Forgotten Runiverse Campfire Recap
We’ve had many great tales submitted, 34 entrants in total with many posting multiple stories and poems over the course of the month. We’ve hosted 3 amazing Lore Workshop podcasts together with Meepledad and Emmaleightly, and even had the Forgotten Runes loremaster himself ElfJTrul of Magic Machine join for one of them to discuss the origins and meanings of spooky archetypes.
In case you missed out on any of them, or just want to listen to them again, all three were recorded via the Twitter Spaces posts below!
We kicked off our workshops with some live readings and commentary of some Book of Lore entries; specifically the entries for the terrifying Forgotten Souls collection of characters. We also took some requests from the listeners for any specific lore entries they’d want us to read as well, such as the tale of Archmagus Aldus of The Carnival.
This Wizard’s lore begins with a stunning animation to immediately bring the character to life. It begins with his origin story, clearly details his motivations, and ends with a few synopses of future Aldus stories to come. The formatting of this lore makes it easy to understand his character and easily envision the kinds of antics he gets into. It’s laid out in a manner that makes decentralized storytelling easy, as anyone would pick up those Aldus tales and adapt them from their brief summaries. It’s just one of many great examples of enticing lore at the core of the Runiverse.
One highlight I found interesting from this talk was the inspiration for Elf’s iconic Wizard (Evil Arcanist Black Goat of the Wood) who is based on a famous painting from renowned artist Francisco de Goya.
Stories like these highlight the thought and care put behind the creation of characters and creatures in the Forgotten Runiverse.
Another interesting subject brought up was the origins of zombies and their relation to vampires. To summarize how Elf explained it – Zombies represent a fear of the mindless masses, who individually aren’t too difficult to fend off but are powerful in hoards. They are almost always depicted as horrid, filthy, and animalistic. However, vampires exist on the opposite end of that spectrum, usually working as an individual creature of the night who’s hypnotically alluring, powerful, able to command others, and live in luxurious castles with servants. In other words, Zombies may represent the fear of the poor masses, while vampires can be seen as a representation of the fear of powerful elites.
For our final workshop, we read through contest entries! There were so many that we of course couldn’t get through all of them even with an hour’s worth of time, but we’re impressed by all the entries we’ve received!
Looking to read some of the stories submitted during the event? You’re in luck, because all the submissions have been compiled into this document for easy reference! They were all amazing to read through and it was honestly difficult to pick winners from these great submissions. Here are a few of the many great stories submitted:
Kathleen Protector of the Woodlands by 0xsharon
As fearsome as the Imp is, there are some champions of the Runiverse mighty enough to stand toe to toe against him. A mother tells her daughter of a tale of a fearless warrior who challenges terrifying Nightmare Imp to protect the Woodlands. The perfect bedtime story to tuck the little bugbear rascals into the sheets with.
The Nightmare Imp by Deltamouse
A chilling Runiverse tale uncovering some mysteries behind The Pantheon, the Sacred Flame, and valiant battles of glory. Ultimately the tale concludes with an encounter with the dreaded Nightmare Imp himself, deep within the Vampyre Mist. It’s a three part tale, so grab a few sticks of s’mores and get close to the fire as you read through this story.
Harum Red by Jimmy Jag
Three wizards walk through a forest when they stumble upon a village called Harum. They soon discover that it is the site of a Harvest Festival, and that the wine served there is some of the best in the Runiverse. However, they also discover that the wine is cursed with blood magic, and that they are now under the control of a fire wraith…
The Wolf, The Witch and The Flame by spz
A lonely wolfkin has a dangerous encounter with a vindictive witch.
Midnight’s Aftermath by Prometheus21
The brutal warrior, Valen Battler of the Colosseum, mercilessly slaughters an entire town, but he leaves an unexpected survivor. The survivor feels no pity as he remembers how the villagers tormented him and his family. Declaring his loyalty to Valen, the survivor sets out on a journey to properly thank the powerful warrior.
The story of a man who loves pumpkins. by daidai
A very short tale of a pumpkin loving man…who may not quite be what he seems.
And of course, as a reminder, all entrants into the contests received a special participation POAP. If you haven’t already, you can check if you’ve received it at https://app.poap.xyz/ where you can also find instructions to bridge it from the Gnosis chain to Ethereum mainnet to display alongside your other NFTs if you wish!
Thank you everyone for participating. There will be more ways to win more prizes as we continue to stick to the core principles of Create to Earn. Keep a lookout in our official Discord, Twitter, and of course blog for future updates!