The Story Engine Deck
Horror Story Prompts Expansion
Horror Story Prompts Expansion
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For Writers and Game Masters Alike
Whether crafting a terrifying short story, outlining a horror genre novel, or building a creepy campaign setting, the Horror Writing Prompts Expansion gives you a rich, unsettling foundation, filled with scary story ideas. Designed for fiction writers and tabletop RPG storytellers, this 60-card deck unlocks 100,000+ horror story prompts for your writing journey and your world-building prowess.
Writers love using the spooky writing prompts to beat writer’s block and explore new horror themes. Game Masters use it to create psychological horror arcs, haunted house mysteries, and twisted one-shots that keep players on edge.
With each draw, you'll discover a strange location, a disturbing character, or a cursed object that begs for a backstory—or a body count.
Horror Story Writing Prompts to Spark Chilling Ideas
Raise the dead, reveal dark secrets, or summon ancient evil. Written in Ash and Bone is a 60-card expansion for The Story Engine Deck that helps you write or roleplay your next terrifying tale.
This deck includes:
- 12 Agents (creepy characters)
- 12 Engines (motivations or goals)
- 12 Anchors (objects or settings)
- 12 Conflicts (obstacles or dangers)
- 12 Aspects (descriptions or details)
- Guide booklet with storytelling techniques
Create your own scary story prompts by combining all five card types!
Each five-card draw can generate 100,000+ possible prompts
Creepy story prompts like: A butcher hears whispers from the meat locker after midnight, but only on the days that he gets deliveries from a certain pork farm.
Dark writing horror story prompts such as: A firefighter discovers something horrifying in a burning mansion and decides to let it burn to the ground—but now the image haunts them.
Horror story ideas with a twist: A group of friends camping in the woods wakes to find their memories of each other erased.
How to start a creepy story with this deck
The best horror stories begin in the familiar and slowly twist into dread. Learn more!
The best horror stories begin in the familiar and slowly twist into dread. Use the five card types to assemble elements for your story and look for ways to slowly introduce the horror:
- A young fiancee wakes in her new house. It's her dream home. Until the same nightmare about a terrible contagion begins every night and she wakes up with strange marks around her wrists.
- A lab assistant finds a decaying notebook in a hiding place behind an old monkey cage. The entries start clinical, then spiral into madness. Now he can't stop thinking about finishing the experiment.
- A man signs for a package she doesn’t remember ordering. Inside is a children's toy from an unsolved abduction case 20 years ago, along with a hand-written challenge from the culprit.
You can randomly generate your next horror story prompt using 5 cards, then build a complete story, session, or scene from there.
Why writers love It
- Endless ideas for dark fiction.
- No more staring at a blank page. Use this deck to inspire short stories, novels, or creepy writing exercises.
- Explore your fears through fiction.
- Create rich stories about psychological horror, dead people, and supernatural forces.
- Make every writing session fun.
- Pull a few cards and you’ve got the seed of a story that sends shivers down your spine.
Why Game Masters Use It
- Prep for sessions fast.
- Need a twist for your next horror one-shot? Just draw and go.
- Keep players on edge.
- Build tension with every prompt—from a haunted music box to a cottage no one remembers arriving at.
- Build creepy D&D campaigns.
Combine this deck with The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds to create a full horror setting with people, places, and cursed history.
What deck users are saying
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"...built to fuel the creative fire within Dungeon Masters, writers and teachers"
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Forbes Magazine
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"I've found this to be very useful while writing."
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Jamie McKelvie, creator of The Wicked + The Divine
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"I use them for plotting and love them."
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Aliette de Bodard, Nebula Award-winning author
Explore Chilling Themes and Terrifying Tropes
Learn more about what the expansion does
These horror writing prompts span the full spectrum of the genre, from the supernatural to the psychological, from gothic tension to dystopian nightmares.
Each draw can help you:
- Develop characters like a historian obsessed with a cursed artifact, a ghosthunter chasing her own death, or a serial killer living a “normal” life.
- Choose eerie settings: an abandoned funhouse, a forgotten graveyard, a bloodstained barn, a suburban home with a locked basement.
- Introduce cursed objects like a porcelain doll that cries at night, a rocking chair that moves on its own, or a keyhole that shows another world.
Whether you're writing a horror novel, designing a haunted house campaign, or just exploring the darkest parts of your imagination, this deck keeps the ideas flowing from ghost story prompts to zombie writing prompts.
Complete the set
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"Starter" Story Prompts Expansion Set
Regular price $54.99Regular priceUnit price per$60.00Sale price $54.99Sale -
"Curio" Story Prompts Expansion Set
Regular price $54.99Regular priceUnit price per$60.00Sale price $54.99Sale
Save big on the bundle! ⮯
The Story Engine Deck
"All-Story" Bundle
FAQ: Horror Writing Prompts Expansion
How should I write a story about horror?
Start with a fear—like isolation, betrayal, or the unknown—and use the deck to shape it into a story. Or, start with the cards and then think about the fears and themes they provoke. Pull cards for a protagonist with something to lose, a creepy setting, a haunted object, and an enemy with something to hide.
Want more direction on how to write with fear? Check out our blog “How to Write Horror: Understanding Fear.”
What are some scary things to put in a story?
Haunted houses, missing memories, cursed mirrors, unsettling children, shadowy figures, and secrets buried in the past make powerful elements in horror fiction. The Story Engine horror expansion is full of ideas you can customize for your horror story.
How do you start a creepy story?
Begin with something normal. A weekend getaway. A new house. A familiar routine. Then add something… off. A noise that doesn’t belong. A person who’s not supposed to be there. The feeling that someone is watching.
Looking for some inspiration? Check our roundup of 12 postcard sized scary stories!
What are good ideas for a horror story?
Here are some of the 100,000+ ideas you can generate by combining cards from this deck:
- A scientist discovers how to see the dead—and can’t unsee them.
- A group of summer camp friends on a road trip wake up in a crumbling cemetery that’s not on any map.
- A woman discovers her childhood drawings have come to life, revealing her darkest secrets.
What are some good scary writing prompts with a twist?
Try stories where the main character becomes the monster. Or where a haunted object protects rather than harms. Or where the villain is trying to save someone from something worse.
How to make a horror story with a twist?
Set expectations early. Then subvert them. Make the ghost a guardian, the hero a fraud, or the killer a reflection of the young girl protagonist.
What are some scary story prompts?
- A boy draws the same stranger over and over. His parents don’t recognize the face, but the dog does.
- A woman finds a keyhole in her closet that opens nothing but watches everything.
- A family moves into their dream home… but the basement door keeps locking from the inside.
What are the best horror story themes?
Vulnerability, loss of control, forbidden knowledge, isolation, transformation, and facing the unknown are timeless horror themes. This deck is built to explore all of them.
Looking for more tips on writing vulnerability in horror? Read our blog on "How to Write Horror: Understanding Vulnerability."