The FFV Podcast
Elf J Trul (Forgotten Runes)
co-founder of Forgotten Runes, ELF J Trull comes on today! Discover the inception of Forgotten Runes, from its early days to becoming a powerhouse in the NFT space.
We explore their ambitious projects including an MMORPG where your NFTs play a pivotal role, and an animated TV show featuring talents like Derek Kolstad of John Wick fame.
Learn about the challenges, triumphs, and the future vision for Forgotten Runes. Plus, get insights into the current state of the NFT market and what might be on the horizon!
co-founder of Forgotten Runes, ELF J Trull comes on today! Discover the inception of Forgotten Runes, from its early days to becoming a powerhouse in the NFT space.
We explore their ambitious projects including an MMORPG where your NFTs play a pivotal role, and an animated TV show featuring talents like Derek Kolstad of John Wick fame.
Learn about the challenges, triumphs, and the future vision for Forgotten Runes. Plus, get insights into the current state of the NFT market and what might be on the horizon!
Welcome to another episode of the FFB podcast. Today, here I have another amazing guest, an artist, a true builder, a creator and co-founder of one of the coolest NFT projects still building today, and that is Forgotten Rooms. Welcome the legend himself, elfjtroll, also known as ElfJTrollNX. Thanks for hopping on the show man. How you doing today. I'm good man. Thanks for hopping on the show man. How you doing today.
Speaker 1:I'm good man, Thanks for the invite. Oh, dude, I had to have you guys on, man. I mean after literally everything, dude, I mean you guys were there from the very, very beginning. I remember you guys, Damn dude. I remember seeing you guys first pop up, man, and I was like, damn dude, I really wish I could fucking afford these, because you guys had a great start, man, Great work, Great story. But before we head into all that, man, I really got to ask you and this question everybody gets, but everybody has a different answer. So the first question is how did you first discover crypto and what about crypto made you want to stay here?
Speaker 2:That's always a really fun question, yeah it was, it always is, and I love these stories, man yeah, um, let's see, I you know, I I had known about it since like 2017, never really bought in because I didn't fully understand it. I just understood the basic concept of bitcoin and I thought it was really cool, um, but you know, I didn't know it would be anything ever. I would say, what really got me in is during COVID and it's funny, I feel like a lot of people have this same story but during COVID, I do too. We all got sent home and I saw the stock market crash and I was like, okay, I'm gonna buy in, this is a great entry point, um, and then I studied stocks for like a month, um, and then, you know, looked into alternative investments and discovered, rediscovered crypto and this time decided, okay, I'm gonna dive in deep this time. And, um, what's interesting is like?
Speaker 2:At that time, people, people were talking about the halving, the Bitcoin halving, and that sounded like such a really strong narrative to me, especially because you could see the history in the price charts, and so to me, I was like, wow, this is like a done deal, this is going to happen, like Bitcoin is going to do its thing that it always does after the halving. This sounds like the easiest bet in the world, um, and so I bought it with bitcoin, and then I then, of course, as you do, I learned about ethereum and became really interested in that as well.
Speaker 1:Nice thing, um and then, of course, did that lead you into like nfts, right, because that was the whole. Yeah, tell me about that, man. How did that lead that to that road?
Speaker 2:yep and then. So then that led to nfts, because that's when nft started to pop off. Nice, and I've been a professional.
Speaker 1:What did you, what did you think about them when you first saw them? Like nfts, yeah, nice, nice okay okay, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:Because I I was a. I was a digital artist for my whole career, working in animation and video games, and, and before that I was a digital artist my whole career working in animation and video games, and before that I was a traditional painter, and so I was like you know, I love digital art. But the problem with digital art is you can't sell it like you can a painting, yeah, you know, because it can be infinitely copied across the internet. And so my first, the first thing I loved about NFs was that you could actually sell a piece of digital art for the first time in history, that's, and it was just amazing to me because I'd been looking for that all my life and I never thought it would. I thought I thought it was just a fantasy so it just, it just clicked for you.
Speaker 1:Man, you're like this is it? This is it right here?
Speaker 2:yeah, it made perfect sense to me. Um and so. So then I yeah. Then I started making nfts for a while, just little one of ones, and then my partner dota came to me and was like dude, let's do a 10k oh shit, that's the whole story.
Speaker 1:So how, how did that like the conception of forgotten rooms happen? Is that how it happened, like, hey, my guy, let's start a 10k nft pfp, like. And then what happened right after that? You guys went straight into the lore, or how did it go we?
Speaker 2:we, no, we, uh. We batted around a few ideas of exactly you know what? What's the theme? What should we do? Um, it's, it's funny. Dodo wanted to make this sounds so ridiculous. Right, he wanted to make toast, toast characters and I was like, okay, fine, I guess we'll make toast yeah, how did you feel about that?
Speaker 2:you're like, yeah, I don't know I didn't love it, but I was like whatever. I had no idea what, yeah, I didn't know anything. And so I was like, whatever sounds fun, let's do it. And then, luckily, like a day after we decided on that, we found an nft toast collection I don't even remember what it was called and he was like, damn, I guess we can't do this. And I was like dota, let me just do wizards. And he, yeah, and he was like I don't know. And I was like dude, let me just draw a few and you see if you like it and I'll come up with a story. And and I did, and he eventually loved it. And so that's how that started.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool, man, you know, like it didn't, because I don't know, man, you know, I don't know if you agree, but like, would you guys be where you're at today if you guys went with the bread, with the toast? No, uh, I don't think so either.
Speaker 2:no, that's pretty, that would have been a rug situation for sure, yeah, yeah, man, that's the first week.
Speaker 1:No yeah, the wizards.
Speaker 2:There's like actually a world and a story behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's why it's got legs especially with them like crypto, crypto, world crypto, kind of uh, culture and stuff. We're all very techie kind of nerdy video games, kind of stuff like that. It fits perfect, man, when I first saw them too, man, I was like holy shit man, these are fucking dope. Man, like I, I fucking want one, I need one and shit like that. But at the time, man, I was like hey, man, you know, I didn't have a lot of money in my name, man, you know, and these things were popping man, I was like damn dude, you know, I always need to get my meet me a wizard man, but that's.
Speaker 1:That's fucking cool, man. But so during that time, man, you guys really focused really heavily on the lore. How did that first like character development come into play? What was the first character even like?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if I would say there was a first like character you know, you kind of develop all 10,000 at the same time.
