Two weeks ago, in my essay An Image Problem, I examined what I find to be a significant issue with the current state of the NFT space … the fact that “status” is the only utility that buyers are interested in. I proposed that we need to focus instead on developing IRL value and utility.

Last week, in my essay called “Composability Is the Great Value Proposition of Web3”, I delved deeper into one way to bring real-world value to our NFT projects through what I call decentralized storytelling, where writing of fiction — whether a novel, a short story, a film or TV show script, or a graphic novel — is not done in isolation but rather done with the fans and community.

Today, I want to explore a little deeper into my project — THE JOE SPUTNIK CHRONICLES — and explain how I see this coming together.

CAVEAT: this is not the only way to do it, nor the only project that creators should try out these theories. The Sputnik project is merely my way of testing these ideas. Anyone is welcome to join the project and contribute. Or simply track the project and then apply the lessons learned to their own project. If that’s you, please reach out. Let’s build great stories together.

In 2010, I worked for a large corporation and was editor of a magazine produced quarterly for the employees, vendors, and customers of the company. The company operated in over 150 countries around the world and it was my job to travel to the various locations and write a feature article for each issue about that location.

On this particular trip, I visited Dubai, UAE and then on to Cairo, Egypt. As I sat in the lobby of my Cairo hotel in probably week three of the trip, I was mentally worn out.

After all, I had just completed 19 in-person interviews in a single day. A record I hope I never break!

It was a rare day off and I was trying to refocus my mind away from work, work, work.

Instead, I began thinking about some of my fiction projects.

Although I made my living as a corporate newsletter and magazine writer/editor, my real passion in writing is fiction. I spoken before about the power of story.

As I sat there mulling things, a character introduced himself.

“My name is Joe Sputnik,” he said inside my mind.

Over the next couple of years, I filled up two composition notebooks with story ideas, notes, character sketches, etc. And I wrote a draft of a hardboiled PI novel that I called The Butterfly Collector.

I only published the novel on my website; never to Amazon and I never submitted it to any publishers for their consideration.

Life got in the way.

Flash forward a dozen years and more than a few other fiction projects:

• The 64 Testaments of Krill — a dark fantasy horror novella series, self published on Amazon (under the pen name M. Boris)

• The Geriatric Squad — a superhero spoof movie script

• Zombies from Outer Space — a zombie/alien invasion TV series

• The Briny Deep — a creature feature horror film script

• Kilroy Was Here — a WW2 spy fiction novel (series eventually)

I also built, ran, and eventually sunsetted a small publishing business that republished old, classic, and out-of-print murder mystery stories … amazing shorts, novellas, and novels dating back to the 1890s, up to about 1945.

But after the Krill series of novellas languished on Amazon, I realized I had tackled the project wrong.

I’d written and published seven novellas, then looked up to find my market. And that I’d missed the mark.

Great stories. I’m proud of them and am confident they can find an audience. Just maybe not on Amazon.

What I missed there was building community, and community involvement around that story. And doing so FIRST. Then writing the stories.

In the 1970s, author Harlan Ellison wrote his novels while sitting in a storefront window. He’d bang out a page on his manual typewriter, then paste it onto the window so that passers-by could read it.

Eventually, a crowd would assemble and he could judge his writing at the moment of creation by their reactions.

Charles Dickens did much the same. He wrote most of his now required reading books, like The Pickwick Papers in serial form, then hawked them to his readers on the street corner.

Each week, he’d get feedback on favorite or hated characters and plot directions. With that, he could adjust his story to suit the tastes and likes of his readers.

Both of these writers, and many others, wrote with the immediate input of their readers and fans. They wrote within their community, building community (fans) around their work and using the immediate feedback to make better stories. Stories that the fans were hungry for and would buy, then read and get value from.

This is what I plan to do with my Joe Sputnik saga.

I mentioned, above, the original novel that I wrote and completed in 2012.

As I began to learn about web3 and NFTs, especially for fiction, that story reasserted itself in my memory.

“My story,” Joe told me, “is the perfect setting to explore these wild concepts of decentralization, a blockchain run world, and the promises and problems it may bring.”

