Lore Machine

Bad Dragons Has a Fantasy Deathwish

Thobey Campion — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:24:08 GMT

Today on Lore Machine, we release Worlds! A World is an intelligent story universe made of many LOREs, all unified by the same cast, canon and narrative physics. World drop numero uno is a saucy one: BAD DRAGONS. Join Lady Gwenyth on her journey from dragon slayer to dragon lover!

We sat down with BAD DRAGONS mastermind and Marvel comic genius B. Earl to talk making things, manga and the future of storytelling.

You can dive into Bad Dragons here. Trailer and interview below…

Who goes there?

My name is B. Earl and I’m a writer!

I’ve been working in Hollywood for 20 plus years. Marvel, Cartoon Network, Disney — you name it. My favorite pastime is dreaming up worlds for people to play in.

What the heck is Bad Dragons?

Bad Dragons features a female dragon slayer who’s never seen a dragon in her life. All she wants to do is kill dragons until she falls in love with one. It’s basically a naughty Game of Thrones without the incest.

What the heck genre is this?

It’s a fantasy-driven world inspired by the classics like Tolkien and Howard, and D&D worlds. Like most fantasy, it explores themes in our own society, with a heavy dose of satire. In Bad Dragons, a king blames dragons for everything so he can get away with his shenanigans — basically how asshole elites distract the public with scapegoats today. It’s also a hero’s journey that follows Lady Gwyneth as she course-corrects her dragon-slaying ways, in favor of their salvation.

Drop us into the world…

The LORE opens in a town called Thistlethwaite. There’s an inn; every great fantasy story starts off in an inn. There, the quest is given. The LORE then dives into the surrounding dark forests and abandoned mines… where the dragons live. Ultimately, the story winds its way to Kingston, the capital ruled by King Wensislaus. There, our heroes find themselves facing his labyrinth of dungeons, torture chambers, gallows and whorehouses.

The good guys: Gwyneth is our heroine. She was raised by her father who was an apothecary. After he was killed, she ended up in a bandit camp where she meets her platonic life companion Stuttering John. The only time he can stop stuttering is when he plays his lute. Then there’s Big Daddy Dragon.

The bad guys: Our main villain is King Wensislaus. He’s the black sheep of his family who rose to the crown and betrayed the human truce with dragons. He’s definitely not the guy you want in charge. Bramm Varkas is the first dragon slayer we meet. His one-night stand with Gwyneth really kicks her revenge energy into over-dive. Then there’s Cole Finnegan, a demonic pansexual Little Lord Fauntleroy who runs a brothel called The Happy Harpy. Deep in the bowels of the brothel is an evil witch named Mother Hubbard. And finally, the most feared dragon slayer - The Black Knight.

What sort of inspiration did you take from for the story and art style?

The Bad Dragons story contains a lot of Terry Pratchett, Piers Anthony, and Douglas Adams. I love those stories because they don’t take themselves too seriously. Don’t get me wrong - it’s serious storytelling; but their characters and scenarios are filled with whimsy.

The art style is manga, but it plays with the narrative rules of that tradition. My fifteen-year old son has turned me on to so many incredible stories in the space like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter. I’m definitely pulling inspiration from JoJo’s - another example of storytelling that’s powerful and fun at the same time.

What was your production process for this World?

I started in the same way I traditionally approach writing comics - with a treatment for a season arc. I had a backstory for Gwyneth: She doesn’t want to be a healer… she wants to be a killer. I let the story develop her from there. The development process mirrors how I DM in Dungeons & Dragons: I get a big idea, I have beats I want to touch on, then as soon as things become predictable, I pull the story’s pants down and watch it trip in weird directions.

I then break the treatment out into main beats per episode. The difference with Lore Machine at-hand is that is that I can now build visuals concurrently, moving back and forth between treatment and panels until it sings. Lore Machine gives me the base story and narration text for each panel block. I then jump in and get surgical with my own writing. Then it’s bubbling. Last, I do a pass for balance between narration blocks, visuals, and bubbles.

If you’re not struggling you’re not really creating. What was your biggest obstacle in the process?

The biggest struggle is getting the image right. The system generates a pretty solid first image — but then there’s some little thing in there that’s off. I’ve spent 30 minutes to an hour on one block just to get the image dialed in the way I want it. One of the features I really love about Lore Machine is I can upload my own art. In some instances, I will download an image, fix it up in Photoshop, then re-upload.

I also struggled with in-story items and costumes. For instance I constantly battle with the consistency of Gwyneth’s glowing blue sword. Comics can be a bit more lenient on minor inconsistencies than photorealistic narratives so I just leaned into the minor deviations at times. This feels more like prototyping a story, where moving fast and in the flow is better than getting too hung up on sword hilt design.

Ultimately, it’s the story that matters.

What are the unlocks of a system like Lore Machine for creators like you?

One of the challenges with comics is that you’re tied to the timeframes of the team, as well as your budget. If you’re an independent writer who wants to get your story out, it could take years to reach an audience. Lore Machine unlocks the ability to prototype at hyper-speed then get it in front of fans who can provide instant feedback. And what’s super cool is that I can go back and tweak the story post-publication. Fullmetal Alchemist had its first run, then went back and did Brotherhood which really tightened up the series. I can do that in real-time with Lore Machine.

This immediacy also unlocks a playfulness. I don’t have to be as precious or get bogged down in admin. I can just play and that’s what makes me happiest! Every day for the past two weeks, I got up excited to get to the computer and build this world.

Lore Machine can also turbocharge your pitch. As a writer, my stuff starts as text on a page. Hollywood doesn’t want to read shit. You need a visual hook. My hack back in the day was using Pinterest to help get an idea across. Now I can prototype, get it out there, build audiences, and have a lot of fun doing it.

All 10 Episodes (called LOREs) are out on Lore Machine now. You can dive into the Bad Dragons world here.

For more interviews, World Drops and dispatches from storytelling’s future…

Subscribe now

The Story That Had No Memory

Thobey Campion — Wed, 13 May 2026 06:23:05 GMT

A new #AItrend has exploded across X. Creators are generating an image of a storyboard with ChatGPT’s Image 2 model, then transforming that storyboard into a 15-second composite animation using ByteDance’s Seedance 2 video model.

We launched way back as an AI-native storyboarding solution; so naturally, we wanted to take this prompt-reliant workflow for a spin.

Here are the results from our experiment:

In this article, I’ll show you how to make your own, then compare the strengths of this approach with Lore Machine’s narrative engine.

You can dive in below, or kick back and watch this article on our Youtube channel.

The Workflow

To build one of these videos yourself, you first need access to ChatGPT’s Image 2. I created a prompt template based on a scene from Terry Brooks’ fantasy novel The First King of Shannara1. Simply retrofit the prompt template2 with your own inputs, then paste it into Chat GPT’s Image 2. Here’s the result:

Before continuing, let me just say: this output is fairly badass. Image 2 packs a mind-bending amount of fine detail into a single output.

Once you’ve got your storyboard image dialed in, head to any node-based workflow tool. I used Arcads. Create a New Workflow. Drop your image in as the first node. Then create a video node and select Seedance 2 as your model.

You can follow along here:

Lastly, include a prompt for your final video. These are the shot instructions for each scene. My prompt template is in the index3.

I made myself some coffee and returned 5 minutes later to the final animation:

Something is Happening Here

Haters will say this is a party trick; I might be among them. But there’s something important going on here. To get a second perspective, I sat down with Kōda, a creative technologist focused on AI-driven cinematic storytelling.

He opened with the upside. “I think it can become much more than a gimmick,” he said. “Right now a lot of AI video content is optimized for quick attention — but the more interesting direction is teaching models to understand filmmaking logic, instead of just generating isolated pretty shots.”

But Kōda’s clear-eyed about where the approach falls short. “The biggest missing piece is cinematic memory,” he explained. “Most systems are still much better at generating cool shots than understanding scenes. For serious storytelling work, structured systems feel far more reliable than prompting alone.”

Enter Lore Machine

With all this in mind, I tried to produce the same result using Lore Machine. To start, I dropped the fantasy passage into Lore Machine's script visualizer. The system automatically detects all story elements — characters, locations, relationships — and surfaces them as structured data you can shape: names, backstories, visual prompts, casting references, world details. The story exists before a single image is generated.

Here’s what this visualization process looks like inside Lore Machine:

I then took the Lore Machine assets and exported with our forthcoming Trailer Maker:

Also pretty damn badass 💅

You can dive into The Sword of Death LORE here.

To see the underlying story data, simply click the potion icon next to any LORE block and the story will clone in your account. You can then view the character and location data, and steer the LORE in whatever direction you want!

Conclusion

We pitted the two approaches against each other, ranking a series of benchmarks out of 3.

The difference goes beyond output quality — it’s about what you’re building toward. The workflow gives you a moment. Lore Machine gives you a foundation and an interactive way forward.

Ultimately the preferred approach depends on what you need. Quick social asset? The workflow. Composable foundation for interactive storytelling? Lore Machine.

Pick your poison 🧪

An hour before dawn he picked up the sword and went down into the valley. He worked his way carefully across the loose obsidian, cautious of a misstep, trying hard not to think of what lay ahead. He calmed himself, retreating deep inside as he walked, collecting his thoughts and shaping his needs. The night was peaceful and silent, but he could already sense something stirring within the earth. He came down off the valley slope and walked to the edge of the Hadeshorn and stopped. He stood there for a moment without moving, a sense of uncertainty creeping through him. So much depended on what happened next, and he knew so little of what he should do. He placed the sword before him at the water’s edge and straightened. There was nothing he could do about it now. Time was slipping away. He began the incantations and hand motions that would summon the spirits of the dead. He worked his way through them with grim determination, blocking out what he could of the doubts and uncertainties, casting off what he could of the fear. He felt the earth rumble and the lake stir in response to his efforts. The sky darkened as if clouds had appeared to cloak it, and the stars disappeared. Water hissed and boiled before him, and the voices of the dead began to rise in whispers that turned quickly to moans and cries. Bremen felt his own resolve toughen as if to shield him in some way from what the dead might do to him. He went hard and taut inside, so that the only movement came from the quicksilver flight of his thoughts. He was finished now with the summoning, and he picked up the sword again and stepped back. The lake was churning wildly, spray flying in all directions, and the voices were a maddening cacophony. The Druid stood rooted in place and waited for what must come. He was shut away in the valley now, isolated from the living, alone with the dead. If something went wrong, there was no one to help him. If he failed, there was no one to come for him. Whatever transpired this day, it was on his shoulders. Then the lake exploded at its center in a volcanic surge, and a geyser rose straight into the air, a vast, black column of water. Bremen’s eyes went wide. He had never seen that happen before. The column lifted skyward, and its waters did not falter or dissipate. All about it fluttered the ghostly, shimmering forms of the spirits of the dead. They appeared in swarms, emerging not from the lake itself, but from the column, disgorged from its churning mass. They swam through the air as if still in water, their small forms a brilliant kaleidoscope against the black of the night. As they whirled, they cried out, their voices sharp and poignant, as if all that they had ever wanted was to be found in this single moment in time. Booming coughs rose suddenly from the column’s center, and now Bremen fell back in spite of himself, the earth beneath his feet heaving with the force of the sound. He had overstepped himself in some way, he thought in horror. He had done something wrong. But it was too late to change things, even if he had known what to do, and it was too late to flee. In his hands, the embossed surface of the Eilt Druin, embedded in the pommel of the sword, began to glow. Bremen flinched as if he had been burned. Shades!

