Lite så jag arbetar. Oftast ger jag AI en kort beskrivning att utgå från, typ en sida text, men ibland ger jag den fria händer med väldigt öppna promptar. Det här är ett exempel där jag tycker att jag fick inspiration som jag antagligen inte skulle kommit på själv:
Give me ideas for a jungle nation, well outside normal trade routes. Avoid ideas already used, as well as Aztec influenced ideas.
ChatGPT said:
Here are some possible directions for a jungle nation far from the beaten paths, avoiding the usual Aztec-inspired tropes:
1. The Dreaming Canopy
A people who believe the jungle is a vast, living dream spun by great spirits. They paint themselves in shifting patterns and speak in riddles or chants meant to blur waking and dream. Shamans eat hallucinogenic fungi and fruit to "wake" deeper into the dream. Outsiders are often treated as fragments of the jungle’s dream and may be questioned strangely or tested to prove if they are “real.”
2. The Rootbound Tribes
They live not in villages on the ground, but in great woven homes where colossal roots break the surface. The people believe the roots are the bones of ancient titans, and they sing to them in low harmonies at night to keep them from rising. Their crafts are of bone, shell and wood, carved into spirals and knots that mirror roots. Strangers might be sacrificed into the roots, "fed" to prevent the titan from hungering.
3. The Mist-Sworn
These people inhabit a region where the jungle is perpetually fogged by steaming vents. They wear masks carved from petrified wood, each mask tied to an ancestor. When someone dies, their mask is cast into the boiling springs and fished out days later, blackened or cracked, then inherited by the kin. To the Mist-Sworn, identity is bound to these masks, not the body. They are excellent ambushers, appearing like wraiths in the mist.
4. The Hollow Bough Kingdom
Instead of cities, they carve out immense hollow spaces inside still-living trees, connected by hanging rope bridges and woven vine tunnels. Their culture is defined by verticality: highborn literally live high up, while the lowborn dwell near the roots. Outsiders who do not know how to climb or swing properly are treated as children, unworthy of respect.
5. The Serpent’s Choir
They revere the countless snakes of the jungle, believing each species carries a note of the world’s hidden song. Their rituals are done with rattles, flutes and serpent-skin drums, and initiates must endure venom to gain visions. Their warriors wear live snakes as ornaments in battle, letting them strike at close range. Their speech has a strange sibilant quality, mimicking snake sounds.
6. The Emberfolk
In a land of dampness, they master fire with reverence. They keep sacred embers burning in sealed clay jars that are carried everywhere. To them, flame is not only warmth but a fragment of the sun trapped on earth. Their jungle is studded with fire-towers, where watchers keep signal fires alive above the treeline. They distrust outsiders who arrive without fire, seeing them as "cold-born."
Do you want me to develop one of these into a full nation writeup, like we’ve done for Murkwater and the Drowned Marshes?
You said:
Combine 1 and 3, and make a description, according to a similar template as the other nations.
ChatGPT said:
-= Snippar ett par mellansteg som bara tillförde mindre namnändringar och sånt. =-
Got it. I’ll rework the name into something that feels more African jungle-like, and I’ll expand on the mist as a natural phenomenon with spiritual meaning. Here’s the new version:
The Nation of N’gazama
Hidden deep beyond any road lies N’gazama, a steaming jungle where the air itself deceives the senses. The land is pierced by black stone vents that breathe constant fog, thick with the stench of sulfur and strange minerals. The mist clings to the canopy, rolls down the valleys, and seeps into the villages, until nothing seems solid or permanent.
The Dreaming Fog
The people of N’gazama believe the world around them is not truly awake, but the dream of a vast Sleeper beneath the earth. The endless mists are said to be its breath, and those who breathe deeply fall into visions that others call madness. To the N’gazama, however, these visions are truths whispered from the dreamer. Shamans gather near the vents to inhale the thickest vapors, painting themselves in pale ash to mark their journeys into the dream.
