The Great Race

The Great Race

Long ago, the animal kingdom lived in harmony. Then, everything changed when The Ruler of The Heavens, The Jade Emperor wanted to find a way to devise time.

He spread the word that all the animals in the kingdom were to race across a river to the Heavenly Gates on his birthday. The first 12 animals would earn a place on the Zodiac calendar, in the order of which they arrived.

The Rat and The Ox
The Rat rose bright and early and was first to the river edge. However, he was so small that he could not cross safely. Noticing the Ox arriving behind him, Rat asked if he could jump onto Ox’s ear. The kind-hearted Ox agreed, and carried Rat through the strong river current. As soon as they crossed, the quick-witted Rat took the opportunity and jumped off Ox’s ear, dashing through the Heavenly Gates first.
The Tiger
The king of all creatures across the land, the fast and powerful Tiger struggled against the river’s currents. With strong motivation and a will to not give up, Tiger finally made it across and gave an almighty roar as he crossed to claim third place.
The Rabbit
Being too tiny to battle against the current, the agile Rabbit decided to nimbly jump across stones in the river. Halfway through, she slipped but was able to grab hold of a log to safely make it across to fourth place.
The Dragon
The Jade Emperor, along with all the other animals in the kingdom, expected that the mighty Dragon would claim first place as he was powerful and could fly. When dragon came in fifth, the Jade Emperor curiously asked why Dragon took so long. Dragon explained that along the way, there was a dangerous fire that plagued the village below. He had stopped to help put out the fire by making it rain. Afterwards, he also saw Rabbit clinging to the log and used one powerful breath to push her across safely.
The Horse and The Snake
All of a sudden, galloping was heard and the Horse arrived at the Heavenly Gate. However, just before crossing the finish line, Snake slithered out from underneath Horse after secretly hitching a ride on his leg. The unsuspecting Horse reared back frightened, as the Snake slid across the finish line securing the sixth place on the Zodiac calendar. With an annoyed snort, Horse crossed through the Heavenly Gates as number seven.
The Goat, The Monkey and The Rooster
Goat, Monkey and Rooster helped each other across the River. At the river bank, The Rooster spotted a raft close to shore. Clambering on, the three worked together to battle the currents, with Goat and Monkey clearing weeds and rowing through. When they made it across, the trio decided to give eighth place to Goat, who they agreed was the most harmonious and soothing throughout the journey. This was followed by the Monkey and the Rooster.
The Dog
The Dog, being the strongest swimmer of the Kingdom, was expected to finish earlier. However, as the water was so nice in the river, Dog could not resist playing and frolicking for a bit longer. For this, the Dog came in second last at eleventh.
The Pig
As the sun started setting and the Jade Emperor grew tired, an oink was heard from afar. Clambering up the shore, the Pig made its way to the finish line. Pig got hungry along the way and stopped for a feast, falling asleep for a nap afterwards. For this, he claimed the twelfth and final spot on the Zodiac calendar.

RARITY

Each Zodiac Friend is special and unique in their own way, no two are exactly the same. This is done by combining over a hundred thoughtful Asian variables (including outfits, items, accessories, colors, elements, expressions and more) to create 8888 different combinations.


Rarity is deemed firstly by the color of your Zodiac Friend. The most valuable and rare color is Jade, which is considered to be ‘The Stone of Heaven’. This is followed by gold. All other colors are held equal. You will also find other small details on your Zodiac Friend that increase the rarity. These for example can be jade necklaces, samurai swords, lion dancing outfits.

CREATION

Our creators Shang and Katy, and artist Egg Chen met on the movie set of an upcoming film that is a milestone to Asian representation in media. Months later, these three team members reflected on their experiences on the movie set and spoke about the importance of continuing to push for Asian representation in both media and art. Eventually, this birthed the idea of Zodiac Friends.

We pride ourselves on being made by Asians to celebrate Asian culture. While we embrace everyone, no matter your background, race, culture or belief, it is important to us that the art and creations come from a team that understands and has lived through Asian experiences. Take a look at the video to see the development of the art!

FAQ

Zodiac Friends tell the story of ‘The Great Race’, a famous Asian fable told to generations of children every Lunar New Year. The Ruler of The Heavens, The Jade Emperor, wanted to come up with a way to devise time. To do this, he organized a race and deemed that the first 12 animals to make it across a river would have a place on the Zodiac calendar. The order of this would be determined by their placing in the race.
We want to build a community of people that love and celebrate Asian culture. No matter your race, background, beliefs, gender, religion or ethnicity, we are all in this group to acknowledge and appreciate the beauty in Asian cultures and subcultures. Zodiac Friends aims to introduce, encourage and celebrate Asian representation into the world of NFTs. To contribute towards this, we will be reinvesting 12% of initial sales. We also aim to give back to Asian communities in need, and will donate 8% of initial sales to Asian based charities chosen by our community.
Each element on every Zodiac Friend is hand drawn and original concept. These pieces, such as accessories, animals, outfits, background colors, head pieces and expressions are then programmatically randomized to produce thousands of unique combinations.
As long as you don’t sell it in the secondary market, your Zodiac Friend is BFFs with you forever.

We are launching on the 16th of September EST, with presale starting 12th of September to 15th of September EST.

Reveal is set to happen 48 hours post launch.

To buy Zodiac Friends, you will require the cryptocurrency ETH. This can be purchased on a number of platforms including Binance and Coinbase. Once purchased, you will then need to transfer your ETH to a Metamask wallet. Check out this helpful guide from Foundation for more info!

https://help.foundation.app/en/articles/4731452-a-complete-guide-to-getting-eth-and-a-wallet-with-metamask

Please be aware that there may be restrictions to how much ETH you can purchase and when you can withdraw that to your non-custodial wallet (such as a Metamask). Please check with the individual platforms on their policies.

Each Zodiac Friend will be 0.07 ETH + gas.
You are able to resell your Zodiac Friend on secondary markets such as Opensea.io after minting.
We believe that NFTs represent a revolution to not just artists, but the world. The space of NFTs is still young and developing, we love this blog post written by Gary Vaynerchuk with his perspective on NFTs:

https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/what-is-nft-non-fungible-token-guide/