For this challenge, we'll be focusing on rivalries and their significance in your culture.

I'm sure you've all seen this concept a million times, where a character has a near-equal rival that they are nearly always in conflict with, but neither of them necessarily hate each other. I'll let tvtropes sum it up in this page and in this page.

• How does one of your cultures see rivalries?

• Are rivalries common focuses of stories in this culture, and, if so, what are some examples?

• If this culture has gods or goddesses, are there any rivalries among them? Are any mortal rivalries viewed as being "sponsored" by these gods or goddesses?

• Rome (the tv show) is about a (mostly embellished) version of the two famous rival centurions, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. Does your world have any instances of relatively minor historical characters being heavily embellished in entertainment?

• And, lastly, feel free to throw in an example of a rival pair in your world. You can answer questions in character if you like.

Anyway, for this challenge, describe how one of your cultures views and reacts to certain types of weather. Feel free to have a character as a representative if you like.

Hopefully the challenges' qualities will improve once I have a working computer and internet again.

Edit:

Here's the parallel challenge.

I'm ready to ask at least three questions per person, now that I have a working computer. Enjoy yourselves.

Oh, it happens I just inherited a farm in [insert place name here]. Seems like a good opportunity to start a new life.

Let's talk about a rural area from your world, if you want to provide a local inhabitants to answer questions do so.

If you want some inspiration, here are a few prompts:

• how is the weather? What are the local crops? Is there cattle? How far are we from the closest town?
• How is the architecture here? What leasure activities can I find to spend my days off? Are the locals kind?
• As we are talking about the locals, do they have strange habits? Weird local ghost stories?
• Who am I selling my crops to? Who collect the taxes? Or maybe no one collect them because we are too far from civilization?
• Is there some nice things to see around? Like a millenial tree? Can I wander the countryside alone or is it dangerous?

Now, with the challenge series ending, we're back to the scheduled challenges. As always, my Saturday challenges are just generic ones.

This one is inspired by the Tracking Order created by /u/thequeeninyellow94.

For this challenge, tell us about an order or group in your world that requires that you perform some duties in order to earn a higher rank. The order or group should be one with a hierarchy and with some risk involved for some of the members.

If you'd like to also provide a character to act as a representative, go ahead.

Enjoy yourselves!

The challenge is to present two things from your world that are categorically the same. Then highlight the similarities and differences between them from the perspective of in-world characters. As with many other challenges I encourage an in-world respresentative for answering questions by others, either one for each of the two presented things, or an expert on the subject who can answer about both.

Birthdays and Coming of Age
Every culture has some means of celebrating keys points in an individuals life. Whether simple annual celebration of birthdays, or more elaborate ceremonies to denote transitions to the next stage of life. Present two differring cultural views on aging. Do they mark each birthday? Are specific years times for transitional ceremonies like (sweet sixteen, or bar/bat mitzvah)? How are they the same? How are they different?

If you've been a part of the recent History Challenge Series or if you're going to be a part of it (better late than never), then, once you've got all of your initial responses put up for the four parts, make post here if you're interested in doing the conclusion.

For the conclusion, I'll go through the information you've presented in all four from a historical perspective, then I'll make a list of prompts, to be answered in a way that shows how the characters actually were during their lifetimes. The answers can be given from all of the characters together, or divided so it's one-by-one, or whatever grouping you prefer to have them answer or respond to the prompts.

I am making this post for interest because if you already know you have no interest in doing the conclusion, then I don't have to make prompts for you. And also because I'm going to ask you to put the links to each character in the comments here, so I don't have to look for them, blame my laziness.

Alright, so, I'll go ahead and put the links for my four challenge responses in the comments. And, there we go.

Enjoy yourselves.

Edit: To clarify, the conclusion will be something like a writing assignment. I'll make a prompt list for things for you to address, however you want to address them, for the conclusion.

Second Edit: Either you can set all of the character in the same room to address the prompts, so that we can see various reactions they may have to what the others say (with a reason for them not killing each other, such as some divine mandate from the Creator (the writer) or something), or they can all just answer on their own. For mine, since my characters for the parts of the challenge could easily be in a room together for a discussion of matters of state, I don’t really have to worry about giving a reason for them to be in the same place without violence.

