Forgotten Runes | Opportunity & Early Traction
Introducing my #1 pick in the "Storytelling NFTs" category.
Gm Investors,
For over a year I’ve been following what I believe could be the #1 project in the “Storytelling NFTs” category: Forgotten Runes Wizards Cult (FRWC). While still early, the project is accelerating on its path to building a multi-media franchise that could one day rival legacy incumbents like Marvel, Star Wars, and Pokemon.
In the following, we’ll cover:
The mind-blowing value of our favorite stories
The #1 weakness of the legacy franchise model
FRWC Intro & Traction
Ways to Get Involved
TL;DR: FRWC is tapping into the latent creativity of a global community of writers, illustrators, animators, show-runners, and game developers. In order to world-build at break-neck speed, while distributing commercial (& creative) rights to project’s IP with its hyper-engaged community in a way only made possible by blockchain technology.
The mind-blowing value of our favorite stories
Media franchises are not just captivating sources of fun and escape, but are powerful multi-revenue-stream businesses…
#1 Weakness of the Legacy Model
The Lone-Crazy-Genius (RCG) Problem
Reliance on LCGs (ie. GRR Martin, George Lucas, etc.) to spend years/decades building up a critical mass of IP (100s - 1,000s of original characters, map locations, and stories) without much/any commercial or community validation along the way until one day (maybe) selling commercial rights to a an Ultra Powerful Distribution Co (UPDC) = a major bottleneck for original world-building content.
The rarity of LCGs is understandable given that, in practice, one can imagine the undertaking often feeling like…
However, the successes of Wikipedia, YouTube, and Tik Tok have made clear that there are billions of wonderfully creative people out there.
They may not be crazy enough to attempt building an entire world from scratch during their lunch breaks, but when given the right tools, incentives, and support, their sparks of creative genius can be unleashed.
FRWC Intro & Traction
Launch
Last year, Magic Machine (the team behind FRWC) released part of a world map and laid out a vision for a “collaborative legendarium” (ie. an open-source world-building ecosystem).
People loved it, and on June 30th, 2021 the flagship collection of 10K unique wizard NFTs were all summoned (ie. minted) within 30 mins. These wizards were the first inhabitants of the ever expanding “Runiverse”.
Book of Lore
While Magic Machine provides a high-level meta-narrative, the owner of each character has commercial rights* to their IP and has creative freedom to craft any stories they’d like using their character(s). Owners are encouraged to contribute their stories (on-chain) to The Book of Lore.
*Owners keep 100% of any aggregate revenue they generate (selling merch, books, or other spinoff projects) up to $5M, after which a 20% revenue share with Magic Machine kicks in.
Upcoming: TV Series & MMORPG
Magic Machine has quickly leveraged their ever-growing community, crowdsourced IP, and media industry savvy to launch multi-platform expressions of the franchise. A couple of highlights:
TV Series being developed by Derek Kolstad (creator of John Wick) and produced by Titmouse Studios
Trailor is narrated by Kristian Nairn (ie. Hodor from Game of Thrones)
MMORPG being developed by Bisonic (team of 30+ working on the “create-to-earn” Runiverse)
Note: The teams working on these expressions take inspiration from entries in “The Book of Lore” to select characters / lore to feature. In so doing, a low-rarity NFT could conceivably be elevated in status to be as valuable as an “ultra-rare” in the collection.
Ways to Get Involved
NFTs from the collection can be purchased from the secondary market on Forgotten Market, OpenSea, or LooksRare.
At the time of writing, the collection floor price for Wizards is .99 ETH (~$1,300).
Sister collections from the team (ie. fellow inhabitants of the emergent Runiverse) include…
I’d personally start with a Wizard, Warrior or Soul. Warriors provide the most cost effective entry into the cult (current floor = .14 ETH) while Souls are more premium (current floor = 2.6 ETH).
For context, the market leader in the “Storytelling NFT” category, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has a current floor price of 79 ETH (~$100K).
You can also learn more by visiting the FRWC Blog or by joining the Discord.
Cheers,
Mac
DISCLAIMER: I hold multiple Forgotten Runes NFTs. Investing in digital assets is extremely risky. Personal opinions only - NFA.