Then the column of water split asunder, cracked down the middle as surely as if struck by lightning. Light blazed from within, so brilliant that Bremen was forced to shield his eyes. He brought his arms up protectively, the sword held before him as if to ward off what threatened. The light flared, and as it did a line of dark forms began to emerge. One by one, they materialized, cloaked and hooded, as black as the night around them, steaming with an inner heat. Bremen dropped to one knee, unable to stand longer in the face of what was happening, still trying to shield his eyes and at the same time watch. One by one, the robed figures began to approach, and now Bremen recognized who they were. They were the ghosts of Druids past, the shades of those who had gone before, of all who had lived once in this world, larger in death than in life, apparitions that lacked substance, yet still radiated a terrible presence. The old man shrank from them in spite of himself, so many come at once, more coming still, a seemingly endless line floating in the air before him, approaching across the roiling waters of the lake, inexorable and dark. He heard them speak now, heard them call to him. Their voices lifted above those of the smaller forms accompanying them, speaking his name over and over again. Bremen, Bremen. Foremost was Galaphile, and his voice was strongest. Bremen, Bremen. The old man wanted desperately to flee, would have given anything to be able to do so. His courage failed and his resolve turned to water. These apparitions were coming for him, and he could already feel the touch of their ghostly hands on his body. Madness buzzed inside his head, threatening to overwhelm him. On they came, huge forms wending their way through the darkness, faceless apparitions, ghosts out of time and history. He found he could not stop himself from shaking, could not make himself think. He wanted to shriek his despair. Then they were before him, Galaphile first, and Bremen lowered his head into the crook of his arm helplessly. —Hold forth the sword— He did so without question, thrusting it before him as he would a talisman. Galaphile’s hand reached out, and his fingers brushed the Eilt Druin. Instantly, the emblem flared with white light. Galaphile turned away, and another Druid approached, touched the emblem, and departed. So it went, as one by one the spirits paraded before the old man and touched the sword he held, their fingers brushing the image of the Eilt Druin before they passed on. Over and over again the emblem flared brightly in response. From within the shelter of his raised arm, Bremen watched it happen. It might have been a blessing that they bestowed, an approval that they gave. But the old man knew it was something more, something darker and harsher. There was a transference being wrought upon the sword by the touch of the dead. He could feel it happening. He could sense it taking hold. It was what he had come for. It could not be mistaken for anything else. It was what he had been seeking. Yet even now, at the moment of its happening, he could not decipher its meaning. So he knelt there at the edge of the Hadeshorn in the gloom and the spray, dismayed and confused, listening to the sounds of the dead, a witness to their passing, and wondered at what was taking place. At last the Druids had all come before him, touched the Eilt Druin, and gone on. At last he was alone, hunched

down in the night. The sounds of the spirit voices faded, and in the ensuing silence he could hear the rasp of his own labored breathing. Sweat drenched his body and glistened on his face. His arm was cramped from holding forth the sword, yet he could not make himself withdraw it. He waited, knowing there was more, that it was not yet finished. —Bremen— His name, spoken by a voice he now knew. He lifted his head cautiously. The Druid shades were gone. The column of water was gone. All that remained was the lake and the blackness of the night and, directly before him, the shade of Galaphile. It waited on him patiently as he rose and drew the sword against his body as if to find strength there. There were tears on his face, and he did not know how they had gotten there. Were they his own? He tried to speak and could not. The shade spoke instead. —Heed me. The sword has been given its power. Carry it now to the one who will wield it. Find him west. You will know. It belongs now to him— Bremen’s voice groped for words that would not come. The spirit’s arm lifted to him. —Ask— The old man’s mind cleared, and his words were harsh and filled with awe. “What have you done?” —Given what part of us we can. Our lives have passed away. Our teachings have been lost. Our magic has dissipated in the wane of time. Only our truth remains, all that belonged to us in our lives, in our teachings, in our magic, stark and hard-edged and killing strong— Truth? Bremen stared, uncomprehending. Where did the sword’s power lie in this? What form of magic came from truth? All those Druids passing before him, touching the blade, making it flare so brightly—for this? The shade of Galaphile pointed once more, a gesture so compelling that Bremen’s queries died in his throat and his attention was immediately commanded. The dark figure before him swept away all but its own presence as its arm lifted, and the silence surrounding it was complete. —Listen, Bremen, last of Paranor, and I will tell you what you would know. Listen— And Bremen, captured heart and soul by the power of the shade’s words, did so.

A hand-drawn animation storyboard page on cream/off-white paper, titled “BREMEN & GALAPHILE – HADESHORN RITUAL, OPENING SEQUENCE – SHOTS 1.1.1 TO 1.1.12” in handwritten capital letters at the top left. The layout is a professional pre-production document with 12 numbered storyboard panels arranged in a 4x3 grid on the left two-thirds of the page.

Each panel is framed with a thin red rectangle (labeled in legend as “CAMERA / FRAMING”) and contains sketched scenes of an old Druid performing a dark ritual summoning at the edge of a black volcanic lake, rendered in a stylized cinematic animation style — ukiyo-e-influenced, flat graphic shapes, bold ink outlines, rich controlled color palette, dramatic single-temperature lighting, Blue Eye Samurai aesthetic. Blue arrows throughout indicate “MOVEMENT / BREATH / ENERGY.” Handwritten shot labels and ritual-inspired action notes appear beside each panel:

01 CLOSE-UP “Descent into the Valley” – aged hands gripping a sword, crossing loose obsidian rock in darkness (Step carefully. Calm the mind. Gather resolve.) 02 MEDIUM WIDE “Incantations Begin” – old man standing at the water’s edge, arms lifting in ritualistic hand motions before the still lake 03 MEDIUM WIDE “The Earth Responds” – tai-chi-like gesture as the ground rumbles and the lake begins to churn 04 CLOSE-UP “Waters Ignite” – lake surface hissing and boiling, vapor rising from blackened water 05 CLOSE-UP “The Voices Rise” – whispers becoming wails, faces half-glimpsed in the churning spray 06 WIDE/LOW ANGLE “The Column Erupts” – massive black geyser exploding from the lake’s center, spirits swarming around it 07 SIDE PROFILE “Ghosts Emerge – Inhale” – robed ghostly figures materializing from the column, floating toward the old man 08 MEDIUM TWO-SHOT “The Procession” – line of dead Druids approaching Bremen, who kneels with sword extended 09 CLOSE-UP “The Eilt Druin Flares” – embossed pommel blazing with white light as each ghost brushes it 10 CLOSE-UP “The Transference” – sword held trembling before him, glowing with accumulated power 11 CLOSE-UP “Galaphile Speaks” – solitary ghost remaining, arm raised, commanding silence 12 WIDE “Kneel and Listen” – Bremen alone at the lake’s edge, kneeling in mist, the ghost before him vast and dark

The two characters are a weathered old Druid in a dark hooded robe with the hood down, long gray hair loose around his shoulders (hunched, resolute, trembling with awe) and a towering ghost-elf in black hooded robes radiating a heavy metal energy (sharp elongated ears, skeletal face with sunken eye sockets and exposed cheekbones, immense, radiating cold supernatural authority). Both characters rendered in stylized cinematic animation — flat graphic shapes, bold ink outlines, strong readable silhouettes, ukiyo-e-influenced.

Right side panel labeled “CHARACTER DESIGN & CASTING” features:

“THE OLD DRUID” with traits “Resolute. Haunted. Determined. Frail in body, iron in will.” with a stylized ink sketch beside a cinematic character portrait rendered in Blue Eye Samurai aesthetic — flat graphic shapes, bold outlines, ukiyo-e influence — of an elderly man with long loose gray hair, deep-set eyes, and a dark hooded robe worn with the hood down, sword clasped before him. Caption: “Casting Reference: Anthony Hopkins, Age: 70+, Height: 5’9”“
“THE GHOST OF GALAPHILE” with traits “Ancient. Commanding. Vast. Heavy metal death-elf.” with stylized ink sketch and cinematic character portrait in Blue Eye Samurai aesthetic of a towering hooded elf apparition: sharply pointed ears, skeletal face with gaunt hollow cheeks, exposed bone structure, sunken glowing eye sockets, black robes trailing into mist and smoke, the silhouette of an extreme metal album cover made supernatural. Caption: “Casting Reference: Ian McKellen (voice/motion), Age: timeless, Height: 7’0”+ (apparition scale)”
“NOTES / RITUAL INTENTIONS”: Each motion is a surrender. Move with dread and determination, like a man walking into a storm he himself called. The ritual becomes transformation. Inhale – summon, open, invite. Exhale – release, receive, be changed. Stay present at the threshold. Stay rooted in purpose. Accept the weight of what is given.
“CAMERA / STORY NOTES”: Start close for dread and intimacy, open wide for the eruption and the procession. Use low angles for the column and the ghosts. End on isolation and awe — one small man, kneeling, listening.
“COLOR PALETTE (Environmental Mood)”: five colored swatches in ukiyo-e-influenced flat graphic style – Volcanic Black (deep obsidian), Cold Spirit (pale blue-white), Sulfur Mist (sickly yellow-gray), Ancient Stone (slate), Eilt Druin Flare (blinding white-gold)

Style: Stylized cinematic animation storyboard — ukiyo-e-influenced, flat graphic shapes, bold ink outlines, rich controlled color palette, dramatic single-temperature lighting, Blue Eye Samurai aesthetic. Professional pre-production document combining confident ink sketches with red ink frame borders, blue arrow annotations, and handwritten capital-letter notes. Authentic film pre-production document feel, clean white background, slight paper texture.

Stylized cinematic animation, ukiyo-e-influenced with flat graphic shapes and bold ink outlines. Rich controlled color palette dominated by cold single-temperature lighting. Movements follow a strict ritual pattern: stillness → eruption → stillness. Blue Eye Samurai aesthetic throughout.

Characters:

Bremen — Old and weathered, long gray hair loose around his shoulders, dark hooded robe with hood down. Lean but hunched under the weight of what he carries. Holds a sword not like a weapon but like a talisman — two hands, arms extended. Movements are slow, deliberate, trembling with suppressed terror. Every gesture costs him something.

Galaphile — A towering ghost-elf apparition. Sharply pointed ears, skeletal face with gaunt hollow cheeks, sunken glowing eye sockets, exposed bone structure. Black robes that don’t move with wind — they move with intention. The silhouette of an extreme metal album cover given supernatural presence. Floats rather than stands. When he raises his arm, the world gets quieter.

Environment: A volcanic valley at pre-dawn. The Hadeshorn — a black lake ringed by obsidian rock — sits perfectly still until it doesn’t. Sulfur mist rolls across the ground. No stars. The only light sources are the lake itself when it erupts and the blazing white-gold glow of the Eilt Druin on the sword’s pommel. Steam and spray catch the light in sharp ukiyo-e silhouette.

Mood: Dread and surrender. Bremen = a man who summoned something he cannot control and cannot flee. Galaphile = ancient authority that does not need to threaten because it simply is. The ritual is not a battle — it is a transaction between the living and the dead, and the living is clearly the lesser party.

Timeline:

0:00 – 0:02 (Close-up) Bremen’s aged hands grip the sword at the water’s edge. The lake is mirror-flat. He begins the first incantation — lips moving, hands rising slowly. The water shivers.

0:02 – 0:05 (Medium shot) The ritual accelerates. Bremen’s arms move through precise hand motions, bold ink silhouette against the dark valley. The ground begins to rumble. The lake surface breaks into hissing steam and boiling churn.

0:05 – 0:09 (Wide/low angle) The lake explodes. A massive black column of water rockets straight up. Ghostly spirits swarm around it in a kaleidoscope of pale blue-white light — flat graphic shapes wheeling against the volcanic black sky.

0:09 – 0:13 (Side profile) Robed figures begin emerging from the column. One by one. Hooded, black, steaming. Bremen falls back a step. His sword comes up instinctively. The Eilt Druin on the pommel begins to glow.

0:13 – 0:18 (Medium two-shot) Bremen drops to one knee, sword extended before him. The procession of dead Druids files past. Each one reaches out and touches the pommel. Each touch detonates a flare of white-gold light. His face — terrified, resolute, uncomprehending.