The story was originally set in 2041. For no other reason than the fact that the classic pulp-style hardboiled PI novel was set in 1941 (or so). I’ve shifted the setting slightly for the V2 of the novel to 2047 (25 years from 2022). ’Cause, why not?!

So the idea was hatched to rewrite the novel from scratch and integrate themes and concepts of blockchain, defi, etc. The skeleton of the plot would not change — who was getting murdered by what psychopath and why my hero, Joe, was pulled against his will into the mystery.

The rewritten novel, The Butterfly Collector v2, will be released in early September as a limited edition NFT.

I am riffing off of the successful PUNKS Comic NFT project that ran at the tail end of 2021. You can read their Roadmap and details on their website: https://punkscomic.com/.

But to summarize, they took the popular PUNKS NFT collection and built characters around individual NFTs. Then the team wrote a comic book with those characters.

Cuy Sheffield, in his article “Fantasy Hollywood” — Crypto and Community-Owned Characters said that this is one way to create what he terms “a character DAO” where the NFT exists and a story is built upon that NFT collection.

Buyers could opt in for either the PDF edition or a print edition. By keeping or burning either copy, they would gain extra benefits, like access to certain vaults with other valuable NFTs contained within.

I don’t have access to these valuable vaults but the concept I’m developing is similar … provide a limited number of ebook (either PDF or more likely ePub and/or Kindle format) novels, plus (or instead of) a high quality, maybe leather bound, gold embossed print edition.

Buy and hodl the ebook, get XYZ.

Buy and hodl the print book, get ABC.

What those bonuses are, I do not know yet. One of the things I am hoping for is that my new community will help me develop. But a few ideas:

• access to special collections of NFTs … the classic jpegs of various characters

• ability to spin off new stories and new characters

• ability to create new editions (comics, graphic novels, films) of various stories

The overall idea is to develop a decentralized system for storytelling, using the Joe Sputnik metaverse as the playing field. A fictional metaverse to try stuff and break things.

This is what Sheffield describes in his article (link above) as “a specific character that already comes with a backstory and identity that inspires the creation of NFTs, but then enables a community of collectors to participate in its evolution.”

By buying and hodl’ing the various NFTs and/or the soon-to-be-available $SPUTNIK token, you get access to the soon-to-be-build DAO and the stories within.

To share and trade.

To build and explore.

Whatever.

And the stories themselves remain free (a public good) for anyone who wants to read them.

I know the term “roadmap” has a bit of a bad connotation at the moment. But this is just a breakdown of what I’m planning. It is subject to change based on reader/fan/supporter input.

This is a broad overview. With some specific dates.

On 20 June, I will be opening up a crowdfunding project to raise capital for this project. It will enable me to work on this full time and will enable me to produce the content on the schedule I will outline. It will also enable me to bring on collaborators who can financially benefit from their work as well.

Benefits to crowdfund supporters:

• access to watch me write live in my (virtual) storefront window; probably on a Discord channel for lack of a better option (got a better idea? Let me know! Maybe a real store window in the metaverse!)

• access (in lieu of the above, or in addition) to my “daily pages” … after 25+ years as a professional writer, I write fast and can produce 5,000 words a day (especially if I’m doing this full time) … this includes the rewrites for v2 of The Butterfly Collector as I don't he page one rewrite!

• ability to provide input and story direction as the storyline is developed (both the short stories and the novel

• early access (I think this is technically possible) to the short story NFT sales so you don’t risk missing out

I don’t care if you contribute 0.10 ETH of 10 ETH. It may dictate the power of your vote (I’m still learning tokenomics) but everyone is invited to hop aboard and help support the project.

Then, on 4 July, the first short story … Like A Moth To A Flame … will be released as a 1/10 edition NFT. It, and all short stories, will remain free for anyone to read.

In fact, to get a taste of my writing style and the story, you can go ahead and read this short story at the link above.

Anyone who hodl’s a short story NFT will get:

• early access to future stories

• opportunity to contribute directly to the stories

• governance on character decisions, etc.

Additionally, I will create a very limited print run of the full volume of short stories. I expect to create eight to ten short stories in this series (something akin to a modern TV series with eight to ten episodes in a season).

