At the , CCP Games CEO took the stage rummy wealth to announce a surprising new commemoration of the long-running sci-fi MMO: An epic poem in the style of the ancient Icelandic sagas, written on genuine vellum in—and here's the kicker—the blood of EVE Online fans. Did I mention they'd be giving it freely?
"We're obsessing about this 'foreverness,'" said Pétursson. "It turns out, to store information, a really good way is to take blood and write on calfskin. And people in Iceland were doing this 1,000 years ago, and you still have the books."
At the opening of the convention, CCP revealed an upcoming project to make a book of epic poetry to capture some of the key moments, ideas, and themes of EVE's player-driven history. This "Foundational Poem" will be edited by Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason, who will be pulling from "various traditions" across the globe with help from a "network of poets."
At the closing ceremony, Pétursson elaborated on some unique limited editions of the work that will very much not be for sale. CCP will commission a to-be-determined number of the medieval-style manuscripts through an expert in the process. "They mainly worked for the Pope and the British empire," quipped Pétursson. "But now they work for us."
"We're going to put one of the books in [Icelandic manuscript museum] Arnastofnun next to the sagas," Pétursson continued. "Then we're gonna put one, I don't know, in the Pyramids, Library of Congress, something. We'll figure that out."
"We're gonna get the Blood Bank of Iceland to be here at the next Fanfest," said Pétursson. "You can donate blood for the good of the Blood Bank of Iceland, but we'll take a little bit at a time from every Fanfest attendee, and then we'll mix it up, and we'll use it to write the poetry."