A world filled with Pie. Fruit pies hanging from trees. The sea is crawling with Pie creatures. The inhabitants have delicious fillings, and tender, flaky, crusts. That’s Pieland.
Sounds a little… strange, right? Good. We’re glad you think so. Pieland wouldn’t be fun or compelling if it felt normal. But you know what else? It’s intriguing. It’s different. It’s quirky. Most importantly, it’s exciting.
Here at Pieland HQ (which is not a pie-shaped dome, much to our disappointment), we’re all about doing something different, which is why we plan to launch an NFT collection that stands out and is baked just right. Not just because of our unique world, our awesome art, or our constant abuse of puns, but because of our phyllosophy and our approach. We’re confident that those of you who join us on this journey will get to see this first hand. Taking this approach to the next level, we find ourselves asking — what do you call a group of Octopus? Well, Octopi(e) of course…
But wait, before we talk too much about our NFTs and the awesome artwork still to come, let’s talk a little bit about who we are.
Meet The Team
We have three Master Bakers here at Pieland. Some of you will have met them before, but it’s good manners to make formal introductions.
To start — me! I’m Luke. Some of you will know me by my online handle, “ eldumbo”. I work at Dapper Labs as a Community Manager, which is code for, “spends all of his time on Discord and Twitter”. I’ve been involved in a variety of other Discords and Communities as well, but I’m very excited to start working with all the Pieple in Pieland. My main roles with the team are community, marketing, and communications — so, get ready to read a lot of articles like this; filled with bad puns and even worse jokes. It also means that if you ever, at any time, have a question about the project, you can reach out to me on Discord (eldumbo#2270), or on Twitter here. Having experience in managing a Discord with over 250,000 members, I’m confident we can make the Pieland community extra special!
Our next Master Baker is crusty old Bonfire. For those of you not familiar, Bonfire is the sole individual behind LiveToken, a third-party site built to track and measure NFTs from NBA Top Shot. LiveToken is easily one of the most trusted tools in the Top Shot ecosystem, stemming from the consistent work and drive that Bonfire has put into it. Utilizing his many years of experience in the industry, Bonfire is our head developer at Pieland. Having worked in the cryptocurrency space since 2013 and having been a developer for over 25 years, he probably knows what he’s doing.
Finally, we have Daniel, aka Kelekin. Daniel works on the NFL ALL DAY Live Operations team, meaning he is responsible for a range of tasks, none of which involve baking Pie. However, it does mean he has incredible project management and organizational skills, which is why he’s leading the management side of Pieland. We think of him as a central figure to guide us through the baking process, so we can deliver Pies that aren’t overcooked or lacking in flavor. Daniel also has many years of experience in business and trade shows (in other words, merch). Anyway, that’s too much alpha for this section.
The three of us are equal owners of Pieland. Well — as much as any three people can hold ownership over an entire world of Pies. Some of you in the NFT space will have heard of one or two of us before, and we hope you appreciate what it means when we say we are fully committed to making this project a huge success. In this space, we know that reputation is important. The three of us are confident in baking our reputation on Pieland, and we’re confident that in the coming few months, you’ll see why.
Of course, we have other important members on our team! We may be the owners, but we are far from the full tray of baked goods. Our team currently includes the following Pieple:
Ryan, Lead Artist and all-around nice guy, when he wants to be.
Danilo, Game Designer and Lore Master. — as well as head of Pie Puns
Pilar, Head of Admin and working on legally changing her name to Pielar.
Please note that we are actively scaling and expanding this team, so in the future, this list may not reflect a current representation of our team. For example, we have a web designer (Katy) working for us as a contractor and you’ll likely see more names coming in soon. If you think you’d like to be part of the team or bring something new to the bakery, feel free to reach out!
So, what about the Pies?
Well, for now, we can show you a sneak peek of some of what we’ve been baking up. These aren’t a 100% final product, as we are continuing to make minor tweaks and adjustments to our beautiful Pies in order to ensure that we put out the highest quality artwork. Sometimes, even a perfect Pie needs a couple of extra minutes in the oven. Here are 3 of our Octopies:
What you can see above are just a few examples of our delicious Piesons. Each Pieson is part of its own slice (a faction, if you will). How will these slices interact? What will collecting them all mean? Will we ever run out of Pie puns?! All these questions, and more, will be addressed in the near future with clear explanations and in-depth breakdowns.
We plan to communicate in detail with our community because we believe in and thoroughly enjoy the over-the-top nature of this project. However, we also want you to know that we take our Pies seriously. We are putting our souls into this project (possibly sprinkled directly into some of our recipes), and we want to create something fun, but also meaningful. We would be thrilled to have you join us for the ride.
We’ll be back with another article soon, talking more about what we’ve been up to, our vision, and what we have planned for the near future. You can also expect articles that give a breakdown of some of the artwork and designs from our Lead Artist. In the meantime, to keep up-to-date with the latest news from us, you can join our Discord here. You might even learn the secret Octopie recipe.
