
![](https://i.imgur.com/FF8WG3q.png)

On a crisp December 24th, 2021 snow fell on the secret tower, a rumble in the distance. Then a whinny. From the Elysian Fields, a herd of 567 ponies appeared in the Forgotten Runiverse.

The minting was free (+gas) for anyone who received a merch box or held a Wizard (or Soul) that had Lore (details below).

## About the Elysian Fields Collection

There are 567 Ponies comprised of 52 traits (plus Runes). During minting, the images and metadata are hosted but after minting the Ponies will be stored **completely on-chain** just like the Wizards.

## Criteria for Receiving a Pony

![](https://i.imgur.com/H6IbSTR.png)

Ponies can be minted two ways:

- By using the code in a merch box OR
- Holding a Wizard (or Soul) that has written Lore

The minting [will take place here](https://ponies.forgottenrunes.com).

This is the second time that writers in [The Book of Lore](/lore) have been prioritized for an airdrop (the first being [The Sacred Flame](/posts/forgotten-souls)).

### Details:

- 1 Pony per code in merch box
- 1 Pony per account that holds at least 1 Wizard or Soul that satisfies the following, as of December 21st

**Examples:**

- ✅ Wizard has Lore
- ❌ Wizard has no Lore
- ✅ Wizard has Lore => Wizard burned => Soul has no Lore
- ✅ Wizard has no Lore => Wizard burned => Soul has Lore
- ❌ Wizard has no Lore => Wizard burned => Soul has no Lore

**FAQ**

**Q** What if I transferred my Wizard after I wrote my Lore?

**A** That is accounted for. You only have to hold a Wizard that _has_ Lore. (Not be the original author)

**Q** What if I bought a Wizard that had Lore already?

**A** Then you get a Pony!

**Q** What if I got a merch box AND I hold a Wizard/Soul that satisfies above?

**A** Then you'll need a two-pony stable

## Official Links

- [Pony Minting Page](https://ponies.forgottenrunes.com)
- [Elysian Fields Contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xf55b615b479482440135ebf1b907fd4c37ed9420#code)
- [Elysian Fields Collection on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottenrunesponies)


Elysian Fields: Forgotten Runes Ponies


![](/static/img/souls/OSFeatureSouls.png)

The new character classes we have seen thus far are Liches, Wraiths, Zombies, Revenants, Ghouls, Spectres, Phantasms, and Poltergeists. Below is some generalized lore about each class, but remember, your Forgotten Runes character is always your own. You decide their individual lore and you do not have to conform to what is written below. And you can inscribe their unique history into the [Book of Lore.](https://www.forgottenrunes.com/lore)

> **This document is an covers the Lore of _Forgotten Souls_** If you are unfamiliar with The Great Burning and want an overview, please read: [_The Great Burning, The Sacred Flames, and the Infinity Veil_](/posts/forgotten-souls)
>
> If you're a collector, you may enjoy [_A Collectors Guide to Forgotten Souls_](/posts/forgotten-souls/collectors-guide) which covers rarity and provenance from a technical point of view

With that said, here are some of the new characters:

### The Liches

The Aristocracy of the Undead, the gentry of the Nightmare Dominion. If evil exists, it is embodied in the Liches. They take great pride in their noble titles like Duke, Despot, Baron and Marquis. The Liches know how to take and hold power, and do so by any means necessary. If their more subtle methods of political intrigue and corruption do not suffice, they can always send forth their armies of Wraiths.

[View the Liches on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Lich%20Despot&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Lich%20Marquis&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Lich%20Duke&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Lich%20Baron&search[stringTraits][0][values][4]=Lich%20Cyborog)

### The Wraiths

The Wraiths are the cursed warriors of the Undead Armies. They are Captains, Knights, Deacons, and Devouts. The Warriors of the living know of no method for killing wraiths.

[View the Wraiths on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Wraith%20Devout&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Wraith%20Deacon&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Wraith%20Knight&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Wraith%20Captain)

### The Zombies

Mindless, rotting wanderers anchored to the earthly plane. Not dead, not alive, but forever hungry. Their endless journey has no meaning, unless the insatiable search to devour living flesh has meaning.