0:18 – 0:22 (Close-up) The pommel blazing. Bremen’s trembling hands. The sword absorbing something vast and invisible with each contact. The transference happening whether he understands it or not.

0:22 – 0:26 (Medium wide) The procession ends. The column collapses. Silence. Mist. Bremen alone at the water’s edge — and then, directly before him, Galaphile. Towering. Still. Skeletal elf face half-lost in the hood’s shadow, pointed ears cutting the mist, glowing eyes fixed on the old man.

0:26 – 0:30 (Wide) Bremen kneels fully, head bowed, sword drawn against his chest. Galaphile raises one arm — a gesture so absolute the frame itself seems to quiet. Cold spirit light fills the scene from a single direction. One small man. One vast ghost. The lake dark and still behind them both.

Compile Reality ▸ Run LORE

Thobey Campion — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:49:12 GMT

Lore Masters of the realm: gather round!

The LORE format is rapidly expanding across storytelling genres — from fantasy and screenplays to journalism and real-world narratives. So this week we spotlight four LOREs from completely different walks of life.

Before diving in, a quick note: we’re now scheduling individual demos...for everyone! If you want to meet our team and get a walkthrough of the system, just schedule here.

Alrightee, on with the show!

LORE: EclipseBorn

First up - EclipseBorn, a LORE that sits somewhere between manga, metal and haiku. It features Rhal, a guardian of his kind, who communicates with an entity beyond The Obsidian Threshold. The entity offers him two paths. The LORE summoned the hordes on Instagram here. Read the full LORE here.

Stay tuned for the next chapter!

World: The Alechemist’s Aviary

On Lore Machine, Worlds are story ecosystems containing an origin LORE and story physics made up of characters, locations, art style and narrative. Anyone can jump into a World and contribute to its canon. A brand-new user recently built The Alchemist’s Aviary, that takes you inside the malfunctioning mansion of Mad Scientist Professor Ommagon. Dive into the world here. Check out a remix - with laser dolphins - here.

Screenplay Vis: The Dark Knight

The biggest difference between Lore Machine and the countless other generative AI apps is that we’re not just an app - we’re building narrative pathways that help you craft generative worlds, aka STORY. Lore Machine’s screenplay visualization tool showcases this engine. Watch Lore Machine visualize Batman: The Dark Knight here.

Experiment: The 2028 Global Intelligence Report, The LORE

You can use Lore Machine to build a fantasy world, or you can harness its powers to explain the world around us. Recently, Citrini Research and Alap Shah published a speculative macroeconomic memo exploring the potential impact of AI on the economy over the next two years. The Substack post is breathtaking in its implications, but a tad dry. This LORE unpacks the disaster scenario in glorious pixel art form. Think The Big Short, but LORE. Read here.

Alrightee, thanks for reading. See you inside!

🚀 Build Your First LORE Now

A Cockroach Biker Gang Explains the New Lore Machine

Thobey Campion — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:37:46 GMT

Thanks Pince! OH-kay, let’s start from the top.

Lore Machine has been living a double life as two apps…

Pro_Mode equips prosumer storytellers and studios with powerful tools to visualize everything from books to screenplays.
Adventure_Mode empowers anyone to turn an idea into a playable, choose your own adventure.

Today, we merge the creative depth of Pro_Mode with the interactivity of Adventure_Mode into a single platform - powered by a homegrown AI-native medium called a LORE.

A LORE isn’t just content; it’s an RPG experience that combines generative storytelling and interactivity into a multimedia adventure.

Inside a LORE

Before showing you how to make a LORE, let’s take a look at how one works!

Every LORE is made up of LORE blocks, atomic storytelling units stacked on top of each other. A LORE block is basically a comic book panel on acid, and steroids. Together they form a limitless scrollable way to tell stories and explain ideas.

You’ve got complete control over each one of your blocks:

Character, Location and Style: Reference your story assets with character, location and style drawers that sit at the bottom of every LORE block.
Regenerate Image: Instantaneously re-roll your image.
Modify Image: Edit the contents of your image.
Animate: Turn your still scenes into video with character movement + voice / sfx.
Narrative text w/ voice over: Sit back and let your LORE read to you.
Bubble control: Modify bubble position, shape, color and typefaces.

Each LORE block is connected to the underlying story physics of your LORE via an LLM-powered game engine, enabling open-world, choice-driven narrative progression. From any block, you can move deeper into your LORE using:

Paths: You can steer your story by selecting one of four paths, or re-shuffling and getting four more options.
Prompt: Simply type what direction you want to go.
Focus: When selecting Paths and Prompts you can specify which characters and locations you want to feature in the next block.

So that’s a LORE.

Here’s four ways to make one, from fastest to most involved.

🧪 Remix a LORE

Time to fun - 2.5 seconds

Every story on Lore Machine is built to be branched at any point, in any direction!

Tap the potion icon inside a published LORE and you’re now the author. Remix the entire story, fork a single moment, or spin off a single block into something entirely new.

When you remix, you inherit the full logic of the originating LORE’s world — its characters, locations, art style, and narrative physics. This underlying structure keeps your LORE coherent through every story twist.

Head to Lore Machine, find a LORE, tap the potion icon, and the adventure is yours!

Learn More | Try Now

🔮 Create a LORE

Time to fun - 2.5 Minutes

Creating a LORE now feels less like setting up a project and more like playing a game.

Start with a main character and a location. From there, Lore Machine helps you expand your story — scene by scene, choice by choice. The result is a living, remixable adventure masterpiece!

Learn More | Try Now

📜 Start With a Screenplay or Book

Time to fun - 5 Minutes

Lore Machine first entered the world as a tool to help screenwriters visualize their scripts. We used the app merge as an excuse to turbocharge this feature. Now, not only can you visualize a book or screenplay, you can turn it into a game!

Drop in up to 30,000 words of PDF or raw text, analyze, choose how many scenes you want, and Lore Machine builds you a scrollable visual storyboard with interactive branching baked in.

It’s the fastest way to turn a finished script into a comprehensive story ecosystem.

Learn More | Try Now

🌍 Build A World

Time to fun - 10 Minutes

Worlds contain many LOREs that all revolve around the same origin story.

Create an origin LORE that defines the rules of the universe - characters, locations, tone, and narrative physics. Publish it as the foundation of a World, then invite others to expand it with their own LOREs.

Each new LORE builds the canon, preserving coherence while letting the world grow in unexpected directions.

Learn More | Try Now

The World Catalogue

Next week, we’ll start spotlighting Worlds we love on Lore Machine in a recurring column called The World Catalogue. In the meantime, here are a few Worlds from some of our friends:

The Legend of Thilsavrass by Archive In Between

Roteo, junior hunter of the Pale Lodge, needs your help navigating the Labyrinth of Thilsavrass….

Watch the Trailer | Play the LORE

The Manor Vascaria by Dolor Silentium

You are drawn into the ancient vampire sanctuary - The Manor Vescaria. The Cryptex Aristocrat Lysandra Vescaria offers you absolution, ascension, or self-obliteration. Choose one…

Watch the Trailer | Play the LORE

Luminaris by Corey Danaher

The Luminous Expanse is sustained by Luminaris, a volatile turquoise energy now slipping out of balance. Descend to The Caverns and decipher the problem…

Watch the Trailer | Play the LORE

Levianthan Fall Isle

The heir to the House Calderis has been lost at sea. Help Captain Caradwen weather the Blacktide Maelstrom and find the lost one…

Watch the Trailer | Play the LORE

Thanks for reading! To learn more about Lore Machine and connect with other world builders visit our community resources site here.

Play The Manor Vescaria

Thobey Campion — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:21:52 GMT

Today, we release a choose-your-own-adventure LORE in partnership with Pro Squad partner dolorsilentium…

You are drawn into the ancient vampire sanctuary of The Manor Vescaria. At its heart sits Lady Lysandra Vescaria, a Cryptex aristocrat. She offers you three paths — absolution, ascension, or self-obliteration. Pick your path at Lore Machine to proceed further into the Manor.

Enter The Manor Vescaria

The Manor Vescaria is part of an ongoing series of interactive narrative experiences in partnership with storytelling communities and artists around the web. Each invites you to remix a LORE in any direction you want, with the promise of untold fame and fortune.

You can learn more about Lore Machine’s dolorsilentium here and Pro Squad here.

Play Leviathanfall Isle

Thobey Campion — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:56:42 GMT

Lore Machine has set sail with dark fantasy storytelling studio Well of Fables - to build an interactive world where you decide what happens next…

In the far North, the Heir of the House Calderis, has been lost at sea. Reports say that a Blacktide Maelstrom has been seen. Sea-Lord Malric appoints Captain Caradwen to find who or what took his son. The Stormwake Corsairs disembarks for Leviathanfall Isle. The Heir must be there.

Anchor at Levianthanfall Isle on Lore Machine and fork the story by tapping the 🧪 potion icon to decide what happens next. Then hit Publish.

The most most harrowing search story shall receive a boon from the House Calderis: A Golden LORE Ring.

Play Now

The Isle of Levianthanfall is part of an ongoing series of interactive lore experiences in partnership with storytelling communities and artists around the web. Each invites you to remix a LORE in any direction you want, with the promise of untold fame and fortune.

You can learn more about Lore Machine’s emerging partnership program - The Pro Squad - here.

Enter The Labyrinth of Thilsavrass

Thobey Campion — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 18:42:20 GMT

Today, you step into a living story.

Lore Machine has formed an alliance with Archive In Between – the scribes behind those video tours of realms beyond our reality. We’ve built an interactive world where you decide what happens next.

To learn more, watch your orientation video now…

Descend into The Labyrinth of Thilsavrass on Lore Machine, decide Roteo’s fate by hitting the 🧪 potion icon to fork the story in any direction you want. Then hit Publish.

The most death-defying remix wins a spotlight on Archive In Between and an artifact of rare renown: A Golden LORE Ring.

To the depths of Thilsavrass with ye!

Enter The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth of Thilsavrass is the first in an ongoing series of interactive lore experiences in partnership with storytelling communities and artists around the web. Each invites you to remix a LORE in any direction you want, with the promise of untold fame and fortune.

You can learn more about Lore Machine’s emerging partnership program - called the Pro Squad - here.

The Story With Adventure_Mode

Thobey Campion — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 16:09:31 GMT

After two years of building and exploration, Lore Machine is entering a new era.

Today we launch Adventure_Mode — a steerable storytelling experience that empowers you to create, play and remix multimedia stories.

Here’s a vibee trailer for Adventure_Mode. If you dig it, give us a like or reshare 🙏

Adventure_Mode is now live on web, iOS, and Android.

This is the story of how we got here, and how you can dive into your own interactive adventure today.

Play Adventure_Mode on the Web

Play Adventure_Mode On iPhone & Tablet

The BACK Back Story

Before we descend down the rabbit hole, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Thobey Campion, a writer and the founder of Lore Machine.

Lore Machine was born out of the fiery furnace of failure. During COVID I escaped to a cabin in Canada, where I wrote about the intersection of science and spirituality. One story - about a CIA report on the scientific underpinnings of astral projection - went viral. Film studios reached out, interested in turning the story into a documentary. But the production never got off the ground; video archival was scarce and animation was too expensive.

At the time, MidJourney and Dall-e were just crawling onto the scene. I remember the moment, when the prompt for a ladybug actually looked like a ladybug. Like others around the world, I recognized the transformative impact this technology would have on the way us humans communicate. Our species has this unique power to bring what we imagine into our shared reality. Now we could transmit visions from our imagination to everyone else on earth instantaneously 🤯

Every generative system at the time worked the same. One prompt in → one image out. As generative video, audio and world systems came online, engineering-centric companies stayed within the confines of that single-prompt paradigm. Despite these limitations, our team started using generative tech to make premium graphic novels, commercially distributed manga and even (ahem) the first generative national television spot in China…all one prompt at a time 🥵

The conclusion: every system sucked at story. Working prompt-by-prompt, it took hundreds of hours to produce graphic novels and tv spots with consistent characters, style and locations, as well as narrative coherence. So we decided to build a solution. We called it Lore Machine. Instead of short prompts, Lore Machine would transform entire books and screenplays into multimedia experiences. We called it Multimedia Generation at Story Scale™ and got to work.