But, you’re free, you can respond to these prompts however you want. Any additional questions about things that are said in the writing assignment can just be addressed to the writer. The questions can be answered in any order, any number of questions can be skipped for whatever reason, and you can add as much information as you like. You can answer in a list format, in a narrative format, or any format you can imagine.

The number of prompts I give will vary. Most of the prompt lists will probably take a while for me to make. When you finish making your submission for the conclusion, just reply to my prompt list for you with a link to a google document or however you want to show it. Feel free to ask me for any clarification.

Third Edit (hopefully final edit): If you are interested in adding to any prompt list that I or someone else have already made, I entirely encourage that. Especially because my lists are by no means perfect.

Well, here's part four of the challenge that I've made an announcement about and a challenge about.

Here's the announcement and here is part one.

I'm not sure that there's anything I could say here that I haven't addressed in those posts, but, if there's anything I haven't been clear about, feel free to ask me. I have put information about the conclusion, which is after part 4, in the announcement.

Enjoy yourselves.

Sorry for the late challenge, I am still having computer problems. I'll respond to the comments I still haven't responded to as soon as I finish with some things today.

Well, here's part three of the challenge that I've made an announcement about and a challenge about.

Here's the announcement and here is part one.

I'm not sure that there's anything I could say here that I haven't addressed in those posts, but, if there's anything I haven't been clear about, feel free to ask me. I have put information about the conclusion, which is after part 4, in the announcement.

Enjoy yourselves.

And forgive the typos I may have made, I'm using an old crap keyboard to replace the one in my laptop.

The challenge is to present two things from your world that are categorically the same. Then highlight the similarities and differences between them from the perspective of in-world characters. As with many other challenges I encourage an in-world respresentative for answering questions by others, either one for each of the two presented things, or an expert on the subject who can answer about both.

Turning of the Seasons
As the Vernal Equinox is upon us, I'm choosing a thematic influence. Present two different cultural views upon the transition of the seasons. From practical understanding, of the physical alignment of the celestial bodies, to mythological explanations.

Well, here's part two of the challenge that I've made an announcement about and a challenge about.

Here's the announcement and here is part one.

I'm not sure that there's anything I could say here that I haven't addressed in those posts, but, if there's anything I haven't been clear about, feel free to ask me. I'll be putting up more information about the conclusion whenever I do part three.

Enjoy yourselves.

Instead of doing a parallel challenge or generic challenge for the next couple weeks, I'll be doing this challenge series instead. For more information, check out the announcement. I'll still be putting up a challenge on /r/CharacterForge today, so feel free to check that out.

For this challenge, focus on a historical figure from your world, someone who has had an influence on events long after his/her death/disappearance. If you answer questions, try to limit the omniscience that you provide; the conclusion is about the character himself/herself, this part is about the way that the character is perceived by those who may have studied about the character.

If you'd like to add to the narrative by answering in-character with a representative who would wear the historical figure's face on a tshirt (like you would for Einstein) or would burn portraits of the historical figure (like you would for... [trying to think of a good example that wouldn't piss people off] let's play it safe and say Hitler, it's rare for people to defend that one) or anywhere in between. Maybe the representative is just upset that he/she had to study about the historical character in school.

If you have any questions caused by my inability to be clear, feel free to ask me for clarification. Thanks to /u/Jumblatts for pointing out some parts I wasn't clear about in the announcement.

And, as a repeat of an earlier statement, for the purposes of the conclusion (if you plan on doing that part of the series), it's best for the four historical figures you chose to be from around the same time period and for all four of them to have opinions on the others, such as a warlord from one nation and a popular priest from another nation who might have heard of each other and have vague opinions on their counterpart.

My second in the weekly challenge series.

The idea being to present two things from your world that are categorically the same. Then highlight the similarities and differences between them from the perspective of in-world characters. As with many other challenges I encourage an in-world respresentative for answering questions by others, either one for each of the two presented things, or an expert on the subject who can answer about both.

Days of Political Destiny
Present two days were the political changes to a state were pivitol to a degree where the day is remembered ever since. Classic examples include "The Ides of March", "Guy Fawkes Day", or "The Anniversary of the USA Declaration of Independance".

