The Silmarillion Writers' Guild

As a kid, were you ever given a list of clues to solve to find the location of small prizes? Or did you play the types of games where you need to talk to people to track down the objects you need? This month's challenge combines a scavenger hunt with a Matryoshka challenge. Tie on your sneakers, grab your map and canteen, and get ready to search!

During a Matryoshka challenge, creators make a fanwork using multiple prompts that are revealed one by one (like nesting dolls!) The Scavenger Hunt challenge puts a bit of a twist on the traditional Matryoshka format.

You will still create a fanwork using multiple prompts. However, instead of receiving those prompts one by one from the moderators, you will seek and find those prompts from other participants or by following clues to locate them on the SWG website.

See the Scavenger Hunt challenge for more details about how to participate and the clues you need to start your hunt!

Our May challenge will be an interactive Matryoshka challenge, meaning that challenge participants will provide prompts to each other. How it will work:

If you want to provide prompts to participants, you can sign up one or all of your fanworks posted to our archive. These will become the clues in the scavenger hunt!

When participants solve the clue, they will read/view and comment on one of your fanworks (or the specific fanwork you offer, if you choose to offer just one).

You will reply to their comment with a prompt. You can create your own prompt(s) or the moderators can provide prompts for you to use.

Our hope is that this challenge encourages interaction and collaboration and results in comments for those of you who are offering prompts! A few additional details to keep in mind before signing up:

The challenge will run May 15 through June 15. You do not need to be available every day to provide prompts, and the moderators will be available to provide backup prompts if you can't. However, if you're planning to spend three of those weeks off-grid in the wilderness, it's probably best to sit this one out.

If you sign up a single fanwork and it is Adult-rated or if all of your fanworks are Adult-rated, we will mark it as such so that participants who need SFW (safe for work) fanworks can find them.

You do not need to create a fanwork for the challenge in order to hand out prompts and enjoy the comments on your work!

If you make your own prompts, prompts should be SFW and open-ended. Prompts should not require creating about a specific character, relationship, group, time period, place, genre, etc.

The Silmarillion is a story about heroes, often larger than life (sometimes literally, given how many characters claim to be the tallest) and the performers of deeds worth the historical record. Yet hovering around the edges of the lives of heroes are ordinary people. They are the companions, the spies, the messengers, the servants, and the soldiers, their actions given the barest glance and their names unknown. Yet as the compendium of their deeds—collected in this month's prompts—show, their impact on the tale is not insubstantial.

This month's challenge brings these unnamed, unknown characters to the foreground. Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in legendarium using one of our collected quotes about the unnamed and undistinguished people of Middle-earth. While you are welcome to write the scene from which the quote derives, this is not the only approach to the prompts, and we welcome all interpretations of the prompts (and some have been left intentionally vague!) You can use all or part of a quote. The only requirement of the challenge is that a background character plays a key role in your work.

Thank you to Erdariel for this month's stamps!

Most people remember best what they heard last, and authors and songwriters have long capitalized on this trick of brain wiring by signing off their stories, plays, poems, and songs with a truly memorable last line. This month, we pay homage to some of history's best and most noteworthy last words by offering a selection of them as prompts for creating a fanwork.

Prompts for this month's challenge are assigned by a moderator. You can request a prompt by emailing us, sending us an ask on Tumblr, commenting on our Dreamwidth, or requesting a prompt on the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. If you have a preference for a last line from a book, song, play, poem, or person, let us know! If you get stuck and can't do anything with the prompt we lob at you, feel free to ask us to try again.

If you create a challenge fanwork featuring a woman in a leading role, let us know, as we have a special stamp for Women's History Month.

Thank you to ecthelioffd for this month's banner and stamps!

Anna (IdleLeaves) will generously be continuing to host monthly instadrabbling sessions on our Discord server on the first Saturday of each month! We welcome all creators to join us for an few hours of creating, squeeing, and hanging out with fellow fans on the following dates:

January 3, 2026 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)

February 7, 2026 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)

March 7, 2025 at 6PM/18:00 UTC (find this in my timezone)

What is instadrabbling? Instadrabbling is a long-standing community activity in the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. A group of friends gets together on chat, someone throws out a prompt or four, and everyone writes a drabble (or whatever comes to mind). We share our creations in the server and admire each other's work. Instadrabbling is low-pressure and casual, and all are encouraged to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable. Instadrabbling responses shared on our server can be about any aspect of Tolkien's legendarium, not just Silmworks.

