Welcome to the Library of Nootopia!

Here in the Library of Nootopia, we catalog the history and lore of the Pesky Penguins.

Use the menu to navigate to the different chapters in Nootopia's history, and follow along with the latest updates as they're released!

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The Founding of Nootopia

Every penguin in Nootopia knows the story of Icarus. A legend of old, he flew too close to the sun and was burned for it.

Icarus, first (and last) among the flighted penguins in Nootopia

Flightless now, they think themselves safe. For verily who among them has heard of a penguin burned for being too close to the floor?

Until one day...

Their aviation ambitions thwarted by the cautionary tale of the legendary Icarus, the penguins turn their hopes downward. Like, all the way down. Down to Antarctica, the South Pole, where they set about building their terrestrial empire.

At the bottom of the earth, far from the heavens and the burning sun they set to task building. Blunt pengus and cops working hand in hand to carve smooth igloo walls from sheets of ice. Sleepy eyes and surprised, bathrobes and bomber jackets; every pengu working with their neighbors to build an earthbound paradise in a frigid land of ice.

And when they were done, after countless days and nights of toil, they looked on what they had wrought and called it "Nootopia" In time, Nootopia grew and blossomed. Its citizens built friendly robot pengus to help with the work, welcomed into their ranks lonely alien pengus seeking refuge from the wide ways of the lonely dark universe, and even accepted the fealty of undead zombies; pengus who had passed on but simply refused to leave their frozen paradise.

Fecund and flourishing, the penguins of Nootopia grew in this way 'til their numbers swelled to 8888. A fine number, an auspicious number. They anointed among themselves an Emperor to oversee the expansion of the city, and various Kings and Queens as viceroyalties to manage day to day businesses and moderate the friendly rivalries between such subgroups as the Lucky Legion and McPengu Corporation. All was well, all was peaceful, all was quiet.

Except for one.

The Battle of Nootvember

Far above Nootopia, in the mountains encircling the city, there lived an evil magus named Gargolon. Long had Gargolon slumbered in these frigid peaks, alone with only his icy magic and black grimoire for company. Indeed, he would have slept longer still were it not for the noises of prosperity and happiness drifting heavenward from the walled city below. He awoke then — after eons of slumber — to bullish cries of penguins chanting NOOT NOOT. It was a rude awakening for Gargolon, and he was not pleased.

Casting his gaze down from the eyrie he alighted on Nootopia and was dismayed. 8888 penguins come to defile his Antarctic sanctum? Something must be done, he thought. Something must be done, and soon...

GARGOLON AWAKENS

And so, while the pengus of Nootopia slumbered and woke, worked and built, Gargolon schemed. For forty days and forty nights the dread magus plumbed the depths of his arcane knowledge, searching every dusty tome and decrepit grimoire in his ancient library. Below him Nootopia buzzed with the excitement of progress, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was to befall them. For indeed, on the fortieth night after a thousand sleepless hours, Gargolon found his solution.

The Snowball was born.

Gargolon births the Snowball

Into the Snowball Gargolon poured his very life force. He wove together uncounted threads of magic; his own power and the power of nature and power borrowed from the malevolent forces of the world whose very names have been lost to the ravages of time. And when he was done he raised it high above the city below and unleashed it with a haunting scream.

Yet even as they fell under its shadow the penguins of Nootopia could do nothing, and 44 of them were stricken from the collection in the blink of an eye.

And Gargolon was pleased.

For their part, though they yet reel’d from the loss, the penguins of Nootopia resolved to honor the fallen and keep building. They erected a graveyard within city walls to house the souls of the dead who would never return to circulation. Painstakingly they crafted tombstones and unto them — with tear-stained faces — carved the epitaphs by which they might immortalize their fallen kin.

The Noots of Nootopia immortalize their fallen brethren

And still their work was not done; for neither was Gargolon’s.

In the manner of a few quick days, the dread magus summoned thrice more the Snowball with his uncanny powers. By his hand were smote 31, 11, and 14 more unsuspecting noots. And though the killing power and frequency of the Snowball seemed to wane as time stretched out, it remained — along with its master — a grim spectre looming above the otherwise-empyrean Empire of Nootopia.

And so it fell to the Emperor of Nootopia to devise a means to stop the Snowball. He convened a concordat of pengus, from the furthest reaches of the city and the Empire, and unto them he told his plan.

“We shall come to Gargolon’s Eyrie — an assembly so numerous he could not think to strike us down — and demand recompense. For even one so powerful as he cannot deny the voices of the many lifted high in unison.”

