Data Science: An AI LLM Wiki for DnD Session Notes

Graph representation of notes in the LLM Wiki. Green are labels, red correspond to the character Zinjaro, and blue correspond to the character Soren

Over the past few weeks, the AI community has been all abuzz about a post from Andrej Karpathy about LLM wikis. I've seen a handful of videos about it and decided to give it a try with my DnD session notes. This is an alternative to a traditional RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), such as the one I did in one of my prior blog posts- Data Science: Querying DnD Session Notes with Vector Databases and AI. While a RAG uses a search engine (a vector database) to retrieve information, the LLM wiki approach uses an AI agent to browse through files like a human would.

Here are the guidelines Karpathy presented: https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519de94f 

The gist of this is that one offloads the organization and querying of a wiki to an AI agent. An agent empowered with a good system prompt and skills can identify relevant documents and synthesize answers without requiring the full setup of a traditional RAG. This is far easier to set up, though it may fail or become prohibitively expensive when dealing with millions of documents (at that point, the RAG approach is superior).

A lot of people have been praising this approach, so I wanted to give it a try. And since I had prior examples of queries against a RAG, I figured I would do the exact same calls and compare those against this local LLM setup and against a Gemini-NotebookLM approach with the full documents.

Book Review: Queen Demon by Martha Wells

Queen Demon is the sequel to Witch King by Martha Wells, part of the The Rising World series. I picked it up on discount to check it out, even though it wasn't my favorite series. Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs' Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there's something he isn't telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself. 

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

While I haven't read Andy Weir's work before, I was familiar with The Martian thanks to the movie and hearing that Project Hail Mary was going to be turned to one I figured I'd read the book before watching it. Here's the Goodreads blurb:

RYLAND GRACE is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

This is the 2nd book in the original Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. It's been a long time since I read these, but I'm making my way slowly through them again. Here is the blurb from the Kindle version:

Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

This is the 4th book in The Expanse series. Just continuing my read of the books and comparing them to the TV series. Here is the Goodreads blurb:

The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule. 

But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

This is the 3rd book in The Expanse series. I watched the TV series first but have been meaning to get through all the books at some point.

 Here is the Goodreads blurb:

For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark.

Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

La Belle Sauvage is the first of The Book of Dust, a separate trilogy set in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe. I enjoyed the first series so I figured I'd give this one a try. Here is the Goodreads blurb:

Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy...

Malcolm's father runs an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue.

He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust--and the spy it was intended for finds him.

When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, Malcolm sees suspicious characters everywhere; Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; an Egyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a daemon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl--just a baby--named Lyra.

Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Translation State by Ann Leckie

It's been a while since I read a book by Ann Leckie and I remember enjoying Ancillary Justice very much. I probably should reread it since it's been a decade since I first read it. This book isn't a sequel, but it is set in the universe and we get to see some of the ramifications of the original trilogy at least indirectly. Here's the Goodreads blurb:

The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across the stars in this powerful new novel by award-winning author Ann Leckie.

Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". It's the type of behavior that results in elimination.

But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots--or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.

As a Conclave of the various species approaches--and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line--the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.

Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration about relationships and belonging, Translation State is a standalone story set in Leckie's celebrated Imperial Radch universe.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.