The first users of Lore Machine were screenwriters. But quickly it was educators, video game developers and film studios. The community that changed everything for us was Webtoon makers in South Korea. That community was building story visuals with Lore Machine, then cobbling the assets together into mobile-friendly manga experiences. The use case gave us an idea!

We hatched a new storytelling format called the LORE. On the surface, a LORE looks like a vertically scrollable Webtoon comprised of 3:4 aspect ratio blocks. But that’s just what it looks from above. Below the surface, story builders can craft entire worlds inside each block comprised of imagery, animation, ornaments, comic bubbles and meta-narrative - all editable at the drop of a prompt. While video as a web format is great it can only accommodate so much dimensionality, and it’s hard to assemble. The LORE is uniquely positioned to absorb all the inter-dimensional shapes coming out of AI generators then organize as structured narrative. No assembly required.

Today, 2.5 million LOREs have been crafted by creative folks in 130 countries and 94 languages. You can jump into this magical garden of creation here.

Users build using one of three tools:

LORE Builder: Block-by-block LORE construction, using one context-infused prompt at a time.
LORE Caster: A generative storytelling console that makes story text creation playable.
Story Vis: Uploading a whole screenplay or book then press visualize.

As we released these features, we saw users spending hours moving their blocks around to create what essentially looked like choose-your-own-adventure experiences. So we built an app just for that...

Adventure_Mode Enters The Chat

Six months ago, I reached out to twenty AI researchers around the world with a vision for an interactive storytelling system. Most of the people I talked to got it, one of them REALLY got it. Quietly, former Google AI and Hugging Face researcher/developer Samim Winiger and I began evolving the Lore Machine read-write ecosystem into a playable experience that removes the line between creating content and playing it. The way we described it to friends and family in those early days was, “the TikTok You Can Play.”

If Pro_mode is for creating, Adventure_Mode is for playing. The interface’s ergonomic designs makes it easy to go from idea to audio-visual LORE in minutes.

To create an original LORE, just enter your story idea, characters, art style and opening scene and you’re off! You can even skip the set-up phase by remixing stories from the gallery. Just hit the potion icon on any LORE and the story is yours branch.

Whether you’re inside an original LORE or a remix, you can push the story forward by prompting what happens next, or selecting from four contextually relevant Story Seeds. Every scene can be edited, animated and decorated infinitely. When it’s perfect, on to the next!

To Begin your Adventure_Mode experience:

Head to LoreMachine.Wtf on your desktop or download on the Apple Store.
All LORES are free to explore.
To build or remix a LORE you must register.
We are approving registrations on a rolling basis by email for the first few weeks.
Once registered you can create a LORE by hitting the button at the top of the homepage; or you can remix by clicking the potion button next to any LORE.
After registration you can generate five free scenes
Once you are through your first five scenes you can sign up for one of three subscription tiers: $3.99/week, $9.99/month or $99/year. At each tier, you receive 300 generations / month. If you run out, you can buy $5 boosts that give you 100 more generations.

OK that’s the nitty gritty. Here’s an deep-dive demo that takes you inside the experience of building an original LORE.

This is day one of the world’s most interactive storytelling experience. Enjoy!

Play Adventure_Mode on the Web

Play Adventure_Mode On iPhone & Tablet

Eternal Waterpark of the Cosmic Mind

Thobey Campion — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 05:09:08 GMT

Psst. We’re dropping something epic on November 10. It’s mostly under wraps right now - but here’s what we can say: it’s a choose-you-own-adventure experience coming to an app store near you. For early access sign up here.

And now, a deep-dive into the mythic realm of Anotherworld…

Graphic designer and artist Lucas is building a universe. Despite being entirely uninhabited, the dreamscapes of Anotherworld have racked up millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram. We got with Lucas to find out where Anotherworld came from and where it’s going.

I’ve picked three of your works. What do they mean?

This image is a deep dive right into my childhood memories. When I was a kid, I went to the swimming pool all the time. The pool was paradoxical for me. I loved it, but I hated being cold. I’d always end up with blue lips, shivering like a jackhammer. And yet, I always went back.
That memory is anchored in very specific details that I recreate here: that strong, distinct smell of chlorine, the always-wet tiles reflecting the overhead lights, and that water with a blue that was almost too perfect, chemical.
Above all, this image embodies a kid’s fantasy: having an entire waterpark all to yourself. A fully functional place, all lit up, with water running down the slides, and no one there. Total silence. You find that fantasy here: slides everywhere, so many you don’t even know where to start, soft pastel colors that evoke that nostalgia and water so blue it makes you want to dive right in. The whole place looks brand new, perfectly clean, like a park that just opened its doors and is waiting just for you.
But behind that dream, the image plays with a sense of oppression. The ceiling is very low, which creates a claustrophobic feeling. Then there are the mirrors on the sides. I mean, who puts mirrors in a waterpark? That creates the illusion of an infinitely repeating space. And finally, you get the sense that the park is immense, that it stretches far beyond what you can see, like a labyrinth you could go crazy getting lost in.
Ultimately, I want people who look at this image and both reconnect with their own swimming pool memories, and feel that strange unsettling vibe.

This one is tied to the mythology of the dreamworld I’m building - Anotherworld. The characters in the circle are lucid dreamers. They arrived there one-by-one, in silence, and took their place in this location that feels divine. It’s like they’re hypnotized by the clock, drawn to it for an immeasurable period of time.
The clock itself gives off a sense of grandeur, of immense importance. It holds a legendary history that only the most experienced dreamers, the “veterans” of this world, can understand.
Nature is all around it, breaking that divine atmosphere. It’s a very mundane setting: the grass is imperfect, the ground has patches. Unlike the surreal scene - which seems frozen for eternity - nature is just doing its thing; it keeps living and growing, not bound by the same rules.
The image is a reflection on our relationship with time. It’s a warning: if you spend your life obsessed with the passing seconds, your existence becomes nothing more than a simple “tick-tock.” You forget to have experiences, to feel things. Ultimately, you risk getting to the end of the road having left the page of your life completely blank.

This one suggests that maybe the two worlds of mundane and cosmic aren’t as far apart as we think.
The apartment building represents the everyday, the routine in its most mundane form: laundry drying on the balconies, potted plants... daily life.
The orange slide gives the whole scene meaning. It is an escape from the human condition, a potential getaway. It doesn’t lead to something scary, but to the cosmic void - an infinite, unattainable world of imagination and the human desire for exploration. This simple slide perfectly represents that transition: the abrupt shift from a heavy routine to a radical desire for change, without even knowing where you’re going to land.

Where is everyone?

Most of the time, my scenes are empty. That’s intentional. In fact, when characters do appear, they cease being human. They become a consequence of the scene’s anomaly, like the figures frozen around the clock. They are no longer visitors; they are part of the scenery for eternity.
Absence of people is the default state of Anotherworld. My images are like photographs taken inside a great, shared dream. The places we explore in our dreams aren’t necessarily personal creations, unique to our own minds. Many of the places are part of a common universe, a collection of places that exist in a static, eternal state.
Each place is there, waiting. The places only come alive when a dreamer comes to explore them at night. When no one is there, they return to that peaceful, empty state. That’s why everything is always perfectly in order, clean, and lit up: the places are always ready for the next explorer, as if they had just closed for the night and were waiting for the next day’s customer.

Which of your dreamworlds would you live in?

If I had to be stuck somewhere, I’d choose the aesthetic that’s bathed in an eternal sunset, without a doubt.
I could stumble upon a “Bar of Dreams” sitting in the middle of nowhere, stop for a piña colada, and then get back on a dirt road lined with beautiful flowers, with those immense wind turbines turning in the distance.
Maybe I’d lose my mind in the sheer vastness of those landscapes. That’s a risk. But at least I’d get to see the most soothing scenery that exists with my own eyes.

What are your influences?

A mix of influences help me build my unviverse.
Without a doubt, my biggest influence is The Backrooms. That internet-born fiction really opened up a world of possibilities. It showed me how you could build a world parallel to our own, with a real architecture, an organization, stories... a complete mythology.
Then there are my own dreams. I went through a long phase where I was very focused on them. I’d write them down as soon as I woke up, paying super-close attention to the details, the places, the architecture. The paradoxical thing is that in my dreams, I’m almost never alone - I’m always surrounded by people. That can be surprising when you see the emptiness and quiet of my images.
I start from the principle that the dream world is a vast, random territory with an infinite variety of colors, atmospheres, and scenarios. I give myself almost no limits in terms of style or architecture, as long as the first thing you feel when you see an image is that surreal impression of being in a dream.

What has your real-world experience been like since starting inviting people into Anotherworld?

On a professional level, my life has been turned completely upside down. Before all of this exploded, I was a freelance graphic designer. I spent all my free time on personal projects. But nothing was taking off. After three years of grinding, I was starting to lose hope.
When I posted my first TikToks last March, I was light-years away from imagining what was going to happen. I was working on another project that was costing me a lot of time and money. The TikTok account had no plan, no ambition; it was just for fun. Three months later, the account blew past the 300,000-follower mark. That was the moment I told myself: “Wow, wait, something is really happening here. Maybe I should take this more seriously.” So I quit the project I was burning out on to focus entirely on Anotherworld.
The summer that followed was insane. In July, I noticed people were stealing my TikTok content and reposting it on Instagram without credit. That was the wake-up call. I started thinking about Anotherworld constantly - all day, every night, even when I was out with my friends. When I was out and a little drunk or had smoked some weed, I’d get these incredible flashes of ideas, concepts, visuals, sounds. I wrote everything down on my phone so I wouldn’t lose a single crumb.
The love people showed for the project on Instagram was incredible; I received so much kindness and strength. That wave of support changed everything. I realized that Anotherworld wasn’t just a “more serious” project, but the project of a lifetime. When I’m working on it, I don’t feel the hours go by. Today, I’m at the point where I can dedicate myself 1000% to making a real living from it. I’m getting out of my routine as a lonely freelancer, and I’m starting to surround myself with people who share my vision.

Do you build a narrative around your images, or are they simply discrete digital fragments?

At the very beginning, each work was just an independent fragment, visuals that I thought were cool and wanted to share. But over the last few months, my vision has completely changed. I spend my time writing and organizing everything to make it a coherent and complex universe: simply put, the Anotherworld.
The goal is for each of my images and videos to be part of a larger fiction, with its own stories, theories, and rules of operation. I hope to start revealing the foundations of it all before the end of the year.

Subscribe now

The Talisman

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 21:31:16 GMT

How to Rob a Bank with AI Art

Thobey Campion — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 06:52:52 GMT

Jeffers is an internet artist re-contextualizing pop culture characters through synthetic media. We sat down to talk chaos, control and which of his creations he’d enlist to rob a bank.

Jeffers also went IN on a LORE - you can dive in here.

Read to the end for a chance to win a lifetime subscription to Lore Machine.

Who are you?

I’m part graffiti kid, part comic book nerd, part anime addict and now full-time AI troublemaker. I grew up in the 90s in New York with a stepdad who collected comic books and toys like they were gold. By the time I hit my teens, I was deep into anime and manga and sneaking around leaving tags on walls. I’ve always been obsessed with making a mark — first with spray paint, now digitally with pixels.
I launched my first Instagram while Myspace was still a thing, then didn't use it for a long time. When I returned to it recently, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn’t come in with a formula or a strategy. I treated it as one big experiment and that worked in my favor. The thinking behind every piece is, “What happens if I mash this with that? Will it break the Internet or will it just break my sanity?”
I refuse to be a one-trick pony. I’m constantly trying new concepts, flipping characters into places they don’t belong and seeing what happens when nostalgia collides with nonsense. I respond to every comment and DM as part of the process. The art matters, but so does the community I'm building around it.