[View the Zombies on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Gangrene%20Zombie&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Consumption%20Zombie&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Wild%20Zombie&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Blight%20Zombie&search[stringTraits][0][values][4]=Putrid%20Zombie)

### The Revenants

Reanimated corpses, similar to zombies, but with more awareness. Some consider revenants nothing more than the lich underclass. They are beings of vice, enslaved to their gluttonous desire for blood and flesh.

[View the Revenants on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Gouged%20Revenant&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Blood%20Eater%20Revenant&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Rotten%20Revenant&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Lewd%20Revenant)

### Ghouls

The bloodlust and hunger of revenants and zombies is great, but it is nothing compared to the Ghouls. They are beings of unparalleled debauchery. They engorge themselves with reckless abandon, drunk on impropriety and wanton ways. Ghouls are too vulgar even for places like Goblin Town, and are often exiled to Nasty Town.

[View the Ghouls on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Ghoul%20of%20Sickness&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Ghoul%20of%20Shade&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Salacious%20Ghoul&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Pale%20Ghoul&search[stringTraits][0][values][4]=Ghoul%20of%20Bloodlust)

### Spectres

As other Souls wander the earthly plane, there are some beings who occupy more amorphous dimensions. The Spectres come and go as they please, materializing wherever they wish. They are made of spiritual substances like Shade, Ectoplasm, and Ether. There is rumored to even be one made of fire itself.

[View the Spectres on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Holy%20Spectre&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Ecto%20Spectre&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Shade%20Spectre&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Ethereal%20Spectre)

### Phantasms

Like Specteres, Phantasms live on the immaterial plane. They are creatures of the Void itself, and seem totally unconcerned with the affairs of the Living.

[View the Phantasms on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Paranormal%20Phantasm&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Phantasm%20of%20the%20Veil&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Phantasm%20of%20the%20Void&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Horned%20Phantasm)

### Poltergeists

Ghosts in the shell, beings that seem to live in the machine realm. Technology is often plagued by poltergeists, with glitches being referred to as “kissed by a Poltergeist”

We have also seen some transmutations on the familiars, for if a Wizard steps to a flame, so must they.

[View the Poltergeists on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Glitched%20Poltergeist&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Channel%201%20Poltergeist&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Channel%203%20Poltergeist)

### Familiars

Many of the familiars that we were, ahem, familiar with, [returned as ghosts, skeletons, and zombies](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=head&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Glitched%20Poltergeist&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Channel%201%20Poltergeist&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Channel%203%20Poltergeist&search[stringTraits][1][name]=familiar&search[stringTraits][1][values][0]=Ghost%20Slime&search[stringTraits][1][values][1]=Zombie%20Cat&search[stringTraits][1][values][2]=Blaze%20Frog&search[stringTraits][1][values][3]=Skeleton%20Cat&search[stringTraits][1][values][4]=Skeleton%20Snake&search[stringTraits][1][values][5]=Zombie%20Rat&search[stringTraits][1][values][6]=Skeleton%20Frog&search[stringTraits][1][values][7]=Skeleton%20Rat&search[stringTraits][1][values][8]=Ghost%20Snake&search[stringTraits][1][values][9]=Skeleton%20Dog&search[stringTraits][1][values][10]=Ghost%20Bunny&search[stringTraits][1][values][11]=Ghost%20Wolf&search[stringTraits][1][values][12]=Ladybug%20Ghost&search[stringTraits][1][values][13]=Bat%20Skeleton&search[stringTraits][1][values][14]=Ghost%20Bat&search[stringTraits][1][values][15]=Ghost%20Crow&search[stringTraits][1][values][16]=Zombie%20Wolf&search[stringTraits][1][values][17]=Bunny%20Skeleton&search[stringTraits][1][values][18]=Crow%20Skeleton&search[stringTraits][1][values][19]=Skeleton%20Monkey&search[stringTraits][1][values][20]=Zombie%20Bunny&search[stringTraits][1][values][21]=Ghost%20Rat&search[stringTraits][1][values][22]=Zombie%20Crow&search[stringTraits][1][values][23]=Ghost%20Frog&search[stringTraits][1][values][24]=Ghost%20Cockatrice&search[stringTraits][1][values][25]=Skeleton%20Owl&search[stringTraits][1][values][26]=Zombie%20Monkey&search[stringTraits][1][values][27]=Cockatrice%20Skeleton&search[stringTraits][1][values][28]=Fox%20Skeleton&search[stringTraits][1][values][29]=Ghost%20Fox&search[stringTraits][1][values][30]=Ghost%20Monkey&search[stringTraits][1][values][31]=Ghost%20Hummingbird&search[stringTraits][1][values][32]=Ghost%20Owl&search[stringTraits][1][values][33]=Ghost%20Snail&search[stringTraits][1][values][34]=Hummingbird%20Skeleton).

