This is White Lotus ported to Marinara Engine. Same goal as the SillyTavern build: push LLMs toward the two things they're worst at — creativity and plot progression — without burying the output under a wall of instructions. The priorities are adaptability, a reasonable token count, and writing quality over doohickies.
The big structural change is that most of the prompt blocks have been moved into the special variables Marinara Engine uses, so you set your preferences through ME's variable menu instead of toggling individual prompt sections. The original's built-in trackers have also been removed — Marinara Engine has its own native tracker system, so there's no need to duplicate it here.
If you want the full philosophy write-up, deeper module notes, and per-model parameter recommendations, the SillyTavern page goes into more detail — most of the model and parameter advice carries over.
The dials you set once through Marinara Engine's variable menu: narrator type, POV, tense, length, diction, and genre. Narrator can be Omniscient (knows every NPC's inner world except yours), Character (becomes {{char}}, with their biases and blind spots), or Storyteller (writes everyone, including you). Diction options for China, Japan, or Historical settings layer in culturally appropriate idioms, honorifics, and cadence. Length runs from Super Short up through Girthy, plus a Flexible mode.
Optional modules you can stack as needed — no dependencies, no conflicts. Only turn on what's actually relevant to the current scene. Anti-Slop and User Autonomy guardrails are built in rather than optional.
Variety Toggle injects an extra story element each turn — a memory, an intrusive thought, a misunderstanding being planted for later, a sudden commotion — to break repetitive loops. Brainstorm (CoT) walks thinking models through character motivation, lore, and scene pressure before they write, and Hyper-Mode adds a thematic reasoning layer on top. NPC Crafter generates a randomized character with specific physical traits, fashion sense, speaking style, personality, and a quirk, so you get something more interesting than the model's default "tall, handsome, mysterious."
The trackers that shipped with the SillyTavern version (Relationship, Temporal, Status Board) aren't included here. Marinara Engine has its own native tracker system, so you can lean on that instead.
- 01 Set your variables through Marinara Engine's variable menu — narrator type, POV, tense, length, diction, and genre. Genre presets come with pre-configured tone and author style, so just pick the one that fits.
- 02 Drop your character card, persona, scenario, and lore into the usual marker slots. The preset's lore section is a baseline the characters grow from as the chat progresses.
- 03 Stack the Tweaks you want. Leave off anything you aren't using soon — if nobody's getting frisky, skip the NSFW Toggle.
- 04 Reach for Direction when you want more: Variety Toggle for unpredictability, Brainstorm (CoT) + Hyper-Mode for thinking models, and NPC Crafter as a one-shot when you need a fresh face (turn it back off after, or you'll spawn a new NPC every turn).
- 05 For trackers, use Marinara Engine's native tracker system — this preset deliberately leaves that to the engine.