I’m looking at TMNTs eating pizza with Hello Kitties, steampunk SpongeBob buying vending machine jellyfish, Princess Peach stuck inside a digital firewall. WTF is going on here?

What you’re looking at is my brain on WiFi. It’s chaos, nostalgia and way too much marijuana smashed together. The Ninja Turtles eating pizza with Hello Kitty isn’t random; it’s tapping into that feeling we all had as kids — cartoons, video games and toy commercials bleeding together on Saturday morning.
But beneath the absurdity, there’s intent. SpongeBob buying vending machine jellyfish? That’s the internet on acid. Princess Peach trapped in a digital firewall? That’s me trying to log back into MySpace after a ten-year hiatus.
I like throwing characters into worlds they don’t belong in and showing they could. It’s fan fiction without rules. The mash-ups are designed to make people wish these universes actually existed.
So yeah, WTF is going on? Everything, all at once. It’s chaotic, it’s nostalgic, it’s funny. It’s my way of showing that art doesn’t have to make sense to have an impact.

What is your ideation process? Aka how do you start?

The starting point is usually a concept, not a character. I’ll think, “What if SpongeBob was dropped into a Berserk panel?” or “What if I treated Batman like he lived in the One Piece world?” Once I’ve got that mashup in my head, I cast the characters to make it happen. That’s when the fun begins.
Inspiration comes from everywhere: anime, manga, graffiti I grew up with, music blasting in my headphones, memes that make me laugh at 3AM and even other AI artists who are experimenting the way I do. If it gives me that “oh this could be ridiculous” spark, I run with it.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, you’re robbing a bank tonight with 5 of your creations…

If I’m putting together a heist crew, I’m drafting straight from my most viral characters — the ones that broke the internet when I dropped them. No weak links here.
Mastermind – Yoda
Old as hell, wise as hell, and shady as hell. Yoda doesn’t rob the bank for money, he’s just bored. Dude’s been alive for 900 years — what else is there to do but plan felonies? He’s sitting in the corner dropping backwards sentences that somehow double as a getaway plan: “Out the side door you must run, stupid you are if caught.” Nobody dares argue because if you question him, he’ll probably Force-choke you while roasting your life choices.
Muscle – Shrek
Forget subtlety. Shrek’s the guy who kicks down the vault door just to flex. Ski mask fully loaded, no gloves, just raw swamp stank and anger issues. He’s chucking security guards like cabbages at a medieval market, yelling, “BETTER OUT THAN IN!” The alarms? Shrek is the alarm. He’s sweaty, pissed off and definitely shirtless before it’s over.
Wild Card / Inside Source – Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty is the embodiment of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Everybody thinks she’s soft and harmless until she walks past security with a bow in her hair and C4 in her backpack. She’s the one planting bombs under the desk while security guards are like, “Awww, so cute.” Nah bro, she’s about to detonate the lobby while smiling for a selfie. Inside source? More like psycho inside.
Getaway Driver – Toad
Imagine the most annoying Uber driver you’ve ever had... now crank it to 100. That’s Toad. He’s 3 feet tall, screaming the whole time and driving like he’s on Rainbow Road with three red shells behind him. Everyone in the van is fearing for their life, but somehow this cracked-out mushroom sticks the getaway every time. He’s got no license, no chill and definitely no insurance.
Vibes – Jason Voorhees
Jason is the absolute worst “vibes guy” imaginable. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t blink. He just sits there in a blood-stained hockey mask breathing like he’s trying to fog up your soul. Basically the story of my life. The whole crew is terrified of him but nobody says anything because you don’t tell Jason Voorhees to chill. Hostages are handing over their wallets voluntarily, not even because of the robbery but because they’re convinced he’s going to follow them home if they don’t.

Is your work all digital ephemera or are you telling a story?

Right now, my work leans more toward temporary snapshots of ideas, multiverses and mashups. I don’t sit down and say, “Here’s Chapter One of a grand narrative.” Instead, I drop people into moments: SpongeBob in a shiesty mask, Pepe the Frog pounding a beer, Batman reimagined as a samurai. It’s less like handing you a novel and more like tossing you random pages from a manga that doesn’t exist yet.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a story happening. The story right now is connection. I take pride in responding to every comment, DM and reshare because those small interactions are the real narrative. It’s me saying, “Hey, I see you. Thanks for vibing with this weird little world I just made.”
At the same time, I do think my work is building toward something bigger. Right now it’s multiverses, fan mashups and nostalgia trips. But long term? I want to expand into original characters, clothing lines, maybe even full-on animations. Imagine all these seeds I’m planting now growing into full universes later. For the moment, I want people to laugh, get inspired and scroll on. But in the future, I want to create the worlds people get lost in.

Is there one aspect of your work that you would love to expand upon, into a manga or anime?

I’d love to expand into anime-style storytelling but not in the traditional sense.
For me, the bigger picture isn’t just about turning one image into a manga or anime — it’s about building a whole world that can live beyond the feed. My main focus right now is creating a YouTube channel. That’s where everything I’ve been experimenting with will come together. I can’t dive into details yet but when I do, it’s going to be on a level people aren’t expecting.
Every mashup, every crossover, every weird multiverse scenario I put out is a teaser trailer. People laugh, get inspired and move on. But what I’m really doing is laying the groundwork for something much bigger. Eventually, those seeds are going to grow into a channel and a world that has the same mix of chaos, nostalgia and originality but on a scale that hits way harder.
When I finally pull the curtain back, it’s going to feel like those random posts everyone scrolled by were just prologue.

Oh, and we’re having a lil contest! Inspired by our favorite response to this interview, we invite you to visualize your dream bank-robbing accomplice. Post it to your Instagram Story, tag @lore.machine and @nastyjeffers and win a lifetime subscription to Lore Machine. Here’s how to generate your image ↓

Subscribe now

Lore Machine Meets dolorsilentium

Thobey Campion — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 18:42:47 GMT

dolorsilentium is a Finnish designer and photographer. His eponymous Instagram account taps into a nostalgic anime vibe that connects with hundreds of thousands of followers. We invited dolor to take Lore Machine for a spin and share his twisted take on AI-collaborative creation.

Assorted works by dolorsilentium

dolorsilentium is a real vibe - the old school anime, the melancholy, the chrome. Where did you and it all come from?

I've been creating and posting online art for about a decade. My main medium was film photography for a long time, but then I found out about visual generative AI tools. I was immediately hooked. Playing around with concepts and aesthetics super-fast intrigued me. At the time, I was testing out multiple AI pages on social media. This old school anime page was one of them.
My original idea for the page was to try to mimic the nostalgia old VHS-ripped 80s/90s anime evoked in me. That's what I started with. After having good luck with the algorithms, I just kept going. There were a couple open-minded artists creating with gen AI in the retro anime space back then. I definitely wasn’t the first, but I definitely hit that wave.

You’ve got a wild amount of followers on Instagram and so much love. There are a lot of artists who toil away for years but never crack the algo. What’s the cheat code?

I gotta hand it to the superpower that is the creative speed of gen AI tools. My images are kind of funky and interesting, but being able to post 5-15 new "works"/images every single day gives me an advantage in the game of #CreatingContent.
If you want followers on social media, it's 100% quantity over quality, I swear by it. Growth and followers come from viral posts, and viral posts are defined by the algorithms. You can't predetermine them because you can't predict which posts will take off. It’s all based on luck that lies outside of a creator's control. The only way to stack your odds is by creating and posting as much content as possible. That's the secret sauce.

I take a psychological approach to my posts: I bet on that visceral urge to click an image, to grab attention. I'm not completely sure how it’s defined, but I trust my intuition. It's about aesthetics and images that evoke the "oh what's this?" reaction in me. I’m an explorer of the unknown and unseen.
In a world obsessed with perfection and ultra high-definition, my approach has been to make my images look worse. That's the wabi-sabi of my continuous feed — it's the vibe, the immediate response to low fidelity. Realism is for the boring; imperfections let the imagination fill in the noise and fly.

By dolorsilentium

Does more followers = more happiness or more sadness...

More followers don’t bring more happiness. I know it sounds like a millionaire saying "money doesn't matter," but that's just how it is. Do more followers bring sadness? No, but it's true that people start to see you differently when you have a big platform. Suddenly, they're less interested in you as a person and more interested in what you can do for them. I'm painfully aware of that.

Constantly gaining followers is a pretty good metric for "success," but I'm not so sure what that success even means anymore. I’ve said quantity over quality in content creation, but the kind of audience you attract depends on which one you prioritize. Chasing massive gains in followers and views by posting tons of stuff can get the numbers high, but what do those numbers actually mean?
At the end of the day, what we’re after as creators, as people, is connection. And only focusing on numbers doesn’t guarantee any of that. That's been my experience.

You’d have to be living under a rock on the moon to have missed the absolute disgust some folks have for AI Art. How is what you make artistic expression verses the lazy slop people hate so much?

I think what makes my feed stand out from the "generated AI look" is my passion for the unexplored aesthetics. My eye is super-trained on how AI images usually come out, and I always try to push away from that — directing the models to new paths. I call this "breaking" them: forcing outputs the default patterns wouldn’t normally produce. Working like this often leads to defects and horrible mistakes in the images, but for me, that’s the only way to stay creative and imaginative with these tools.
Midjourney offers very nice tools on this front, like sref and moodboards, while on the Stable Diffusion side I’ve been experimenting with IP-Adapter and LORA-mixing. Mere prompting doesn't get far. I'm honestly terrible at prompting.

I edit each one of my images and people don’t see that. When they see an AI creator, the immediate reaction is "no skill/talent." But I use my background in design and photography to play with the colors and textures, distorting them just enough to create the "vibe".
I put a lot of effort into my feed and how the colors match. Yet nobody ever compliments me on color, even though every palette is something I decide on and mix by hand. Some people ask, “what’s the filter called?” and I just tell them it’s “dolorsilentium,” because that’s me and my experience, doing it manually.

Assorted works by dolorsilentium

Your posts are often carousels. Some are variations on an idea or style. Others feel like they’re telling a story, but in a distant ethereal sort of way.

Reading Haruki Murakami woke this up in me. I love how he plays with the idea that something is happening, even though we can't fully comprehend it. It’s all fragments and confusion and disorientation. I’m also drawn to the Lovecraftian sense of "cosmic horror"…not necessarily supernatural, but the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible. It’s the horror coming from inside. It’s the little shadows lurking in the corner of your eye and soul. You can see me playing with this in my captions a lot. I like to hint at it, then let people’s imagination fill in the rest.

Gun to your head, you have to adapt one of your posts into a feature-length film…which one is it?

Just one? Oh boy. I’d probably take one of my vampire posts, and make something with a touch of horror, maybe some romance, and a bit of dark comedy. Vampires fascinate me. Their endless lifespans give them infinite story potential. Their struggle with human traits, and the tension between instinctual urges and sophisticated culture in modern society, leaves so much to explore.
People keep asking me to do something with the cars, but I just don’t see it. Unless I wanted to make another generic Fast & Furious, there’s no real story there for me.

Assorted Vampires by dolorsilentium

How does the future dolorsilentium stay the same and how does it evolve?

The constant experimentation, shifting aesthetics, and bold themes and visuals are not going anywhere. I’m not running out of ideas; honestly, I don’t know if I ever will. It’ll stay dark and sexy, the way it’s always been.

I’d love for dolorsilentium to become a relevant business partner in the future. I also want to move into longer-form, more professional projects, like an anime series or a manga. Collaborating with brands and companies excites me, because it’s about making others known too and benefitting mutually. My dream is to flood the world with dark, lo-fi retro anime aesthetics.

