The old prompt asked for "an evocative spirit name" and "2-3 sentences of
lore" — abstract enough that the LLM defaulted to poetic ghost-vagueness
(static, voids, ancient sorrow) rather than anything resembling a specific
dead person. Horror fiction's actual technique for selling "this was once
a real human" is the opposite: mundane, unglamorous specificity (an
ordinary job, an approximate age/decade, one small habit or possession)
placed right up against the uncanny.
Refined MINT_SYSTEM and MINT_PROMPT to require the model silently work out
a name, occupation, age/era of death, one small mundane detail, and a
plain (not epic) unfinished-business hook before writing persona/quotes —
and to make at least one quote a mundane human fragment rather than
cosmic riddle-speak. JSON schema and mint_prompt()'s signature are
unchanged, so nothing downstream needs updating — this is a pure prompt
refinement. 20/20 prompt/entity tests pass, 221/221 full suite.
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