But the Burn also returned some new familiars to the Runiverse. We’ve seen some [resurrected beasts](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=familiar&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Resurrected%20Smilodon%20Kitten&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Resurrected%20Thylacine&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Resurrected%20Dodo) such as the dodo, a thylacine, and a smilodon kitten!

It also seems, to the delight of many, that Wizards who brought eggs through the fire returned with [those eggs hatched](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=prop&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Platypus%20hatchling&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Cockatrice%20hatchling&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Dragon%20hatchling). We’ve seen baby cockatrices, dragon hatchlings, and platypuses!

### The Soul Rune

There is also the addition of a new Rune: [The Rune of Souls](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=rune&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Rune%20of%20Souls). The power and significance of the Soul Rune has yet to be discovered...

### Undesirables

We've seen some so-called “undesirable” outcomes in the Burn. Things like coffins, piles of ash, and flowers on graves. But perhaps the most peculiar are the jelly donuts?!
If you decide you do not want to risk the chance of getting an undesirable outcome, you are free to hold or sell your flame. But it is worth remembering that if you get an “undesirable” outcome, these events are actually more rare…

[View the Undesirables on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottensouls?search[stringTraits][0][name]=undesirable&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Pile%20of%20Bones&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Green%20Coffin&search[stringTraits][0][values][2]=Cloud%20of%20Ectoplasm&search[stringTraits][0][values][3]=Ashpile&search[stringTraits][0][values][4]=Yellow%20Coffin&search[stringTraits][0][values][5]=White%20Coffin&search[stringTraits][0][values][6]=Total%20Void%20of%20Absolute%20Nothingness&search[stringTraits][0][values][7]=Red%20Coffin&search[stringTraits][0][values][8]=Purple%20Coffin&search[stringTraits][0][values][9]=Power%20Orb&search[stringTraits][0][values][10]=Pile%20of%20Blood%20and%20Guts&search[stringTraits][0][values][11]=Meta%20Orb&search[stringTraits][0][values][12]=Immaculate%20Urn&search[stringTraits][0][values][13]=Jelly%20Donut%20with%20Slime&search[stringTraits][0][values][14]=Holy%20Urn&search[stringTraits][0][values][15]=Grape%20Jelly%20Donut&search[stringTraits][0][values][16]=Ghost%20Orb&search[stringTraits][0][values][17]=Ethereal%20Urn&search[stringTraits][0][values][18]=Ectoplasm%20Mist&search[stringTraits][0][values][19]=Blueberry%20Jelly%20Donut&search[stringTraits][0][values][20]=Tulip%20on%20grave&search[stringTraits][0][values][21]=Ectoplasm%20Goop&search[stringTraits][0][values][22]=Ashpile%20with%20bones&search[stringTraits][0][values][23]=Raspberry%20Jelly%20Donut)

### Names and Locations

The only thing that remains of a transmuted Wizard is their first name. Their titles and locations do not survive the burn, and through this we have learned of many new places in the Runiverse. Some of these new places exist on the current charting of the map, some will be revealed in the map expansion, and some do not belong on the earthly plane at all. Some of these places are of great and terrible power, like the Nightmare Dominion, the Dread Tower, and Torment Manor. Some are of plague and sickness, like the Bubonic Beaches, the Majestic Filth, the Slime Pits. And there are some places that merely house vulgar filth, like Nasty Town, Gross Gorge, and the Nether Regions.

### Ultra Rares

There are still many hidden secrets in the Forgotten Souls collection, and many Sacred flames remaining with which to reveal them. The [Grim Reaper](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/7274) himself has appeared, as well as the [Glitch Poltergeist](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/474), [Toru the Video Ghost](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/181), [Marie Laveau](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/5659), the [Ghoul of Insatiable Bloodlust](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/9807), and [Bloody Mary](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/133). What other Ultra Rares are hiding in the flame? And who will be brave enough to find them? Take your Fire, your Wizard, and a prayer to the bowels of the Secret Tower... and may the flame burn favorably upon your soul.