Speaker 2:You push the art through a generator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I guess tangential to your question, I think I think one thing that makes our characters really stand out is Most 10K PFP projects.
Speaker 2:They like, like they have an artist and the artist draws all the traits and then the generator just randomly assembles them and you're done and that's what you get. You got 10,000 characters, yeah, but we took an extra, an extra step where we have this thing called um, we call it affinity Um, and it's basically where I could go onto a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet has every single trait, all the heads, the bodies, the familiars and so on, and All the heads, the bodies, the familiars and so on. And I tag every single trait with like a quality and then, okay, so like, for example, like there's a swamp witch head and then there's a few bodies that would go with that swamp witch head because it's like green, and then, of course, like a familiar that a swampy character would get would be like a frog, and so so, basically, I'm I'm giving all these like qualities and these tags to every single trait, and the affinity generator places like with like, it gives them harmony, so they're not just like a randomly chaotic collection.
Speaker 2:All the characters seem to have a little bit of harmony through them, yeah you're right, your color or theme or whatever, um, so, so that really, I think gave our whole collection a lot of character and a lot of personality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, whereas I, I, dude, I completely agree, man, there's nothing, like they're out there with them, are not even remotely close, man, and if they're, and if there was man, it, it it would automatically remind me of Forgotten Runes. You know what I mean? There is no like full body wizard, dude, you guys killed the fucking full body like perfectly, dude, like perfect for the PFPs, because most PFPs are just the face. You know what I mean. But, dude, I see the wizard's PFP, it's the whole character, man, it's, it's fucking dope man. You guys did a really great job at that.
Speaker 1:So when, when you guys were developing the actual story itself, for anybody that doesn't know, could you explain or go into a little bit of details about the, the story about the wizards, the runes, the whole world? You know the lore of everything, man. I love hearing that shit. Man, just because, like bro, we can get into, like we can get lost in there, man, we can really put ourselves into these characters. That's what I do. I put myself into these characters. I am this, I am this wizard and I'm going to write my own journey. But, dude, would love to hear your, your lore, your stories and how you guys approach that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So one thing that's really important to me with this collection is it's not just like, oh, let's just do a fantasy collection. It's it's using fantasy to comment on culture and technology and, specifically, blockchain technology. It's using the fantasy genre to comment on that. Um and so you know, the first question is, like what really is blockchain? What does it mean? What's the point of blockchain and how does it relate to fantasy and storytelling? And to me, blockchain is basically just a really amazing record keeping system that can never be erased. Okay and so. So how does that relate to, like, fantasy and mythological stories?
Speaker 2:Well, all throughout world history, we've got legends and stories and epic poems and just amazing pieces of fantasy, you know, in every culture across the world over 2000 years, and a lot of those stories have been forgotten because they've been put on mediums that decay over time. You know how many stories did we lose when the library of Alexandria was burned? How many paintings have we lost in wars? You know how many of? I'm sure that, like, we've lost some of Shakespeare's best work. You know, all throughout history there's been countless pieces of art and stories that we've just totally lost and we don't even know that they ever existed. You know, they were inscribed on clay tablets that have been broken. I mean, I could give a million examples you get. So blockchain is is the first time in history where now we have a medium upon which we can write stories that will never be forgotten, damn ever be erased that's fucking awesome yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the core of what forgotten runes is about. We, we have this saying called put thy rune on the door, um, and it just means to put your mark on the world so that you're never forgotten. Um, and and so that's kind of the the foundational like sentiment under the lore um, if I was going to build on top of that, we, uh we, we intentionally use a lot of um archetypes that you see repeated throughout these stories across world history, like like the Ouroboros. You can find the Ouroboros in almost every culture across the globe across time. The world egg you can find that in almost every culture, in every religion, in every story across the globe across time.
Speaker 2:And why we use these archetypes is because this plays to the whole mission of decentralized storytelling. When you have thousands of storytellers spread across the globe, it helps to use these archetypes because everybody already sort of knows what these things are. They already know what they mean. You know it's not like giving someone a random I don't know, I can't even think of an example right now a random like a red balloon. Like a red balloon could mean something different in every culture. Like the world egg. People 2,000 years ago in China, people 1,000 years ago in Native American, a thousand years ago in in native american mythology. They all know roughly what it means, and so that helps a decentralized group of creators across the world sync their ideas in a more coherent way, because we all implicitly understand these archetypes damn, that's crazy, man.
Speaker 1:So you, your guys's story will forever be ingrained into the blockchain and will never have any confusion onto what it actually is. Man, do I never really thought about it like that? Man? Thank you for that, bro, because I'm gonna start using that as a use case for blockchain nft technology. Man, I'm always, I'm always always looking for other other points, other other ways. I can.
Speaker 1:Uh, nfts are stupid, blockchain stupid. Well, actually, motherfucking, you know, and I, we can do this and this and that, but, dude, that is, that is a. That is a beautiful thing to say, man, I, I really appreciate you saying that, um, kind of staring off a little bit. But still, on the topic of nfts, what do you, what do you give about? Like, what's your honest opinions and thoughts of the current state of nfts? You know there's not a lot of stuff going on there's, there's, uh, it's kind of kind of sleepy on the market as far as hype and market goes. You know what I mean. Like, but at the same time, everybody still rocks an nft pfp. You know what I mean. I don't know. That's just. It's just like, what's going on there? What are your thoughts on, like, the current state of NFTs right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, this is a good question. You know, I think the first real big disaster was the whole royalties thing. I think that really just shook up the whole space. How come? Well, because, okay for us, for example, we built an entire business model on royalties. So it's like you know, you make money from that initial sale and that's great. You can't use that to sustain a business forever. Yeah, true, true.
Speaker 2:And we thought, okay, well, the next great revenue stream will be from royalties, and this is why this is how we can just build forever and live off royalties. It incentivizes us to keep building for what's already out there. We don't have to make a whole new collection. We can just keep building on top of what already, what's already out there, and get royalties on that, and that's a business model. But now that's taken away and so we've had to reconfigure everything. But anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked on that. The current state of NFTs I think the whole royalty thing is a shame. Beyond that, it's funny. I saw you making comments like comparing NFTs to the whole meme coin craze that's happening, and I love what you were saying.
