Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2021-09-08
Wizard Turnarounds are Here!
Wizard turnarounds are completed! Dotta will use these to recombine the 10K wizards and generate their specific turnarounds. Dotta: We will use node.js to look up the wizard attributes, generate the wizards, and distribute them in the next week.
Scaling with Integrity
Elf recently chatted with Tim Smith, who is part of Blood Company. Elf had talked with him about how to scale with integrity. Elf used to work in a studio that worked on Youtube content. It was the only studio that was doing this at the time. Elf was the animation director there. The whole place was run by artists, no real executive presence, run on pure creativity. A video could be shot, edited, and uploaded in a day, and there was a lot of artistic energy present. The studio generated 10s of millions of views a month. After 2 years, Disney bought this studio for $1 billion USD. Unfortunately, after the acquisition, everything changed, and the artistic passion was drained. And Elf learned from that, that it is hard to scale with integrity. And this is why Elf has mentioned Disney in the past as a contrast to what FRWC wants to do. They want to do this in the right way. Forgotten Runes has this decentralized approach to content building. The Book of Lore will hold everyone’s stories. The wizard holders care about these wizards and how they are used in the wider media properties. And Elf is aiming to use this model to scale with integrity. Bearsnake: Almost everyone contributing is a part of the community. I’ve spent time building IP and entertainment properties, and I haven’t seen something like this before. There’s so much potential here.
Wizard Workshop
Dotta: We’ve seen a lot of wizards creating pixel art. A bag of popcorn, pizza, lanterns, light sabers. We love this idea, and want to enable everyone to create these type of props. We’re calling it the Wizard Workshop. A new contract has been made to allow wizard holders to mint new props. Front-end UI still needs to be created. This will allow you to draw your wizard prop, and you can gift them, sell them, etc. Dotta: We saw that Dom wrote the contracts so that any programmer could create a Loot derivative. Our vision for wizard workshop is that anyone with a pixel editor can participate, don’t have to be a programmer. Will be a couple weeks until the UI, but I’m really excited about this.
Short Animation
Elf: I wrote the script not caring about the budget; I’m trying to include as many characters as I can into this 60-second short. I want this to be mind-blowingly good. dotta: This trailer will cost between $100-200K. We thought about selling frames of the animation as NFTs. I’m so excited reading the script, to read it. Bearsnake: It’s so true to the community and ethos. The level of quality from the studio and artists is A+++, and we’re hoping to expand it into a full-fledged series. While it might seem that we are struggling to release something new every single week, but we just want to do everything really well. We want everything to melt people’s faces. This applies to the game, comics, etc. as well. We do struggle because we understand that the NFT expected cadence is somewhat different. We do want to hear back from the community about this. O and Edward chimed in and basically acknowledged that crypto moves very fast, but FRWC being more long-term oriented is kind of refreshing, and they understand the strategy the FRWC is using. Elf: Just want you to know, I’m not buying any wizards just to put them in the animation, for example. The way I choose wizards is pretty random. I write in what kind of wizard I need, then I scroll the collection and find a wizard that fits. I’m not going to just put in my own wizards to pump them. And if I buy a certain type of wizard, that doesn’t know we are planning a spot for that type of wizard. So please don’t read anything into those purchases, I just like the wizards!
Coding Updates
Dotta explained the case for putting wizards on-chain. It has many benefits. However, there are drawbacks as well. With Loot, it’s composable with people building on-chain games. Wizards are not currently composable with other smart contracts. That hasn’t been possible, but Mephistopheles has put together some contracts that will allow you to register your wizard, and store its traits on-chain. Gas cost is fairly low, per wizard. And doing that, will allow for different games that you can play with wizards, using their traits. Meph and wijuwiju are both working on some games, that will use the on-chain traits. These are separate from the planned metaverse game. If you are a developer or designer, they could use help with the frontend, as well as the solidity contracts.