🏴‍☠️ The Forlorn

Thobey Campion — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 20:51:02 GMT

Comics Beta is a new narrative canvas from Lore Machine that transforms sequential imagery into fully composable manga experiences. This is one of those. Enjoy me mateys, if ye dare…

Introducing Viewpoints

Thobey Campion — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:09:29 GMT

Viewpoints is a powerful new tool from Lore Machine that detects and visualizes all objects in a scene, exponentially increasing the variety of building blocks for your multimedia story.

Now, when you synthesize a book, podcast or screenplay, Viewpoints generates a cluster of variegated images around each segment of story text. This means superior scene coverage, richer worlds and an expanded surface area for creative expression!

Viewpoints now comes built-in to all workflows at Lore Machine Dot World. You can read more about the philosophy and implementation of Viewpoints below.

Spoiler Alert: The following contains plot details from the Netflix series Ripley.

Viewpoints in the Wild

What would Lord of the Rings be without the One Ring? Or The Big Lebowski without The Rug? Characters seem like the most important part of a story. But ambient objects that surround all the dialogue play a vital role in immersive entertainment.

The briefcase in Pulp Fiction, the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the rug in The Big Lebowski, the Tesseract in The Avengers, the cassette in Escape from New York, Unobtainium in Avatar 2

Glowing hero objects like the examples above aren’t always delivered at a rate of one per film. A single scene can house an army of plot-bearing paraphernalia.

In episode 5 of the Netflix miniseries Ripley, con man Tom Ripley hides away in Rome under the stolen identity of a man he’s just murdered. Tom rents a luxurious penthouse, then goes shopping for stuff - an ash tray, some records. Moments after returning to his ill-gotten pad, Tom receives a phone call. It’s Freddie, a friend of Tom’s victim. Freddie is downstairs and wants to come up. It’s an unwelcome intrusion into Tom’s new life and the web of lies it’s built on. In an excruciating apartment scene, Freddie grills Tom about their friend’s whereabouts.

The scene consists of 35 shots. 16 of these shots are character interaction, which certainly drives the scene’s tension. But it’s the 19 shots of inanimate objects around the apartment that tell the deeper story - highlighted here:

The sheer amount of props packed into the seven-minute scene is impressive: a Maine Coone cat, a birdcage elevator, marble stairs, a telephone, a garish robe, an LP of Mina’s ‘Il Cielo In Una Stanza’, a record player, a half-finished painting, a ring, a Murano Glass ash tray, a heavy wooden door, a US passport, a typewriter, a tabletop bar, and a matching pair of Ferragamo loafers. Each one of these objects is brimming with meaning from previous scenes and foretells the story that lies ahead.

Inside Viewpoints

Lore Machine works by synthesizing story text into metadata that is retrieved to formulate fleets of prompts, arranged in narrative sequence. These prompts run through workflows to uphold style, location and character consistency, ultimately generating interconnected story graphics.

Like us humans, Lore Machine hones in on characters, resulting in visuals that prioritize human subjects. This leaves other scene components like props and locations out of the picture…until now.

Viewpoints reroutes this fixation on characters by creating prompt variations that slice each segment of scene text into different, well, points of view.

Here’s an aerial shot of how Viewpoints works:

The result is more, different, better. Here’s imagery generated from a 2,100-word short story before Viewpoints, and after:

How 2 Viewpoint

While Lore Machine is now turbocharged with these newfound powers, the interface remains mostly the same. You can write a story using Lore Machine’s editor, upload a PDF or FDX file or generate story text using World Builder.

You will feel the Viewpoint difference upon generating your Storyboard. Each scene now contains a feature image and a stack of Viewpoints. To explore your Viewpoints, simply toggle Viewpoints to in the top-right of your Storyboard and explore!

In your Editor, you can now add a Viewpoint by selecting a scene in the right rail and then clicking <+ New Viewpoint> just above your prompt box.

It’s our hope that this drastically expanded collection of Viewpoints gives you more ideas and ultimately helps you tell better stories!

Lore Machine is an AI-native web application that transforms story text into multimedia adventures.

Take Lore Machine For a Spin

Paradise Chase!

Carl Botnik — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 05:46:24 GMT

This is a storyboard created by Lore Machine user Rawnald Raygun featuring an epic chase scene from the towers to the sewers of an annihilated Tokyo.

After building his story text and 2D graphics using Lore Machine, Rawnald then embarked on a painstaking process of hand-coloring every white cel of his black-and-white manga. We got with Rawnald to ask him one simple question - WHY:

“Most of the images coming out of generators have this cliché color palette. It’s like the tech is too good for its own good. I wanted to use machine-generated imagery as my guide for a color scheme no AI in its right mind would think of.”

You can dive into Rawnald’s Storyscape below. To generate your own story graphics, head to Lore Machine.

Lore Machine Dot World

The streets of Tokyo lay in ruins, the once-bustling metropolis now eerily silent. Kye walked cautiously, his heart pounding in his chest. The wreckage of buildings and debris surrounded him, a constant reminder of the devastation that had befallen the city. He called out for his brother Riis. His voice echoing through the empty streets. But there was no response, only the haunting silence that consumed everything in its path.

As Kye turned a corner, he felt the air move, and a metallic growl filled the air. His eyes widened in fear as he came face to face with a one of that massive robotic wolves that prowled the streets.

The wolf’s glowing red eyes pierced through the space between them, its sharp metallic fangs glistening. Without hesitation, the wolf lunged towards Kye, its mechanical limbs propelling it forward with horrifying speed. Kye's heart raced as he sprinted through the desolate streets of Tokyo, the mech-wolf hot on his heels. With every step, the wolf closed in. Its hardwired jaws snapping just inches away from Kye's heels.

He weaved through crumbling buildings, leaping over debris in a desperate attempt to escape. But the mech-wolf was relentless, its pursuit unyielding. In a heartbreaking moment, Kye hit a dead end.

Panic surged through his veins as he turned to face the approaching cyber-predator, its metallic paws scraping against the concrete. He clenched his fists, preparing for the worst. Then, as if like bells from above, a voice called out to him. A figure emerged from the shadows, bathed in a soft glow. Kye's eyes widened in awe as he beheld the beautiful figure before him.

Her flowing robes billowed in the wind, and her eyes sparkled with an otherworldly light. "Kye, hide behind me," Nia said, her voice pulsing with power. Not asking any questions, Kye obeyed, seeking refuge behind the goddess.

In a blinding flash of light, Nia raised her hands, summoning a powerful forcefield that materialized between Kye and the mech-wolf. The forcefield crackled with energy, shimmering with a protective barrier.

The wolf snarled and clawed at the invisible shield, its ferocity matched only by its violent frustration. Kye watched in awe as Nia manipulated the very fabric of reality, shielding him from harm.

With the mech-wolf temporarily subdued, the two moved through the city together on the hunt for Kye's lost brother, Riis. They traversed the desolate streets of Tokyo, their footsteps echoing through the concrete silence.

Kye's determination pushed him forward, fueled by the hope that he could recover his brother.

Kye and Nia climbed the crumbling stairs of an abandoned high-rise building, their footsteps echoing through the empty ruins.

Dust particles falling from broken windows danced in the sunlight, casting an ethereal glow upon their path. With every floor they ascended, a sinking sense grew in Kye, that they were getting further from his brother.

At the top of the high-rise, Kye and Nia emerged onto a concrete outcropping that overlooked the ruins of downtown Tokyo. Green smoke ploomed in the air. Do below, as pockets of Tokyo's citizens worked to rebuild their life.

The city sprawled before them, a haunting reminder of what once was. Kye's eyes scanned the horizon. His mind in a racing loop: "Where was Riis??”

Nia placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, her gaze filled with compassion. As she did, the wind gently blue passed them and plunged down towards the streets.

It was if it was guiding them to Riis. Kye and Nea descended into the depths of Tokyo, entering an interconnected series of tunnels known as The Tubes.

The air grew colder. With each step, Kye's hope flickered like a fragile flame in the dark. But he refused to let it die out. As Kye and Nia ventured deeper into The Tubes, they encountered a swarm of mechanical insects.

The tiny creatures buzzed around them, their metallic wings humming with an unsettling intensity. Kye swung his arms, attempting to ward off the relentless swarm, while Nia unleashed a wave of energy, dispersing the mechanical insects.

Their path forward clear, they pressed on.

Deeper into The Tubes, Kye and Nia traced the trickle of a glowing green ooze. They lifted a grate and let themselves down into a low-ceilinged tunnel. To Kye's horror, Riis lay motionless, face down in a puddle, covered in glowing toxic slime. Kye's heart sank at the sight of his brother's lifeless form.

As Nia reached out to touch Riis, her finger grazed the ooze. It sent ripples through the liquid.

As if the rippled were communicating with the beyond, something stirred at the end of the dark tunnel.

A group of cyborg giants emerged from the dark and the ooze, their glowing red eyes fixated on the intruders.

Kye and Nia stood side-by-side, to locked in stance, in between the cyborgs and the feeble Riis.

The clash of titanium-against-titanium filled the chamber, their battle echoing through the tunnels as they fought for their lives.

The cyborg giants closed in. They were outnumbered. Just when they were about to lose hope, a cool wind pushed through the tunnel. Kye and Nia heard a snap and a thud. Then another thud. The cyborg giants had frozen. They were covered in ice and knocked out cold.

Stunned, Kye and Nia turned back to Riis. Nia's hands glowing with healing energy, cleansing the toxic slime and revive his body.

The crew pushed through The Tubes. They ascended ladders, and slid down chutes.

The trio eventually found themselves on an abandoned train platform. They stood there in the dingy silence...waiting for nothing. Standing there, they all felt it. The air moved again in a curious way. Out of the inky blackness a train appeared. It swept into the ghostly station as if it had been on time for hundreds of years. As the carts slowed to a halt, Kye, Riis and Nia peered inside the train. It was filled with cyborgs. Yet this group qwas somehow more civilized than the killbots in the sewer tunnel. They didn't even seem to notice the humans. They all kept to themselves, swaying in the cart, their exoskeletons reflected sterile subway art, as if on their way to humdrum jobs.

The crew looked at each other, and despite better judgement stepped into the train.

The train rocked back and forth; the commuter-bots continued to mind their own business. The crew remained wary.

They stood wide-eyed wondering what the next stop might be. Then just like a same melodic sound showered down from the loud speakers.

The train then rolled to a stop at a second abandoned platform. The three stood there motionless as the passengers filed out.

The train carried on. As it pushed through the green darkness the crew could see a light in the distance. It came closer and closer.

The light came into focus - it was humans on a platform. Hundreds of commuters bustled on the way to work in the morning. It was like time had rewound to a moment when Tokyo was strong and vibrant. Before the nuclear wreckage. They took it all in; it seemed to good to be true.

They moved instinctively with the crowd, eventually finding themselves outside the station. It was good to feel their kind around again. Looking up away from the station, their hearts sank. What they had they had seen was a flicker - a momentary ripple in time. All too son, they were back in the destroyed Tokyo they had had come to know.

Another day in paradise.

For more transmedia adventures…

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Paranormal Podcast ➤ Storyboard

Carl Botnik — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 23:12:08 GMT

This is a storyboard visualized by Lore Machine user Rachel Coyne. To generate her images, Rachel uploaded a transcript from the outstanding podcast Unexplained, created and written by Richard MacLean Smith. She alternated between Get Reel and Illuminati art styles to get the look she wanted (read: creepy).

Rachel then used Lore Machine’s StoryScape tool to arrange her images into a multimedia-rich article.

You can read the chilling tale below. All images are straight out of the system, with no post-production.

To visualize your own podcast, screenplay or even dream, head to…

Lore Machine Dot World

The small brick farmhouse stood silhouetted and still in the night, a black monolith under moonlight perched up high on the hill. To observe this quiet scene from a distance is to participate in the grand illusion of permanence, the world seeming for a moment like a grand tableau fixed in time. Should we gaze on this house a little while longer, however, it would not be long before our illusion was punctured by the distant caw of a disgruntled crow or the haunting screech of a fox in the undergrowth or by the movement of a thin mist steadily creeping toward it from out of the valley below. In fact, should we stare long enough, we would see that even the stars above that seem so fixed in the sky, are in a state of constant shift.

