Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2022-10-05

This image was used to announce "Trick or Treat at the Nightmare Imp's House," a tokenomics event for October 2022. All of the ten partner collections (Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats, World of Women, Loot, Doodles, Azuki, Moonbirds, CloneX, and 10KTF) are pictured.

On this week’s Wizard Wednesday, Elf and Dotta were present as usual, but Bearsnake was away, busy “knocking on doors in New York City,” attending NYC Comic-con. The street teams are back, handing out Issues of Comic Book Issue #0 to the masses.

Now that it's October, Elf reminisced about last year, when Magic Machine had a special Wizard Wednesday opening with the emergence of Angelic Dotta after the Great Wizard Burning opened and Dialectic burned the Dotta Wizard token.

The Beacon NFT project announced Forgotten Runes as a partner project in September 2022. As part of this, Wizards were recreated as custom sprites in the game.

Wizard 3D Models Discussion

First up, we had some discussion about the 3D models that are currently in development. Elf, said that these will have massive lore and storytelling potential, not to mention meme content.

Dotta recommended technical folks to learn Blender, especially geometry nodes and shader nodes. He talked about how the nodes let you create 3D characters fairly quickly. Once created, the models let you quickly create innumerable poses and actions for the characters. Dotta talked about the three stages of creating a model, the structure/shapes, the textures, and the rigging. All 10K Wizards (and eventually the Warriors) will have these. When you animate, you apply them to the “skeleton”, and since all the characters share this skeleton, once you create the animation for one, all the other characters can use it too.

Elf mentioned that several people with 3D model experience DM’d him about getting early access models of their wizards, and those characters are in the queue to get their models finished first.

Halloween Event - Trick or Trick at the Nightmare Imp's House

Elf and Dotta revealed the details of the Halloween event this year. Magic Machine was prepared, and so all the details are available in thread by Dotta + a blog post.

The theme is “Trick or Treat at the Nightmare Imp’s House”. When you go to the Forgotten Runes website and knock on the Nightmare Imp’s door, a pixelized version of your character will appear on-screen (even for partner collections, albeit one general sprite representing each collection).

Toru the Video Ghost (an ultrarare Soul) was teased as a possible participant in the "Trick or Treat at the Nightmare Imp's House" event, both on Twitter and during the Wizard Wednesday Twitter Spaces (October 2022).

Regarding eligible FRWC tokens, it's Wizards, Warriors, and Souls. Other tokens like Ponies and Beast Spawn won't knock on the door.

The treasure boxes that are received with a "Treat" result are an intermediate form - you will be able to buy, sell, and trade these unrevealed NFTs, with no time limit. You can choose to "open" the treasure boxes in your possession at any point in time to see what you got.

Elf talked about the “why” of this event next. This is another expression of the “door” theme pervasive in this project ("put your Rune on the Door"). PFPs are digital costumes. Magic Machine is inviting everyone in the Runiverse (+ neighbors) to come in their digital costumes and knock on the door. The Nightmare Imp has the heart of an imp, so he loves tricks, but is also gives treats to those he feels a kinship with. Why treats? Magic Machine has always wanted to have a large and complex ecosystem of tokens. Many character tokens have been released already, & now they want to put some focus on items. Items often had an important role in various fantasy and sci-fi media properties, across mediums (books, games, movies, tv, etc.)

Elf revealed some of the treat items (skip the next few tweets if you want to go in fully blind); there will be candy (it just makes sense). NO jelly donuts, but other edible items. There is a super-rare potion, as well as other tonics, elixirs, and beverages. There will be magical books, alchemist items, and classic video game power-ups (Toru the Video Ghost may be present). Masks, dolls, and a mushroom. The Magic Machine team has a lot of ideas about how these items can add to utility in the future. But you can use them to inspire more lore right away - characters usually have an entire inventory with them to take on quests - you shouldn’t be limited to just your character’s prop.

Dotta said that with this release, you can start to see the larger tokenomics vision of the Magic Machine team. Although their utility won’t be immediately revealed, once these are in possession of the community, they will get integrated into future events. The collection will remain open. The specific items that are revealed from the treasure boxes in this event will have no further supply beyond what is in the boxes. But there may be other, different items introduced over time.

A preview of a "Soul" sprite, released by Bisonic in a development blog update for the "Forgotten Runiverse" game (October 2022).

On-Chain, Play-to-Earn Forgotten Runes Game Announced

Dotta revealed that his developer team is working on an on-chain, play-to-earn game. This is separate from the Runiverse MMORPG in development from Bisonic. P2E resource tokens will be airdropped to Forgotten Runes holders. The partner community members who participate in the Halloween event will also receive airdropped P2E tokens for this game (not as many as holders get). Dotta is hoping that this will be another bridge to engagement with Forgotten Runes for the wider NFT community. This game is separate from the Halloween event, and will be released at some point afterwards.

Runiverse Game Update

A new development blog post was released today. Community manager Madotsuki came up and announced a creative writing contest, which is “campfire story” themed. A special commemorative POAP will be given to all earnest entries (no airdrop lore). All entrants will enter a raffle for FRWC merch bags (shirt, sweater, tote bag). 3 hand-picked stories will get their tales illustrated by Cult Creator artists. MeepleDad will be hosting some lore workshops throughout the month for those that want help with their stories as well. Check the Runiverse Discord for more information.

Magic Machine PR Efforts

Deep in the Sand, The Barren Court is creating a parallel ecosystem of tokens set within the Forgotten Runiverse. Pictured is a preview of new character token art. (October 2022)

Elf mentioned that the founding team has done a lot of interviews lately, 3-4 per week. During the interviews, they often get asked whether the community is actually participating in the “decentralized world-building” process. Magic Machine is only too eager to show off examples from The Book of Lore, including the entry for Magus Devon of the Quantum Downs (6001), which has a lot of lore and illustrations to develop the character.

Community News

• ForgottenPunks is a derivative NFT project (Wizards in cryptopunks style) that is dropping this Friday. SPZ helped with the contract. AstroYon, Bill Gains, and Feckless were also involved in the project. Each Wizard-holder can get a free mint, and you can mint additional ones (up to 5) for 0.01 ETH each.
• Other FRWC derivative projects have also been active. Baby Wizards has been holding a farming event encouraging lore creation.
• The Barren Court continues to put out events and artwork. They have their own NFTX pool with Warriors that meet the criteria - you get “barren tokens” in return, which can be redeemed for desert familiars, desert Souls, and desert undesirables.
• The Heroes of Cumberland mint is still live as well.

Cult Content Shout Outs

• MehsterBrown created a fantastic Nosferatu cut-out mask.
• New illustration by Take-N1i of Fuyumi Champion of Penguins (15502).
• CRYPD0NUT took a vacation photo with a FRWC shirt while at Machu Picchu
• MeepleDad and his daughter with Order of the Eternal Rose beanies.
• Tania del Rio created a kobold knitted crochet figure. Tania is also releasing daily illustrations as part of Inktober.
• Emma made a pixel animation with her Wizard and familiar.
• A Kobold head made out of mustard (creation material was disputed) was presented by Everyday Runes.