Oh also, [#pray4dotta](https://opensea.io/assets/0x251b5f14a825c537ff788604ea1b58e49b70726f/6044)


On All Hallow’s Eve, the Great Burning commenced. Over 400 Wizards have stepped to the Flame thus far, and we’ve seen all sorts of abominations return. Let’s go over some of the lore behind these new undead beings that have come to the Runiverse.

The Lore of Forgotten Runes Souls


![](https://i.imgur.com/hnfqCgs.jpg)

_Forgotten Souls_ is a collection of NFT-based characters that represent the transmutation of a _Forgotten Runes Wizard_.

The minting is "free" in that there is no fee beyond gas, but the cost is burning a [_Forgotten Runes Wizard's Cult_ NFT](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottenruneswizardscult) along with a [_Sacred Flame_](https://opensea.io/collection/infinityveil).

When a Wizard is passed through the Flame the original tokens are destroyed and a new _Forgotten Soul_ NFT is created.

However, Black Magic is unpredictable and there is a chance you will receive an Undesirable. Read on to understand the _Forgotten Souls_ Collection.

> **This document is an analytical view of _Forgotten Souls_** NFTs from a collectors point of view. If you are unfamiliar with The Great Burning and want an overview, please read: [_The Great Burning, The Sacred Flames, and the Infinity Veil_](https://www.forgottenrunes.com/posts/forgotten-souls)

## Overview

_Forgotten Souls_ are a transmutation of the original Wizard passed through the flame. There are 3 possible outcomes:

- You receive a Soul that is a transmutation of your specific Wizard
- You receive an Undesirable
- You receive an Ultra Rare

When you burn a Wizard, the Soul is significantly influenced by the Wizard's original traits.

The odds of receiving an Undesirable are about 1 in 10.

## The Sacred Flames

![Sacred Flame](https://nfts.forgottenrunes.com/ipfs/QmWG5jc3spgFGPfiX3Rd4YLNSxDjXRSxeBQsS9TytVL1YD)

The Sacred Flames were [airdropped for free on October 1st, 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7307bf0e38abc8ae7b8322dbb20f6a389cec8b01e43c18fb2dbe78b0ab295132) to the first 101 Wizards who wrote in [The Book of Lore](https://www.forgottenrunes.com/lore) and the earliest Wizard holders. You can read more about their distribution in [this post](https://www.forgottenrunes.com/posts/forgotten-souls).

## How it Works

A Soul is "minted" when a Wizard is burned.

**The Wizard NFT will be destroyed, the Flame NFT will be destroyed, and a new Soul NFT will be returned.**

The Soul returned to you is not completely random in that you are receiving a _transmutation_ of your Wizard, in most (9 out of 10) cases.

Q: If I burn, is there a chance I receive nothing?

A: You will always receive an ERC-721 token in return. (Whether or not you find that desirable is another matter.)

Q: Is my Soul affected by the Wizard that I burn?

A: Usually the Soul you receive will be a transmutation of your Wizard. However, In some cases you may receive an Undesirable. In some cases, an Ultra Rare.

## Collection Stats

There is a max supply of 1112 _Forgotten Souls_. This cap is both set by [the smart contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0x251b5F14A825C537ff788604eA1b58e49b70726f#readContract) and the fact that a _Sacred Flame_ is required to burn and only 1112 _Sacred Flames_ exist.

Similar to Forgotten Runes Wizards, there are 6 traits: background, body, head, familiar, prop, and rune.

Also similar to Wizards, Souls traits combine according to the Soul's _affinity_ which is a measure of cohesiveness of the traits.

For comparison, the _Forgotten Runes Wizards_ had:

- about 80 bodies and
- about 120 heads

_Forgotten Souls_ has:

- about 70 bodies and
- about 80 heads

While there are fewer heads in Souls, the collection is also about 1/10th of the size of Wizards.

## Rarity Mechanics

Determining the final rarity of your Soul is impossible to know until the final Sacred Flame has been used.

The rarity of your Soul depends on what your fellow Wizards choose to burn.

Q: If I have pass a rare Wizard through the flame, will I receive a rare Soul?

A: This question cannot be answered

Q: Will my Soul keep the Affinity of my Wizard? (E.g. if I have a "5/5 affinity" Wizard, will I have a "5/5 affinity" Soul?)

A: No. The affinities are near-completely transmuted and the affects of the Flame will not leave affinity untouched.

