DryRot

I don't know why I love "generators". Put in some info and your Vampire name pops out or whatever.


In 2017 I made an Excel based theme generator, which I shared again in 2019.

For reasons I no longer remember, I created a "Halloween Haunt Name Generator", which I share here.

Halloween Haunt Name Generator 20210216.xlsx

It's also Excel based, mostly because that's the program I use most at work and I have figured out all kinds of interesting things it can do. Not that this is the most elegant, but it does some things I think are pretty cool. For example, if you give it your last name, it will try to give you an alliterative haunt name. Say your last name is Mason. You might get "Mason's Mysterious Mansion of Malevolence" or "Mason's Menacing Mausoleum of Misery".

Alliteration is easy to remember, and WAY easier to figure out than rhyme, which I have NOT done Excel yet, though I believe I know how it could be done.

Anyway...

I expanded the vocabulary a bit. Mindblender convinced me that it's fine to include words most people won't know, since any user can decide not to use them. I also expanded the recommendations to 50 or so. Of course, you can always run a new batch if you don't see anything you like.

At the bottom, I put three blocks un purple. These usually return nonsense like "forts delight" or "rainforest barbarian".


Sometimes, though, it returns something interesting, like "House Frenetic" or "Palace Fitful". Those might be pretty cool haunts! I would not have paired these words up like that, but a random generator just pairs list A to list B and spits out an answer. It does not judge and it has no preconceptions.

Maybe that's why I like these. They are mostly free from bias and therefore free to produce results that are unique. I say mostly free because even if I did put in thousands of words, choices were made based on my own bias. Entering the whole English dictionary would surely produce some great haunt names. Eventually.

I hope you at least take a look at this generator and give it a shot. If you do, remember that of course you do not have to use the whole name. You may not find "The Fleshy Parishes of Pain" to your liking, but "Parishes of Pain" may be exactly what you were looking for. It may also inspire different, better names.

The power to inspire new connections is probably this generator's biggest value. You may decide not to use "Gate of Lamentation", but it may inspire a name or a scene or even a theme.

Here are 50 interesting ones I got from the generator today, and it can create thousands more!
(The) Crimson Ship of The Doomed

(The) Lonely Chapel
Abbey of The Damned
Abysmal Arroyo
Arroyo of Pain
Boneyard of Revulsion
Burial Ground of Shadows
Cathedral of Blood
Cathedral of Wretchedness
Cemetery of Desolation
Chapel of The Insane
Church of Fear
Church of Scares
Citadel of Torment
City of Damnation
Crimson Arroyo
Dominion of Desolation
Dungeon of Tears
Forest of The Dead
Foul Hotel
Graveyard of Horror
Holy Order of Screams
Hotel of Evil
Labyrinth of Death
Labyrinth of Malevolence
Lair Intolerable
Loathsome Hollow
Maniacal Boneyard
Mire of Damnation
Monster Asylum
Museum of Misery
Portal of The Insane
Sanctuary of The Damned
Sanctuary of Torment
Sanctuary of Wretchedness
Shrines of the Doomed
Sinister Mortuary
Spire of The Undead
Swamp of Doom
Swamp of Misery
Swamp of Tears
Syndicate of Screams
Syndicate of Tears
The Bleak Hotel
The Breathing Graveyard
The Charming Pizzeria of Horror
Unrighteous Cavern
Vault of Horror
Vault of Sorrow
Vicious City


Since I left some church and chapel stuff in there, I want to make it clear that I think it's a mistake to bring politics and religion into a haunt.

That said, there is a lot of potential in cults. Cults like Lovecraft's or whatever church the "zombified, pain-worshipping backwoods idiots" in the Cabin in the Woods attended. These are not real churches. They should have no specific actual religious symbols like crosses or crucifixes, stars of David, or Crescent and Star. Lunatics in robes with a Cthulhu image above the altar? Should be fine. In my opinion, you want churches to be completely fictional.

I know that's my own opinion. I just believe that Haunts and Halloween face enough criticism (and NOT just from religious folks!) that we should not go looking for it. I also subscribe to Allen Hopps' philosophy that if it is on CNN, he does not want it in a haunt. People can be killed by monsters but not terrorists.

Anyway, please take a moment to try out the generator, and let me know what you think!

Happy Haunting!