The City of Valenthia #01 - Magical Academies [AI-Generated RPG Book]

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The City of Valenthia

Hello everyone!

Last week I've published this post about my idea of creating and publishing a RPG eBook with a fantasy-medieval scenario, describing the City of Valenthia, a sprawling magical metropolis, and the adventures that can be found within it. But there's a caveat: the book will be written using artificial intelligence, and the content will be mainly created by ChatGPT, with me only altering some minor stuff in order to be sure that everything makes sense when put together, avoiding cohesion problems and such.

As I've also said on the first post, this is an artistic approach to the whole AI fever that's going on. I want to see how good (or how bad) the result will be, and I want other people to see it too. When (if) it's actually published, it'll be 100% free to be downloaded, and I'll be sure to let it be very clear that the content was generated by ChatGPT as I don't want to pretend that it was me writing it.

Without further ado, let's get started!

Magical Academies

First things first.

To start the whole ordeal, I had to get ChatGPT into the "RPG mindset", so he has understands that we're creating a RPG scenario. I also took the opportunity to give the very basic information about the scenario: a traditional fantasy setting, with medieval theme (swords, bows, horses) and with magic (orcs, wizards with pointy hats, the whole ordeal).

I didn't wanted to give any extra information that wasn't absolutely necessary because the idea of this project is to let ChatGPT create whatever it wants, with the minimum input bias from me.

On my last post, ChatGPT said that "Valenthia was home to a large number of magical academies". So I'll start with this subject: Magical Academies.

To steer the dialogue to the subject that I want to delve into, I asked the tool to give me an "overall view" of those so-called Magical Academies:

The magical academies in the City of Valenthia are impressive structures that are a marvel to behold. The buildings are typically constructed from stone and adorned with intricate carvings and decorations that depict magical symbols and creatures.
Each academy has its unique architectural style, reflecting the preferences and traditions of the school's founders. For example, the Academy of the Arcane has a tall, slender tower that stretches towards the sky, while the Academy of Elemental Arts has several smaller buildings, each dedicated to a particular element.
The buildings are also designed to be functional, with classrooms, libraries, laboratories, and other facilities needed for magical study and research. The classrooms are often large and spacious, with high ceilings and tall windows that let in natural light. The libraries are vast repositories of knowledge, containing ancient tomes, spellbooks, and scrolls that detail the history and practice of magic.
The laboratories are where students and faculty conduct experiments and research, and they are typically filled with all sorts of magical apparatus, including cauldrons, retorts, and athames. Overall, the magical academies of Valenthia are impressive and awe-inspiring structures that reflect the power and potential of magic.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. ChatGPT already named a few of those Magical Academies (Arcane, Elemental Arts) and also gave some basic information about them (like the material of the buildings, and that each Academy has a different, unique architectural style).

But now I want to now exactly which academies there are in the City of Valenthia. With this list, I'll then make the tool generate some more detailed description of each of them, including 1 or 2 important NPC for each academy and, maybe, a plot hook envolving each of these places.

Valenthia is home to several magical academies, each with its unique focus and specialties. The exact number of magical academies may vary depending on the specific lore and world-building of the game, but here are some examples:
The Academy of the Arcane: This academy focuses on the study of magic's inner workings, with an emphasis on theory and research. The academy's faculty and students delve into the mysteries of arcane energy, exploring the nature of spells and incantations.
The Academy of Elemental Arts: This academy specializes in the manipulation of the four classical elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The students and faculty learn how to harness these elemental forces, creating powerful spells and magical effects.
(...)
These are just a few examples of the magical academies that could exist in Valenthia. The exact number and names of the academies may vary depending on the specific lore and world-building of the game.

Interesting enough, while ChatGPT named three more Academies (for a total of five), it also gave a very vague answer like "oh, there can be more, who knows?".

Aren't ya a very, very sneaky AI?

This just won't cut it. I need a clear answer, as I want to describe each and every of those places. I can't just write a book and say "Hey, there's some more places, probably, maybe, yeah, that.".

I decided to ask the tool to create four extra academies, for a total of nine. That's enough for me.

The interesting part is that, as those new academies were generated through a different chat command, the descriptions were also different: this time, ChatGPT gave some information about the students of those 4 new magical academies (something that it didn't made for the 5 first ones). For example, here's the description of the Academy of Illusion

The Academy of Illusion: This academy focuses on the creation of powerful illusions that can deceive and confuse the senses. The students and faculty learn how to create lifelike images and sounds, and how to manipulate them to create convincing illusions. The academy is known for its secretive nature, and many of its students and faculty members are rumored to be master spies and infiltrators.

Now that I have a comprehensive list of all the nine Magical Academies of the City of Valenthia, I'll now start asking ChatGPT a create some specific information about each one of them. These will be the prompts:

• Describe, in detail, the Academy of <...>: the building, the recruitment, the classes, the students, and the professors.

• Describe, in detail, two characters that are related to the Academy of <....>: how do they look, what are their objectives and secrets, how is their personality.

• Describe, in detail, a plot hook that is related to the Academy of <...>.

I won't copy/paste each and every of these prompts here as it would be boring, extremely long, and would also kill the whole idea about publishing the book later down the line. But, for your curiosity, here's the kind of answer that ChatGPT is giving me:

To be honest, it's a quite reasonable plot hook. Obviously it's very generic and, for an unexperienced Dungeon Master, it will be difficult to manage a RPG adventure with only those informations. In the other hand, it's quite enough for a more experienced player as there's enough basic info for a whole story, while also being totally system-agnostic (as you can run this adventure on Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, etc.).

Neat-o.

Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!

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