February 17, 12.00pm UTC. In that moment, Echoes of Cryptalia’s Minter will be activated for the sale of our Genesis Unbreakable Oaths Collection.

Each of these NFTs contain the Unbreakable Oath from a sworn Hero of the Phalanx of Echoes. Hero NFTs are the heart & soul of our game, but the Genesis Collection was simply built different. When you buy one of these NFTs you’re buying even more than a Hero, as it has several additional use cases — some of them from mint day itself:

• Holders will be eligible, in addition to the 1,000,000 $ECHO pool reserved for Chapter 2: Masters of Combat (Starting on February 20), to an additional 1,000,000 $ECHO pool for victories in our unique 3v3 tag-team combat system.
• Once a day, from Mint day & until the end of Chapter 2: Masters of Combat, Holders may visit our site and collect a Whispered Urn NFT for each Genesis NFT they hold. Urns will be immediately minted into the wallet of the Holder. Whispered Urns contain 1 random Echoes of Cryptalia playable asset and will be ready to open on Game Launch.
• Each Genesis Collection Holder (be them of closed Oaths or Genesis Heroes after opening) is entitled to 3 $ECHO airdrops for each Genesis asset: at 6 months, 9 months and, finally, 1 year after Mint date. Exact quantities will be announced in a subsequent article.
• Finally, the most important use case of all: Genesis Unbreakable Oaths will transform into Genesis Heroes when Echoes of Cryptalia opens for play.

Let’s tackle, then, the question that lingers in everybody’s head: “What exactly is a Hero?”. Well, here you’ll find the answer for that.

Hero Collections

A Hero Collection consists of a set of Heroes from Peoples endemic to specific world zones in the Lore of Echoes of Cryptalia. For that reason, their internal distribution is given by the relative size of the populations that inhabit those lands. Hero Collections show a flat distribution  among the 4 “Macroclasses” of the game. Our design team has no intention of imposing limits to which Classes we might create in the future, so these Macroclasses are meant to group new additions in a coherent way. To put it simple and using common examples from RPGs, Berserks, Samurai & Paladins are essentially Asskickers; while Mages, Priests & Bards are Wisedudes. We believe the Macroclasses’ names to be transparent enough as to be immediately comprehensible for gamers used to fantasy games. Since the Genesis Collection is composed by 10,000 Heroes, there will be exactly 2,500 Asskickers, 2,500 Triksters, 2,500 Paktbounds, and 2,500 Wisedudes.

Heroes allow players to perform essential tasks for the progression of the Order they lead as Master Tacticians. They’re also the only means by which it is possible to obtain precious $ECHO, a key material and energy source in our game, as well as our native token. Players will earn $ECHO rewards by venturing through the fractures called Cryptalia and smiting the threats that live within them.

The Echoes of Cryptalia experience consists of a series of game modules that are deeply rooted into the lore of this chaotic world in which music is the creative science of reshaping reality. It is inevitable to talk about the project if we are going to talk about Heroes and what they do. But we want you to have a better notion of the value that a Hero represents for the player before facing our Mint. So, even though we are aware that many things will implicitly be revealed in this article, it’s only fair and necessary that we examine every corner of Hero NFT’s anatomy.

Identity

A Hero’s identity is a group of characteristics that makes them unique and function as the historical background of their character within this collective narrative called Echoes of Cryptalia. There are special Quests that can only be accessed if a Hero in the player’s party meets certain criteria in one or more of these specific values.

• • Name: Players will be able to name their Heroes. They may change the name of their Hero as long as they haven’t been awarded with a notable title.
  • Gender: A Hero can either be male or female. This only has aesthetical consequences.
  • People: A Hero belongs to a People, e.g, “Mountain Elves” or “High Voidlings”.
  • Hometown: A location on the map.
  • Macroclass: Asskicker, Trickster, Paktbound or Wisedude.
  • Class: This is a shared feature among Heroes of a certain Macroclass that are original from the same hometown. For example, all Paktbound High Voidlings in the Genesis Heroes Collection are “Tezanoplas’ Performers”.
  • Class Level: Heroes level up. Higher levels give Heroes class skills specific to the Macroclass of certain Hero Collection. Consequently, there will only exist 2,500 Heroes with an identical set of skills and, next time we mint Collection, it will have 2,500 Heroes that share a skill set that’s different than those of Heroes from previous and future Collections.

Base Attributes

These are numbers that describe the innate capabilities of a Hero. They form the base of variables on which the formulas that determine the Hero’s Performance Attributes are built. Performance Attributes are stats that are generated at the moment of starting an in-game activity, such as performing an exploration campaign in search of raw materials or fighting in a Cryptalis to obtain $ECHO. For example, some of these base attributes are Dexterity, Intelligence, and Focus, which determine a Hero’s Initiative in Combat, that dictates turn order. There will be instances in the game where players will be able to increase Base Attributes permanently & that progression will be recorded into the Hero NFT itself. We firmly believe that every player should own their progress: If, at some point, you decide to trade one of your Heroes, it will hold the extra value of your game progression.