The Masks of Memory
Every man and woman wears a mask of carved root, bone, or stonewood, said to bind their soul to the dream. At death, the mask is cast into one of the scalding vents or boiling pools. If the Sleeper chooses, the mask survives the ordeal, blackened or cracked, and is passed down to kin. If it crumbles, the soul is believed to have been devoured, never to return. A family’s honor lies not in graves or tombs, but in the line of masks they preserve.
Way of War
The mists are the N’gazama’s greatest weapon. Warriors move like phantoms, masked faces gleaming and bodies painted in spirals that blur their shape. They strike from nowhere with blowpipes, barbed spears, and jagged stone knives, then vanish again into the vapors. To outsiders, fighting the N’gazama is like battling the jungle itself, never knowing what is real and what is dream.
The Faith of the Sleeper
All ritual turns toward the Sleeper. Its breath fills the land, its voice echoes in visions, its hunger claims the unworthy. Rituals are frenzied and ecstatic, filled with drumming, firelight, smoke, and sacrifice until the people fall together into shared trance. In these moments the Sleeper’s will is revealed through chants spoken in voices not their own, and the tribe follows without question.
Would you like me to next draft village names, secrets, and hooks for N’gazama, like we did for the Murkwater Fibians?
You said:
Go deeper into how the mist and visions affect their society and daily life. Also, expand on their rituals.
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a deeper expansion on how the mist and visions shape N’gazama life, and a more vivid picture of their rituals:
The Nation of N’gazama
Far from the reach of merchants and kings lies N’gazama, a jungle drowned in mist. The earth steams with countless vents and hidden springs, the air thick with sulfur and minerals. The fog coils among the trees and clings to the skin until everything feels half-submerged in dream. Outsiders who linger too long breathe it in and soon lose track of time, forgetting where the waking ends and visions begin.
The Dreaming Fog in Daily Life
To the N’gazama, the fog is not a hazard but the essence of their world. They believe every breath binds them to the dream of the Sleeper below, and to live without it would mean drifting into nothingness.
Children are raised to accept visions as normal. When a child first speaks of a dream that seems real, it is celebrated as proof the Sleeper has noticed them.
Hunters move with reverence, for the jungle itself may shift under the Sleeper’s dreaming. They read omens in the movement of the mist, seeing paths and signs where others see only fog.
Disputes are not decided by words or evidence, but by visions. When two families quarrel, a shaman leads them into the vents to breathe until the Sleeper gives a shared sign, ending the matter.
Time is not measured by calendars or stars, but by cycles of fog. A heavy week of vision-filled vapors is said to be a season of the Sleeper stirring, while clear air is a season of its rest.
The Masks of Memory
Masks are worn at all times. Each is carved from petrified root, bone, or stonewood and painted with swirling mist patterns. The mask is considered the true face, while the flesh beneath is only a shadow. At death, the mask is hurled into a vent or boiling pool. Survivors who retrieve it days later believe it carries the soul’s dream-echo. Families pass these masks down as heirlooms, filling their homes with shelves of staring ancestors.
Rituals of the Sleeper
Rituals are central to N’gazama life, binding the people not only to their Sleeper but to each other through shared vision.
The Breath of Union: Villages gather around a vent at dusk, the air thick with smoke and drumming. Participants breathe deeply until the line between self and others dissolves. They sing the same words though none recalls learning them, and at the peak, the Sleeper is said to speak through the crowd as one voice.
The Mask Baptism: At the coming of age, a youth wears their first true mask. They must walk blindfolded into the jungle fog alone and return by instinct and vision. Those who fail are said to have been reclaimed by the dream, never meant to be real.
The Sacrificial Dream: When calamity strikes, a chosen victim is bound with ash and leaves, then lowered into a steaming vent. The rising vapors are believed to carry their soul directly into the Sleeper’s dream, where it may plead on behalf of the tribe.
The Night of Many Faces: Once a year, all masks are taken from the homes and worn together in one great dance. Men, women, and children trade masks, so that for a single night no one knows whose soul they carry. The people say the Sleeper itself walks among them then, wearing whichever mask it chooses.