Also on May 2 and on June 6.

Enamored as he was with language, the chapters and titles of Tolkien's broad range of works are often small works of art in and of themselves. Some carry the ponderous weight of legend, others evoke complex metaphors and associations, and some dance like poems upon the tongue.

This month's challenge offers prompts based on titles within Tolkien's many and varied works. We've selected 125 titles from books, chapters, essays, poems, and fragments of text to inspire your fanwork. Note that fanworks do not have to be about the work the title belongs to (although they certainly can be). As always, we encourage creative interpretations of our challenges, and you can use the prompts however you want.

A new year often brings resolutions to achieve big changes. Our Resolutions challenge is much more moderate: reach for a creative achievement, no matter how small. Maybe it is a single drabble, a sketch, or a new chapter—the point is to begin a new year with an act of creativity and imagination!

Our annual amnesty allows you to pick from any of the previous year’s challenges. You do not need to use a new prompt to be eligible for this challenge. Participants can choose to complete any of the previous year's challenges. Did you miss a challenge you wanted to complete? Do it now. Did you start a fanwork for a challenge but never completed it? Here is your chance to finish. If you didn't leave any unrealized or unfinished projects behind you (congratulations!), choose from any of our 2025 challenges and start something new.

You can find the complete amnesty challenge guidelines and a list of 2025's challenges here.

You will receive a stamp on your 2025 collection for any challenges that you complete now, as well as a stamp for the New Year's Resolution challenge on your 2026 collection. When you post to the SWG archive, please make sure you select the 2025 challenge you're completing and the New Year's Resolution challenge.

This month's banner and stamps use images from the 18th-century “Chinese Arabesques” by Jean-Baptiste Pillement and Anne Allen, which plays with the theme of striving to reach the fantastical.

Welcome to Tolkien Femslash February!

This is a femslash-centric February prompt fest open to all Tolkien fans from all the different sub-fandoms: Whether you enjoy the Silmarillion, the Hobbit movies, the Rings of Power or are into some entirely different part of the Tolkien fandom - you're welcome here as long as you enjoy femslash!

There is a FAQ here for all your questions. New prompts will posted daily in February, with a complete prompt list here. Feel free to fill none and work on whatever femslash you want to work, fill one, fill several or fill all, with no limits to the type of your fanwork. You're welcome as a writer, artist, graphics maker, podficcer, fanmixer, cosplayer or whatever else. The only qualifying factor is that your fanwork must center around a F/F relationship.

Ready? Set? Bake!

For the next two months, we invite you and your favorite characters out to the tent to demonstrate your prowess in baking … metaphorically, that is! (Though actual baked fanworks are of course welcome!) This challenge will feature a daily prompt calendar of baked goods from around the world, many of them suggested by our members.

Sundays are the exception—on Sundays, there will be a baking-themed comment challenge. Notify the mods if you complete a comment challenge—there are stamps for each individual comment challenge! Comment challenges apply to any fanwork on the SWG archive, not just Great Beleriand Bake Off challenge responses.

Just like baking, you can make this challenge as intense or easygoing as you like. You do not need to complete every prompt and can pick and choose as you'd like from the prompt calendar. Prompts do not need to be completed on the day they are posted. Post early! Post late! Perfect crumb and soggy bottoms are all welcome. If you'd like Paul Hollywood-level intensity, you can of course try for Star Baker and do all of the prompts.

Each day's prompt includes a sweet and a savory option. There is a description and sometimes a recipe (and sometimes several recipes) for each item. You are welcome to use any part of the prompt: the name of the baked good, the description, the recipe, stuff you learned from the links, anything. Fanworks do not need to be about baking or include the foods from the prompt. As always, you are welcome to get as creative with the prompts as you want, which includes twisting prompts, finding loopholes, and going in weird directions the challenge mods never imagined.

Finally, remember that the SWG is an international community with members from regions and cultures all around the world. If you prefer to swap in a recipe for a featured baked good that reflects how your region or culture makes that item, you are welcome to do so! However, please remember that there is no single "correct" or superior way to make any of these items. Let's approach this challenge with appreciation for the diversity of our community and the unifying human experience of sharing food to communicate love and fellowship!

Thank you to Grundy for this month's banner and stamps!