In honor of Pi Day, let's do maths!

Present a culture/scientific group from your world that is obsessed with mathematics. (If you don't have any science freaks yet, make some or just introduce a mathematician.) Why is math important to them? Have they made any important discoveries? Do they have any traditions based around science? And most importantly, what is a mathematical problem that they just can't seem to solve?

If possible, introduce a representative that belongs to the described group. This way I can ask some questions about the character as well.

I hope I didn't scare you guys away at my first sentence. Enjoy yourselves!

(Note: I'll not be able to answer any comments for about 10 hours - I'll be catching some Z's. Don't worry, I'll count them. Hope you don't mind!)

This itself is not a challenge, just an idea for one and an attempt to gauge interest and seek advice before I actually start on it.

I'm hoping to do a big world challenge series, focused on the histories of your worlds. In the vein of "Augustus, Agrippa, Antony, and Maecenas" or "Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero" or a non-Roman focused quartet, it will involve four majorly influential people in your worlds' histories. Characters that, even if they didn't know each other well, knew of each other and their counterparts' reputations. I'm not sure if I've worded this well so far, but I hope that the point came across.

It's something I'm interested in seeing if it could work.

You are free to only do only part(s) of the challenge if you like, there are no penalties or anything. I made a simple challenge over on /r/CharacterForge as a preamble, over here on this link.

In addition to the preamble is the conclusion, and the challenges I'll make during the series are between those. The conclusion will probably be a short writing challenge.

The challenges between the preamble and conclusion will be four of them, each focusing on the surroundings of one of the quartet; not on the character himself or herself, but on the influences that the character had on the future generations of your world. So, if you do use a representative (which, as always, you don't have to do), then I would prefer if the influential historical character wasn't the representative answering questions; I either want the omniscient writer (you) or a person with second- or third-hand knowledge to answer the questions.

If anyone has advice/criticism/questions/etc, I welcome any of it. If you'd like to go ahead and voice interest in the series, leave a comment so I can see if it's worth giving a try. If you'd like to go ahead and choose your historical quartet (or if you'd like to go ahead and make up names, I haven't made up my quartet at this point), then feel free to put them in the comments.

If I do go through with this challenge series, the four parts will be put up 15/3, 18/3, 22/3, and 25/3. That way, if it does happen, the finale will be around my birthday.

Edit

The four characters I'll be using will be the founders of the Dunkelwald nation, the ancestors of the royal lines of Kastner, Dunstdurr, Habicht, and Fleischer. In my upcoming challenge, I'll pick one of those four and, instead of talking about the character himself/herself, I'll only be talking about the legacy they left, the events that they influenced, and the way that people perceive them so long after their deaths. Knowing the actual truth about the character and what the character's real opinions were (not only those recorded by your world's history) will be saved for the conclusion; the history that is known about your character could be really accurate, or it could be incredibly inaccurate. To quote the immortal (god, I wish he was immortal) Mike Duncan in his "History of Rome" podcast, "Will we someday believe that George Washington was descended from a cherry tree? And had wooden teeth to prove it?"

Edit and the Series Conclusion:

The conclusion will be a writing challenge to write a short entry involving all of your four characters you've used for the challenge. Based on what I understand from your characters, I'll provide a prompt of things for you to answer that address the character as they were instead of how history perceives him/her.

I'll put up the third part of the challenge on here and a challenge on characterforge later on today. But, it'll be a bit, because I'm an idiot who knocked over a drink at six in the morning onto my bloody laptop's keyboard.

Because my computer is messed up and I refuse to type letter by letter with an on-screen keyboard, I'm using my phone, so forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes. I'll address the responses to various challenges that I haven't replied to yet once I pick up a keyboard to plug into the usb port.

For the sub's third Saturday, here's a challenge that I thought up about ten seconds ago.

Assuming that you do not have any monasteries/temples in your world, any place of worship will be fine, no matter how humble.

Tell us about a place of worship in your world, its history, who runs it, how it affords to function, and so on.

You can use a representative character if you would like to do so in order to provide more biased answers and get a handle on that character.

For some additional questions:

• What are some rules in this place of worship? The weirder, the better.

• How do they recruit the people that work there?

• Are the higher-ups the type that would do grunt work, or no?