Inside the house, a small fire cracked and crackled in the hearth as Bridget Murphy and her oldest daughter Anne slept under the soft flickering light of the flames. Next door in the bedroom to their right, 18-year-old Mary, 14-year-old Bridget, 9-year-old Catherine, and the youngest 5-year-old Bridget, 9-year-old Catherine and the youngest 5-year-old Jane Ann slept soundly together in their bed, while 23-year-old James had the fortune of a bed to himself at the other end of the house.

It had been only a matter of months since eight had become seven, after Michael Murphy, the father, and Bridget's husband, had been violently upended from his cart and fallen head first onto a rock, killing him instantly. That night, with the fire having all but gone out, Bridget awoke suddenly in the dark, alerted to what sounded like something moving about in the attic above.

Although the room, which could only be accessed from a stone stairwell outside, was being used as a makeshift barn, she knew only too well that it was currently unoccupied. Hearing the sound again, with Anne fast asleep beside her, Bridget made a quick check of the bedrooms but found all her children accounted for.

Having just returned to the central room, a tremendous thud rang out from behind her, followed by the startled screams of her four daughters as they bolted from their bed. With James joining them moments later, Bridget urged him to investigate upstairs. As the rest of the family huddled by the hearth, the sound of footsteps could be heard above as James inspected the attic, finding nothing inside but bales of straw.

No sooner had he returned downstairs, a violent bang, echoed through the house, then another, and another, each one louder than the next. Make it stop, cried Catherine, as Bridget gathered her in her arms and they all looked anxiously toward each other when finally the banging stopped it would be a few nights later when young Jane Anne woke up screaming having felt the bed move across the room and that something had been pressing down on her from above.

Over the next few weeks, the terrifying sounds continued, always beginning late at night in the children's bedroom or from the makeshift barn above, but not once did they see any sign of a culprit. Confused and scared, Bridget sought the council of her friends and neighbors, inviting them round to hear it for themselves. Together they sat, huddled in the center room, as the colossal bangs echoed through the walls and rattled the windows. Or that strange foot-dragging sound lurched from one side of the ceiling to the other. And soon the rumors began to circulate.

One neighbor had heard that the Cherry family, the previous owners of the house, had only stayed one night before hurriedly leaving for reasons unknown. The property had remained unoccupied for six months before it was sold. Others told of a man that had hung himself in one of the bedrooms many years before. By now, convinced that something otherworldly was taking place, Bridget turned to their local priest, Father Smith, for help.

Smith arrived at the house late one night, keen to make an assessment for himself before deciding what could be done, to find the family in a state of deep distress. Asking for them all to gather in the central room, Smith solemnly made his way around the house before being led upstairs by James to inspect the barn. Returning back down, Smith requested permission to stay the night. As the family slept, he took a seat by the fire and waited... And then it came.

It was like the sound of straw being rustled from the room above, followed by a tremendous thud. As the others ran screaming from their beds, the sound only intensified until it was as if a horse was kicking at the walls. Without thinking, Smith gathered them together and hastily recited mass. As the family held hands and clutched each other tightly, Smith's forthright voice rose over their quiet whimperings, and slowly the sickening noise began to dissipate until it stopped altogether. As Smith related his findings back to the church, a different set of rumors were beginning to circulate in the nearby towns.

When the girls attended their crochet lessons, others in the class would move away from them, pointing and whispering from a distance that the family had the black art, and had used it deliberately to invite a demon into their home. Others rejected the nonsense entirely, believing instead that the family were just making the whole thing up.

Having spoken to Father Smith, the regional bishop instructed local Reverend Coyne from nearby McGuire's Bridge to get a second opinion. Since Smith's visit, the disturbances had steadily intensified and were already in full swing when Coyne arrived late one autumn night. With an anxious Bridget, hurriedly showing him into the children's bedroom, Coyne looked on aghast at the terror on the faces of the girls, lying down on their bed as a series of bangs rattled out around them.

Turning to two men in the room who had also come to help, Coyne told them to take hold of the children's arms and legs to make sure they weren't the source of the disturbances. At the next break in the bangs, they held them down. Satisfied they were sufficiently restrained, Coyne took a seat at the end of the bed. But almost as soon as he sat down, the thumping started again, continuing for 10 minutes, until the other two men leapt suddenly from the bed, crying out in horror. Something had pushed them off, they cried. Having felt nothing himself, Coyne resisted the urge to move.

But just moments later, with his eyes firmly on the children, became the most peculiar sensation at his back, as if something else in the room had drawn right up to him, and then the bangs started again. Just then a collie, the family farm dog, wandered into the room, giving Coyne an idea. Picking the dog up, he placed it under the bed. Whatever is there, he said, I ask you if you have the power to do it, push the dog back out. A deafening cacophony of barks engulfed the room like nothing they'd heard before, sending the dog, leaping and yapping from out of the bed in a fit of terror, before scurrying out of the room altogether.

As Father Coyne later explained to Bridget, though he regretted to be the bearer of such disturbing news, there was no doubt in his mind that they were sharing their home with something malicious and most likely diabolical. In the following days, fathers Coyne and Smith continued to visit the house, often together as they attempted to bring comfort to the family but also with talk of performing a possible exorcism it was vital for them to get a better understanding of what they were dealing with on each, after the children had been put to bed, the knocking would start up, sometimes instantly, but other times a good hour later.

One night, with the children fast asleep and the house completely silent save for the sound of the fire in the hearth, Coyne requested to hear more about the strange noises that seem to emanate from the attic room. As Father Smith stayed with Bridget by the fire, James lit a candle, and lead coin into the second bedroom, the gentle light of the candle pushing the shadows away as they went. The room was sizable, with blinds pulled down over both its windows, and in the corner a bed covered with a white quilt. Together they stood for a moment and listened. Their faces bathed in the orange light of the candle as the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.

There, said James suddenly, pointing to the ceiling. Do you hear it? Coyne strained to listen. It was barely perceptible at first as if a small animal were burrowing into straw. Yet it was clearly moving from one side of the room to the other. Asking James to stay put, Coyne took another candle and slowly made his way out of the house and up the stone steps to the attic door. Pushing it open, Coyne peered into the door. Pushing it open, coin peered into the darkness, lit his candle, and stepped inside. As he stood in the silent room, pushing the shadows back with the candlelight, he saw nothing but bundles of straw.

Moments later, Coyne returned to the bedroom, where once again he could hear that peculiar sound coming from the room above. Having asked James to repeat the test, this time, Coyne stood below as James went upstairs to investigate. With the priest carefully listening out, despite clearly hearing James enter the room, not once did the other noise desist.

As soon as James joined Coyne back downstairs, something even more peculiar occurred. As both men would later go on to attest, it felt as if something had rushed down from above, shooting past them like a gust of wind straight down into the floor.

Unnerved, Coyne ordered James to lift up the blinds, and in an instant the room was bathed in the hazy light of dawn. Then, turning to look back into the room, James gasped in horror, pointing a finger toward the bed. Coyne slowly turned around. The quilt was moving, softly billowing about as if being blown by the wind.

Coyne stepped forward and brushed his hand over it and felt for a moment as if a barrel of eels were squirming about underneath it. Stepping back, he watched with alarm as the amorphous sheet, seemed gradually to fix into shape, outlining what appeared to be some kind of figure lying underneath. At the point where a chest might be, Coyne watched with bemusement as the quilt began to rise and fall as if that chest were heaving up and down, struggling to breathe, and then suddenly the entire quilt began undulating violently, as if whatever was under it were in the final throes of death. Wasting no more time, Father Coyne broke immediately into mass, directing it toward that shape as a steady din of what sounded like a hideous gurgling flooded the room as if something were dying right in front of them.

All the while he kept on spitting out the words with ever-increasing intensity as the bed began to rock back and forth, lifting the legs inches from the ground, and then, as quick as it had begun, the quilt dropped down, and the mayhem ceased. As word travelled far and wide of the apparent hauntings in the Murphy's home, more and more people requested to come and observe it for themselves. One evening, a well-known horse dealer arrived at the house to see what all the fuss was about. Sitting next to his driver as they approached on his pony and trap, there was no doubt some apprehension as they caught sight of that small stone house perched high up on the hill before them.

Its windows like eyes flickering ominously with the candlelight from within. All was quiet as the driver brought them to a stop outside. James, who'd been expecting them, greeted the horse dealer before showing him inside, while the driver was instructed to wait alone under the moonlight. It was sometime later, as the driver blew into his hands to keep them warm, that he noticed the silhouette of a figure walking toward him from out of the distant dark. The driver watched it as it drew closer and closer, until eventually it passed him by and disappeared into the night. It was strange he thought since there was some distance from the nearest neighbor or village for that matter. Thinking nothing more of it, the driver had just turned his attention back to keeping warm when he caught sight of another figure approaching from out of the same direction as the one before, only for them to again pass straight by without a word and then vanish.

Grabbing a torchlight, the driver held it out behind him and squinted into the dark, but saw nothing. Turning back, he jumped at the sight of yet another figure emerging from out of the distance, again from the same place as the other two. Calling out, the driver demanded to know their business, but got nothing in response.

As all the while the figure drew nearer and nearer, walked past the cart and vanished back into the night. Just then a heavy gust of wind swept across the hill, blowing out the driver's light and throwing the pony into a frenzy, neighing and stamping and raising up on two feet before the driver could bring it under control.

It was with some relief when his employer emerged moments later from out of the house and demanded to be taken back home. Though both Father Smith and Coyle urged the Church to grant permission to conduct an exorcism, in the end it was decided not to take such drastic measures.

Perhaps one of the most unusual incidences occurred shortly before Father Coyne was due to transfer to another parish. On one afternoon, while out visiting a sick neighbor of the Murphy's, Coyne was passing the Murphy household when he decided to check in on the family. Little had changed since he last saw them, but on this occasion he had a holy picks with him containing the consecrated host, wafers of bread which are considered in Catholicism to be the body of Jesus Christ. As more of an experiment than anything else, Coyne entered the children's bedroom and holding the picks aloft made the sign of the cross with it.

This moment was followed immediately with such loud bangs, everyone else present threw themselves to the ground in fear of what might happen next. Panicking, Coyne was then said to place the picks on the floor, at which point the sound seemed to travel through the wall down toward the small holy container before dropping under the floor below it moving deeper and deeper into the ground until it could no longer be heard.

In the end, unable to escape the strange phenomena, Bridget Murphy eventually decided to pack up and move the family to America. Though it isn't known what happened to them after their arrival in America, or if they continued to be plagued by similar hauntings. Some have reported that passengers traveling on the same boat as them heard peculiar noises coming from the family's cabin late at night. As for the clergyman that had spent so much time with the family, their involvement apparently was said to have led to two of them, suffering spinal meningitis and facial paralysis respectively, while a third suffered a complete nervous breakdown.

For more harrowing tales from the frontiers of generative storytelling and the minds of Lore Machine users

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The Sculpture

Carl Botnik — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 02:34:20 GMT

The following is a Storyscape titled “The Sculpture” built by Lore Machine user Conan Foyle. It is the first in a series of mysteries set in the fictional city of Suspiria.

Conan used Lore Machine’s modular story text generator World Builder to create the narrative. To achieve a hard-boiled detective vibe, he chose the art style Gray’s Anatomy. Conan spent 2 hours revising and generating all his images and text to match his imagination. To build your own Storyscape head to…

Lore Macine Dot World

The metropolis of Suspirion buzzed with activity as citizens hurried through the crowded streets. Neon lights flickered, casting an eerie glow on the faces of gangsters, hussies, and tricksters that lurked on every corner. In the heart of the city, tucked away in a back alley, stood the unassuming entrance to Detective Warren Incognitio's office.