Speaker 1:A lot of people were giving me flack for it. I was like dude, it's funny that you say that Every single person that had anything, you know, kind of negative not really negative, but kind of counter argument All of them had an NFT PFP, all of them.
Speaker 2:Like NFTs were the most fun that anybody had in crypto Anybody, oh yeah, even like the DeFi guys. I think we brought fun to their world. Yeah, nfts are more fun than meme coins. I'm sorry, it's just, they just are, because they are the art and the culture and they're not like just an overnight rug. And then you move on to the next one, like, yeah, like a herd of locusts, like a lot of them, like at least stuck around for like a few months, if not longer it's crazy, man, you know, because, like I, I see like people out there making that comparison oh, you know, meme coins are better and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But like, hey, dude, you know, I, I, I know you read it and it goes into it a little bit. But like, dude, with meme coins you could have fucking millions and millions of holders, dude, like nobody's getting heard, no voice matters, nobody special. A fucking community with 1K to 10K fucking people in it. You're going to get heard, you're going to feel special and you are a part of something bigger than yourself. You know what I mean, and people are, you know. The funniest comments are like hey, you know, it's the same thing. People just want to flip money for NFT and that's okay. I understand that, that's with everything in the world. But, dude, you're telling me this while wearing an NFT PFP. Motherfucker. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:Look nobody's going to wear a t-shirt of a meme coin. I mean not really. Maybe a dog with hat here and there, fine, but okay, nobody's going to go. There's not going to be a celebrity going on, jimmy kimmel, saying I bought a meme coin. You're not gonna see parties like pop up in new york city around just a meme corn. You're not gonna see toys and games and and and youtube videos like all the culture that that nfts bring. It's it's very few and far between with meme coins. Yeah, it's just not the point. I mean it's apples and oranges, but, like I don't know, I think the whole crypto market had so much more fun during the nft craze. You know which makes me think it it will come back because it was just too much fun during the whole, the whole.
Speaker 1:Dude, it was so much fun, man, just like you, man. I kind of got more into it during COVID and I didn't know, dude, I didn't even know what ETH was. I knew what an NFT was before I knew what ETH was and I was just like, holy shit, dude, I have to buy this currency so I can buy an NFT. I was like, oh okay, okay, okay, it was just way more fun, bro, even with the people that I've met, the people that I've met in meme coins. They're cool, don't get me wrong, they're great.
Speaker 1:It's not as lasting long relationship as if with an NFT. It's crazy, because you don't even have to rock the same PFP project as me as long as you have an NFT PFP, bro. We're homies, dude, we're getting along. You know what I mean. We have the same interests and same fucking views of this shit, man. But yeah, man, I just think that NFTs are just a inevitable thing, man, and like, I don't know man, what do you see when you look out there today? Like, are you kind of sad, like are you kind of like happy? What do you think about when you look at it today?
Speaker 2:yeah, if I was going to put a positive spin on it, I would say, like you know it's. It's good that all the, the, what I want, the rug, nft projects they're totally gone. The people who were not in it for the right reasons, they're gone. Great, I see the strongest ones are still remaining. Strength forged in fire is what we're left with now. That's probably a long-term good thing for the whole NFT movement.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably the biggest thing I'm seeing right now and how did you guys like, as a, as a team, as a company and stuff like that, how did you guys manage through all this bear market shit? You know what I mean. Like nfts are a fad, nfts are bad for you know all all these crazy narratives you know surrounding nfts. Like, was there ever a point of doubt or was there any? Like fuck, do you? Like? Are any of these entities for real? Like, what are we doing? Like, how did you guys navigate through all that?
Speaker 2:I okay how we navigated. It is just uh. We we managed our books responsibly.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, you can't say that too much about everybody else.
Speaker 2:That's the simplest answer. Um, you know, and, and you know, to what I was talking about earlier, like we found alternate sources of income like comic book. Now, um, we've sold some merch like like here. Here's what I guess I would say. Like me personally, I I treat what we're doing as primarily like a franchise sort of media uh project, and we just use nfts as, like the core tech to decentralize that ip. But I don don't think I would call us an NFT project first. I think we're a media franchise media company that's using NFTs as the best tool to do what we're trying to do. And so if you look at it like that like put the IP first, that's like put them put the ip first then you can um, really think about it.
Speaker 2:In, in, in, I guess more of like in a way that an entertainment person or a creator like, like, um, like george r martin, would think about it. Like you know, I've just got this, this, this, this property that's got characters in a world. You know what can I build with that? And so that really opens your world up, your, I guess, your business up to a lot of different opportunities. Um, but yeah, I mean, we've definitely and like, we've got a big video game that we're working on which is yeah I can't wait to get into that man.
Speaker 1:One last little thing about that or about the uh, you know kind of the community around it, and then we'll head into the video again, which I'm pretty excited to talk about. But how did you guys manage and like kind of kind of handle expectation? Because you know, during the NFT craze even today, you know there's a lot of not today I guess but back then there was so much like speculation, expectation and all this other shit man and I had, and there's tons. I'm dude, I'm here every single day. There's tons of projects out there that are still kicking, still doing great things, but they let down a lot of people just because of what it was expected of them.
Speaker 1:Um, and it not not necessarily their fault. You know what I mean, because speculation runs sometimes. But, like with forgotten runes man, you guys kept it's fucking solid dude, solid community, solid fucking narratives and nothing really staring staring off the boat like steering going, joy, joy, writing. You know what I mean, because you know how narratives get dude they can just fucking take a joy ride to hell. How did you guys, guys, really keep that shit level?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Our community is awesome. I think one reason it's so awesome is is, like you know, as a project founder you have to actually curate your community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can't just let them ramp it.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, there's tons of different ways to do that, but I think at the core of why our community is awesome is because, from day one, we have talked about how we have put front and center our creators in our community. Okay, again, that's the whole point of the project Put your rune on the door, create artwork and stories around the character that you own, cause it's decentralized IP. That's the whole point. And so we have just attracted some of web threes most prolific, energetic, talented, passionate artists, and you know, when you get that kind of person in your community, they don't really care if the floor goes up or down. They're more interested in making great art and stories about the characters that they own. You know, it's not to say they don't care about it at all, but it's just. I guess it was just like a secondary concern. The primary concern is is building the world and building the character.