Q: If I pass a "rare" Wizard through the flame, will I receive a "rare" Soul in return?

A: You will receive a transmutation of your Wizard in most cases, but no Wizard is unaffected by the flame.

## NFT Metadata & On-chain Data

The Forgotten Runes Wizards are [completely encoded on-chain](https://www.forgottenrunes.com/posts/on-chain), _eventually_ Souls will be - **however not at first**.

> This section is a bit technical and mostly of concern to collectors who care about the on-chain encoding of the complete NFT. Feel free to skip this section if that isn't you.

The persistence of _Forgotten Souls_ NFT data will happen in 3 layers:

- Centralized Mint Server - Controlled by [@dotta](https://twitter.com/dotta)
- IPFS Checkpointing
- Full on-chain archiving

Let's discuss why.

### The problem

We want to provide an experience for Souls that is:

- fair to all participants
- does not allow cheating by bots or technical users
- immediate reveal
- as cheap as possible

With Wizards, we were able to put all data on chain after the mint because the entire collection was minted in 28 minutes.

With Souls, **the entire collection may take years** or longer before all Flames are used. Given that 1112 Wizards will be burned - and we can't predict which 1112 ahead of time -- we have to store on-chain in batches.

Obviously we don't want the entire collection to suffer in it's decentralization because some Flames have not been used. Our solution is as follows:

### Centralized mint server

For an initial burn, we use a centralized mint server. This gives us bot-protected because we check that a token was minted before we reveal. This also gives an immediate reveal experience. It's also cheaper than e.g. a Chainlink VRF.

The obvious con here is that there is a centralization aspect which is bad for persistence and requires trust for fairness.

### IPFS Checkpointing

After some Souls have been minted, we will "checkpoint" the collection into IPFS. We've built into the contract the ability to serve the tokens that have been minted from IPFS. [See line 166 here](https://rinkeby.etherscan.io/address/0x95082b505c0752eEf1806aEf2b6b2d55eEa77e4E#code)

IPFS has it's flaws, but it's better than a centralized server for long-term archival.

However for us, that isn't far enough and so:

### Full on-chain archiving

Just like wizards, we will, eventually, put them on chain. Again, the contract is built to support loading the Souls on-chain, in chunks, when enough have been minted and gas is favorable.

### On-chain Summary

So on day one, the on-chain encoding story of Souls is not as strong as Wizards, but we've built an upgrade path to store them on chain in time.

Q: If we are required to trust the a centralized metadata provider, who are we "trusting" exactly?

A: The only two people with access to the pre-reveal metadata are [@dotta](https://twitter.com/dotta) and [Niski](https://twitter.com/niski_iski). The other team members, including Elf etc. do not have access to this data.

## Book of Lore

When you burn a Wizard, a final entry of their burning will be automatically written into the Book of Lore.

Because you are burning the Wizard token **you will no longer be able to write in that Wizard's Lore** -- because you will no longer own that token.

You _will_ however be able to write Lore for your Soul.

\*Eventually. We won't have the Book of Lore working for Souls on October 31st.

## Goodies

Q: Will there be turnarounds & walkcycles & layer downloads of my Souls?

A: Yes, eventually. The layer downloads will come relatively soon, but the walkcycles for Souls will be several months behind Wizards.

Q: Will Souls be used in the upcoming game in the same way that Wizards are?

A: It depends. A pile of dust will not be of much use there.

# Summary

- The Flames were airdropped for free (we paid gas)
- The Burning is free (+gas)
- You may receive an Undesirable
- There is **no time limit** to when you can burn
- Your burning is completely voluntary
- Only you can burn your Wizard

If you're unsure if you should burn your Wizard, you are free to wait (or give your flame to someone else).

But if you cannot be dissuaded, burn, and may the Flame burn favorably on your Soul.


Should I burn my Wizard? This document is a guide to Forgotten Souls for collectors.

A Collectors Guide to Forgotten Souls


At this event, a Wizard and a Flame may be burned to receive a Forgotten Soul.

Burning a Wizard, however, is Dark Magic which is always risky and unpredictable. If you choose to burn a Wizard, there's a chance you may receive something undesirable.

So choose wisely.

