WP It is very rare for a mortal to be immune to being driven insane by eldritch horrors. Due to this scarcity, eldritch beings use immune mortals a a form of currency (similar to how the scarcity of gold has led to it being used as a currency in our world)



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SPUnlike movie aliens, the real aliens landed their spaceships in every country except the USA



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WP For centuries Vampires skulked in the shadows, only hunting their prey at night but everything changed when they learned that they can just use sunscreen. Nothing was ever the same again. Not even daylight can protect us now



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WP "What are your powers again?" "I can fly." "And?" "Excuse me?" "A lot of people can fly, but they also are superstrong, or highly durable, or very fast, or can manipulate some kind of energy, or do magic, or..." "Well, there are also a lot of people who can't fly, you included, so screw you."



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EU After failing to become a successful singer due to everyone falling asleep, Jigglypuff discovers that she can be useful for people who want to try to get to sleep, so she begins her own ASMR/Relaxing Music channel.



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WP On a small colonial planet at the edge of the system, a young mechanic is awoken one night by a brilliant flash. A few minutes later, they hear a pounding on the shop door and a voice they don't recognize shouting their name.



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WP You used to be a superhero, but when civilians and even the police stopped even trying to save anyone, completely relying on you to save them, you left. The situation deteriorated very quickly, but you resolved that you would not return, no matter how bad it gets.



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WP A genie, much to his dismay, is summoned by a lawyer.



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WP The young mages were puzzled as a barbarian brandishing a sentient weapon entered the lecture hall. “Good morning, class. I’m Professor Skallathrax and this is Professor Soul Scourge. Welcome to the Body Magic course, where physical strength is just as important as arcane knowledge. Questions?”



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WP "You are a deserter who fled your duty to the Empire. I must capture you and bring you to trial." "The fact that you have to do that was one of the reasons I left. I know you need to fulfill your role, but, unfortunately, you'll be too dead to do so."



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WP Your favorite game has a boss that adapts the longer the fight is. Either you beat it fast or it turns into something that counters your skills and gear. After becoming OP you return to fight it again but are too strong even after it goes through all stages, leading to interesting results.



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WPThe heiress of a noble house awakened an ancient powerfull bloodline within herself. She would have made good use of it to help her house, protect her land and people and secure a good marriage , if she weren't turning into a demoness.



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PI Ever since you were a child, your grandmother taught you one rule: never let a ghost know you can see it, or it will devour you. She was your only comfort. Today, at her funeral, you saw a ghost beside her coffin wearing her face.

The Funeral of Granny Robbin 

The smell of perfumed oil and burning incense filled the woods as Trisstessa anointed Granny Robbin’s remains. All had been arranged exactly in accordance with the Grandmother of the Coven’s wishes. Granny Robbin’s body lay in repose in a nook between the roots of the Grand Willow Tree. She lay wrapped in her favorite shawl, the one of midnight black, woven from star silk. Thin rays of moonlight slipped between the boughs of the willow tree overhead illuminating where the old woman lay. Her shawl shimmered like a sky full of stars under the moon’s beams. 

Trisstessa knuckles whitened around her grip on the amphora. She couldn’t believe that spiteful old woman. That shawl alone was a work of art with a history to rival any king’s crown. Nobody in the coven held a greater appreciation for it than Trisstessa did. Nobody else had spent as much time scrolling through it as she did, not even Granny, and she bloody made the thing. Which is why when Granny - on her death bed because of course she had to kick the hornet’s nest one last time on her way out - had requested that Trisstessa be the one to burn it along with her remains well to put it mildly, Trisstessa was a touch irked.   

“Even when she’s dead she can’t help but try and teach me lessons. What’s the lesson this time you leathery old bag of bones? Don’t get attached to material things? I’m pretty sure you hammered that one into me when I was fourteen!”

Grumbling under her breath she proceeded to pour the oils all around the roots of the tree, all the while a voice which she made careful effort to pretend was not there made commentary.

“Even distribution all around girl. And be generous with the oil. I want a nice clean burn. I want the flames to burn so clean that you can use the leftover char for a pit roast after.”

Trisstessa pretended not to hear her. Granny Robbin’s rules were clear, do not engage with the spirits of the dead unless absolutely necessary. Regardless of the situation that rule had not changed. Engaging with the dead meant inviting them to interact with you. And unless one had the proper protections in place beforehand, interacting with beings of pure spirit left a person’s soul vulnerable to tampering by entities with malicious intent. Not that the voice she was ignoring had any malicious intent towards her, quite the opposite really. 

