This sounds amazing.

I love that idea! Working with prompts is fun, and a great way to get ideas!

I'd love for there to be prompts! I love the idea of worldbuilding prompts, but what I also think would be cool is writing prompts. Specifically, prompts on what most people tend to struggle with while writing. I used to be awful at writing conversations, so I used to have a friend send me two random characters + a setting, and I would write the conversation as realistically as possible. After about two months of that, I became really good at conversations. Now, my personal prompt is to describe something in detail without interrupting the flow of the story. I think these kinds of prompts would also help people out a ton!

maybe one of each? a worl building prompt and a writing prompt that way no matter what type of prompt they need it's there for them

That sounds like a really cool idea! And that way, even if you didn't like the prompt (for example, if you write urban fantasy, you don't really want to write about, say, Christianity or Mormonism) you could take the other one.

alright, so it has been decided! every monday there will be a pair of prompts for the group to follow; one prompt pretaining to small details about your world/story to make you think deeper about it, and one prompt for a story (short or otherwise) in case someone needs an idea.

prompts will be posted every monday (excluding this week, as this week is the first week it will be happening) and you will have a week between each prompt for those who want to write out the prompt or discuss it with others. this is also so i have time to select another two prompts for the next week and acts as a sort of quality control.

for those of you who do not want to be pinged every week for this, simply ping me telling me whether or not you want to be in, and i will create a ping list for all of those who want to be pinged for the contests and i will add an option for this in the signups.

as for todays prompts, here they are

world building prompt:

what is a disease, illness or birth defect (magical abilities, being born withoug a familiar etc.) do you have in your universe? are they specific to certain areas? what causes them and how do they affect the world?

writing prompt:

a group of adventurers have one of their teammates replaced by an infiltrator. all of them know it, but they kind of like the imposter better than the actual person...

World Building Prompt

My world revolves around Sea Demons (particularly the Abyssal subspecies). They live in the darkest patches of the ocean in one large, militarized community.
After separating from the Coral Sea Demons, the Abyssals were forced to find other places to be. The entire S.D. species was susceptible to mutation because of their many living conditions. That's why the Corals are all somehow similar to warm water fish, with most having some sort of venom (like the lionfish) or anti poison abilities (like clownfish)

When the Abyssals moved into the deep, there was a large absence of familiar food, normal water pressure and sun. They discovered that children were very easy to change. They came up with controlled mutation, which was a way to give new children and edge in the harsh deep sea. This is done during the last month of pregnancy. All types of mutation are dangerous and have a chance to kill both the parent and the fetus. Three types of controlled mutation were discovered:

Electric mutation. This type of mutation is very common. It requires the parent to be near things with high electric charges during pregnancy. Things that are often used as a catalyst include lighting/lightning storms, electric eels, ect.
Abilities granted by this mutation: Higher ability to sense electric charges from any living beings in the water, a way to communicate with others using small electrical bursts (like Morse code, can also be used as a distraction for predators), scales that occasionally shift with lightning-like patterns, the ability to electrify anything within a 10 meter radius (10m at least, can definitely do more, they get a lot of training for this), the ability to sense and channel lighting storms from the surface.

Frozen mutation. This type of mutation is quite common as well. The parent must spend the last week of pregnancy in bitter cold. They will often move into deeper/colder water for this. Lowest fatality rate for children, high for adults.
Abilities granted by this mutation: Immunity to temperatures, the ability to freeze water near them (making it colder, or straight up turning it to ice), ability to solidify scales to give them a sort of emergency body armor, paler hair and scales (sometimes causing frost-like patterns to cover the body), higher sensitivity to things moving through the water.

Infernal mutation. This type of mutation is rare because of the danger inducing it may bring. It's not illegal, but it's almost there. The highest fatality rates for both parents and children. For this, the parent must spend about 4 days near or in scalding water. Parents will often move near thermal vents and volcanoes for this. The chance of burning to death is quite high. This is arguably the most powerful mutation.
Abilities granted by this mutation: Immunity to temperatures, the ability to boil water near them (very useful in the abyss, where everything is used to the cold), the ability to wreath themselves in flames, (if trained) the ability to shoot fireballs/beams of flame underwater, irritation in really cold places, ability to sense heat (like snakes).

All mutation brings risk to the parent and fetus. If successful, the pregnancy is extended for a month. If unsuccessful it results in either a weaker body for the child, or death, but if no one dies while triggering mutation the success rate is very high.
Combining mutations hasn't been tried yet, because of the added risks and dwindling population of fetuses to try it on.
Although dangerous, controlled mutations give their user a large boost in their every day lives

Note: Genetically impossible to inherit a mutation, but if a mutated child has an offspring, the new child's mutation will be more powerful (only if it's the same one, ie: ice > stronger ice)

i love the way the Abbysals have tried all these things to adapt to their new enviorment! i wonder how that makes the coral subspecies view them? or how they view the coral subspecies themselves?