So, anyone who buys and hodl’s all ten stories will get a print volume containing all of the stories. Each copy will have its own unique cover artwork and will be numbered, then signed by me as the author.

This is one of the crucial aspects of the crowdfunding effort … bringing into the community, as a collaborator, an artist who can create custom artwork for these covers, among other artwork.

As a long time freelancer myself, I know the struggles of low paying gigs and I DO NOT want to pay a pittance to someone on Fiverr, then profit myself. This is about community and therefore the crowdfund must provide revenue to adequately and ethically compensate an artist.

Since short story #1 will only ever have a maximum of ten NFT editions available, there will be a maximum of ten of these print volumes available.

I will be releasing a new short story each Monday, starting on July 4 and running through either August 22 or September 5. The end date depends on how many short stories end up in this series; and that is based on feedback from you, my reader and fan.

The week following the last short story, I will release The Butterfly Collector, v2 novel NFT.

These include a limited print run of the first draft of my novel. Each of maybe 100 would be printed on my laser printer, bound with heavy card stock, and individually numbered and signed.

Like numbered prints of a famous painting. Genuine and rare.

I also spoke last week in my essay “Composability Is the Great Value Proposition of Web3” about how I see the standard jpeg NFT providing additional utility to hodlrs.

In summary, each character I create in my stories would have their own jpg NFT. For main characters, like Joe, it would be a 1/1.

For larger groups, like a bunch of goons who are always getting in Joe’s way (think the armies of kung fu thugs that Jackie Chan periodically fights), they would be semi-rare or even common.

In The Butterfly Collector, for example, there is a semi-secret society of women who are known as The Painted Ladies. Each has a unique butterfly tattoo (NFT collection?) as well a delicate tattoo artwork covering their bodies (story hint: the tattoos tell their individual life story and Joe discovers that they are clues to why someone is murdering these young women).

Society rules dictate that there are only a specific number of Painted Ladies at any given time … a limited edition NFT collection.

The idea, then, is that anyone can acquire one of, or perhaps a set of, these NFTs. Not a new idea.

But here is my twist.

What if you could buy a set of 1/1 NFTs and play them with your frens like collectable card games, for instance MAGIC: THE GATHERING or characters in an RPG game like Dungeons & Dragons?

Each character NFT has various hit points or values based on who that character is. Strength and skills in areas like hand-to-hand combat or diplomacy. All characteristics based on what happens in a story. And characteristics that can change based on story.

If these NFTs were available in packs of ten, none visible to the buyer beforehand, they become like the baseball card collections that you could buy in a cellophane wrapper. You might get a bunch of nobodies or you might get a valuable rookie card. The thrill is in the gamble on what NFTs you might get in the collection.

Then, you can play those against others’ collections to win and build your NFT collections.

Win other’s NFTs. Build war packs. Rule the metaverse.

I’ll be honest … I have no idea how to make this work. At least on a technical side. I need to bring in developers and people who understand how to build/create smart contracts that will manage all of this. Again, the crowdfunding budget includes this and other costs to develop this into a full blown project and DAO, while financially supporting those actively involved.

But I think it has potential to add a little fun and game play to buying and hodl’ing an NFT.

I have been inspired by the thinking of a lot of other folks. And, maybe because creative thinking is my bread-and-butter, I am finding ways of putting their ideas together into a new form (the “composability” thing I talked about last week). What I'm calling decentalized storytelling.

My vision is to use the Joe Sputnik story as a testbed for what I’ve talked about with decentralized storytelling. What Cuy Sheffield talked about with character DAOs and open source character IPs. What so many have talked about with the web3 creator economy.

I want to build a collaborative storytelling system where others can tell independent stories within the defined universe/metaverse by minting/staking (not sure of terminology) characters … creators (or instigators, as I call them) would have, say, a 35% take in their characters or stories and 65% would go to the DAO treasury.

The idea being that as a character DAO or a community around the Sputnik metaverse, we build new and amazing stories together.

Maybe someone will come along who is a filmmaker and sees potential in either The Butterfly Collector as a film or sees another storyline to pursue. He can, through community voting, become the custodian or instigator of that project.

