matching the splendor of the map itself. Every single country is represented and explained, and capital cities for each country are shown as well.
A secondary stained glass map was made some time other, representing the many varied climates found across Cathedris as well.

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Map of Milleadh by Mandomc

This map really excited me from the moment I saw it because, just look! There are so many different islands and places on this map to explore and get to know! I really appreciate the classic fantasy map vibes in the aesthetic, simple and sweet, and littered with places we may or may not adventure in with time.
I love getting to poke through a map and see so many different places, and even DRAGONS? I hope to come back to this map in the future and see more information in the pins!
Open Map of Milleadh

Milleadh

Open full size

Here on Milleadh, large beasts roam and magic is an everyday part of life, which makes travel across the vast planet easier. From the land of the elementals to the fozen continent of St Anvil Agent's don't forget to check out the known dragon territories as documented by Malase Beran.

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Map of Temple City by Tillerz

Oh! This one isn't just a map, but a whole one-shot! I would make the argument that this is one of the most interactive of the interactive maps in the lineup, so catch me sweating extra hard about the competition with each additional nominee I stop to look at.
_{Wait, wasn't this reading challenge supposed to make me less anxious? Hahahaha}
I may have felt a little bit in over my head at first, clicking through all of the info and secrets without the full context, but knowing there's a whole adventure packed in here is so cool!
Open Map of Temple City

Check the map layers
in the top right for
additional information.
Go to the article Temple of Death.

Temple City

Open full size

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Map of Anvil by TJ Trewin

You may recall me saying above (in my little blurb about Shadowfire) that I love a good clean user experience, and this map is 500% that! It's so beautifully laid out and straight-up looks like a legitimate map that could have come from the real world.. like one of those posters of maps you might find in a history class!
The row of flags at the bottom is actually my favorite part, and really tickles my graphic designer heart! It's little details like this that often slip the mind in the worldbuilding rush, but they add so much to the world!
Open Map of Anvil

Anvil

Open full size

The large continent of Anvil has a broad and diverse spectrum of climates spanning from the frozen forests of Tragur all the way down to the sweltering tropical rainforests of the Shattered Isles.
The broad demographic of folks predominantly consist of corvidans, fauns, humans, rakuwans, grukrans, and a large influx of new and foreign folk from other planes of existence beyond the rifts that opened during The Rupture fifty years ago.

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by Strixxline

I will have you all know I only cried several times after finding out I got nominated for something in the Awards... and then I found out hours later it was actually two nominations and I cried harder.
But you guys keep that a secret, all right? I have to keep up my calm, cool, and collected exterior!
All of your kind words both before and after the nominations have been so touching and I appreciate all of you! Thank you for being the community I can tell everyone truthfully is the best on the internet!

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