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Lore Codex

A single page reference for The Clockwork Pilgrim’s world: visual prompt recipes, stories, dialogue, route hooks, radio oddities, and song pairings. Drop fragments around the site as you wish.

Visual Prompt Codex

For image / video models

Short, self-contained prompts designed for Flux, DALL·E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, LTX-Studio, etc. You can store these in data attributes or JSON and surface them as hover tooltips, hidden scroll notes, or “Concept Art” buttons.

The Clockwork Pilgrim: Portrait

ultra-detailed cinematic portrait of a weathered mechanical wanderer wearing a cracked leather dust hat and brass respirator mask, glowing circular goggles, visible clockwork gears spinning beneath corroded metal plates, steam rising from vents, sand blowing across shot, warm sunset side-lighting, ultra realistic, 85mm lens, deep DOF, moody film grain, desert ruins blurred in background

The Cloak of Lost Nations

full-body shot of a tall post-apocalyptic wanderer wearing a long torn patchwork cloak made of shredded national flags, frayed seam edges, bullet holes and scorch damage, cloak blowing dramatically in radioactive dust storm wind, mechanical body beneath with copper gears, Western silhouette stance, harsh golden side light, 16k detail, solemn heroic tone

The Mare (Before the Reveal)

realistic dark bay mare standing in scorched desert, saddle loaded with brass tools, rope coils, steam canister, pressure gauges, crossbow holster, dust blowing across shot, harsh sun, slight lens haze, cinematic realism

The Mare (After the Reveal)

mechanical horse disguised as real, torn skin flaps revealing gears and pistons underneath, glowing fusion core deep inside rib housing, steam leaking from joints, tail made from braided steel cable, standing under moonlight, sparks drifting on wind

Pressed Flower Detail

macro close-up of a brass mechanical hand holding a perfectly dried pressed wildflower between delicate clockwork fingertips, old journal pages in background, soft natural light, floating dust motes, shallow depth of field, warm melancholy tone

Lore Vignette · “The Day He Arrived”

Tale told by Elder Mara

I have lived through famine, flood, and firestorms. I have buried husbands, sons, neighbors, children not mine. I do not cry easily.

But on the morning the Clockwork Pilgrim arrived, I wept before noon.

He came out of the snow like a funeral statue walking upright. His mare moved silently, no steam, no hooves crunching. And he raised no weapon.

The children ran to him first, the fools. He knelt.

You must understand, a machine kneeling is a terrifying thing. It means it knows respect.

He spoke no greeting. He simply opened his coat and showed us what was inside:

  • A thousand names written by different hands
  • Stacks of thin journals, each sealed with wax
  • Pressed flowers, perfectly preserved

He said only:

“Tell me what must be remembered. I will carry it.”

And I began to cry, because no one had spoken of remembering in twenty years.

Dialogue Snippet · “The Child & the Mare”

Short scene for audio or tooltips

Anna: “Your horse is warm. Is she alive?”

Pilgrim: “She is awake. That is enough.”

Anna knocks on the mare’s side. Metal rings faintly underneath the hide.

Anna (gasping): “You’re machines!”

Pilgrim: “Once, people called us that. Now they call us repairman. And friend.”

The mare snorts; a small puff of steam vents from her nostrils.

Anna: “Does she dream?”

The Pilgrim looks at the horizon for a long time. Sand snakes across his boots like thoughts he doesn’t yet trust.

Pilgrim: “Only of walking.”

Journeys & Branches

Core Routes

These map onto your existing route pages (journey-north.html, journey-east.html, etc.) and can be linked from the home page or surfaced contextually at the end of songs.

  • The Endless Walk: core five-song arc of Awakening → Final Step. Links: index.html → radio.
  • Northern Passage: Anna, the first flower, Tick-Touched children. Links to journey-north.html & the-flower.html.
  • Eastern Roads: Bunker 7, Dr. Chen, origin hints. Links to journey-east.html.
  • Children of the Dust: kid-perspective songs and fragments (e.g. “Spark in My Pocket”).
Hidden / Side Paths

These can live as secret URLs, footer hints, or unlocked via radio interstitials.

  • Hymnal of Rust: tongue-in-cheek wasteland church, pilgrim hymns, sermons.
  • Scrapyard & Weapons Dealer KRAGG: your weird commercial break zone; can be reached via a radio “ad click.”
  • Mechanics of Miracles: case files of impossible repairs, each with a short text + linked track.
  • Signal Fragments: hooks into your existing fragments.js board; text transmissions, coded messages, coordinates.

Kragg’s Scrap & Armory: Radio Spot

30–40s radio ad script

SFX: chaotic hammering on sheet metal that at first sounds like gunfire, then settles into a beat.

Voice, Kragg (too loud, slightly drunk):

“THIS IS KRAGG’S WORLD-FAMOUS SCRAP & ARMORY! Need a flamethrower built from a church organ pipe? Need a crossbow that fires cutlery at three hundred feet a second? Need a slightly cursed engine block that screams when you turn it? WE GOT YOU.”

“Bring scrap. Bring teeth. Bring old-world coins. NO RADIOACTIVE CHILDREN. LAST TIME THEY ATE THE SIGN.”

“Kragg’s Scrap & Armory. Where the future is built entirely out of other people’s pasts.”

Tagline can end with a distorted station ID so you can bounce the listener back to the main radio stream.

Songs of the Wastes · Suggested Pairings

Primary Exit Song

“Spark in My Pocket”: Child Lullaby

Ideal as the final song after a long visit to the site: a kid’s-eye view of the Pilgrim that leaves visitors with wonder instead of despair.

  • Attach to “Children of the Dust” route ending.
  • Offer as a secret “listen before sleep” button on the-flower.html.
  • Soft volume, maybe auto-faded if the user is idle on the page.
Fragments & Route Hooks

Key Tracks & Where They Live

  • “Rivet-Song Rising”: mill settlement rave miracle. Link from a “Mechanics of Miracles” repair case.
  • “Iron-Seed Ritual”: shamanic metallurgy. Hide in a “Hymnal of Rust” sub-page or as an unlockable ritual log.
  • “Frozen Witness”: Anna & the flower, children’s choir. Anchor it to the Northern Passage and The Flower essay.
  • “Salt & Fire”: extreme storm rescue. Good for Eastern Roads / Bunker-adjacent content or a “Critical Missions” mini-section.

Optional Systems & Toys

For later iterations
  • Map of the Wastes: simple SVG map with hotspots linking to your journeys; tooltips show which songs dominate each region.
  • Radio Transmission Log: mini archive pulled from wasteland-radio.js, listing “recently heard” tracks and interstitials.
  • Journal Snippets: one-sentence memories that appear on hover when visiting a link you’ve already clicked (using the journey.js visited state).
  • Flower Index: tiny gallery of pressed flowers with who gave them, when, and how that settlement is doing now.
  • Kragg Coupons: completely useless “discount codes” that don’t do anything but make people laugh.