If he uses my novel as the basis, I would receive a royalty but, as instigator of the film, he would gain the 35% owner stake. My royalty (or whomever is custodian on the story/character) would be maybe 10% of the 65% that goes into the treasury.

And the funds to produce the film would come from the DAO treasury, as well. The producer could petition the DAO for funds to create his project.

Or a graphic novelist could adapt a story. Same process; different media.

The point is that this is not about me getting rich because I came up with the original idea. The idea is that my original idea is a platform from which multiple avenues of creation can grow.

And the community can benefit. Financially and in other ways.

Roles, then, in this vision, would include:

• INSTIGATOR → creates, defines a character or set of characters, or a story/product (novel, comic, movie, etc.); has CUSTODIAL ownership; 2 votes to everyone else’s 1; management/administrative not authority

• CUSTODIAN → anyone who is responsible for managing a character’s individual IP; may be the INSTIGATOR or be assigned the role at the behest of the INSTIGATOR

• SUB-INSTIGATOR → upon INSTIGATOR’s approval, instigates a new story based on the character

And certainly more.

I am a creative person. I have an (over) active imagination and can conceive of all manner of strange things. Which is precisely what this “roadmap” is. It is an atlas of the territory and I’ve scribbled all over it with a crayon.

I am also a writer. When I am able to focus on story, without the headaches and time sucks of outside commitments, I can write 5,000 words a day. My record is over 12,000. I can a erage 7 – 9,000 in a day, 6+ days a week.

The script, The Briny Deep, that I mentioned above … from concept to finished draft in 11 days.

Most of the Testaments of Krill stories were written in less than a week and average about 27,000 words.

The story creation and publication I can do. That is like breathing air to me. It is simultaneously the hardest and most wonderful work I can do.

Its the technical aspects that I struggle with. I know Javascript and React. Enough, anyway, to know I’ll never be a developer. Enough to build a basic website and really get in over my head.

That is one reason I need help. Why I need you.

Maybe you are a developer and can build out the NFT card game I spoke about above.

Maybe you’re an expert at creating and managing DAOs.

Maybe you're that graphic novelist/artist looking for a project.

Maybe you're a filmmaker or TV show producer.

I cannot build this project without help. Without input. Without skills that I do not have.

I am looking to build community around this idea. Community that grows together as we create amazing stories.

Next Monday, 20 June, I will be opening up a crowdfunding effort to raise the capital I need to begin this journey. The funds required to build what may be the first character DAO.

“There is a market for a decentralized version of a “fantasy Hollywood,” too — it just hasn’t been met yet,” said Sheffield in his article.

I aim to make this project the first and make it stand as a shining example of what can be done with storytelling if creatives of all kinds come together to build something together.

I hope you will join me.

Next Monday, I will go deeper into my ideas on decentralized storytelling and how this character DAO process could work. I am meeting with several folks this week to learn more and see how their systems stack up as platforms to use. I will report on what I learn and what I decide to do, initially. I will continue to seek feedback as the project grows.

Right now, with these essays pontificating on my theories, and the short stories, I am taking advantage of the excellent platform Mirror.xyz.

The crowdfund will also be hosted on Mirror.xyz.

Until then, follow me on Twitter … @jspi_nft or check out the project on the main website www.jspi.xyz (yes, I built it myself using Remix.run … see why I need your help!!?? 😁😜). Or email me directly at rich@joesputnipi.com with questions, comments, or to tell me where I’ve missed the boat.

The Pulpeteer (pronounced pulp·ateer; taken from an essay by pulp writer Lester Dent who created the Doc Savage character and series) is a full time author and the warped mind behind the metaverse fiction NFT project — THE JOE SPUTNIK CHRONICLES, a metaverse hardboiled detective fiction series — where he is exploring the concepts and practical application of decentralized storytelling and open source character IP as a means to tell better stories.

Follow the saga of Joe Sputnik, PI in 2047 New York City as he battles hidden forces that threaten to dominate what has become a fully decentralized world → www.jspi.xyz

Or follow his thoughts on decentalized storytelling and open source character IPs on Twitter → @jspi_nft

Two weeks ago, in my essay An Image Problem, I examined what I find to be a significant issue with the current state of the NFT space … the fact that “status” is the only utility that buyers are interested in. I proposed that we need to focus instead on developing IRL value and utility.