Speaker 1:Um, that's a huge accomplishment that's a huge accomplishment, in my opinion, man, because for the majority of us, even even including myself, sometimes you know like um, you know, um, price go up. You know, but at the same time, dude, when you portray yourself as something different, I think you're going to get a different type of people. Like what you said, like you curated. But go ahead, my man. I just wanted to add that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's yeah. And there's several different ways that we curate these creative people into our community. We do weekly spaces every week, we haven't missed a single one. Every Wednesday we do it, you know, and we talk about the artwork that everyone's built. We have incentivized token airdrops around people being creative. You know, we've got the book the Forgotten Runes Book of Lore, which is the digital book where everybody writes the story about their character. We've got, I think, like 4 000 entries into it, damn. And then a lot of that content gets put into our larger media expressions, like the comic like, for example, like like our comic book that's actually printed, and in stories, a lot of the characters in the book are characters that our community owns. Wow. And the stories that they wrote in the book of lore show up in the comic book. Damn, that is so fucking cool dude.
Speaker 2:I'd be so stoked.
Speaker 1:I'd be so stoked If I saw something like of my creation heading in oh man, that is so fucking cool dude. I bet those people are fucking so stoked dude.
Speaker 2:Damn man, so stoked dude. Damn man, that is so cool. I mean, like they literally, like you can walk into a comic book store and see the character you own on the cover, like on the shelf. How cool is that that's dude.
Speaker 1:I would. I'd be like, oh shit, you know what I mean. Dude like yeah, man, that's what I'm saying. Dude like you, fuck dude, and it do this fucking shit just makes you feel so special, you know, I mean, especially when you got amazing builders and founders like you guys is that know exactly how to know what. Not only know what they're doing, dude, but really rewarding the community with real fucking good shit, man, and like something to be proud of, something that's always gonna be there. You know you can buy that thing. I. I hang it up on my wall. I'm probably do I anytime anybody comes over. Dude, I made that, I fucking made that up there. It's in there. You know it's magic and you're not gonna get that with meme coins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, dude, fucking facts, man. But hey, man, I want to talk about what we mentioned earlier, man, and that is your guys's game, the mmorpg. Really want to get into that. What was the idea behind creating something like this? What were some of the goals you and the team wanted to accomplish with this game?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, you know we've got a fantasy-themed project, so it seemed like the obvious game to make. Oh yeah, rpg-type game. And you know, it's funny because, like I remember people years ago I'd be in like a Twitter space and I'd hear someone say like yeah, a lot of these NFT projects, they actually think they're going to make a full MMORPG Little. Do they know how impossible that is. I'm like the people who would say that they're kind of right. Yeah, 99% of people who said they were going were gonna do that, they didn't do it because it is really hard yeah uh, but no, we're actually doing it.
Speaker 2:We've already released a few builds. Have you played the uh the, the builds that we've released?
Speaker 1:I haven't yet, but I got in contact to one of the teams. Man, he said he's gonna hook me up. I asked him on one of my posts. He commented about the um, the game, and I, dude, please let me get in there, would love to create some content. I love playing video games. He said, dude, fucking DM me. And I'm like all right, hell, yeah, man, but I'm super excited to play. Man, I definitely, like I said, man, I'm going to be playing, creating some content. And man, dude, I just I love Web3 gaming, dude, and I'm so stoked that you guys decided to go this route because, dude, when I look at that dude, it brings me back to my old days, like RuneScape, dude, runescape was my shit dude, like I was on there every night.
Speaker 1:So it just brings me back to like nostalgic good feelings. You know what I mean. So I'm super happy that you guys did that, man. But I was wondering how does like the NFT come into the play with the game, does it? And is there like benefits with the NFTs? Yeah, could you go into details?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't say everything just yet but, like so far, if you own a wizard or a soul, and then soon the warriors, you'll be able to play as that character in the game. Nice, and basically it's a very unique skin compared to, like, the generic player that a non-NFT owner would use. There's, I can't say, some of the future benefits we have, but basically so far it's just a really cool skin, nice. There's going to be other benefits that we will announce soon.
Speaker 1:I'm excited I got to have you guys back on man Talk about that stuff too, man, That'd be super fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll say this much, and this kind of goes to the question you asked earlier why an MMORPG. Mmorpgs have a very. They're known for having really complex game economies, which is great for crypto. We're aiming to have a really robust game economy in the game. I guess that's all I'm going to say on that.
Speaker 1:I can think of many things. I'm excited, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:And I also just want to give a shout out to Ronan, who we've partnered with. They have been awesome. I'm sure everybody knows that Ronan is known for Axie and then recently a fun farming game called Pixels. Yeah, and I think we're going to be ronin's number three. Hit nice, their first, like mmorpg that's how.
Speaker 1:How is it working with ronin? It's a good experience. What's what's that like?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's been great. Their team is super professional, super intelligent, like clearly they understand what it makes to, or what it requires to make a web 3 a successful web 3 game. Nice, you know. So the professionalism has been great. Um, and then what? What was has been a really amazing surprise is that the whole ronin community has come into our community and you know it's it's funny because, like at first we were like do we want the game discord to merge with our discord?
Speaker 2:because then now we're gonna have a thousand gamers and you know, we we didn't know if it was a good idea we did it. It's been a great idea because all these dronin gamers, they have been creators as well. They've been doing art and stories and like just really blending with what our community is already doing. Some of the most talented artists I see in our community now are from the ronin community, and so they're just like they're, they just they just like one, they just fit right in Nice.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's so fucking cool, man, because like it's kind of a risk. You know what I mean, because you don't know if these people will mesh and like with that it comes with some altercation. Man, dude, that's I don't know man. I feel like you guys deserved it. I don't know if it was luck, because sometimes the world just feels like yo, you guys need this shit, even though you don't know it. But you know, I don't know man. That's just. You know my two cents, man. I'm really weird about this whole world, karma, all that good shit. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I think it's real, but yeah man you know, I think you guys well deserve that man. You guys have been building for so long man with nothing, nothing really. Like I do, I can't even say like a bad thing, man, like I can't do, like there's I could say a lot of bad things about other things and shit, dude, but like not, not this man it's. It's just been a very uh, you know how do I say like not a relief, but like a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1:You know I mean, I can point I can point to, to uh, a project like you, like what you guys are building, and say take a look at this. You know this isn't just fucking bullshit. You know, like these people, and what's cool about this, too, is that you guys have your own little section. You know, I mean like your own section, your own little niche with your own community and culture, man, because nobody's doing like the wizard kind of thing as great as you guys are. Man it's, you know I, you know what I mean. It's just undeniable brother, you know.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah, I feel like we've got a niche carved out, yeah, and I think it overlaps with a lot of what the crypto community is about. Like you know, like you said you, you grew up playing runescape and I think it was a large section of the crypto community that you know they love dungeons and dragons and rpgs and world of warcraft and magic, the gathering, and you know, that's all the shit that I love but yeah it's fun, man, but now you haven't.
