An Intro to Ethermore: A Blockchain RPG Built by the Community

“Arrows are loosed and clatter against the stone. The ringing of steel drowns out the crows circling overhead. The chaos doesn’t last long, and after the crowd parts, only a wisp of light remains, until it slowly fades away.”

– From ‘Feather’, an Ethermore quest

Ethermore is a blockchain RPG and emerging fantasy world built on the Ethereum blockchain. In this guide, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about the game, how to start playing, and how to join the community.

Table of Contents

1. What is Ethermore?
2. NFTs
3. Gameplay
4. Meet the Team
5. How to Get Started Playing Ethermore
6. How to Join the Community and Write for Ethermore
7. Where to Follow Us

What is Ethermore?

In short, Ethermore is a Web3 blockchain game built on the Ethereum blockchain, powered by the community. In Ethermore, players use character NFTs to play through the quests.

These same NFTs are your ticket into the community and give you the right to participate in votes and build quests yourself.

NFTs

The project began development in October 2020, with the first drop of 15,000 NFTs taking place in April 2021. The drop had great success with all 15,000 NFTs being sold out.

An Ethermore NFT is much more than just a digital image, much more than just a collectible item to hold in your wallet. The value of an Ethermore NFT is in its utility. 

Ethermore NFTs are the fantasy characters/avatars a player can use in the game. Each NFT is procedurally generated, consisting of a unique blend of 6 traits which define your Ethermore character: 

• Race
• Race Variant
• Class
• Subclass
• Background
• Item

Gameplay

Ethermore is a choose your own adventure / text adventure game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and branching narrative RPGs. 

After you log on to the platform by connecting your metamask wallet, you can view your characters (the Ethermore character NFTs in your wallet) and select one to play as. 

Next, you head over to the quest list to see the available quests you can play.

By clicking Explore, you start the quest with the current character token selected as your main character.

Once you begin, you’ll see the name of the quest in the top-left side of the screen with the image of your selected character in the top-right. 

Like any text adventure game, much of the experience happens in the player’s mind.

The story is presented in the story text, dialogue, the background images, and soon Ethermore writers will be able to upload custom background music or other audio files for each stage in the quest.

Making Choices

However, like any role-playing game, you have agency. You aren’t simply reading an exciting fantasy story, you are in the story and you have choices to make.

This is where your character traits are put to use. Some choices in quests are exclusive to certain classes. 

For example, if you enter a battle scene, the actions available to you can depend on both your character’s race and class. If your foe is a dwarf and you too are a dwarf, perhaps you can use your kinship to talk them down. Or if you’re a wizard, sorcerer, or warlock, your character might have spells and abilities to cast in battle that other characters don’t.

In Ethermore, the possibilities are only limited by our imagination. With countless race variants, classes, and backgrounds to work with, quest options can be tailored to any number of characteristics. 

Your Choices Have Consequences

Most importantly, like in any good RPG, your actions have consequences. Each action can affect your character’s affinity between good and evil and contribute to chaos or order within the world of Ethermore. 

Steal an item from the shop and your character ends the quest a little more evil than they started. Or maybe you kept order in the realm by calming a drunkard and prevented them from inciting a brawl. 

In Ethermore, your choices shape your characters and most importantly, there are no resets. There are no do-overs. The choices you make are permanent and quests cannot be replayed, so choose wisely, adventurer!

How to Get Started Playing Ethermore

For specific details on how to play Ethermore, check out our step-by-step guide.

However, the gist of it is:

1. Obtain an Ethermore character NFT
2. Connect your Metamask wallet
3. Start your first quest
4. Join the community

How to Join the Community and Write for Ethermore

“It always comes down to community. That’s why I believe the original World of Warcraft was successful. It brought together so many like-minded people in a way never previously seen. It’s happening again with blockchain gaming and DAOs, and Ethermore has tapped into the potential.”

 – via Dybsy (Ethermore Community Member and Lore Builder) in Ethermore Explained by the Community

We can’t stress enough that an Ethermore NFT is much more than just a collectible digital item. It is your proof of membership in the Ethermore community. Your ability to participate in future voting sessions will be based on which NFTs you own. For example, if we need to vote on some lore about the dwarves of Ethermore, voting rights could be exclusive to those who hold a dwarf character NFT. 

To join our community, obtain an Ethermore character NFT, join our Discord, and introduce yourself. Our mods and active community members will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Writing Your Own Quests

Ethermore is a fantasy world built by the community, and that means our community also writes the quests. If you’ve ever dreamed of writing for a video game, or creating your own quests, you can do that in Ethermore.

Near the top-right of the Quest List, you’ll notice a button that says “Create Your Own Quest”. By clicking on that button you’ll be sent to our custom built quest engine. There, you can write your own branching narrative, create dialogue options and choices tailored to specific character races or classes. 

You can choose background images for each step in the quest, as well as other visual customization options. 

Once you’re done, the quest will be sent to our mods and admins for proofreading and QA. If it is accepted, it’ll be published live for everyone to play! You’ll have literally helped build the world of Ethermore. 

Where to Follow Us

The Ethermore Town Crier is constantly trying to expand the reach of The Ethermore Herald, so you’d be greatly helping to strengthen our kingdom by following us on our social media. You can also stay up to date with all the latest platform updates and our roadmap progress.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Check out our other articles on HackerNoon:

1. Play to Earn vs. Play to Burn
2. What is Ethermore? Explained by the community