However, when the living interacted with the dead it also gave the dead a tether to the living world making it that much harder for the deceased to move on. Which is why she knew, that no matter how bad it hurt, no matter how hard she was fighting to hold in tears, no matter how desperately she wanted to see Granny’s sly all knowing smirk just one last time, she could not, she would not, under any circumstances look back.

Finishing her round about the base of the tree she set the empty oil jar aside and grabbed another one. This one she took to where her mentor lay. She gazed down at her again. Down at the corpse of the woman to whom she owed a debt she could never possibly repay. She seemed so peaceful. Her kind grandmotherly face could have been taking a nap. It didn’t look like a face that belonged to a cantankerous old lady who found her amusements by by pushing people’s buttons and scaring little children. Instead it looked like a face that belonged to the kindest, wisest person that Trisstessa ever knew. 

She kneeled next to Granny’s body and idly brushed a stray lock of Granny’s hair from her face. Her hair was dull and grey now but Trisstessa remembered how it used to glow ghostly white in the light of the full moon. That one sawan festival where she ambushed those children in the woods, she didn’t even need to wear a disguise. Her own naturally warty face and wild glowing white hair was enough to make her seem every bit a witch out

of a children’s fairy tale, ready to reach out and stuff naughty children into her cooking pot. Dominia thought it was poor sport and complained that it reinforced negative stereotypes about witches.

“She still doesn’t know that every time you pulled one of those pranks, the children would always find sweeties somehow magyked into their pockets. And I’m willing to bet they never went wandering alone in the woods after dark ever again either.”

“You know if you wanted to have one last conversation before sending me off, you don’t have to use my leftover meat as a proxy. The bits of me that actually matter are still here.”

“To commune with the dead. Is to wake up from the dream of life. Do it too much, and you might have trouble falling asleep again.” 

“So you were listening. Well glad to know something I said actually stuck in that stubborn head of yours after all these years.” Granny Robin’s ghost knelt down opposite Trisstessa on the other side of her body. 

Trisstessa didn’t look at her, nor do anything to otherwise acknowledge she was there. Even if there wasn’t any real danger she knew Granny was testing her. Trying to see if she truly could hold it together and keep to the rules even in situations like this. Still she couldn’t help but imagine. Granny’s ghost was probably peering down at her own corpse now with that same expression of detached curiosity Granny always had whenever encountering something morbid. The way a forager might look at a curious mushroom, she looked at dead bodies. 

 nose in a contemplative gesture that Trisstessa knew all too well. 

“You know I had more than a few nights towards the end spent lamenting my lost youth. But I have to admit, after three-hundred years, nine husbands, and thirty-seven children, I came out looking pretty good at the end. Wouldn’t you say?”

Trisstessa ignored her as she began pouring the oil over her mentor’s body. Why was Granny Robbin doing this? She knew she could not speak to her. Was she baiting her? Testing to see if she would break under circumstances that she knew had to be harrowing for her.



Tristessa paused. It was rare for Granny Robbin to apologize. Mainly because she rarely ever felt she had done anything she needed to apologize for. But the few times she had apologized, it always mattered. 

Gingerly Trisstessa answered, “No one ever wanted you to step aside. We just wanted you to trust us more. And for you to not treat us like little girls who don’t know one end of the broomstick from another.” 

“That’s not on me. Maintaining your backbone is your responsibility. My responsibility as your mentor was to teach you so you don’t blow yourselves up or get swindled by devils into buying a timeshare.”

Trisstessa blushed, “that happened when I was young and I got the time that devil stole from me back on my own thank you very much.”

“Cak, cak, cak, cak, cak!” There it was, that nail tapping on a chalkboard sound that could only pass for laughter under the most charitable circumstances. Otherwise known as, a cackle. “If it makes you feel any better lass. My third husband fell for that scam three times, and to the same devil too.”

“Hapscratch?” Trisstessa asked.

“Hapscratch,” Granny Robin confirmed.

“One of these days we have to do something about him. He causes too much mischief left to his own devices.” 

“The only way to deal with him that actually works that I’ve ever known is to keep him occupied with work. But that gets expensive cause as you know…”

“Be he king or beggar, the smiling devil never works for free,” Trisstessa finished.

“A lesson my third husband learned the hard way,” Granny Robbin added.

Trisstessa nodded before continuing with preparations for the pyre. She went around the surrounding woods gathering dry branches, leaves and other easy sources of tinder while the ghost of Granny Robbin looked on.