Class Skill Set

Each Class has a set of skills that you can unlock as you level up. With each class level you get a skill point that you may allocate in one of the skills you’ve unlocked.

For example, let’s imagine that a Macroclass has a Class Skill Set of size 6: Skill A, Skill B, Skill C, Skill D, Skill E, and Skill F. At level 1, a Hero of that Macroclass may allocate 1 skill point between the 2 skills unlocked: A and B. When that same Hero levels up again, they will unlock skills C and D and may allocate a skill point to learn a second skill or improve the one they picked at a previous level.

Just to make sure that everyone get’s the idea, a practical example could be this:

• • • Macroclass: Trickster
    • Class: Ranger of the Cliffs.
    • Name: “Handy Boy Insists”
    • Skill Type: Ongoing.
    • Description: This Hero can use their secondary action to make an additional attack with a light knife (such as daggers or katars), as long as it wasn’t used during the first attack. This attack only benefits from your secondary die.

Expertise

The Hero’s ability to perform tasks efficiently and effectively. The exercise & repetition of specific activities allows a Hero to improve in these activities and specialize. Heroes are minted with 0 Expertise points and obtain these points through the repetitive exercise of activities that require such Expertise.

There is a threshold of U Expertise points, after which the game recognizes a Hero as a Master in that Expertise.

There is a limit of M of Skills that may be obtained naturally. Once a Hero has M Skills at a level U or higher, their other Skills can only be cultivated if they rewind to U-1 skill points.

For example, a Hero may have the skill “Hunting”. Whenever they perform an exploration for raw resources and hunt an animal, or if they perform related tasks such as participating in a fishing derby or participate in a mission that involves tracking an enemy, etc., the Hero’s skill proficiency has an impact in their performance. Doing these tasks frequently allow them to increase this index.

Traits

Traits represent aspects of the unique personality of Heroes. They are difficult to obtain and depend on interactions with specific NPCs and special Events. Many of these Traits are given in single instances, never to be gifted again. While the requirements to obtain a specific Trait are concrete, by fulfilling them, a Hero only has a chance of signing the deal. This chance gets lower as the number of pre-existing Traits increase, making it virtually impossible to obtain the next Trait at a certain point.

An example of Trait can be:

• • • Trait: “Cherished Frellower”
    • Requirement: Completing the Quest “Close that School” & delivering the “Frosttongue Clan Skull” to Frella.
    • Effect: Ice Chants that deal damage cost 30% less to Perform.

Reputation

Last but not least, a Hero has a list of reputation points. A Hero is minted with 60 reputation points determined by their People and 120 reputation points determined by their Hometown. In Echoes of Cryptalia, you can interact with NPCs to access quests that reward your Hero with reputation. Reputation unlocks interactions with NPCs & access to specific areas within the game, as well as it enables specific Quests that require the trust of a group, community, town or Kingdom to be entrusted to you.

For example, if you joined Chapter 1 of the Loyalty Program and managed to finish with a Gear of 30 Stars or more,  you’ll be rewarded with an NFT called “Letter of Commendment”. This is an NFT that you can redeem in-game to increase your reputation among the inhabitants of a group or place of your choice. If you choose, for example, “The Port City of Utûl’s Rising”, then you’ll have a better reputation in that city, some extra reputation among Humans and some with High Voidlings, since those are the Peoples that inhabit that City.

Own Your Progress

As we already said, in Echoes of Cryptalia we have a strong conviction towards players Owning their Progress. If, at some point, a gamer were to decide to trade a Hero, they’ll be able to do so with their entire progression written over it. That’s why all the aspects of the Heroes exposed in this article are inside the metadata of your NFT.

Some characteristics, such as the points you have obtained in Base Attributes or the way you distributed your Skill Points among the skills in your Class Skill Set can be rearranged. If you want, you can also reset any of the sections of your Hero to the values they had on the day they were first minted, even if you leave some of the other sections as they are. In this way, if you want to re-select your Hero’s specialized Expertise, but you don’t want to lose the rest of the progress you’ve made in Traits or Reputation, you may reset just the Expertise section and keep everything else intact.

I’m Fabián “Slap” Vega, Lead Game Designer of Echoes of Cryptalia. This the first time that I address you officially, gamers of the Phalanx. I want to use this opportunity to express how happy I am to see so many players excited about the project we are building. I am proud to share this crusade with a team of professionals who share my passion for creating games and I hope that this article will help those of you who have not yet decided whether to participate in the party we are going to have this Monday, February 17th, to make the decision and Mint with us.

You can look away. But time waits for no one.

Welcome to the phalanx.