AI Dungeon Project: Viva! Monster Girl Island — Part I

A tale of anime catgirls, luchadores, and 1,000 robots

First and foremost — you can try out this AI Dungeon world via my AI Dungeon profile here: https://play.aidungeon.com/profile/Transit%20Umbra

Fair warning: I’ve been using AI Dungeon as a dumping ground for a lot of my late-night bright ideas, and some things may not necessarily be SFW. As with any AI at the moment — nothing is guaranteed to be SFW anyway. Caveat adventurer.

Part I of this will be an overview of the first few parts of building this world, talking about the rationale, and walking through how it was created.

Part II centers on more in-depth lore building of factions and locations needed to create worlds in Dungeon AI.

Part III centers on starting an Adventure (the generated stories DAI produces and users interact with) and using the Scenario system (which likely will need an update later on, as the Scenario system is being revamped. As it is, it still works fine for DAI Legacy).

Part IV shows how the output can be used to make a story, and how to use the AI to help you generate characters, storylines, and a more realistic world. This goes more in-depth into technical tweaking of the AI as well (though you’ll need a paid membership to alter the settings yourself).

Part V shows you how to take the output and create a very rough draft manuscript with it, using my preferred manuscript software (though I’ll make it as universal as I can).

Part VI shows how to revise, edit, rewrite, and add other features of an actual, complete book. We’ll talk about adding subplots, different character POVs, and writing on your own to do the heavy lifting. Remember, the AI as it is, is best used as a brainstorming tool and a collaborative writing aid. It can’t (and shouldn’t) do the real work for you. The real work of writing is revising, editing, polishing, and putting all the pieces of your (and here, the AI’s) thoughts together.

A Whole New World

The concept I came up with in the wee hours of the morning is pretty simple.

V!MGI is a world inspired by isekai anime — a kind of portal fantasy. The hero wakes up (or is reincarnated in) a strange new world.

The Worlds system in Dungeon AI is going away, and I’m reworking it into the updated Scenario system at the moment. But this is how the concept was built in DAI:

1. Enter a genre. Generally, the more descriptive you are, the more in-line with your idea the output it (much like anything with AI).

For my purposes, I entered “monster girl fantasy anime,” because I was inspired by a few things that popped into my head:

• Mars Era Limited’s Isekai Slow Life (not to be confused with the web novel Kajiya de Hajimeru Isekai Slow Life)
• The anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion

Can we talk about how Japanese light novel authors title their books like Fall Out Boy songs?

And, of course, inspirations included:

• Mexican lucha
• Any number of classic RPGs

It’s not a high literary concept, but there’s a benefit to using anime inspirations when working with AI-generated storytelling.

Anime relies heavily on tropes and stock plots and characters. There’s not a lot for the AI to get confused by, as complexity goes. And in the form, plots tend to be more simple, and subplots are also straightforward.

2. Once the genre is entered, tap “Generate.”

This produces a name (which you’ll edit to add your title, as I did here), the genre (what you typed in to begin with), and it’ll generate a description.

The description is the core of the AI’s (and your own) memory for the world, and here, in broad strokes, you’ll describe the world. It’s also the flavor text that users of the platform will see (if you publish — you don’t have to, it can stay private). Think of it as the back-of-the-book blurb for your world.

You’ll likely have to edit this to make it more like you want. I did here. To save you a scroll back up, I described it this way:

Magica Island is a magical place filled with monster girls (and monster boys, and monster everything else, just collectively called Monster Girls). It’s a world of fantasy with adventure at the fringes. The Monster Girls are friendly, and their personalities ranging from shy to adventurous. It’s a strange place, outside the reaches of the world we know. And beyond the Island itself lies even grander adventure.

You’re not describing the story or a lot of details here. Just the overarching setting.

Once that’s done, you move to the next option.

Humans and Monster Girls and Mimics, Oh My!