## TL;DR

- 1112 Wizards were airdropped Flames
- Flames are used for Forgotten Souls on All Hallow’s Eve
- Burn a Flame token + a Wizard token for a chance at a Forgotten Soul
- You might receive the Ghost of your Wizard, something more powerful, or something "undesirable"
- You’ll always get an NFT back, but there are no guarantees on _what_ you will get, so there is a risk.
- For the wizards concerned with rate of return, the risk of an “undesirable” result is roughly 1 in 10.
- No time limit on using the flames. We wanted to avoid a gas war + a limited time window and we don’t want people to rush this decision.

> We've also written more about the _Forgotten Souls_ collection which you can read about in the [Forgotten Souls Collectors Guide](/posts/forgotten-souls-collectors-guide)

## The Sacred Flame

![Sacred Flame](https://nfts.forgottenrunes.com/ipfs/QmWG5jc3spgFGPfiX3Rd4YLNSxDjXRSxeBQsS9TytVL1YD)

To burn a Wizard will require a Sacred Flame. The Flame itself is also an NFT, which was be airdropped to a limited number of Wizard holders.

Only 1112 Flames will be distributed. There will be no gas war to acquire a Flame: the airdrop will go to the longest holding and most committed Wizards, max one per account.

Flame-holders may choose to use, hold, trade, or sell their Flame, like any other NFT.

There are only a limited number of Flames, but as an individual, there is no limit to the number of Flames you can use, if you hold them. However each Flame can be used only once and the Wizard is burned with it.

While the Burning is scheduled for 🎃 All Hallows' Eve 🎃, there is no urgency on that day as Flames do not extinguish until they are used. There is also no urgency because burning a Wizard is dark and unpredictable magic. With dark magic, there are no guarantees.

## Questions About The Great Burning

**Q:** Does your wizard affect what soul you get?

**A**: Generally yes. What you likely receive is the next phase of your wizard, but there are no guarantees with dark magic.

---

**Q:** Can the community build utility for the “undesirable” results?

**A:** Yes, of course. Every Forgotten Soul is an ERC721 token that can be used in a permissionless way, like other ERC721 tokens.

---

**Q:** Can _every_ Wizard be burned? What about the super-rares and uniques?

**A:** There are no Wizards who are able to withstand being affected by a Flame. Every Wizard can pass through the Flame, from the highest to the lowest.

---

**Q:** Will the Forgotten Souls be on-chain like the Wizards?

**A:** In time. Because there is no time limit for the Forgotten Souls, it isn't possible for the entire collection to be put on-chain due to the fact that **your choices affect the final collection**. That said, we will put the collection on chain as we can.

---

**Q:** For the undesirables, we have these odds. But what are the odds for other non-ghost results?

**A:** There are ultra-rares in the collection. So you could get a soul/ghost-type, an undesirable, or ultra-rares.

---

## The Sacred Flames Airdrop

The Sacred Flame is an ERC1155 token which [you can find on OpenSea here](https://opensea.io/assets/0x31158181b4b91a423bfdc758fc3bf8735711f9c5/0)

The [official contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0x31158181b4b91a423bfdc758fc3bf8735711f9c5#code)

You may find the whitelist, motivation, and auditable Dune SQL Query used [to generate the whitelist here](https://gist.github.com/cryppadotta/df2e29112ab131fa371336b417278d3c)

💀 The Great Burning will be held on All Hallows Eve 💀

May the gods look favorably on your choices

## More Resources

We've also written more about the _Forgotten Souls_ collection which you can read about in the [Forgotten Souls Collectors Guide](/posts/forgotten-souls-collectors-guide)


On All Hallows Eve, 2021 the Great Burning will be held at The Secret Tower.

The Great Burning, The Sacred Flames, and the Infinity Veil


# Provenance: Encoded Fully On-Chain

Our Wizards are fully encoded on-chain. This includes pixels of the image, names, and traits. The result is that the entire collection is completely reproducible rom on-chain data.

Most NFT projects merely store their images on IPFS, and the owners of such NFTs only hold a pointer to that image. The result is that, in these projects, if at any point the images are not hosted by anyone, they will disappear. Not so with us.

The provenance of the Wizard images and data are recorded wholly within the Ethereum blockchain, attached to our [custom contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0x521f9c7505005cfa19a8e5786a9c3c9c9f5e6f42). Which means ownership of a Wizard, and the image itself, is fully on-chain.

This means that they do not depend on any external or centralized hosting service to exist.

