Yes, Spooktober is here, and this year we’ve got a roster of spooktacular prompts to inspire your writing, worldbuilding and art! And even better, you can win a ghostly (and much coveted) World Anvil badge for your profile too!

What is Spooktober?

Spooktober is a creative writing and art challenge that runs in October each year! Creators of all kinds are inspired by a collection of Halloween-themed prompts to create art, poems, prose and more, and share them on social media with the hashtag #Spooktober. Our Spooktober challenge will get you in the spooky spirit of Halloween, and inspire you to create! So, here’s our list of Spooktober writing prompts!

Spooktober 2021 Flash Challenge on World Anvil, image contains writing prompts

There are no rules to this challenge beyond having fun! Of course, you can approach the prompts in any order, and complete as many or as few as you like!

If you want to claim your Spooktober badge, make sure you submit your entries as World Anvil URLs in the comments!

For those using screen readers, here are those prompts again in text format:

1 moon 2 hunt 3 blood 4 mist 5 hollow 6 glow 7 grave 8 stone 9 ice 10 rune 11 bone 12 rot 13 wild 14 ghast 15 fang 16 dance 17 shiver 18 harvest 19 crimson 20 scent 21 dust 22 flame 23 spore 24 dark 25 heart 26 shiver 27 blade 28 ruin 29 claw 30 shadow

Worldbuilding template

World Anvil’s Worldbuilding Templates are designed to inspire, and filled with prompts to help you create! 

What should I create for the Spooktober challenge?

First off, you can create in any media you like – art, poetry, prose, worldbuilding, flash fiction or anything else. And you can even create mixed media, or write poetry one day and illustrate the next! You can also create any genre you like (even if your genre isn’t spooky, per say). The heart of this challenge is inspiration and encouragement, so make those words work for you!

If you’re totally stuck for where to start, why not pick a word, open a worldbuilding template and just start writing? The prompts in the templates will help you keep building out that nugget of inspiration into something terrifyingly wonderful!

How do I claim the World Anvil badge?

Anyone who takes part in Spooktober on World Anvil can get a digital badge! Just share the World Anvil URLs of your Spooktober-inspired work in the comments of this blog during October 2021, and once October is over, we’ll get your badge delivered to your profile! You don’t need to complete all the prompts to get a badge – even submitting one is enough!

And if you want to share on social media? Well, make sure you use the hashtag #Spooktober and mention us @worldanvil, and we’ll share our favourites via the official World Anvil social media accounts!

Looking for some spooky World Anvil themes? Check out our Eldritch Horror world-building theme! Or why not check out award-winning writer Chris Lockey’s tips for how to create dark worlds and campaigns

Spooktober 2021 Challenge image with World Anvil, containing writing prompts

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