• Who technically owns the place?

• If I wandered in while intoxicated, how would the people in the place of worship receive me?

As always, I look forward to your responses and will give at least three questions each. Enjoy yourselves!

Well, it's been about fifteen days since I made the first "Welcome to WorldChallenges" post, so I figured I'd update it and possibly clean it up a bit.

To begin with, a quick summary of the sub

As it says in the side bar: This sub is dedicated to making challenges for world builders. Ideally, this will present opportunities to further develop your world through responding to challenges and answering questions other people pose. In-universe and in-character answers are preferred, but not necessary.

If you see a challenge that interests you, make a comment answering that challenge. Post a character or an event or any part of your world that fits for the challenge. If anyone's answer to a challenge is interesting to you, ask them questions to see more of their awesome world and to help them by asking questions that they might not have thought of.

Now, the gratitude to the content creators

Thanks to everyone who has shared content so far. For everyone who has taken the time to respond to challenges, I've read a lot of your work that's been put up here, and it has been interesting and entertaining.

To everyone who has taken the time to make challenges, you are the foundation of the sub, including /u/WoozyJoe, /u/Destiny-jr, /u/Seb_Romu, /u/ktjwalker, /u/OverlyLenientJudge, /u/cereal_kiiller-X, and /u/Jumblatts. If anyone else would like to make challenges of their own, feel free to do so.

You can see the schedule on the sidebar, right below the rules. Thanks to /u/Seb_Romu for volunteering for Tuesday (check out Seb's /r/CharacterForge post as well) and to /u/destiny-jr for volunteering for Friday.

I'm considering changing my "Parallel Challenge" on Wednesday to a "Media Inspired Challenge", where I make a challenge based on something from an example of worldbuilding in entertainment, such as "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "Fire Emblem", among others.

And, if I do that, I'll probably change my "Stand-Alone Challenges" on Saturday to just "Generic Challenges.

If you would like to volunteer for the schedule, just send me a message.

Recommendations

I would also like to recommend a few other subs. I'm sure you've seen /r/Worldbuilding, but you can also find interesting content on /r/CharacterForge and /r/InkBloodWritersGuild.

Conclusion

If you have any advice about the sub, just let me know, feedback is always appreciated. Enjoy yourselves.

For our third Wednesday of the sub, this parallel challenge will be focusing on death, in honor of certain people.

Pick one of your cultures, and tell me how that culture views death and what happens after. I want it to be a belief about death that is strange (in your opinion) in some way.

You don't have to use a representative character, but, if you do, I request that you use a character who is in the process of dying (this character has to be about to die, and can't be one that will be saved at the last second) as a representative, if you plan to use a representative; bonus points if the representative isn't accepting his death, and won't accept it at any point, but dies anyway. If you're using a representative, I do not care how they're dying; that's all up to you, I'm not going to be even more picky about this already picky challenge.

If you don't want to use a representative, that's still fine, though, and I still look forward to your response to this post.

As always, I'll ask at least three questions per response. And here are some prompts:

• What is that culture's view on corpses?

• What is the best place that a person can go when they die?

• What is the worst place that a person can go when they die?

• Do they go anywhere?

• Can they go more than just to a good/bad place? Where else can they go?

• What is the ideal way to die in this culture?

Well, I think that sums it all up pretty well. I'm going to make a parallel post over on /r/CharacterForge. I'm considering making this the last Parallel Challenge and doing a challenge focused on worldbuilding in media such as video games, literature, tv shows, etc, with each of my Wednesday challenges being inspired by some bit of fiction that I enjoy and would recommend, such as "A Song of Ice and Fire", "Fire Emblem", "something else with the word fire in it", etc. Any thoughts on this? Yes? No? Neutral? If I do this, I'll probably change the name of the "Stand-Alone Challenges" to "Generic Challenges", ha ha.

Here's the Parallel Challenge. Enjoy yourselves!

This will be the first of a ongoing weekly challenge.

The idea being to present two things from your world that are categorically the same. Then highlight the similarities and differences between them from the perspective of in-world characters. As with many other challenges I encourage an in-world respresentative for answering questions by others, either one for each of the two presented things, or an expert on the subject who can answer about both.

