Prompt Decks For Lore Ideas

Lore prompt decks are collections of cards designed to help you develop the deeper structure of your story or world. Whether you’re writing a short story or running a D&D campaign, they provide creative cues to inspire lore ideas, character development, worldbuilding, and plot threads.

Unlike typical writing prompts, these cards focus on how different parts of your world and characters connect to one another—building a web of relationships, history, and meaning that keeps readers or players engaged.

They’re made for anyone who tells stories—but especially for:

• Writers who want to build richer backstories, layered cultures, and emotionally resonant story arcs
• Dungeon Masters who need fast, flexible DnD resources to design sessions, develop lore, or keep players on their toes

If you’re a creative person who likes to build worlds, explore characters, and uncover themes, this is for you.

Each card contains a prompt or cue. Just draw a few at random, rotate or combine them, and use the results to inspire your worlds, scene, character, or event.

You can use the decks:

• During worldbuilding or outlining
• As part of your prep for a game session or writing session
• On-the-fly at the table or while freewriting
• To solve a specific problem (e.g. “Why is this character afraid of commitment?”)

Whether you’re alone with your notebook or surrounded by players at the table, these prompts give you momentum. Watch the video demo to learn more.

Our core decks are system-neutral and genre-flexible, meaning you can use them with any RPG system or story genre, but Lore Master's Deck works especially well for fantasy and science fiction.

Writers use the cards to brainstorm characters, factions, world timelines, locations, objects of power, physical materials, and interesting creatures. It’s like having a creative partner that never runs out of ideas—whether you’re outlining your next novel or trying to fill in the gaps in your worldbuilding notebook.

Dungeon Masters love the deck for its versatility in session prep and live improvisation. Use it to generate NPCs with meaningful backstories, plot twists that feel earned, factions with real motivations, homebrew items with unique powers, or monsters with traits your players have never seen before. These are some of the most adaptable Dungeon Master resources available—perfect for new GMs or veterans who want to shake things up.

Yes! Every deck and expansion is available as a printable PDF. They’re formatted for home printing and designed to be printer-friendly without sacrificing design.

You can access them instantly, making them perfect for remote use, digital storytelling sessions, or writing retreats.

Absolutely. These cards are built for it.

If you’re stuck, just draw a card and let it inspire a new scene, detail, or twist. Shuffle the deck, draw a few prompts, and let your imagination follow.

It’s perfect for brainstorming during a break or easing back into a project after a few days away.

Whether you’re exploring a lost planet, rewriting a scene with more emotional weight, or starting something new with a blank page and zero ideas, this deck gives you a clear next move.

They’re especially helpful if you’ve been staring at a blank page too long or if your plot has hit a wall. Use a prompt as the first sentence of a new scene, a world detail, a subplot idea, or even a flashback that reveals hidden truths. They're the creative reset button every storyteller needs.

Nope! The Lore Master’s Deck and its expansions work beautifully on their own. If you want to layer in even more worldbuilding and story cohesion, the Bridge Expansions are available to connect all three systems—but they’re totally optional.

Yes, and so much more.

You can absolutely use it as a DnD lore generator to create timelines, mythologies, important places, or magical systems. But unlike random name generators or tables of data, these decks invite you to think narratively. They help you discover the why behind your world's details.

Each prompt is designed to spark creativity, not just fill in blanks. You can remix cards to suit any genre or setting—making it just as useful for a futuristic cyber-society as a traditional fantasy world. It’s an endlessly re-playable, story-first way to design deeper lore.

Unlike AI tools or name generators that give you random results, this deck puts you in full creative control. You still get the element of surprise, but it’s your interpretation that makes each prompt powerful.

These cards generate more than just facts—they help you uncover narrative connections between people, places, and ideas. They invite exploration, not just input/output. And they work with any genre or system, not just D&D.

Think of them as a physical DnD lore generator that lets you shuffle your world into shape—with meaning behind every detail.

Absolutely! These decks are ideal for building backstory for DnD characters, fiction protagonists, or even entire civilizations.

They help answer key backstory questions like:

• What happened to this character ten years ago?
• What was life like on their home planet, or in their childhood town?
• What’s their relationship with their family, friends, or a missing loved one?
• What secret from their past shapes who they are now?

Use them to spark empathy, complexity, and motivation in every character you create.

Backstory prompts are creative cues that help you develop rich personal histories for your characters. Whether you're building a backstory for a DnD character or writing about your character's history with loss, these prompts give you the depth that makes characters unforgettable.

Think of the Figure cards in Lore Master's Deck as a backstory ideas generator—a tool to help you answer core backstory questions like: What motivates this character? What are they afraid of? What secret are they keeping?

The bundles give you the best value and the broadest creative toolkit. Some include just the Lore Master’s Deck and its expansions; others combine it with The Story Engine and Deck of Worlds for a full system of prompt-based storytelling.

The All-Lore and All-Trilogy bundles include hundreds of cards, expansions, and accessories—ideal for creators who want everything at their fingertips or for those buying a thoughtful, high-value gift.

Lore Master's Deck helps you quickly build the rich foundations your short story needs—factions, key events, important locations, legendary objects, and mythologies. As you develop your world’s deeper lore, you'll naturally uncover story ideas and character arcs rooted in a vivid setting. You can also use the Figure cards to spark character backstory ideas, but the deck’s true strength lies in helping you create a layered, interconnected world that gives every short story a sense of history, culture, and meaning.

These prompts are perfect for exploring emotional and thematic layers like family ties, complicated friendships, or relationships strained by time, power, or legacy. Whether you're writing about a family torn apart by war, two people caught in a forbidden relationship, or a society built on strange beliefs, these cards give you the narrative momentum to go deeper.