Worldbuilding Weekend Prompt #127 - Prime Numbers

@alonicus ยท 2025-08-17 19:58 ยท Worldbuilding

Welcome to the next in an ongoing series of writing prompts in the Worldbuilding community !

I'm aiming to post one of these each Sunday. They aren't a replacement for the excellent daily prompts from @worldbuilding they're just an extra opportunity if you have a writing itch you want to scratch. ๐Ÿ˜€

Potionsa.jpg
Image generated by AI in Wombo.art

The prompt this week is - Prime Numbers

This is the 127th prompt I've cooked up in this series, and it turns out 127 is a prime number. One of the stories that most got me hooked on the science fiction genre when I was younger was A.E. van Vogt's "The Vault of the Beast", a short story about an extradimensional creature imprisoned in an abandoned indestructible vault on Mars secured by a time lock coded to the ultimate prime number. Although a little dated nowadays (it was first published in 1940), it's still worth a read.

Now it's your turn - tell me a story where a prime number (or numbers) are a key element in the tale ! It could be fantasy, science fiction, mystery or any other genre of fiction you like writing in.

Hive Divider3.jpg

Just to add a bit of spice to things, the two entries I most like (and are linked in comments to this post, so I can find them !) that are posted by midnight (GMT) next Saturday will each get a prize of one Hive SBI.

This link will take you to the FAQ where you can read more about Hive SBI - it's a project I thoroughly support because it gives both the donor and winner a steady trickle of passive income paid out in the form of upvotes on posts.

Hive Divider3.jpg

Guidelines

I stole these guidelines straight from @worldbuilding prompts (I hope that's okay !), I couldn't have written them any better myself....

  • Prompt replies may be anything! Art, game assets, stories, worldbuilding details, fake wiki entries, maps... whatever you want to create!
  • Please ensure you reply to this post with a link to your reply
  • Posting in or cross-posting to the Worldbuilding community is highly encouraged
  • Use the hashtag #worldbuilding
  • Prompt replies can be any length.
  • AI images to illustrate your posts are fine, as long as they are credited to whichever software you used to make them
  • Posts using AI to create the text are not acceptable; these prompts (and community) are a way to expand and have fun with human imagination, and I firmly believe AI will never be able to replicate the human spark.

Some other neat communities for writing that you might want to check out are:

It can be a lot of fun to mix and match our prompts with some of these other community prompts.

Hive Divider3.jpg

People who have asked to be tagged;
@sherah

If you'd like to be tagged in on these prompts, let me know and I'll happily add you ๐Ÿ™‚

#writingprompt #scholarandscribe #theinkwell #freewriters #fiction #fantasy #scifi #writing #proofofbrain #slothbuzz
Payout: 2.010 HBD
Votes: 30
More interactions (upvote, reblog, reply) coming soon.