Last week, in my essay called “Composability Is the Great Value Proposition of Web3”, I delved deeper into one way to bring real-world value to our NFT projects through what I call decentralized storytelling, where writing of fiction — whether a novel, a short story, a film or TV show script, or a graphic novel — is not done in isolation but rather done with the fans and community.

Today, I want to explore a little deeper into my project — THE JOE SPUTNIK CHRONICLES — and explain how I see this coming together.

CAVEAT: this is not the only way to do it, nor the only project that creators should try out these theories. The Sputnik project is merely my way of testing these ideas. Anyone is welcome to join the project and contribute. Or simply track the project and then apply the lessons learned to their own project. If that’s you, please reach out. Let’s build great stories together.

In 2010, I worked for a large corporation and was editor of a magazine produced quarterly for the employees, vendors, and customers of the company. The company operated in over 150 countries around the world and it was my job to travel to the various locations and write a feature article for each issue about that location.

On this particular trip, I visited Dubai, UAE and then on to Cairo, Egypt. As I sat in the lobby of my Cairo hotel in probably week three of the trip, I was mentally worn out.

After all, I had just completed 19 in-person interviews in a single day. A record I hope I never break!

It was a rare day off and I was trying to refocus my mind away from work, work, work.

Instead, I began thinking about some of my fiction projects.

Although I made my living as a corporate newsletter and magazine writer/editor, my real passion in writing is fiction. I spoken before about the power of story.

As I sat there mulling things, a character introduced himself.

“My name is Joe Sputnik,” he said inside my mind.

Over the next couple of years, I filled up two composition notebooks with story ideas, notes, character sketches, etc. And I wrote a draft of a hardboiled PI novel that I called The Butterfly Collector.

I only published the novel on my website; never to Amazon and I never submitted it to any publishers for their consideration.

Life got in the way.

Flash forward a dozen years and more than a few other fiction projects:

• The 64 Testaments of Krill — a dark fantasy horror novella series, self published on Amazon (under the pen name M. Boris)

• The Geriatric Squad — a superhero spoof movie script

• Zombies from Outer Space — a zombie/alien invasion TV series

• The Briny Deep — a creature feature horror film script

• Kilroy Was Here — a WW2 spy fiction novel (series eventually)

I also built, ran, and eventually sunsetted a small publishing business that republished old, classic, and out-of-print murder mystery stories … amazing shorts, novellas, and novels dating back to the 1890s, up to about 1945.

But after the Krill series of novellas languished on Amazon, I realized I had tackled the project wrong.

I’d written and published seven novellas, then looked up to find my market. And that I’d missed the mark.

Great stories. I’m proud of them and am confident they can find an audience. Just maybe not on Amazon.

What I missed there was building community, and community involvement around that story. And doing so FIRST. Then writing the stories.

In the 1970s, author Harlan Ellison wrote his novels while sitting in a storefront window. He’d bang out a page on his manual typewriter, then paste it onto the window so that passers-by could read it.

Eventually, a crowd would assemble and he could judge his writing at the moment of creation by their reactions.

Charles Dickens did much the same. He wrote most of his now required reading books, like The Pickwick Papers in serial form, then hawked them to his readers on the street corner.

Each week, he’d get feedback on favorite or hated characters and plot directions. With that, he could adjust his story to suit the tastes and likes of his readers.

Both of these writers, and many others, wrote with the immediate input of their readers and fans. They wrote within their community, building community (fans) around their work and using the immediate feedback to make better stories. Stories that the fans were hungry for and would buy, then read and get value from.

This is what I plan to do with my Joe Sputnik saga.

I mentioned, above, the original novel that I wrote and completed in 2012.

As I began to learn about web3 and NFTs, especially for fiction, that story reasserted itself in my memory.

“My story,” Joe told me, “is the perfect setting to explore these wild concepts of decentralization, a blockchain run world, and the promises and problems it may bring.”