Speaker 1:Now we're bringing it over here, man. Now that we're uh, we have the, the tech savvy and you know a little bit of gift, the guy we're on here now know we get to create our own world. Now. It's pretty nice man, but we really do love to dig into, like the lore. The lore is it different in the game or is it the same thing? Or how does that play out?
Speaker 2:That's a good question, yeah, yeah. So when we first started I was like OK, bisonic, you know I'm going to give you as much free reign as I give the rest of the community, just like create whatever you want. Like, you know, as long as you use our characters, create whatever you want. And as time has gone on, they may have gotten a little too bifurcated from from the the lord, in that we're developing on the nft side, so so currently we're trying to to merge it up a little bit more um and uh and yeah, and it's going well and I think it will be much more aligned um, but yeah, I mean, you know there's I spoke earlier about like the whole um sentiment behind putting your rune on the door so that you're not forgotten. It's honestly a lot deeper than that, even.
Speaker 1:How so, how so.
Speaker 2:Well, so, like we have a whole like Wikipedia that we call Whizzypedia that goes over like more basic things, like, for example, the whole magic system in our world, um, there's a couple different systems at play. There's a, there's a system magic based on color. There's a system of magic based on runes, um, and then there's a system of magic based on um, just like wizard specialty, like druids and shamans and arcanists and sorcerers and enchanters, and you gotta have that and you gotta have that man, you gotta have that.
Speaker 1:I I love reading that shit too, just because, like I don't know, I I get to choose. Like once I read through it all I'm like that's who I want to be, that's me, yeah, I mean, go ahead, go ahead, yeah yeah, and and so.
Speaker 2:So there's that. Then, like the color system, like I mentioned, it's based on hat color, so we've got red, brown, yellow, green, blue, purple and white, and then there's a secret faction of black hats, shadow, and so each of these colors represents a different form of magic um. And then, of course, there's the runes, that that um inspire the magic, and so what's really fun is every wizard in the whole community and there's 10 000 they're all very unique because they layer together these three different kinds of magic um in in different quantities, and that makes a really unique magical practice, because for me, at the end of the day, magic is an art form. Yeah, another word for it is the arcane arts, and so you know, the corollary or the.
Speaker 2:I guess the analogy I like to make is, like, in the real world, in order to make magic, you engage in the act of creation, like that is magic, just creating something, and then, like the fictional, forgotten runes world, like magic is literally magic, and so so there's a um, there's an overlap to between these two things, uh, in terms of like what it takes to make magic um, so, like you know, in our world, if magic, if, if, if making art or creating is is. Is is our world's form of magic. There's no like, there's no codified, set way to do it. Every artist is unique, every writer is unique, every musician is unique. Just as one like art school comes along and declares, like this is the way art should be, this is what art is, let that run for five years, a whole new art school will come along and say, no, we reject all that, here's the new way to do art. My point is like, like, all our artists and all art movements are very unique and that's the way magic should be.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah no, yeah, that's, that's. That's fucking sweet, man, and I and I I love how deep you get into this stuff, man, because, like you, you really know how genuine someone is building this stuff when, when they get to that deep of level, leaving your mark on like such a such a chain forever. You know, I mean really building these lords together to create a world around you and your community, man, and not only that, dude, but like this like way of rewarding creators for what they do. That is something that you can't really hear outside of this space. You know, it's very common for us, but, like and we hear that a lot, maybe we're like kind of numb to it in a way, I feel like, but, dude, like, when I step outside of this space, dude, like and I tell these people oh, dude, you get to, uh, you get rewarded for creating content, playing video games and just watching a video and crypto, and they're like what, yeah, that must be a scam, dude, you're fucking lying, you know what.
Speaker 1:I'm like. It's real dude. It's real dude and it blows my mind. I'm like, damn dude, we're really on to something here, man, I think that you guys are really on to something too, man, I read something that was like I don't know if this is still going on, but you guys got the. Well, actually it is the play-driven content that you guys do with your community. Is that still something going on?
Speaker 1:I saw something like was it like a mickey mouse kind of a kind of like a collaboration, or am I getting confused with something else? I know that there was something that you someone had done within like the creator content kind of stuff, and you guys like loved it. I don't know what it was exactly. Was it like a mickey mouse thing or something else? It was something else, but I know it was you guys. This might be, I don't, I don't know. Yeah, I'll have to look at that later, man, but with the with like, how do you guys like know to reward that? You know what I mean. Like, what's a? What's a good like, what's good content for you guys? Anything, anything, really, or how do you guys play that out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what you're getting at it, which is like, like, like. If you have thousands of creators, how do you optimize for quality? And you just might, like, might, spam the book of lore with exactly penis.
Speaker 1:And that's like do you reward that? It's a little funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah. How do we optimize for quality? I guess is yeah, yeah, yeah. How do we optimize for quality? I guess is maybe kind of your question, you know, I think, like I would say, first of all, people I would hope are incentivized to create good lore for their character because they own that token. Like, why would you want to pollute your own token with Gargoyle?
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:You know that's only going to hurt the value of something that you own. You know, this is what I love about nfts is like you're in control of your token's destiny. Yeah, any meme coin. You have no control what the value of that meme coin is. It's just, it's at the whim, at the whim of the market. But an nft, a non-fungible token, you actually have a little bit of control over its value because of what you build on top of it. Yeah, so if you're going to spam your book of lore entry, your book of lore entry, with just nonsense or something that nobody wants to read or it's just like vile and awful, you're only hurting yourself. Yeah, true that the first layer I, there's other layers, like you know. Like, like, if your lore is awful, well, good luck. It's never going to show up in the comic. Yeah, you know nobody's going to want to read it.