In short, your Wizard is 100% decentralized and will live forever on the Ethereum blockchain.

This post is for the technically minded who wish to understand _how_ this encoding works and how to retrieve the NFTs from on-chain data.

## tl;dr How to Re-create Any Wizard

If you'd like to re-create your Wizard(s) entirely from on-chain data, you can run the following commands:

```
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getTransactionByHash","params":["0x0b8eb29d7a592023b5330fd9a93299bca2a9604aaa2494c87333fc56da50ec9e"],"id":67}' https://cloudflare-eth.com/ | jq -r '.result.input' | cut -c 139- | xxd --plain --reverse | head -n 297 > decoder.ts
npm init -y
npm install ethers@5.0.26 yargs@16.1.0 chalk@4.1.0 ora@5.3.0 ts-node@9.0.0 typescript@4.0.5 bson@4.4.0 sharp@0.28.3 parse-numeric-range@1.2.0 mkdirp@1.0.4 @types/yargs @types/node
./node_modules/.bin/ts-node ./decoder.ts --wizards "0-9,13,123"
```

It will look like this:

<video controls width="100%" height="auto">
  <source src="https://nftz.forgottenrunes.com/website/cdn/wizard-decoding.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

## How the Storage Works - transaction calldata

Typically when you store data in a smart contract, that data is expensive. The typical way of storing data is by using `SSTORE`, which is one of the most expensive operations a smart contract can use because it stores data to be accessible by other smart contracts.

For Wizards, we use a "trick" of packing data into a transaction's calldata. Because all transactions [must have their arguments persisted](https://ethresear.ch/t/clarification-on-how-calldata-persists-on-the-blockchain-and-how-optimistic-rollups-use-it/8136/5) we can use this area for a storage that is much, much cheaper than `SSTORE`

## Investigating `tokenURI` and `uploadWizardsImage`

Wizards are an ERC721 Standard token. That means they have a `tokenURI` method, which you can find on our [contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0x521f9c7505005cfa19a8e5786a9c3c9c9f5e6f42#readContract).

If you use this method you will see an IPFS URL. "Wait", you might be asking, "you said the Wizards are stored on chain?" That's true, but we use an IPFS URL as a mirror for convenience and interoperability with off-chain tools like OpenSea. Continue reading and we'll explain.

If you inspect the [code](https://etherscan.io/address/0x521f9c7505005cfa19a8e5786a9c3c9c9f5e6f42#code) you will see that there are two methods:

- `uploadWizardsImage(bytes calldata s)`
- `uploadWizardsAttributes(bytes calldata s)`

But the function implementations are empty! That's because we aren't using the storage _in_ the contract, but rather the _persistence of the transaction calldata_.

## Encoding the Wizards

Even though we're using the calldata for storing the images and traits, we don't upload all 10,000 images individually. Because the Wizards are made up of _parts_, we encode the 341 parts in a single image grid and upload that image, along with a pairing of wizard attributes to decode it.

The code can be found in [the Decoder Crystal](https://opensea.io/assets/0x2d00d68bf8bc14d139b4dcea5fb7ce0a42e09c86/0).

We also used a **limited palette of about 180 colors** for the entire collection. Because of this limited number of colors are are able to to use _png8_ (8 bits per pixel) instead of _png32_ (32 bits per pixel) and then we hex-encode that image. This allows us to fit the images for the entire collection into a single transaction.

For the traits, we use the [BSON](https://bsonspec.org/) encoding scheme. The details can be found in the code, which also can be found on-chain, by using the commands above.

## Trade-offs

## Use of an IPFS Mirror

We host a mirror of our images and data on IPFS and centralized services. This is only a mirror and is for convenience of tools like OpenSea and not requirement for the provenance or persistence of the Wizards.

An improvement might be to render `<svg>` tags within the Solidity. That said, this approach gives us both the ease-of-use of IPFS and durability of the blockchain

## Trait Composability

Probably the biggest shortcoming of this approach is that the traits, while readable on-chain, are not in SSTORE, which means **they aren't readable by other smart contracts**. While this isn't a big problem for the permanent provenance of a collectable NFT, but if we want to compose the traits with other smart contracts (such as games), we **do** want the individual traits to be readable on-chain.