The story was originally set in 2041. For no other reason than the fact that the classic pulp-style hardboiled PI novel was set in 1941 (or so). I’ve shifted the setting slightly for the V2 of the novel to 2047 (25 years from 2022). ’Cause, why not?!

So the idea was hatched to rewrite the novel from scratch and integrate themes and concepts of blockchain, defi, etc. The skeleton of the plot would not change — who was getting murdered by what psychopath and why my hero, Joe, was pulled against his will into the mystery.

The rewritten novel, The Butterfly Collector v2, will be released in early September as a limited edition NFT.

I am riffing off of the successful PUNKS Comic NFT project that ran at the tail end of 2021. You can read their Roadmap and details on their website: https://punkscomic.com/.

But to summarize, they took the popular PUNKS NFT collection and built characters around individual NFTs. Then the team wrote a comic book with those characters.

Cuy Sheffield, in his article “Fantasy Hollywood” — Crypto and Community-Owned Characters said that this is one way to create what he terms “a character DAO” where the NFT exists and a story is built upon that NFT collection.

Buyers could opt in for either the PDF edition or a print edition. By keeping or burning either copy, they would gain extra benefits, like access to certain vaults with other valuable NFTs contained within.

I don’t have access to these valuable vaults but the concept I’m developing is similar … provide a limited number of ebook (either PDF or more likely ePub and/or Kindle format) novels, plus (or instead of) a high quality, maybe leather bound, gold embossed print edition.

Buy and hodl the ebook, get XYZ.

Buy and hodl the print book, get ABC.

What those bonuses are, I do not know yet. One of the things I am hoping for is that my new community will help me develop. But a few ideas:

• access to special collections of NFTs … the classic jpegs of various characters

• ability to spin off new stories and new characters

• ability to create new editions (comics, graphic novels, films) of various stories

The overall idea is to develop a decentralized system for storytelling, using the Joe Sputnik metaverse as the playing field. A fictional metaverse to try stuff and break things.

This is what Sheffield describes in his article (link above) as “a specific character that already comes with a backstory and identity that inspires the creation of NFTs, but then enables a community of collectors to participate in its evolution.”

By buying and hodl’ing the various NFTs and/or the soon-to-be-available $SPUTNIK token, you get access to the soon-to-be-build DAO and the stories within.

To share and trade.

To build and explore.

Whatever.

And the stories themselves remain free (a public good) for anyone who wants to read them.

I know the term “roadmap” has a bit of a bad connotation at the moment. But this is just a breakdown of what I’m planning. It is subject to change based on reader/fan/supporter input.

This is a broad overview. With some specific dates.

On 20 June, I will be opening up a crowdfunding project to raise capital for this project. It will enable me to work on this full time and will enable me to produce the content on the schedule I will outline. It will also enable me to bring on collaborators who can financially benefit from their work as well.

Benefits to crowdfund supporters:

• access to watch me write live in my (virtual) storefront window; probably on a Discord channel for lack of a better option (got a better idea? Let me know! Maybe a real store window in the metaverse!)

• access (in lieu of the above, or in addition) to my “daily pages” … after 25+ years as a professional writer, I write fast and can produce 5,000 words a day (especially if I’m doing this full time) … this includes the rewrites for v2 of The Butterfly Collector as I don't he page one rewrite!

• ability to provide input and story direction as the storyline is developed (both the short stories and the novel

• early access (I think this is technically possible) to the short story NFT sales so you don’t risk missing out

I don’t care if you contribute 0.10 ETH of 10 ETH. It may dictate the power of your vote (I’m still learning tokenomics) but everyone is invited to hop aboard and help support the project.

Then, on 4 July, the first short story … Like A Moth To A Flame … will be released as a 1/10 edition NFT. It, and all short stories, will remain free for anyone to read.

In fact, to get a taste of my writing style and the story, you can go ahead and read this short story at the link above.

Anyone who hodl’s a short story NFT will get:

• early access to future stories

• opportunity to contribute directly to the stories

• governance on character decisions, etc.

Additionally, I will create a very limited print run of the full volume of short stories. I expect to create eight to ten short stories in this series (something akin to a modern TV series with eight to ten episodes in a season).