For those of you who’ve ever rolled for initiative, you’ll understand the basic concept of “Races.”

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure:

AI Dungeon is designed around tabletop role playing game (TTRPG, like Dungeons & Dragons) conventions. Part of this is fantasy races (or more appropriately for most settings, species).

AI Dungeon allows for a lot of complexity in this, but here again, I experimented with keeping it simple at first, and the results have been decent:

Similar concept here. You enter the name of a fantasy race, and it generates an output. You’ll likely have to tweak it, especially if your concepts are more unique.

This

For the Vend-O-Bots, I was inspired by Borderlands’ Claptrap. That’s all the Vend-O-Bots really are, and that’s what I initially entered. I wasn’t happy with the results, so I edited it moderately. I ended up with the description here:

Vend-O-Bots are a curious relic of a lost civilization. They are highly intelligent and gifted machines, with a single rollerball foot. They were sentient tools of a lost civilization and a few of them still exist today. They are known for their curiosity, their sense of humor, and their fascination with human culture. Borderlands Claptraps have a reputation for being friendly, honest, and hard-working. Vend-O-Bots are also somewhat naive, which makes them great companions.

This was edited a few times, as my ideas for the world evolved and I began playing around with it. Adding information that ties into the setting is helpful in generating better outcomes.

Fantasy Monster Girl worked pretty well, and I didn’t have to do a lot of editing. I ended up with this, currently:

A group of humanoid monsters of various kinds and genders, collectively known as Monster Girls. They’re the primary residents of Magica. Their appearances vary, but each has a special magical power unique to them (from the mundane to the extraordinary), and the ability to transform into a magical luchador alter ego. Every year, the residents of Magica compete in La Lucha Grande, for amazing prizes and the title of the Grande-est Luchador in Magica.

My first entry, and last on the list (they stay in reverse chronological order from how they’re added — most recent is first) is the Human from another world.

The AI didn’t like that and generated a bunch of repeating text, so I entered:

After waking up in a new world, a human finds themselves trapped in a fantasy world where the inhabitants are all Monster Girls. With no one but himself to guide him, he must learn to survive — and perhaps even thrive — in this strange new world.

Here too, this is flavor text. Users will see this when they’re generating characters. If you’re like me, it also helps you flesh out some of your core ideas as you revise the output.

Keep It Classy

Next up is classes. This is a character’s job. Entries here will also be flavor text, and work the same way, so I’ll skim over this a bit. There isn’t a lot of crunch to this system — it’s entirely freeform, so no worries about having to do math to tell a story.

Here, again in the name of simplicity, I used:

A basic magic-using class that works within the setting:

Historians are people who collect stories and past events. They are often very knowledgeable about the history of the world, and they can even be able to find out hidden truths buried in the past. Historians are also very adept at researching information, and they can usually be found reading a book or taking notes. They prefer using magic.

A basic adventurer class, appropriately enough named “adventurer.” No real editing was done for this one, and it’s worked ok enough for now.

Adventurers are the heroes of any fantasy setting. They travel the world, fighting monsters and completing quests. Adventurers usually wear heavy armor and wield large swords or axes. Adventurers can be found fighting in many different settings including dungeons, forests, mountains, deserts, and oceans. Adventurers typically start off as low level members of a party, working their way up to higher positions. They prefer melee weapons.

And a ranged weapon and crafting class, the merchant. I didn’t change the output, just cut it down. Here’s what’s there currently:

Merchants are cunning and greedy folk who travel from town to town selling their wares. Merchants are often the butt of every joke, but the items they trade are often of great value and essential for survival. Merchants have become a ubiquitous sight in the New World, and while they are looked down upon by many, their trade is indispensable. They prefer daggers and ranged weapons.

Not ideal for the world, but I wanted to see if that would impact anything generated by the AI. It doesn’t seem to do anything meaningful — it seems to just be there for roleplay purposes, but I’ll be playing with it more.