Way of War
To fight the N’gazama is to fight the mist. Their warriors smear themselves with pale ash, their masks painted in distorted spirals that shift in the vapors. They stalk their foes like phantoms, strike with poisoned darts and jagged spears, and then vanish again. For them, war is not conquest but dream-purging. Enemies are figments intruding in the Sleeper’s rest, to be erased.
Would you like me to now weave in secrets about what the mist really is (natural vs magical vs something else), or keep it as myth and mystery for now?
You said:
Give me a flavor story, showcasing the balance between reality and vision, madness and insight.
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a short flavor story set in N’gazama, told to highlight the thin line between vision and reality:
The Breath of the Sleeper
I woke with my mask still on, damp with mist, my breath rattling inside it. The village was gone. In its place, a forest of faces stretched from every tree trunk and root, all staring, all whispering. I thought I had wandered too close to the vents, that the fog had swallowed me whole.
Then I heard them chanting. The villagers stood around the spring, their bodies blurred by smoke and vapor, yet their masks shone sharp as bone. They swayed, and I felt my feet swaying too, though I had not willed it. Their voices filled my head until my own thoughts were drowned, and I knew the Sleeper had seized us.
A figure stepped from the mist. It wore no mask. Its face was shifting, sometimes my brother, sometimes my mother, sometimes a stranger. My hand gripped my spear, but the others only bowed, so I bowed too.
The figure lifted its hand, and I saw the path ahead, clear as day. A herd of hornbeasts crossing the river, enough to feed us through the next season. I also saw the river red, filled with our dead, if we hunted without offering thanks.
When the vision ended, the mist thinned. The faces on the trees were only bark and shadow again, and the villagers were only men and women in masks. Yet when we went to the river the next day, the beasts were there, exactly as I had seen.
I cannot say if it was madness or insight, but we left an offering in the water before we cast our spears.
Do you want me to create another story, this time from the eyes of an outsider caught in N’gazama’s dream, to show how strange and unsettling it feels from the outside?
You said:
Yes. Focus on the outsider getting caught in hallucinations, not knowing if the masked faces are real or not.
ChatGPT said:
Here is a story from the viewpoint of an outsider wandering into N’gazama, caught in the suffocating dream-fog:
Faces in the Mist
The fog grew thicker with every step. My torch sputtered, its light swallowed whole before it reached the ground. I told myself I was on the old hunters’ trail, that the trees had only shifted because I had lost my bearings. Yet the air itself seemed alive, breathing in and out, whispering words I almost understood.
Then I saw them. Masks. Dozens of them, pale against the gray, hanging from branches, staring at me with hollow eyes. I froze, blade drawn, but when I stepped closer they were only knots of wood and twisting bark. I laughed at my own fear.
Something moved behind me. I spun, and the same faces were there again, not wood this time but people. They stood still as statues, masks glistening with wet fog, spears in their hands. I blinked, and the clearing was empty once more.
My heart hammered. I pressed on, but the path curved back on itself. My footprints lay before me, though I swore I had not walked there yet. I began to run, but every turn only brought me to more staring masks, some on trees, some on people, some on nothing at all.
At last I stumbled into a circle of them, their masks shifting in the haze, one becoming another with every blink. They raised their hands as one, and I knew I was already caught inside their dream. My sword fell from my hand. I could not tell if I was still standing, or if I had fallen asleep long ago and was only now being dreamed.
The mist closed in, and I never knew whether they touched me or if I touched them first.
Would you like me to also detail what outsiders say about N’gazama—the rumors and warnings told by merchants and wanderers who skirt its borders?
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Sedan spenderar jag några timmars handpåläggning på det, putsar saker, stuvar om, lägger till egen inspiration, fixar språk, kollar att saker stämmer med kartan och resten av världen (speciellt de saker jag har planerat, men som ChatGPT inte vet om än) osv.
Jag genererar en packe bilder med drömvisionerna och maskritualerna.
Edit: Formatterade för läsbarhet.