So, anyone who buys and hodl’s all ten stories will get a print volume containing all of the stories. Each copy will have its own unique cover artwork and will be numbered, then signed by me as the author.

This is one of the crucial aspects of the crowdfunding effort … bringing into the community, as a collaborator, an artist who can create custom artwork for these covers, among other artwork.

As a long time freelancer myself, I know the struggles of low paying gigs and I DO NOT want to pay a pittance to someone on Fiverr, then profit myself. This is about community and therefore the crowdfund must provide revenue to adequately and ethically compensate an artist.

Since short story #1 will only ever have a maximum of ten NFT editions available, there will be a maximum of ten of these print volumes available.

I will be releasing a new short story each Monday, starting on July 4 and running through either August 22 or September 5. The end date depends on how many short stories end up in this series; and that is based on feedback from you, my reader and fan.

The week following the last short story, I will release The Butterfly Collector, v2 novel NFT.

These include a limited print run of the first draft of my novel. Each of maybe 100 would be printed on my laser printer, bound with heavy card stock, and individually numbered and signed.

Like numbered prints of a famous painting. Genuine and rare.

I also spoke last week in my essay “Composability Is the Great Value Proposition of Web3” about how I see the standard jpeg NFT providing additional utility to hodlrs.

In summary, each character I create in my stories would have their own jpg NFT. For main characters, like Joe, it would be a 1/1.

For larger groups, like a bunch of goons who are always getting in Joe’s way (think the armies of kung fu thugs that Jackie Chan periodically fights), they would be semi-rare or even common.

In The Butterfly Collector, for example, there is a semi-secret society of women who are known as The Painted Ladies. Each has a unique butterfly tattoo (NFT collection?) as well a delicate tattoo artwork covering their bodies (story hint: the tattoos tell their individual life story and Joe discovers that they are clues to why someone is murdering these young women).

Society rules dictate that there are only a specific number of Painted Ladies at any given time … a limited edition NFT collection.

The idea, then, is that anyone can acquire one of, or perhaps a set of, these NFTs. Not a new idea.

But here is my twist.

What if you could buy a set of 1/1 NFTs and play them with your frens like collectable card games, for instance MAGIC: THE GATHERING or characters in an RPG game like Dungeons & Dragons?

Each character NFT has various hit points or values based on who that character is. Strength and skills in areas like hand-to-hand combat or diplomacy. All characteristics based on what happens in a story. And characteristics that can change based on story.

If these NFTs were available in packs of ten, none visible to the buyer beforehand, they become like the baseball card collections that you could buy in a cellophane wrapper. You might get a bunch of nobodies or you might get a valuable rookie card. The thrill is in the gamble on what NFTs you might get in the collection.

Then, you can play those against others’ collections to win and build your NFT collections.

Win other’s NFTs. Build war packs. Rule the metaverse.

I’ll be honest … I have no idea how to make this work. At least on a technical side. I need to bring in developers and people who understand how to build/create smart contracts that will manage all of this. Again, the crowdfunding budget includes this and other costs to develop this into a full blown project and DAO, while financially supporting those actively involved.

But I think it has potential to add a little fun and game play to buying and hodl’ing an NFT.

I have been inspired by the thinking of a lot of other folks. And, maybe because creative thinking is my bread-and-butter, I am finding ways of putting their ideas together into a new form (the “composability” thing I talked about last week). What I'm calling decentalized storytelling.

My vision is to use the Joe Sputnik story as a testbed for what I’ve talked about with decentralized storytelling. What Cuy Sheffield talked about with character DAOs and open source character IPs. What so many have talked about with the web3 creator economy.

I want to build a collaborative storytelling system where others can tell independent stories within the defined universe/metaverse by minting/staking (not sure of terminology) characters … creators (or instigators, as I call them) would have, say, a 35% take in their characters or stories and 65% would go to the DAO treasury.

The idea being that as a character DAO or a community around the Sputnik metaverse, we build new and amazing stories together.

Maybe someone will come along who is a filmmaker and sees potential in either The Butterfly Collector as a film or sees another storyline to pursue. He can, through community voting, become the custodian or instigator of that project.

