Welcome! You've arrived at the recap for the 1st ever Forgotten Runes Wizard Wednesday! This was the first time that the original project founders, Elf and Dotta, decided to hold a live Twitter spaces every Wednesday to provide updates and hold discussions with the Forgotten Runes community. At this stage, the team was also holding live contest drawings and mini-updates every Friday. As a result, this "recap" incorporates the information from the Twitter space, as well as the mini-updates from the Fridays before and after this session. After this, the team settled into a regular schedule of providing information only on Wednesdays.
An early Wizard Wednesday graphic created by the Forgotten Runes core team, shared August 2021.
Existence of a 3rd Executive Member is Revealed
A new executive position is being added to the core FRWC team. The person wasn't revealed by name, but they are someone that has a lot of connections in the entertainment industry, and has already secured meetings with VIPs in that industry.
The First Clues About Forgotten Souls
Wizard-holders are getting excited about the upcoming Forgotten Souls burn event. During the AMA we received a few more tidbits about this as well. At most, up to around 1000 wizards will be eligible to be burned (not the exact number - this will never be revealed). This will result in a certain number of Forgotten Souls characters, but less than the number of Wizards burned. The Forgotten Souls event does not have a firm deadline, but the guesstimate was towards the end of August. The devs will release more specific information as we get closer to the event.
Dotta Talks NFT Drops
Image included in Dotta's Twitter thread from July 2021. An illustration of impatient minters immediately claiming a rug.
dotta: My opinion on stealth drops - not recommended. As project creators, your investors expect you to hype the project and get it started on a strong note, and silent drops don't really do that. You set yourself up for a lot of risk if it doesn't sell out. From a creator's perspective, some whales are OK because they are signaling commitment to your project and you can get feedback from them. But at the same time, if your project is limited to a small amount of whales, you can't build a community. I was actually worried about a mega-whale buying up a majority of the wizards and re-selling them on secondary - but luckily it didn't happen to us. But there wasn't anything in our smart contract to prevent that.
(In response to how he will handle the wizard burning event): We are still thinking about how to do it. Don't hold me to it, but it might be a phased approach by block number based on the wizards' runes (or lack of rune). Not finalized though.
The tweeted video of the minting page shows a bug - if you resize the window as the page loads, the cat and the wolf go off the screen. Dotta didn't confirm or deny that there are easter eggs on the website. But they do say it is a work in progress, the website will constantly be changing.
Discussion on the Potential of NFTs in Genaral, and Forgotten Runes in Particular
dotta: The narrative with Stoner Cats is that NFTs are a new way for Hollywood to kickstart their projects. It drives me nuts - I think they are not seeing the whole picture. It's about more than fundraising - it's about decentralizing the IP rights. NFTs are not only about owning a character, in a certain sense you are that character - it becomes part of your identity on social media and games. If you see your wizard in a show, it's like you're part of that show.
Kid Hastings: True, Stoner Cats had a chance to provide a fraction of their royalties to the NFT token holders, but they didn't do that. They capitalized on this animal PFP craze, but they missed the full potential.
Enchanter Orbus: I love wizards because it's like you get to own the pixel fantasy characters that you played with as a kid. It's the first time I've felt like you can do something like that.
The Forgotten Runes team, which later organized into Magic Machine, further demonstrated their ethos when they included Magus Wazir in the TV trailer in 2022.
dotta: Our characters will exist in our own lore, but also in many metaverses. It's not hard to imagine (although not specified in our current roadmap) 3D versions, voxel versions, of the characters. As well as other manifestations in games and shows.
Elf: The NFT space facilitates collaborations, easier to do than in traditional media.
Some interesting discussion about the nature of intellectual property in the age of NFTs. Is it more accurate to consider them just property? Magus Tumbaj related to this with the term "phygital" - the blending of the physical and digital property.
SMB: I'm interested in the concept of the ego extension of the avatar, a person belonging to the community, and how the value of the avatar relates to the status of that community. Sometimes I've seen ppl adjust their avatars as the market value of certain projects goes up.
Elf: I expect some wizards to rise up to legendary status based on their achievements in games, or their development of excellent lore. You can build up your wizard as much or as little as you want, because the legendary wizards will lift everyone up to some extent.
Remixr: Zezima was at the top of leaderboard in the Runescape MMO. His skills were way higher than anyone else, he must have put in so much work. It became almost mythical to meet him in any server.
One of the contest winners, Shaman Jay of El Dorado, had their wizard illustrated by Bread (Sweetbread) as a prize, circa August 2021.
Elf: Yes, I see some wizards becoming like Zezima, except with their unique character instead of a standardized one. But I see our value being more cultural than purely monetary.
dotta: We talk a lot about the decentralized story-building, allowing additions to lore for your character. But we will also provide some centralized throughline as well. We support the artists in our community, but anyone can be a part of the community and benefit.
(In response to a question about the "proof of art" mechanic): dotta: We have artists that have been creating stories, poems, artwork, pixel animations. The Book of Lore is essentially a way that you can attach your own lore NFTs to wizards.
Elf: My dream is that in a few years we will have a gigantic digital tome with all the wizards' lore. Even those of you that don't consider yourselves artists, you might surprise yourself. Not every contribution has to be professional, and I hope the Book of Lore reflects that.
Contests
At this point in time, the Forgotten Runes team was holding weekly contests to drive engagement with the project. The three contests held around the week's of this Wizard Wednesday were:
3D Art Contest (winners received 3D models of their Wizards from Trevor Jones)
Digital Art Contest (winners received digital art of their Wizards from bread)
Ethermore Contest (winners received free tokens from the Ethermore NFT project)
Additional Updates from the Forgotten Runes Team
"Eminem" and "Flora" joined one of the earliest Discord community chats held by the Forgotten Runes team (which was accidentally set to "Public Broadcast"). They claimed to be British teenagers who wanted to become Wizards. Although many in the early FRWC community wanted to help them (including Elf and Dotta, who considered giving them free Wizard tokens), they ultimately proved to lack the maturity for the community at that time. Perhaps they will return one day.Alert: There is going to be an airdropped turnaround for each wizard! Basically, you will be able to see images of your wizard from every angle. Eventually, a studio will take these images to allow your wizard to walk (more info to be released later). Elf has the heads in the front view almost finished. Very excited to share this. The spritesheets can be used in other metaverses, as well as anything developed by FRWC itself. And they are still open to suggestions for the best term for these add-ons
Elf: We're collaborating with bunch of other projects. For example, Ethermore here. Also, NFT Dungeon, so there may be a future contest with them. If there are other collabs you want us to do, let us know.
Other ongoing initiatives, such as the street art, stickers/merch, and Book of Lore, are all still in progress as well.
Community Updates
Wizard poet Margaret has made about 30 wizard poems already. The process will be streamlined - so far Elf has made some custom art for each poem but it's not scalable.
...Things Get Weird on the Discord Broadcast
Towards the end of the final Discord AMA (before the team started holding Twitter Spaces), we also got questions from curious people from outside the community - Elf had accidentally set the Discord chat to "public". We got questions like "What is an NFT?", "What spells do you recommend?", and "Can I play my ukelele?" Some members of the team and community, such as Elf and foxwizard, handled this unexpected turn of events with aplomb. Kind of an unexpected bonus to witness this, to be honest, although some may have been caught off-guard.
Dotta and Elf really wanted the British teens (Eminem + friend) to be converted wizards, but it was not to be.