Lore Drop - Magic System (by Elf)
Last week, we finished talking about the political factions. However, if your wizard has a certain hat color, they do not need to align to this. Some hat colors are just colors. And we -might- have a feature where you could change your wizard’s hat color (not discussed with dotta yet). This is general lore that governs the world, but doesn’t necessarily apply to individual wizards.
Magic System
The magic system is NOT like Harry Potter where you just go to school and learn spells. Also NOT like Lord of the Rings where magic is subtle and hardly ever seen. Better comparison is like X-Men, where each mutant has their own inherent powers. Or also Naruto, every ninja has a specialty of ninjutsu that they learn, but they don’t go outside of their specialty unless they are truly elite. Many wizards in the collection come with a spell. For example, pyromancers or hydromancers come with their themed magic. Other wizards have items, that means your wizards works their magic through this item. You can create your lore around what a wizard might do with their item. Some wizards have staffs. That’s pretty broad, the wizard can use magic through their staff. And some wizards have no prop, which leaves it open to your interpretation what that means. Runes - these can flavor your magic. They can be a source of power OR impose a limitation. Like if you have pyromancer with a Water Rune, what does that mean? It’s up to you to decide what that is. It could even be some sort of hybrid. There are different levels of magic. Some wizards are masters of magic, while others are amateurs. The more powerful the wizard, the more disconnected from reality they become. Some wizards can become insane. How far should wizards pursue the arcane arts, and what are the consequences? Think of Gandalf - he is pretty powerful, but rarely uses it, and preserves his humanity, while Saruman abused his magic more and paid the price. There are different sources of magic on the map, such as the Quantum Shadow and Infinity Veil. And remember that the different hat colors approach magic in different ways (discussed more in previous weeks).
Partnerships
bearsnake: We’ve talked about a game for a while now. We’ve agreed to terms with a game developer! We are going to have a super kickass game with a developer that will deliver an experience that people will be blown away with. We will announce the partnership very soon so that you’ll know who it is. They already have a couple devs working on it. As previously mentioned, the animation partnership is ongoing, starting with the 1-minute short/trailer. Merch: It will feature some nice designs, and they will do 1 run only. A bunch of items that are pretty unique. We will put out a form to get a sense of demand, we want to keep it exclusive but also not leave anyone out. If you want one, please sign up so we can work with the manufacturer. We want it to be an unboxing experience. Glass piece: We had a contest for this. The finished glass piece is so amazing, will be shipping out tomorrow. We’ll post the picture soon.
Witch Lilith
dotta: Lilith has gone on a journey. We wanted to give Lachness a wizard; she sent me her address for MetaMask. But I, being a dummy, copy/pasted her old Coinbase address, and sent the wizard there. Coinbase still has those keys, so we may get Lilith back someday. However, Lachness can still use Lilith as her PFP at least, nobody else will be owning that one. Lachness: I shed a tear when I tried to look for Lilith.
Cult Content Shout-outs
- Retired Yield Farmer: Had wizard boxer shorts created. “Muggle in the streets, wizard in the sheets.”
- Illusionist Colorman and Dr. Slurp: Took great photos of the Miami murals.
- ProseProducer: Kobold wizard transformed an apple into a banana to feed a pet monkey (animation).
- FRWC team tried to recruit Reese Witherspoon into the Cult, but didn’t work…yet.
- Mindio released a rough sketch of a piece they are working on.
- LazyFiddlerBee: Animation of a psychic rabbit having a tantrum.
- 0xCursive:
Hydromancer Diana of the Steppe (1946) creation. - WiseSamtheViper: Created another animation for wijuwiju
- Ozzz: Amazing piece of
Alchemist Baozhai of the Wood (4574), commission for cryptokel - Cloudyzan: Finished contest piece, gorgeous
- MagusTumbaj: Spirograph animation
- BelsToBreath (oOo) - piece by BirdPresident, wizard is sleeping in a library
Wizard Lore Reading
O shared lore for 
Adept Hadrien of the Rock (1144). Check out the recording to hear his story! Later on, the artist (BirdPresident) came on and talked about her process.