If he uses my novel as the basis, I would receive a royalty but, as instigator of the film, he would gain the 35% owner stake. My royalty (or whomever is custodian on the story/character) would be maybe 10% of the 65% that goes into the treasury.

And the funds to produce the film would come from the DAO treasury, as well. The producer could petition the DAO for funds to create his project.

Or a graphic novelist could adapt a story. Same process; different media.

The point is that this is not about me getting rich because I came up with the original idea. The idea is that my original idea is a platform from which multiple avenues of creation can grow.

And the community can benefit. Financially and in other ways.

Roles, then, in this vision, would include:

• INSTIGATOR → creates, defines a character or set of characters, or a story/product (novel, comic, movie, etc.); has CUSTODIAL ownership; 2 votes to everyone else’s 1; management/administrative not authority

• CUSTODIAN → anyone who is responsible for managing a character’s individual IP; may be the INSTIGATOR or be assigned the role at the behest of the INSTIGATOR

• SUB-INSTIGATOR → upon INSTIGATOR’s approval, instigates a new story based on the character

And certainly more.

I am a creative person. I have an (over) active imagination and can conceive of all manner of strange things. Which is precisely what this “roadmap” is. It is an atlas of the territory and I’ve scribbled all over it with a crayon.

I am also a writer. When I am able to focus on story, without the headaches and time sucks of outside commitments, I can write 5,000 words a day. My record is over 12,000. I can a erage 7 – 9,000 in a day, 6+ days a week.

The script, The Briny Deep, that I mentioned above … from concept to finished draft in 11 days.

Most of the Testaments of Krill stories were written in less than a week and average about 27,000 words.

The story creation and publication I can do. That is like breathing air to me. It is simultaneously the hardest and most wonderful work I can do.

Its the technical aspects that I struggle with. I know Javascript and React. Enough, anyway, to know I’ll never be a developer. Enough to build a basic website and really get in over my head.

That is one reason I need help. Why I need you.

Maybe you are a developer and can build out the NFT card game I spoke about above.

Maybe you’re an expert at creating and managing DAOs.

Maybe you're that graphic novelist/artist looking for a project.

Maybe you're a filmmaker or TV show producer.

I cannot build this project without help. Without input. Without skills that I do not have.

I am looking to build community around this idea. Community that grows together as we create amazing stories.

Next Monday, 20 June, I will be opening up a crowdfunding effort to raise the capital I need to begin this journey. The funds required to build what may be the first character DAO.

“There is a market for a decentralized version of a “fantasy Hollywood,” too — it just hasn’t been met yet,” said Sheffield in his article.

I aim to make this project the first and make it stand as a shining example of what can be done with storytelling if creatives of all kinds come together to build something together.

I hope you will join me.

Next Monday, I will go deeper into my ideas on decentralized storytelling and how this character DAO process could work. I am meeting with several folks this week to learn more and see how their systems stack up as platforms to use. I will report on what I learn and what I decide to do, initially. I will continue to seek feedback as the project grows.

Right now, with these essays pontificating on my theories, and the short stories, I am taking advantage of the excellent platform Mirror.xyz.

The crowdfund will also be hosted on Mirror.xyz.

Until then, follow me on Twitter … @jspi_nft or check out the project on the main website www.jspi.xyz (yes, I built it myself using Remix.run … see why I need your help!!?? 😁😜). Or email me directly at rich@joesputnipi.com with questions, comments, or to tell me where I’ve missed the boat.

The Pulpeteer (pronounced pulp·ateer; taken from an essay by pulp writer Lester Dent who created the Doc Savage character and series) is a full time author and the warped mind behind the metaverse fiction NFT project — THE JOE SPUTNIK CHRONICLES, a metaverse hardboiled detective fiction series — where he is exploring the concepts and practical application of decentralized storytelling and open source character IP as a means to tell better stories.

Follow the saga of Joe Sputnik, PI in 2047 New York City as he battles hidden forces that threaten to dominate what has become a fully decentralized world → www.jspi.xyz

Or follow his thoughts on decentalized storytelling and open source character IPs on Twitter → @jspi_nft