đ Overview
Heirbrosse is a fantasy world with several stories, characters, and timelines already built ânâ ready to go. But there is room for so much more. This worldbuilding project aims to combine both decentralized and centralized systems to help inspire, teach, delight and reward both readers and writers.
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đď¸ Vision
On one end of the spectrum: an open-ended, âopen-sourceâ and royalty-free repository of story ideas, prompts and inspiration. Anyone can access and play with characters, settings, magic systemsâuse it for RPGs, your own stories, etc.
On the other end: a robust canonization system for novels, short stories and other media thatâs officially associated with the main storylines and major characters of the world. NFT projects, collectables, core contributors, and all that fun stuff that comes with the âcreator economyâ in web3.
Additionally, this project will aim to bring utility to Hiveâs SCHOLAR and SCRIBE creative writing tokens.
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đşď¸ Plan for how it works (v1)
This Hive Community will primarily host information about the world (e.g. maps, character sheets) and metainformation about the worldbuilding project (like contests, or this âintroâ post you're reading right now).
All fiction output will ideally be posted in the Scholar & Scribe creative writing community here on Hive, though if it gets posted in this community no one will be fed to any dragons.
A Discord server will eventually be spun up to:
- facilitate real-time collaboration,
- act as an onboarding platform for non-Hive users,
- NFT-gate special content or channels for supporters
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NFTs relating to the canonized Heirbrosse world will be developed, likely outside of Hive to start. These will be a bridge to other chains and users, hopefully drawing them in towards the nexuses of either Hive or Discord (if theyâre sufficiently wooed by the magic of the realm). These NFTs have no real limit on what they can be, but some low hanging fruit ideas are:
- đ NFT Books of finished canonized or âlegendâ stories
- đ NFT Bookmarks (see example project here)
- đŽ Magic items from Heirbrosse
- đ¤ Collectable character cards or pfps
- đ Land, map, or city cards representing a virtual stake in the world
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â Canonization âsystemâ (v1)
Any and all creators will be encouraged to âstealâ whatever material they want to fuel their own ideas, stories, games, RPGs, whatever. There will be contests, prompts, anthology curation, etc. Heirbrosse will be built in public, so thereâs no sense in trying to control what can and canât be used.
However, good worldbuilding requires internal consistency, proper timeline management, enticing character arcs, meta-arcs, and some sense of logical flow between stories.
Hence, a highly centralized council-of-one shall oversee canonization: thatâs me (@jfuji)! The idea isnât so much to rule over canon with an iron fistârather, Iâd like to build a circle of trusted advisors and even enable DAO-like voting to aid in canonization choices. Even an editing pathway to take stories from good-but-uncanonizable to great-and-canon! Also, if skilled and passionate creators emerge that wish to steer certain arcs, they may be trusted with canonization too.
But veto power needs to exist to stop âBoaty McBoatfaceâ style brigadingâgood fun as it all is, I do take the worldbuilding business seriously đ¤
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Farming canon is not the point though
Having something canonized is like a badge of honour. Itâs a good thing, but itâs not the main goal of the project.
Non-canon material can still be celebrated, enjoyed and deployed as NFTs or other consumable digital goodsâitâs effectively fanfic that couldnât be officially incorporated for some reason or another.
No, the main point for me is to let this world out into the open and let it breathe. Let it discover new creators and ideas and open up paths and worlds for others.
And if no one wants to join in, and I sit here toiling on the world and its elements all by myselfâthatâs AOK: Iâve been doing it for decades already and itâs given birth to a number of novels. So anything beyond that feels like a bonus to me!
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âď¸ SCHOLAR and SCRIBE utility
The initial plan is pretty simple.
Any contests or interactive elements of this worldbuilding project will give preferential treatment to users who have staked SCHOLAR and/or SCRIBE tokens. Much of this figuring and bias will be done manually to start with, though as the tech stack around S&S grows, hopefully so too will the options around whatâs possible and scalable.
Being able to offer NFTs or other elements in exchange for SCHOLAR is another milestone to look forward to.
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Whatâs next?
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A few things in the short term that I plan to roll out include:
- Digging through my personal wiki files of worldbuilding notes and turning them into posts in this community
- Running a super simple contest where people help name regions on the main Heirbrosse map (teaser above). NFTs and Hive tokens as prizes, and a big bias towards SCHOLAR and SCRIBE stakers
- Likely tweaking and editing this whole âintroâ piece to sharpen details, incorporate feedback, etc.
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Existing content in the Heirbrosse world
- Canon: The Mountain Dancer is a YA novel published for free on Wattpad.
- Canon: The Childseekerâs War is a full length novel currently being serialized on Hive.
- Sorta non-canon: The Delta of a Thousand Teeth is a series of RP notes, stories, and timelines from a Westmarches style DnD 5e campaign. The non-canon piece is the use of 5e stuff. But many of the maps, lore and timeline elements I do consider canon.
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