“Speaking of husbands, you should wrangle one for yourself soon too. Oh, I do so wish I had had more time to find you a suitable mate. I swear, with that ridiculous list of requirements you gave me it’s almost like you were

trying to make sure I couldn’t find you a match.” 

Trisstessa let the ghost ramble on. Of course she had given Granny Robbin that absurd list of requirements to ensure that she would never succeed. Trisstessa knew that Granny Robbin knew. Granny Robbin knew that Tristessa knew that she knows. And Trisstessa knew all this for a fact because she and Granny Robbin had never needed to actually talk about it. So why was the ghost bringing it up now?

Trisstessa paused at that, turning away from the ghost to hide her blush. The truth was that was exactly what she had intended in giving Granny Robbin that long list of ridiculous requirements to find her a man. Matchmaking was one of Granny’s hobbies. She paired young witches with men from powerful bloodlines like a horsebreeder seeking studs for her prized fillies. Granted, the coven owed its current strength directly to Granny’s meddling but still. She was the court magus to Emperor Adonai Vermillion himself. Not some broodmare to be paired off with some random man that had a title and halfway decent lineage.  

“Actually, I did have one idea I never got a chance to pitch you. Considering how particular you are when it comes to your preferences in men, perhaps it would be best if you went and snagged someone younger than yourself. Now now, before you get all up in arms with me about cradle robbing, remember you wanted a man who was both well read and good with a sword. Most men as they get older tend to gravitate towards one or the other. Your best bet is to find someone young and impressionable enough that you can mold them to your exact specifications. That’s the only way I see you ticking off every box on list of yours. Hmm, that outworlder boy you’ve taken in might be a good candidate, what was his name, Kevin, Bevin?”

Trisstessa’s eyes widened as she turned to face her, “how do you know about Evan?” she said before she realized what she’d done.

The ghost of Granny Robbin just stared at her with a smug grin across her transparent spectral face, ghostly arms folded in triumph. 

Horror spread across Trisstessa’s face as the realization of her mistake hit her. Then Granny’s spirt sighed and came over to pat her on the shoulder as she had done so many times in her life. Her touch had no physical substance, but her presence was felt all the same.

“Oh buck up girl. I was ready to cack it three decades ago. Between the arthritis and the fact that I could no longer enjoy cheese I was praying for the sweet release of death. If it wasn’t for you girls constantly getting into trouble and me needing to clean up your messes I’d have given up the ghost ages ago.”

Trisstessa looked at her. Still unsure.

Granny Robbin sighed, “all that to say, I’m ready to go Triss. I’m not going to get tethered just because you and I had one final chat before my send off.” 

“You were always so strict about the no talking to ghosts rule though,” Trisstessa muttered.

“Yes because you were a little girl who didn’t know the first thing about warding. Speaking off which.” She raised a ghostly hand up near Trisstessa’s face, before she was even in grabbing distance her hand stopped short as if blocked by an invisible wall. She nodded approvingly then wrapped her spectral knuckles against the invisible wall for good measure. “Yup that’s a solid ward alright. Let me guess, triple braid talisman?”

“Quadruple braid actually,” Trisstessa corrected as she reached into her robes. She pulled out what appeared to be a braided length of snowy grey hair with various charms and colorful stones woven throughout. 

“Now that’s just excessive. Three braids is more than enough to keep away any kind of spook your likely to run into. Anything that can break through that isn’t going to be stopped by a talisman no matter how many braids you…hang on a minute,” she squints, “is that made of my hair?”

Trisstessa shrugged, “you don’t need it anymore.” 

“The gibblets on this one, looting an old woman’s corpse for crafting materials. Have you no shame?” she said with mock indignation.

“Hey, you’re the one who taught us

never to waste resources.” 

She huffed, “well as long as it was for strictly practical reasons I suppose I could let it slide. But don’t get any woolheaded ideas about making mementos to remember me by. I hate mushy horse dung like that.” 

“Please, who would ever want to remember a nasty foul tempered old biddy like you?”

“Exactly. Best for all parties involved if you just light my pyre and let the wind handle my ashes.”

“Patience you old hag. We’re still waiting on the rest of the sisterhood.”

“Hmph,” Granny’s ghost crossed her arms. “Those girls better not cry. I’ve spent too many years teaching them how to toughen up to watch them mewl like kittens.”

