Dungeons & Dragons was the game that defined my childhood and, if I’m honest, adulthood (I even took a medieval studies minor in college so that I could write more thematic adventures). I have been obsessed with the game for over 40 years now.

I was born in 1974, the same year that D&D was first published by TSR. When I was 8 years old, I received the D&D boxed set — the magenta box with evocative cover art by Erol Otus.

The game was nothing short of magical. 

It had game mechanics and strategy, but the combat wasn’t the source of its magic. It was built on imagination and storytelling. At its core, it was a form of social, shared narrative. And it defined an entire genre of games.

It wasn’t long before I moved on to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It added crunch and depth to the game, and I loved it.

What was consistent in both Basic and AD&D was the art. It was an artistic style and tone that defined the aesthetics of D&D for an entire generation…and for a game built on imagination, it was like kindling for a fire.

The D&D Basic set cover by Erol Otus and the AD&D Players Handbook cover by David Trampier remain the artwork that I will always associate with the game.

For those of us who have played Basic and 1E, much of the early art style is instantly recognizable and nostalgic.

The adventure module art followed a similar aesthetic for many years. I was always the sort of Dungeon Master that preferred homebrew adventures (the process of creation and storytelling was part of the appeal for me), but I purchased the modules with regularity…just for the art and to collect them!

And it is that magic and nostalgia that I want to capture with this project.

Introducing Collection NFT-1

We’re creating collections of non-player characters drawn in the aesthetics of old school AD&D modules — an homage to the early D&D artists like David Trampier, Erol Otus, Bill Willingham, and others.

Each of these genesis characters will occupy a place of importance in a new D&D campaign setting — the first to be collectively created and told by NFT holders.

The character backgrounds are written by the team and assigned to the artists, who breath life into them. Each artist has been curated to capture the artistic nostalgia of old school AD&D modules.

Each of the characters will live on the blockchain, are 100% hand drawn, and absolutely unique. 

Ownership

What we’re interested in exploring is the intersection of collaborative creation, ownership, and fandom.

The blockchain will be our proof of ownership, and the NFTs will be the visual front-end — art and ownership all in one.

Imagine owning characters from other campaign settings — Mordenkainen, Vecna, Elminster, Tasha, Tenser, Emirikol the Chaotic , or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Now imagine if you owned the rights to tell their stories, their inclusion in 3rd party published works, to use their image, to negotiate perks and financial incentives.

It is territory that the game publishing world hasn’t explored. There has always been a line between creators and fandom. This blurs that line, and that space leaves room for exploration.

Characters in a Living Campaign

The D&D campaign setting that the genesis characters exist in will be collaboratively created and owned by the active participants.

Each NFT collection will cover a location in the campaign world — an illicit underdark port, a bustling trade town in the rugged wilderness, an irreligious city of mages, the cursed city across the Sundered Sea, and many more.

Our team will do much of the initial world-building, set the tone, and descriptions. These should be viewed as “guard rails” for additional content contributed by the community. 

The inclusion of additional content will be voted on by the NFT holders (at which point it will become canon).

NFT holders will get the perks and ownership rights, but the campaign world will be accessible to anyone.

Participatory NFTs

We’re also introducing gamified holding of the genesis NFTs through an on-chain narrative that plays out through non-dilutive drops, upgradeable tokens and prompts. 

We’re coining the phrase “participatory NFTs” to describe what we have in mind, and we want it to be an experience for our holders.

Results of these challenges effect the campaign setting and the characters (their stats and influence in the game),

It will be a truly dynamic and evolving campaign setting, because the characters have their own motivations and owners who participate.

What we aim to deliver

• the standard campaign setting goodies — location maps and descriptions, encounters, and battle maps

• on-chain collector edition modules (followed by published modules)

• gamified holding of NFTs

• a campaign webite — the campaign setting and characters will be stored in a format easier for DMs to use in their campaigns.

How will we make money?

This is something that most NFT projects don’t ask.

The truth is that a lot of NFT projects treat their consumers (holders) as their revenue stream. Floor price is driven by hype and speculation, and founders see it as their job to fuel that. If they require more money, they create another collection to mint.

We will release new collections with NPCs from different cities and areas, but the collection sizes will be small (each NFT is hand-drawn, after all) and the money we make from them will be to largely cover costs and create product (think of each mint like a kickstarter and patreon combined…only with ongoing perks and ownership!)

The point is that we’re looking to create something more sustainable and our potential revenue streams will be more traditional and more…well…fungible — a published campaign world, modules, DM screens, etc. 

Where does it goes from there? Who knows! But what we can promise is plenty of experimentation and exploration.

The opportunity to explore collaborative creation, ownership, and fandom is pretty damn compelling…and that is where we intend to play.