Speaker 1:Um, nobody will buy that token from you ever because, yeah, um do you think that like it kind of led me into like this kind of thinking when you said that was like when you have like, for example, like me, you know, I, I have my, my board ape and stuff and I have like a derivative of it, you know, and I'm trying to build, like you know, my brand and my personal brand and stuff like that, do you think having like certain individuals that may not have the best intent, could that ruin a project of all, like the whole thing?
Speaker 1:Because sometimes you know, when I think about it and when I see my timeline, you know there's certain, there's obviously there's bad apples within every tree. You know what I mean and like, but like, should a couple bad apples really like dictate a whole entire collection? Because that's what I see, dude, like you see one or two bad people out there just shit talking or just saying nasty things to people, and the whole entire project, though the whole entire community, gets labeled like that man, you know, like I don't know, man, it's just, it's just a wild thing. What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2:that. No, it's definitely a risk that any community has. I mean, not just in nfts, but just just any kind of community you start. That's true, that's true. Bad apples can ruin it. And like I, I would, I guess I would say for us, like again, it goes back to curating a community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if your community is good, then they will self-regulate and they'll kick those men out, okay, okay you know we certainly like moderate our discord pretty heavily and we we try to also like wield the band hammer pretty judiciously, um, but you know it's, it's pretty amazing we don't have to do it too often because our community is pretty good about self-regulating nice yeah, man, that's awesome man, it's especially the.
Speaker 1:It kind of made me realize like, man, you're right, man, if you guys just built a solid ass community, there's gonna be some solid ass people being like checking other people, like, hey, um, we don't really do that here, man, you know stuff like that which is, and man, there's, that's, that's an awesome community. Shout out to you guys, man. Shout out to the rune stone, or sorry about the rune community. Man, that's, it's crazy man. But before we move on, man, I really want to. I ask, like builders, this man, because I think it's just a such a great insight on you know, not just the good times, man, but you know the bad times. You know, but, like, what has been some of the most challenging things you and the team had to face while building Forgotten Ruins? And like, what have you guys done to overcome those?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one tricky thing and this is something all NFT communities have is like just the negative sentiment that normies might have about what NFTs are. I'll give you an example Like we've got this comic book and we had we, we had a deal in place with a publisher, um, a very big comic book publisher, and the deal negotiations went on for months and we were like this close to like getting it finished. Literally at the last hour they pulled out and their reason was our ceo doesn't like nfts. Jesus christ, it's like, it's like to me. I was like I bet this guy doesn't even know what nfts are. He's just like seeing all the negative headlines yeah, being a scam and blah blah and decided he didn't want to like take the risk and be associated with that. I guarantee that's all it was, and so, like you know, that alone has just really been um difficult to deal with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I I could definitely see that man. And like dude, it's a bummer man, it's a bummer. When I hear that shit man, just because like man there's some, like you know I'm, I don't I give the benefit of the doubt to most people. You know, know, and like fuck man. Yeah, you're right man, that person just isn't, isn't well versed or doesn't really know or hasn't really done the read, not even our research. You know, like straight to conclusions, headline readers, man. There's a couple of people that I know that had brand deals with like cool stuff man, like energy drinks or this energy powder, and like another one that had like a toy thing going on. And same story, dude, the last fucking day, man, they pulled out why NFTs? Man, it's just like fuck bro, like I get it, but like come on, dude.
Speaker 2:Give us, give us another chance man I know because it's it's such amazing technology. It really is like for the people who are doing it right and the people who are buying into it for the right reasons god it's. It's so great, what it actually is capable of, what the potential is just incredible. Because, like, what's the alternative? Yeah, the alternative is you've got disney, who is buying up ips left and right. They own, like marvel and pixar and winnie the pooh and star wars and so much ip. And then what do they do with it? They they get executives with a profit motive and no taste and they destroy the IP and piss off the fans. And now the IP is unrecognizable. And you know, it's like. That's what happens when you centralize an IP and put a profit motive by people, or a profit motive inserted is inserted by people wearing suits and ties and they, they don't care about the ip at all. That's what's going to happen and they don't care about the magic brother they don't care about the magic dude.
Speaker 2:Yep yep, and I just think nfts are like the perfect solution to that problem. Right there, it returns the power to the fans, the pans, the fans are not just passive consumers, they're active in engagers and they're, yeah, build it with you and they get compensated fairly for doing so and it's just, it's just magic when it, when it, when it works right yeah, no, a thousand percent, man, especially when you have other people just loving your stuff.
Speaker 1:Man me, for example, as like a gamer dude, like, oh, I, I, I don't care about like getting paid or anything like that, dude, I just want to play games. You know, I love, I love playing games, dude, and it's just like. You know, when you do something like that man and just like, and you hear all these stories, just like, fuck, dude, but I, you just got to keep going, I, I, I'm always like a big, I'm a big pattern guy. I, I see the same patterns as as, like back in the 2000s, internet stocks. You know how everything went crazy. You know what I mean. It's the same thing. We're just in this little low period of like headline. The internet is a fad. That's where we're at right now. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, dude, I'm so glad you say that. I I totally agree, because yeah, it is. The parallel is uncanny, you Uncanny dude. During the dot-com bubble, any company that attached dot-com to their name got an insane valuation. They rugged, they rugged. A few years later the whole thing crashed and people are like, oh, internet's dead.
Speaker 1:It's dead. Yeah, it's the same thing, man. It's funny. Humans are funny, man. I love us, man. We just love to do the same thing, circle and circle, but just different dresses, different makeup and stuff like that. But, dude, back to it. Dude, I want to dig into something really cool. You guys got cooking up and it was mentioned a little bit before, but that is the animated TV show. I watched the trailer, dude, it gave me fucking chills, bro. It gave me fucking chills. It made me wanting more. I'm not going to lie, I was like waiting for more. I was like, fuck, dude, like man, just like 10 seconds more. You know what I mean. But man, dude, like, after watching that trailer, man, it got me excited. It looks fucking pretty cool, man, the timeline mixed with, like the wizards, the city life and the tech. Man, dude, it's up my alley. You know what I mean. But what was the idea behind the show? What do you guys hope to accomplish with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's see when do I begin. You know I'm not trying to just do a standard fantasy project. I'm trying to do a new twist, twist on it.