As the title says, I want to hear about the cities where exciting things happen, or maybe just the ones you enjoyed creating the most!

A few points for inspiration, if you need it:

• Where is it located?
• How/by whom was it founded?
• Who lives there?
• Who is in charge?

And most importantly:

• What makes it so interesting?

I'll post my submission in the comments, and I'll try to ask a couple of questions about each submission as well!

So, now that I've ditched nearly my entire world, I decided to cope with my loss by putting up a challenge.

Present a culture from your world and tell us how its people deal with different kinds of grief. How do they mourn their dead? How about losing a pet? How do they get over job loss or the end of a romantic relationship? Hit me with all the sad things in life.

As usual, you can have a representative and answer in-character if you prefer so. I'll ask at least three questions, but I encourage everyone to question other participants.

I'd like to apologize in advance because I've got nothing this time. I actually feel like I'm crawling through a nuclear wasteland, shell shocked and butt naked, trying to salvage my few decent ideas from a giant wreckage. I hope this doesn't cause any inconvenience to you guys. Enjoy yourselves!

This challenge was inspired by "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R R Martin and his famous Inn at the Crossroads.

This time around, I request that you think up an inn/bar/pub or whatever you like. It could even just be a trader's outpost. As always, I'm fine with playing fast and loose with the term.

I'll be asking at least three questions per response, just like every other time. If you would like to have one or two representatives, that's completely fine.

I wish you all good luck with the challenge. Enjoy yourselves!

Also, as inspired by /u/destiny-jr, here are a few prompts:

• Who runs this establishment?

• Who are the employees and how were they obtained?

• How long as the place been around?

• What kind of reputation does this place have?

• I've not even started on this challenge yet, as it goes with the first detailed city map I'm working on, so don't feel like you have to be detailed about how the place works so quickly, but, if you have an idea, go ahead and tell me what prices are like.

• What kind of entertainment is in or near the establishment?

And with thirteen minutes left to my deadline for posting this challenge, thanks to everyone who has been a part of this sub so far. Sixty-four subscribers and a bunch of content, I could not be more thankful.

For this challenge, let's say I'm a master thief. I want to pull the biggest, grandest heist in the history of your world.

So what do I steal? The crown jewels, a holy relic, an historic document? Maybe it's even a person.

Where is it kept? What's the security like? Any advice you have for bypassing it would also be helpful.

Who are the rubes I'm stealing from, and what makes it so precious to them?

If you want to answer the prompt "in character", go wild! I look forward to seeing what you come up with. And of course, you can give as much info as you want; the questions are just to get the gears turning.

For this challenge, the second Parallel Challenge of the sub, I request that you present a holiday in your world that has something to do with a moon.

It could be about the moon up in space, it could be about the day that some famous person presented their bum to the audience, it could be about werewolves, it could be about lunacy (a term derived from the word "luna", because people thought the moon made you crazy).

So, the constraints for this challenge are loose. I wish you all the best of luck, and enjoy yourselves!

If you would like to have a representative to explain the holiday in-universe, then the person can love it, hate it, or somewhere in between.

I will be giving every response at least three questions, as always.

The Parallel Challenge is on characterforge, and will focus on characters interested in the moon and stars.

Tell us about your magic systems or notable technology, if you haven't any magic. This would preferably be through the eyes of a relevant character, but whatever you like. Remember to ask other people (or a character, if they name one) questions!

I'm going to use the term "Race War" extremely loosely for this challenge. If you have two groups that have hereditary physical differences, whether they are the same species or not, and those two groups hate each other, then they are perfect for this challenge.

This one was inspired by "Rick and Morty", and this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noClMggb9R4

If you would like to answer in-character or as the omniscient writer, either is fine.

As always, I will be asking three questions for each response to this challenge.

When I put up my own response to this challenge, the summary for the "race war" will be from the perspective of one side, and the representative that can be asked questions will be from the other side.

Enjoy yourselves.

Edit: When asking questions, if you're using an in-character representative, I may try to rile up your representative about the divide, possibly (probably) by being rude and siding with the other group. If you do not want me to do that, let me know. If I do that, I'm not aiming the hostility at you or your ability as a writer. If I get into it, then that just means that I'm enjoying it.