Thankfully a community member has already written the code for this in [The Lost Grimoire](https://github.com/aleb-user/LostGrimoire). [Rinkeby](https://rinkeby.etherscan.io/address/0xe5a0b43035f0cf0b577d176ffc9a3ff307205af3#readContract)

## Transactions

<img src="https://nftz.forgottenrunes.com/website/cdn/decoder-crystal.gif" width="400" height="400" style={{"margin": "0 auto"}}/>

You can find the transactions used to store this data at the following hashes:

```
img: "0xbb6413bd70bae87b724c30ba9e46224fa63629709e7ccfe60a39cc14aa41013e",
traits: [
  "0x227552b04af7606108d306654c620a655393451742e299e8bfd28236683da2cf",
  "0x529b29d36d07c917cc24bf162d737adc0c8ddc07003f9d5ca59876cf8167bfda",
  "0x8ec128ed9b3f4f92853d8df0ff6a2159963e81f2a611145f60a8d96990439049",
  "0xe6f0b0e76ddbc581ba3a8155ff545b7d5c31a394ac0a54b44aa9ea21525d0d06",
  "0x78a6304221ff044d3adcdb037be10aa843707f2c8241e81b4b2c6fbcb51f8b79",
  "0x74b9d75a174e76981f823d594c2c2fbcaff61e66a76be7977e0cbeb52c28f01f",
  "0x3500861637fce52bef4be39ae935e632881df4a69a47abcca8bbfc9490278dc6",
  "0x96677df7c85535328b16d93acf8cd925b87886ca2198c3654ff8d8cc56236f69",
  "0xa2977bf5ef9864796fe713db9e08f98fbbce129f4280651b6b9782c4ffdf4bd2",
  "0xe9ecc9dd5f0518617afb8593157dde0bc58d5d1e4fdb5f10a3ff8f96a81897dc"
],
affinities: "0x1be4aa782c9dc164ecbf2cd155537e7250b344f405dff03b5c33fdd63261c80e"
```

This data _itself_ is also stored within the [Decoder Crystal](https://opensea.io/assets/0x2d00d68bf8bc14d139b4dcea5fb7ce0a42e09c86/0).

## Other Resources

- [Decoder Crystal](https://opensea.io/assets/0x2d00d68bf8bc14d139b4dcea5fb7ce0a42e09c86/0)
- [Github Gist of the Decoder](https://gist.github.com/cryppadotta/375dee1903598f5163e2c1d7d3ce9db9)
- [0xmons v2 Cthulhu: On-chain Encoding](https://blog.0xmons.xyz/79081566310)
- [MagneticB's post on Decoding Wizards](https://magneticb.github.io/blog/wizards-decoding)
- [Clarification on how calldata persists](https://ethresear.ch/t/clarification-on-how-calldata-persists-on-the-blockchain-and-how-optimistic-rollups-use-it/8136/5)


The 10,000 Wizards pixels, names, and data are fully reproducible from on-chain data. This post explains why it's important, how it works, how to retrieve your NFTs forever.

On-chain Encoding of Forgotten Runes Wizard's Cult


On July 30th, at roughly 8:30 am, a crow perched upon the Secret Tower, and the Tower came alive. Within a frenzied timespan of 20 minutes, our community had summoned all ten thousand Wizards, and the Secret Tower closed once again.

There are 10,000 unique Wizard NFTs. The Summoning began on [Ethereum block 12736300](https://etherscan.io/block/countdown/12736300), which was on June 30th, 2021.

The Wizards are encoded fully on-chain. The image of each Wizard is 50x50 pixels, scaled to 400x400. Each Wizard has a unique name and configuration of traits.

Each wizard was summoned for 0.07 ETH, with a maximum of 12 summoned per transaction.

# Tokenomics and Incentivized Wizards

There are 10,000 unique Wizards.

The first 80 were minted directly by the team. From of those 80, about 30 were given away for free for marketing and friends and the remaining 50 will be transferred to the team.

The secondary market royalties are set at 2.5%. You can get a Wizard [here on OpenSea](https://opensea.io/collection/forgottenruneswizardscult)


The Summoning was when Wizards came into being. This page describes the occasion and mechanics of that day

Collection Posts

Elysian Fields: Forgotten Runes Ponies

The Lore of Forgotten Runes Souls

A Collectors Guide to Forgotten Souls

The Great Burning, The Sacred Flames, and the Infinity Veil

On-chain Encoding of Forgotten Runes Wizard's Cult

The Summoning

Social

Resources