Speaker 1:so yeah, I could see that dude once I saw, like this, the cities and all the other good, I was like, oh fuck, dude, this isn't just back in the day like just sticks and stones and magic, this is the old soul future. Oh man, I was so excited to see that. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm glad you liked it. Um, no, it's, you know it's, it's, it's. The runiverse is really just like planet Earth, a thousand years in the future, after the singularity occurs, the technological singularity. This is another part of the lore that's very deep Love it. But but, yeah and so. So that's why you see these modern pieces of architecture and vehicles and you know it's, it's very much magic in in a sort of modern world, um, that's not to say you also don't see very old-fashioned things like, uh, steam-powered trains and um, wooden ship, and there's a whole narrative reason why that the old is mixed with the new, um, that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 2:But the point is is like, yeah, this is, this is the world, is about magic, the conflict between magic and technology, um, and how that affects people's lives. And the wizards themselves are this very unique class of people who can, who have magic, um and um. You know the show is sort of about, you know, like, what is the wizard's place in this world? Um, and you know, I, I'm glad, I'm glad you reacted that way, because the show for me was that like, it is my, my personal number one goal. I'm actually more excited about the show than the game. Nice, my, my, my background is in animation. I went to animation school, so it's it's the thing that I want to do most. Um, I mean literally like two days after the project launched, I found a partner to help me get a show, and that's how Bear Snake got involved. He's a he's our Hollywood connection guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah connection guy. Yeah, and so so, yeah, so. So that trailer was actually made by titmouse, which is a really great studio in los angeles um, man, dude, that's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:Man, I mean, hey, you guys aren't and this is none of you guys aren't going into all this like willy-nilly, kind of off the bat. From what I've read, you guys have like a fucking powerhouse team, including including people like, uh, like derrick I I don't know how do you pronounce colstad, or something? Like that yeah and for people who don't know who that is man, he's the dude that created that fucking john wick movie and the new movie with uh, the better call, saw guy um that show I forgot what it's called nobody nobody, nobody, nobody nobody bob odenkirk, I think yeah, yeah, yeah, from better yep man dude, that's so.
Speaker 1:Once I saw that I'm, as I damn dude, this is gonna have some badass fucking storyline dude, because, holy shit, that dude knows what. He knows how to write shows. You know what I mean. But what, what like? What role does, does he play in creating the show? Is it like the story, or like the whole thing around it, or what's that like?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, derek is awesome. I freaking love that guy. Not only do I love him because he's talented, but I love him because he's also just very easy to work with. He's such a nice guy which, honestly, is kind of rare in Hollywood, especially among like writers and artists. It's so easy to get a big ego in hollywood, especially when you have the success that derrick has had, but no, he's cool as fuck.
Speaker 2:Um, so so, yeah, so so, basically, the what's happened now we've gone through several, I guess, iterations of how the production is going to go currently, um, I'm gonna write, uh, the episodes and der is is kind of going to consult, I think, where we're at now. This is subject to change, but it's just like we kind of ran into this with the game and the comic. We're like my job is to like make the lore as deep and as complex as possible, and so, like every day I'm like writing notes on in my own little notebooks and once in a while I add it to the whizzypedia, and it's just getting more and more deep and complex as the months go by and it's gotten to the point where it's like it makes more sense for me to just write the story and have someone else come on top rather than just like say hey Derek, say hey Derek, hey comic writer. Read the entire whizzypedia and all the lore and all my special notes and then write something like it's.
Speaker 1:It's almost too much yeah, I'm glad that you're doing it this way, man, because, um, you got the magic within you, man. You know what I mean. I'm not saying that the others don't but, like, your heart is with this whole entire world and we need your heart and that, and the fucking magic that comes from it, poured into there, man, and you're gonna see it. And now that, now that I know how the process, I know for a fact, we're gonna see that yeah, you know, and it's not like derrick couldn't write a whole amazing show by himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he could, because he's done it. Oh yeah, but you know, it just wouldn't be like everything that's in the Weezypedia and the Book of War. You know, it's like it's just. At this point it makes more sense for me to like lay the foundation and then him come on top.
Speaker 1:And, as you know, man, like you know as a big video game person myself, and you know, when there's like shows or or movies created, man, like it's very rare someone gets it right Because there's like key little things that other people might think take it as little details is huge for people that actually play the fucking game. You know what I mean and that's why it makes me so stoked that you, that you are like the creative doing this shit like 100% with some obviously like some guidance and stuff, but like it just makes me more bullish on that part the fact that you are the one doing this.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I do know what you mean. Yeah, because I can literally put every single Easter egg and connect the magic system with the math, with the hat colors, with with the oraboros, with the singularity, like every single detail. I know how it fits together and and I I can do that, um, so yeah, I was gonna have that, yeah, I'm excited to see it.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to watch it. Dude, I'm gonna tell all my friends for sure, man, to watch this shit and like and that's another thing, dude, like, when you like approach, like the show and stuff like that, what, what, like, like and like, trying to reach an audience outside of our little bubble, like, how do you approach that? What, what is your like process? And that, because, like, it's a little dangerous sketchy to be like, hey, this show was made from like nft because you know, you've already experienced that, you know what I mean. So, like, what's your thoughts on that? How do you? How are you gonna go about that? Yeah, I, I mean, you know, you've already experienced that, you know what I mean. So, like, what's your thoughts on that? How do you? How are you going to go about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, I think one strength that we have is, unlike 90% of the NFT projects out there, like, like you said earlier, we have a full body character and they all have different heads and they all look very different different heads and they all look very different. Like they don't look like an nft, like pfp, where you know it's like it's like a penguin with a different hat, and you know 10 000 of those, you know, yeah, and so so I I think, like, just on the surface, it doesn't really look like an nft. You know they're all very unique characters. That's number one.
Speaker 2:You know how do we appeal to an enormous audience, same way everyone else does. It have really compelling storylines, really, characters with really really strong story arcs, a world that just feels really big and expansive, awesome animation. You know we're doing this sort of anime adjacent style, which I think has a broad appeal right now, like anime is just getting more and more popular. Oh yeah, worldwide. You know everybody loves anime easily, yeah, easily, dude, um, and you know, and then, like you know, and it certainly helps to have an awesome partner like derek, who, yeah, you know what I love about derek, it's like his storylines and his character development is is very intelligent. Oh yeah, it's something that, like a film critic, can really sink their teeth into. But he also knows how to appeal to like a big mainstream audience with these amazing action sequences and just just. It's just like a really fun watch whenever you watch John Wick or everybody.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So yeah, dude, I'm excited, man, I'm excited for you, man, I I could see, I could feel it in your voice, man, that you're just so fucking stoked for this man and I and I know that it's going to just turn out great, whatever however it turns out, man, cause you know, obviously your heart's in it, man, Like it's just a good thing to see. You know what I mean. It makes me feel good inside, like yo, this guy's out here working his ass off, building real shit, so it can make us as a whole entire community look fucking good. You know what I mean, because you know for a fact we've all been looking pretty bad out here. But, man, real quick, man, last couple of questions. My man, I'll let you go, but this is back to, like, the NFTs and stuff, man, but do you ever think we ever see an?