Trisstessa for her part just stood there and took in the sight of the great willow tree, Granny’s tree. That wasn’t the official name of course. Granny refused to allow the coven to give the tree an official name. Still this tree had served as the coven’s meeting place for three centuries. It couldn’t go on that long without being called something. 

When the coven first started calling it Granny’s tree no one could say for sure, but everyone who knew the story knew there was no more fitting a name for so grand a testament to nature as this. As tall as ten men, with a trunk as thick as a house and roots as deep as the mountains, the ancient willow had once been a beacon of life that attracted witches from across the land. Every year on the spring equinox the coven gathered beneath its vines to perform the ritual of welcome, and then would gather again on the winter solstice to perform the rite of parting. The tree loved when the sisters came to visit, once Trisstessa had even seen it shake its branches to dance because it was so happy. 

The smile that came to her face at the memory faded as she was reminded of the reality. Looking now at the dry vines, the dead brown leaves, and grayed out bark that chipped off like tinder at her touch, she understood that she would never see the tree dance again.

“Do we really have to burn the tree too?” Trisstessa asked.
“It’s dead girl. As dead as me. Leaving its corpse to take up space doesn’t do any good for anyone, and besides…” Granny’s ghost directed her gaze up at the dead tree’s branches. “I’d say this fellows up there have done their penance at this point wouldn’t you?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\>“Only the living have the capacity to grow and learn. The dead remain who they always were.”

As the tree burned, so too did the vines binding the spirits of the long dead men. From the highest branch, the old high inquisitor fell. There was no thud when he landed of course, one generally needed an actual body to do things like thud. Still the spirit of old man, dead near three centuries still reacted as if he could feel the ground beneath him. He pushed himself up to his knees. Tristessa could see the red and purple bruise on his neck where the vine had fit snug around his neck for three hundred years. He looked down at his hands. They burned as the tree did, sallow ghostly skin lighting up like centuries old dry parchment. He looked up at her, and for a brief moment there was clarity in his eyes. Clarity and horror as he took in the sight of hundreds of witches, gathered from all corners of the world here to honor the greatest of them who ever lived. Trisstessa could see it in his eye when the realization hit. The hardest truth that the dead always found most difficult to accept. This man had spent the entirety of his short miserable life persecuting women who would not kneel to him. Trying to control subjugate all who didn’t fit in the narrow little box that passed for his pitiful worldview. All the while smug in the fact that he was doing his lord’s work, making the world a pure place for his god. Well, his certainty amounted to little more than a noose of vines around his neck in the end. There was no one alive today who even remembered the name of souls be damned religion. And the coven he tried so hard to stamp out by burning those women at the

steak, they were still standing. Stronger than ever. All thanks to one little girl who escaped by listening to the songs of the robbins.

She wanted to sneer at him. To kick him. Curse him one last time before the fire burned his spirit to oblivion. But she looked at him again, and paused. He seemed, so…defeated. Without exchanging a single word he understood. As more and more sisters filed into the clearing the realization hit him all at once and he began to weep as he realized his life’s work had been for nothing.

It wasn’t right. He didn’t sympathy just because he was sad at not having managed stomp every one her kind out. Even so, his spirit had already spent 300 years hanging from that tree, unable to either repent or move on. At the last she sighed, then taking the censer in hand she waived it over the spirit of the sad old man.

“Your penance is served. Be at peace.” 

“Who…who are you?”

“We…” she breathed, “are the daughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.” 

===+===

Prompt Link

Hi all, so I’m trying this thing out where I take inspiration from writing prompts to create vignettes and short stories of events that happen in the setting of my novel Shape of a Soul. I thought it would be a good way to help flesh my worldbuilding world out more and explore aspects of my setting I hadn’t considered before. This was really fun to write, compliments to u/AzrynnAshborn for such an interesting prompt. I strayed pretty far from what the original concept was for the prompt but hopefully you’ll like the direction I went with it. 



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WP "Humans think Lizardmen are monsters?" "You burn down poor villages and kidnap the children!" "Village let young be hungry and dirty. Village deserve death. We care for young." "They're not poor on purpose! The king overtaxes them!" "...What?"



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WP My friend Riley is obsessed with the Legend of the Castle, where the villagers slowly realized its lone resident never seemed to age. He invited me to spend the winter there. As for me, I'm just a bored tax officer. He doesn't know I change identities every few decades. I am the legend.



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WP You’re one of the impossibly few people in your world born without access to magic. You can’t use it, but it also means it can’t affect you. And since nearly all security measures in this world are magic-based, you’re uniquely equipped to become the greatest thief the world has ever seen.



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