“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”
A LOVE LETTER TO STORIES, DREAMS & MYTHS...
THE ENDLING SAGA is a story project. About stories.
It is a love-letter to myths and pop-culture. To Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, 800-page fantasy tomes, anime, puzzles, philosophy, films, gaming, physics, theology, weird helmets, real dragons & sentient motorcycles.
It is an attempt to show how pop-culture is high art. Because popular culture is all about the stories humanity tells to itself, from pure escapism to creation myths. It is contemporary mythology.
These stories can be told in the abstract or as simple entertainment. There are no limits in how they can be delivered. The Endling Saga is also a love-letter to that. A story told in any genre, any medium, any way.
This lends itself perfectly to curation. How would others, from all kinds of creative disciplines, interpret the ideas put forward in the Saga?
The answer is SAGAWORLD.
So what can an artist expect to find when they look through The Endling Saga, in search of inspiration?
The hope is they can find something in the shallows or the deep. They can focus on a single piece of head gear or a hidden piece of lore. They can embrace the comic book pulp or the questions about what reality is, if not a story...
The beauty of this curation is - all of them are covered. In the Saga, none are more important than the other. There is profundity in pulp, triviality in legends. It is designed to be a rabbit hole within rabbit holes, with something to be found no matter where you dig.
!['The Missing Piece' by Nikolina Petolas [Oil on Canvas ]](https://f8n-production.imgix.net/worlds/vqx6zwzx3.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&q=70&cs=srgb&max-w=1240&max-h=1240&dpr=1&fit=fill&fnd_key=v1)
“Each story is a mirror, reflecting fragments of our emotions. Each word and piece of art guides us inward, on a journey to understand ourselves better. The Endling Saga beautifully shows this, offering stories and characters that resonate with everyone. This is the true magic of world-building: to transport us and create connections, helping us discover more about ourselves.”
"Lore Spelunking"
Since I began minting art in 2020, I've used the process to deepen the stories in the Saga project. This has involved something as simple as leaving bread crumbs in the descriptions, to token-gating larger tracts of story.
It is meant to be gamified - to reward those who search for more. I sometimes call it 'Lore Spelunking'. The whole thing is an exercise in exploration.
A great example of a Sagaworld artist finding a forgotten piece of lore & using that as inspiration is The Hiena, and his stunning audio/animation 'Weight of Stillness'.
The Hiena took inspiration from a 1/5 edition called 'Excubitor', minted on KnownOrigin, May 5 2022.
The 'Excubitors' are guards at the holy city of Green Temple, and the description reads:
"They are allowed no movement, not a twitch. For age upon age they have mastered the pace of their hearts, found calm in the cold winds that dance among the finials. They watch in pure silence for the moment they are at last allowed to spring, and none have passed them yet."- From 'On The Guards of Green Temple', by Odel of Rayse
Alongside his piece, Hiena adds a beautiful piece of poetry:
"fire that paints with ashes on path red and narrow sacrifice me to the weather
we might have already left but they hear us still for the names we were given
alive in our ancestors forever"
I can so easily imagine this is the mantra they utter before beginning their long shift.
The artist deepens the lore, and a piece I had considered long forgotten is given new life.
“As we evolve and change, stories are always there. Stories we read, the ones that influence us and the ones we tell ourselves about our lives. We can travel to places and times with stories. Sagaworld is becoming a sandbox for artists to reinterpret the overarching storylines of a complex world, change them and go where words can't. As a frame-by-frame animator, who sometimes feel like experts in a dying field, this is encouraging. We want to make beautiful work. Even if it takes long and sometimes is not as efficient. It makes us happy.”
The Shape of Character
“It's amusing the way in which the landscape & conditions of the environment match the readiness of the hero. The adventure that he is ready for is the one that he gets.”
An example of a Saga character very much shaped by his environment is the sh*t-talking, overly-aggressive monster hunter LEONARD.
Leonard represents an interactive element to the project. Collectors of Leonard art play a game of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, guiding him (much to his annoyance) deeper and deeper into danger.
Who he is, why he looks like that, and what he is doing in a monster-infested wasteland (where the only signs of non-monster life are vast, decrepit machines called 'Engines') is something that the collectors are attempting to uncover.
Maybe it's the lure of mystery that drew several artists to depict him - each in their own unique way & each showing that he is very much shaped by where he is - evident in the drool-worthy stylisation of Mauricio Pommella (above) or in the stunning symbolism of self-discovery in 'Smoke & Mirrors' by RailaiteR -
“A new modern saga of fantasy and science fiction emerges, with the power of myths and world-building stories. A new world that captivates, inspires and illuminates the human spirit.”
Summarising an Epic
...is a difficult task. Whether it's attempting to distill what The Endling Saga actually is in a few words, or expressing here how profoundly I'm affected by the creations of SAGAWORLD artists.
It's actually impossible.
The best way to understand it is to dive in. Browse all of the jaw-dropping art in both Issues # 1 & 2. Collect it if you have the means.
If it intrigues you enough to read about the source, then get comfortable, brew a large coffee & visit TheEndlingSaga.io.
And if you want to know what it feels like to get the best artists in the world to make work based on your own creations, do what I did - ask...
I never for a second thought they'd say yes. But they did. And I will spend the rest of my days being grateful.
As I often do, for better or worse, I'll leave the last word to Leonard:
THE ENDLING SAGA is a story about stories.
It’s about myths and their importance to the human condition.
It’s about reality and fantasy being one and the same.
It’s about physics and dragons and religious worship and sentient motorcycles.
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So what happens when you take groups of incredible creators, from all disciplines & styles & media, and ask them to make anything they like as long as it's inspired by THE ENDLING SAGA?
You get SAGAWORLD.
Because of the nature of the Saga project, anything can happen. There are no rules - 'all realities exist'. So artists are free to interpret the stories any way they like. No limits to genre, style, media. Just like the Saga itself - it's all a true story.
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Drops will be divided into 'Issues', just like the comics that inspired the project.
'Issue #1' is released at 8pm GMT, December 14, 2023.
Please visit TheEndlingSaga.io to learn more