The sign, barely visible in the dim light, read "Warren Incognitio: Private Detective." Detective Warren Incognitio sat behind his cluttered desk, his combed hair and piercing eyes giving him an air of refinement.

Lyla Deville, a stunning woman, walked down a the darkening alley at dusk. Her gait was as distressed as it was intentional.

The daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate, she was looking for help. She entered through the front door of the office dripping with rain. Lyla's voice trembled as she explained to the detective that a valuable sculpture had been stolen from her penthouse.

Detective Warren and Lyla descended by elevator back down to the busy streets.

Deep in discussion, they entered The Rusty Knot, a dive bar down by the water. If there was a connection to the criminal underworld of Suspiria, they were hanging out at the Rusty Knot. They saddled up to the bar and looked around. It was hard to tell the difference between a mastermind and regular old drunk at The Rusty Knot.

After an hour, a scruffy man approached their table, slipping them a piece of paper torn from a notebook before disappearing into the boisterous crowd. The note was inscribed with two words - Kilgore...Sewers. Warren and Lyla looked at each. There was only one place to start.

Warren and Lyla pushed through the busy streets and into the quieter Perabulum district. There they found a sewer great and slipped through into the subterranean world below. Like all kids who'd grown up in Suspiria, they were familiar maze of sewers below the city.

The two figures waded through the ankle deep waters of the labyrinth for hours, listening for the faintest sound, and warily watching movements in the dark. The stench was overpowering, but they pressed on, their footsteps echoing through the tunnels. Then Lyla stopped. As if traveling on the tiniest wavelength, she could hear the faint outlines of a voice. It was a voice from another world, chanting lyrics in a different language. She used the voice as their navigation. They tuned left, then right, deeper into the caverns under the city. Turning a corner they were confronted by a horrifying figure, flanked on all sides by massive rat heads.

The figured stopped singing immediately. "I am Kilgore" he growled. His voice was so low, it was almost imperceptable. Kilgore then turned and proceeded down the hallway. Warren and Lyla followed after. They were terrified but they'd come this far. No sense in turning around now. At the end of the tunnel they entered a massive lair, filled with the what they could only presume was decades worth of stolen items from Suspiria's well-healed elite.

It was Lyla who piped up first. She cut straight to the chase. "Do you have my sculpture?" she managed to stammer. Kilgore whipped around. "I do and there's only way to get it back," he growled. "You must agree to a game with the clever Kilgore." Lyla got her courage up again and managed to get out, "Tell us about this game."

Kilgore pointed with one gnarled finger at a corner of his lair. Lyla followed the direction of his Kilgore's fingernail with her eyes.

There in the darkness, a glowing orb appeared, sitting on a table covered in velvet. He turned to Lyla and simply said, "Proceed, look deeply and wait for instructions." Lyla peered closer, then made her way to the glowing crystal ball. As she approached it got brighter and she could make out a mountainscape in it's little orb world. The glow seemed to engulf her entire body. Kilgore and Warren disappeared from her awareness.

As she stared into the orb, she could hear Kilgore's voice deep inside her head, as if he was reaching through the vibrations of her very bones. "Think to when you last saw you sculpture," Kilgore urged. Lyla remembered a rainy morning she'd woken up and brushed by her sculpture on the way to the kitchen to make breakfast. Something was off that morning. She couldn't quite remember what it was. She'd been out the night before...she'd come back late...she'd taken a cab. She'd stumbled out of the cab and got to her lobby. Then she remembered! She'd forgotten to pay the driver. A sense of guilt overtook her entire being. She had so much and here was this driver working into the night for basically nothing. She was overcome with a deep sense of guilt. With a snap, the light that engulfed her disappeared. She turned to find Kilgore. He was nodding. Thank you for taking the time to see, not many do. He tapped his long nails three times on a table. The tapping echoed down the tunnel of the sewer with surprising volume. He the then smiled and stated, "Your sculpture has been returned."

Lyla and Warren raced back through the streets of Suspiria and took the elevator up to Lyla's penthouse.

Sure enough sitting right there where it had always been was Lyla's sculpture, staring warily out into the nothingness of her living room. As she gazed upon its beauty, she could here a deep but playful laughter in her bones.

She turned to Detective Warren Incognitio who was gazing out over Suspira below.

For more harrowing tales from the frontiers of generative storytelling and the minds of Lore Machine users

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Feature Flex 🦾 World Builder

Carl Botnik — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 15:53:06 GMT

Feature Flex is an an exploded view on new advancements at Lore Machine. In each installment of Feature Flex, we go deep on one system feature. Today we flex World Builder, Lore Machine’s modular story text generator.

In this video, we use World Builder to make a manga, a StoryScape™ and video:

What is World Builder?

World Builder is a narrative concepting tool that generates story text from webform inputs. Users can select a story genre, describe a world, dream up characters and locations and list plot points. In seconds, World Builder generates a ~2,500-word story optimized for visualization.

Once your story text is generated, you rejoin Lore Machine’s familiar visualization workflow. Here is the StoryScape™ for Midnight City. You can navigate StoryScapes by pulling the scene index drawer out on the left side of your browser. Here are some select panels of Midnight City laid out by Lore Machine’s Manga Maker.

How 2 World Builder?

Like all AI systems, Lore Machine is only as good as the input it receives.

Pro Tip #1: We built Midnight City by filling out the first of what will be many World Builder webform templates. World Builder loves to be surprised. We suggest inputting both cohesive elements and curveballs to make maximize intrigue.

Pro Tip #2: When dreaming up your characters and locations, hyper-specific details go a long way. Give your character a ‘chip implant in their forehead’; give your location ‘a sense of impending doom’. These flourishes turbo-charge the uniqueness of your story.

Pro Tip #3: Your World Builder text output is labeled with “Plot Points”. We auto-insert these numbered section titles to help our system identify discrete scenes. We suggest leaving the plot points in your generated text for now. When you’re ready to publish your story, you can remove these demarcations in Editor » Scene Text.

Why World Builder?

We developed World Builder for two practical reasons:

New Lore Machine users were showing up without a story on deck. They needed something to visualize.
ChatGPT barfs out very mediocre stories that reduce the voice of the writer to rubble. We believe in authorship.

As writers, we know that getting started can be the hardest part. World Builder kickstarts your imagination into gear with the outline of a story. From there, it’s your world baby! Whether you’re writing a screenplay, game lore, fan fiction or a commercial treatment, World Builder can ⚡turbocharge⚡ your ideation process.

But this exciting new feature is more than just ignition; it’s also adventure. World Builder takes stories down the most unusual paths. So get lost at Lore Machine Dot World.

Screenplay → Interactive Manga

Carl Botnik — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:46:15 GMT

Last summer, Lore Machine partnered with legendary science fiction writer Phil Gelatt, Modern Arts, and HP to produce the world’s first commercially distributed AI-augmented manga. The Way Forward: Into the Unknown was released IRL at Bilibili World in Beijing and made a lot of new friends online. So we got the band back together to make an interactive Volume 2!

Join us below on a sightseeing tour through the production process that made Volume 2: The Mirror Maze even more immersive. The techniques we invented directly inform tools that now power Lore Machine’s story visualization platform.

Lore Machine works with like-minded partners to transform text into multimedia adventures. Say hi at sup@loremachine.world 🖖

The Way Forward Volume 1 Drop at Bilibili World

All Stories Start with Text

Like everything at Lore Machine, both The Way Forward manga volumes started their life as screenplay text.

In Volume 1, the main character slips through a portal in a video game, landing in a metaversal labyrinth patrolled by giant cyberpunk spiders. To take the ‘game within a game’ construct to the next level, we made Mirror Maze a choose your own adventure.

Phil Gelatt wrote event-based triggers into his foundational screenplay, inviting readers to forge their own path through the story.

Example of non-linear narrative in The Way Forward: Mirror Maze

Non-linear narrative design has historically presented a challenge for formats like manga. Producing enough visuals to keep up with multiplying story branches can become a losing race, fast. Generative technologies give superpowers to small teams crafting big interactive experiences.

Thumb Panel Illustrations

In the production of Volume 1, we built the final imagery straight from text. This led to a costly revisions process. No fun.

In Mirror maze, we gained consensus across teams by introducing an intermediate step between text and image generation: thumb panel illustrations. We worked with legendary comic illustrator Omar Francia to build a sketch of the action in each manga panel. This extra measure got all teams aligned and introduced more dexterity over the final art.

Here are some examples:

Thumb panel illustrations from The Way Forward: Mirror Maze

With thumb panel illustrations locked, the Lore Machine team moved on to image generation with more conviction, and control.

Final Art

The Lore Machine team crafted a style model that honored and elevated Volume 1’s aesthetic. We marked each figure’s joints on the thumb panel illustrations to guide the style model, which was layered over top.

Here are some examples of sketch → final art:

Final image generation for The Way Forward: Mirror Maze

Multimedia Explosion

Generative enables small teams to build fleets of supporting assets that snap to the myriad formats and aspect ratios required of a fractured medisapshere. Damn you, 9:16! [shakes fist at sky]

Here’s a peek at the making of select 2.5D animated assets:

3D animated assets:

We even produced a 60-second Chinese national TV spot starring CGI’d out renditions of our characters.

Generative Lift

The hybrid human-machine production pipeline we stood up for Mirror Maze enabled Lore Machine’s small team to build an expansive bilingual story world in a breakneck 1.5 months.

You can stare into the Mirror Maze in English and Mandarin.

Team

Mirror Maze was brought to life by technologies being developed at Lore Machine and some absolutely stellar humans:

Original Story: Phil Gelatt

Story Adaptation: B. Earl

Illustration: Omar Francia

Synthography: Jumoke Fernandez

Creative Direction: Tillavision

Project Management: Jonathan Montaos

Layout & Graphic Design: Dersu Rhodes & Vitaly Kidon

Soundscape: Erik Hanson

2.5D Animation: Bijay Chudal

3D Animation: Paul Plastic

And the teams at HP Omen & Modern Arts

Meet Lore Machine v3

Carl Botnik — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 06:18:30 GMT

Today we begin onboarding users to Lore Machine v3. If you’re on the waitlist you will receive an onboarding email in the next week.

The upgraded system has an electric array of new features:

🎨 New Art Styles
👯 Multi-Character Consistency
🤸 Character Poses
🏗️ Generative StoryText
🔪 Storyboard Editor
🥷 Manga Maker
📝 PDF & FDX Synthesis

For freaky content coming out of the system follow us on X!

🎨 Styles

Render your StoryScapes with all-new art styles ranging from photorealistic polaroid to cyberpunk anime. You can see each style in action here.

👯Multi-Character Consistency

This is a big one! Customize and generate three consistent characters across infinite frames of imagery + video.

🔪 Storyboard Editor

Edit each one of your Storyboard visuals using Lore Machine’s upgraded Storyboard Editor.

🤸Character Poses

Once you’re in Storyboard Editor, choose from a library of 262 poses and over 140 variations to gain more control over your characters.

🏗️ Generative Text Creation

Lore Machine’s modular generative story text builder helps you craft worlds faster. Simply enter a description of your world, characters, locations and plot points…then generate! It’s extremely fun. Here’s a video of the experience.

🥷 Manga Maker (Beta)

Export your images to simple manga panels. This feature is currently an MVP, but we’re going deep on this export format in the next weeks.

📝 PDF + FDX Synthesis

Up until now, Lore Machine could only synthesize ~3,500 word PDFs. Now you can uploaded PDF or Final Draft (FDX) files up to 30,000 words.

Lore Machine is built by a small but dedicated band of cyber-storytellers. A huge tip o’ the hat to Moises Sanabria, Kutlu Mizrak, Emmanuel Martinez, Daniel Radu, Lyonel Pierce, Herval Freire, Martin Carpaneto and Leah Beo 🫡