Choose Your Storyteller: Which AI Should Tell Your Tale?

The oracle rolls the dice. The Storyteller narrates what they mean.

That split is the heart of Soliloquest — outcomes stay honest because they come from published tables you can audit, while the AI’s job is purely interpretive: turning a “Yes, but…” into a scene worth reading. Now that job can be done by a lineup of different voices, each with its own strengths. As of this week, you can choose your Storyteller before you begin — and switch anytime mid-campaign.

Here’s what’s available and how to think about the choice.

You can be the Storyteller too

Before we get to the AI voices, the most important option: the Storyteller can be you. Play that way and the roles simply flip. You interpret the oracle and write the scene yourself, and the AI Storyteller steps back into the role of assistant and scribe — keeping the journal, tracking your cast and threads, and offering a nudge only when you ask for one.

That’s the whole philosophy. At Soliloquest you can always use as much or as little AI as you want: let it narrate every scene, split the telling with it, or keep the pen entirely to yourself and let it handle the bookkeeping. The dial is always in your hands, and you can move it mid-campaign.

The rest of this post is about the other end of that dial — the AI Storytellers you can choose from when you do want a voice narrating the result.

What each Storyteller is best at

Rather than publishing raw benchmark numbers, we’ve given each Storyteller a strength badge that describes the kind of session it’s built for. Here’s a plain-English breakdown.

Herald — Fastest

Herald is the Storyteller to reach for when you want to move. Long dungeon crawls, rapid scene-by-scene exploration, late-night sessions where you just want the next beat without waiting — Herald keeps pace with your dice. The prose is clean and purposeful, not ornate. If you play Ironsworn-style (move, consequence, move again), Herald rarely makes you wait.

Bard — Best prose

Bard is the one that makes you stop and re-read a paragraph. It lingers on atmosphere, finds the unexpected metaphor, and treats your oracle result as an invitation to write something genuinely literary. Ideal for players who export their campaign as an ebook or Markdown file and want the finished artifact to read like a real novel. Slower than Herald, worth it when the scene matters.

Sage — Safest

Sage is the Storyteller built for players who want the most conservative, reliable output — consistent tone, no tonal surprises, careful with sensitive themes. If you’re running a campaign with younger players, sharing sessions with someone new to solo RPGs, or just prefer a voice that never goes off-script, Sage is the dependable choice.

Wanderer — Great value

Wanderer offers strong narrative quality at a lower credit cost per scene. If you play long sessions, run multiple campaigns in parallel, or simply want your credits to stretch further, Wanderer is worth trying. Quality is genuinely good — this isn’t a budget fallback, it’s a deliberate trade-off of speed and cost for players who prioritise volume.

Chronicler — Best for Ironsworn

Chronicler has been tuned specifically against Ironsworn-style fiction: the spare, mythic register of the Ironlands, the weight of vows, the particular rhythm of a move and its aftermath. If your campaign leans on the Ironsworn tradition that Soliloquest is built from, Chronicler often feels like the most natural fit. It understands “you swear an iron vow” in a way that more general models sometimes don’t.

Trickster — Wildest card

Trickster is for players who want to be surprised. It takes more interpretive risks with oracle results, reaches for stranger imagery, and occasionally produces something you’d never have written yourself. Some players love it; some find it too unpredictable. It’s the right choice if you’re bored of your own narrative instincts and want the Storyteller to genuinely challenge you.

How to pick

A few questions that usually settle it quickly:

Are you playing to export a finished story? Start with Bard. The prose quality is worth the slower pace when you know you’re going to read it back.

Are you playing fast, move-heavy sessions? Herald or Wanderer. Herald if response time matters most; Wanderer if credit efficiency matters more.

Is this your first campaign, or are you introducing someone else? Sage. Predictable, warm, no surprises.

Is your setting Ironsworn-adjacent — dark, mythic, vow-driven? Try Chronicler before anything else.

Do you want to be genuinely surprised by your own story? Trickster, with the understanding that it’s the most experimental option in the lineup.

You can also just start with Herald and switch later. The campaign carries over completely; you’re not locked in.

The oracle doesn’t change

Whichever Storyteller you choose, the oracle mechanics stay identical. The dice still roll on the same published tables. A “Yes, but…” is still a “Yes, but…” — the Storyteller just narrates it differently. This is the core promise: outcomes come from transparent rolls, not from the AI deciding on a whim. The Storyteller is the narrator, not the referee.

If you’re new to how that split works, the modes overview explains how Soliloquest divides the roles between you, the oracle, and the AI.

Switching mid-campaign

Open your campaign settings, find the Storyteller picker, and choose a new voice. The change takes effect on the next scene. Your journal, your character, your world — all intact. Some players deliberately switch Storytellers between story arcs, using Bard for a climactic chapter and Herald for the travel montage that follows. The story stays yours either way.

Try it

If you haven’t started a campaign yet, create a free account — you get credits to try the system before spending anything. Pick a Storyteller that sounds right for the kind of story you want to tell, and see how it reads.

If you’re already playing, your existing campaigns will prompt you to choose a Storyteller the next time you open them. You can also set a default in your account settings for new campaigns.

The dice tell the truth. The Storyteller tells the story. Now you get to choose who that is.