Speaker 2:insane run, like we did back in 2021? Question yeah, I think it's possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. I think, like you know again, if you start in the four-year cycles, I think, if the pattern holds true, the bull market is really supposed to heat up next year. Of course, Bitcoin always leads. I think if we start seeing Bitcoin run, then the altcoins will run. You'll go farther down the risk curve and I think that's where NFTs are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe the meme coin narrative is still with us, but I just can't imagine that we would see another hot crypto bull run and not see NFTs play a role in that. I don't see that either, and it's just because it was so much fun last time. It brought a whole different thing to the whole space. It brought culture, it brought art, it brought music. It brought just, you know, like celebrities for better or worse, but like still that you know that's what, how you get attention, yeah um, no doubt, man, and real communities too.
Speaker 1:Dude, like I get it, you can have a meme coin community you should do but, dude, none of those are going to last no more than three to four months at all. You know what I mean. Like, I know people that are still rocking the same nft pfp for three to four years straight. You know what I mean. Not a single deviation from any kind of meme coin or anything like that, man. It's just like for me, man, I just think it's just way more culturally powerful than a meme coin. In my opinion, just like you said, we have a lot more fun. We've built way, way fucking more. You know, way more cool things you know. But, yeah, man, way fucking more you know more, way more cool things you know, but yeah, man.
Speaker 2:One thing I do wonder about, though, is like, yeah, like, like, the main use case for, for nfts in the last bull run was just the pfp, right? Yeah, you know they, the pfp was almost synonymous with nfts, and I do wonder if, like, we'll see a different, I think the PFP.
Speaker 1:I think so. I think that I've said it before, you know. I said that. You know I think that the old legacy NFT collections will have a nice run. They will have a great run. You know, more gradually, you know what I mean. But like the new NFTs with new narratives and just fresh, new people are going to have a way more, better time, better returns, just like. Just like I said, just a better time. You know what I mean. Yep, better narratives that people can have fun with again, you know what I mean. Like we had fun with the ip narratives, the airdrop narratives, just the pfp narratives. We had fun, but now that is dried to fuck up.
Speaker 1:Nobody cares about that stuff anymore you know, I mean I mean if, if they did, the market would be fucking exploding, but it's just not. You know what I mean. So I believe we will see another great run, but it's going to be with new projects and new narratives, and for the people that I just continue in building, those are going to be the more premium collections. In my opinion, those will be the ones that are just deemed as quote-unquote blue chips. You know what I mean. And then, like it just continues on like that, in cycles and cycles and cycles. But that's just my two cents, my man, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, no, I think so, I think so, and. But you know, like one thing I'm always trying to do is like sniff out, okay, what is the next. Like yeah sort of in nfts. What's the utility, you know? Is it going to be gaming, is it going to be um, um, god knows what?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's always something we never expect never dude, that's why I'm always.
Speaker 1:I'm always keeping my eyes open, my heart open. I'm just like you know what, dude, and I'm not gonna lie, dude there's been times where I'm just like you know, fuck this narrative, fuck this meta. And oh, man, dude, it's just not a good way to to go about that, because then you just become salty and I don't like that version of me. I ain't doing that shit ever again, man. But but yeah, man, I, I, I'm excited for NFT season to heat up again. It's inevitable, just like we both talked about, man, I mean, till this day, man, I mean, yes, we talked about meme coins, but we talked about way more building NFTs, and not just about what you guys are doing, but what other people are doing and how this world really sees NFTs. Man, you know, but my man, last question, I'll let you go. I know you guys must be busy, but what's the future look like for Forgotten Runes? And then there's anything that you want to talk about before we sign off, anything that you know want, that you wanted to highlight it, or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think, like I'm really interested in pursuing, as as I said earlier, this idea that we're this media franchise. All the different ways that that expresses itself, whether it's the TV show, the comic, the game, anything else. I'm really excited to just expand in those directions. You know, the TV show, like I said, is is the thing I'm most excited about. Um, and I, we we've got, we've got some new, I guess, strategies, um on how to really really make that happen in a much bigger way. Um, we'll be revealing that over the next coming months. Um, you know, and but but not just like have the ip expand, uh, in in these big media expression ways, but but also like to deliver on the whole concept of decentralized ip, like, like, again, just today, we finally were able to send out the royalty checks for everyone who lizard appeared in the comics. That is just powerful stuff. That is powerful and it's it's disruptive to the legacy industry that's out there I don't, and that's another thing.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's. I think that's why I do. They don't like that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It cuts to the yeah, yeah, it cuts to the bottom line man like you got a long way to go, brother, but go ahead but, yeah, I, I, but I really want to like deliver on that promise, on that whole concept of the decentralized ip, that the sort of the franchise that's owned by the fans. You know if, if we can continue to build on that, um, I think that's probably the most exciting thing that we could do, oh man.
Speaker 1:Just the way you explained it, man, dude, it stuck with me. The way you explained Forgotten Runes and how you guys want to etch yourselves forever, forever. You know it took me back a little bit. I was like holy shit, dude, I've never looked at it. Like I said, I've never looked at it this way. But thank you for showing me that new perspective and, dude, again thank you for hopping on the show, man. It's been really fun getting to know you, your journey, forgotten runes and what they've got cooking up. But before we sign off, please let people know where they can find more information about you and forgotten rooms yeah, so I'm on twitter.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's just elf j troll um. E l f j t r u l um, and then, uh, and then of course, the project is at forgotten rooms on twitter.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, or you guys got roomscom oh yeah, you guys have to definitely check that out. They're building some cool, cool, amazing shit the fucking nfts, the TV show, the game, the community, so many stuff and I'm super excited. Cannot recommend you guys anymore. Again, thank you for helping the show. Brother, thanks for the invite. Oh yeah.