And so Nootopia raised a host to march to the magus’ citadel; a host of varied noots, orange and green and blue, alien and robot and zombie. They crossed the vast tundra of Antarctica, beset by foul frozen winds of Gargolon’s making, until at last they stood at the foot of his abode, somewhat less in number but not in conviction.

“HAIL, GARGOLON,” they shouted, together and as one. “HAIL, YE DREAD MAGUS OF DARK DOINGS AND BLOODY DEEDS.”

And though the wizard had tracked their approach they found in him no welcome; for he answered their cries with bitter words and a curse on his lips.

“BEGONE, TRESPASSERS, AND LEAVE ME TO MY PEACE.”

But the penguins of Nootopia were of a mind and could not be deterred.

“CEASE YOUR SANGUINE SACRIFICES, O WIZARD!” They cried. “END YOUR WICKED WAYS AND LEAVE US TO CONCORD! FOR WE ALSO DESIRE PEACE, AND WOULD NOT BUT TROUBLE YOU AGAIN SHOULD YE STAY YOUR SNOWBALL.”

Yet Gargolon would not be swayed by their words, and indeed they seemed only to incense him. For in the following moment he raised his wizard’s stave and uttered a mighty curse unto the assemblage below.

Gargolon curses Nootopia's assembled host

“THOUGH PEACE YOU SEEK, IT IS DEATH YOU SHALL FIND FOR THE DEFILEMENT OF MY ICY DESMENSE. SHOULD THE LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD HIMSELF STAND BEFORE ME AND CALL ME DOWN I SHOULD NOT RELENT, SO GREAT IS MY IRE.”

And even as he cursed the penguins of Nootopia he cursed himself, though he knew it not. For there are darker magicks in the world than even Gargolon’s — darker, and older too.

The cogs of fate began to turn.

???????????????

Meanwhile, in Nootopia...

It began as a tiny fracture, so small at first it was as a filament in the ice. And from it there leaked a wicked miasma. An insidious, noxious smog that stopped Nootopia in its tracks. Indeed, even as the Emperor’s host trekked back from their futile confrontation with the dread magus Gargolon, the populace of Nootopia fell ill one by one.

So it was that the Emperor of Nootopia returned to the city to find his loyal pengus in the throes of a devastating plague. Hospitals overflowing, infirmaries overtaxed, noots lying in the icy streets of Nootopia for want of care they could not receive. Horrified and confused, the Emperor determined himself to discover the cause, but was stopped at the city gates by the very Steward he had installed to run Nootopia in his place.

“Your excellency!” the Steward pled. “Please, hasten your return to safety — not departure! The illness that has swept the city in your absence discriminates not. Young or old, infirm or hale, clothed or clean, crowned or capped — it matters none. Every pengu who breathes in this miasma falls to it, without exception. We must get you to shelter or risk the fall of Nootopia’s greatest!”

“This cannot be!” the Emperor cried, though he was in that moment wracked with a great fear. “If that were true why have you not been taken ill yourself?”

“I…I cannot be sure, your Excellency.” His Steward responded, looking deeply troubled. “I cannot be sure, for indeed we have been laid low in the blink of an eye. There is no logic what can be ascribed to who is struck and who is spared.” The Steward appeared to think for a moment, then continued. “Except…”

“Except what?” The Emperor cried.

“Except… if I might be frank, your Excellency, though I am not certain in this: it appears there is ONE pengu attribute that renders its bearers unaffected by the toxin…”

The Emperor's Steward

And so the Emperor of Nootopia was sent away — this time into hiding — and in his stead the Steward raised a party of masked noots at the head whom he sat. Determined and willing to sacrifice their very lives for the betterment of Nootopia, they set out with a two-pronged goal: ascertain the source of the miasma, and put a stop to it.

In a twist of fate both fortunate and calamitous, they needed not to look long. For indeed, but a mile out from the golden gates of their beloved city they came upon a crack wherefrom out poured the wicked toxin. No hairline fracture it was but a crack now; one that grew longer and wider by the minute. And there rose out of it sickening tendrils of greenish smog, the noxious effects of which were plainly visible: strewn about the maw of the crack there lay many noots — maskless noots.

The Steward looks on in horror at his fallen, maskless brethren

Horrified but in agreeance that the safety of their unmasked brethren demanded precedence over their original mission, the intrepid masked nooties, led by the Steward, set to work tending them. As they labored to save their fallen friends the thought occurred, incontrovertibly, to one and all: the only noots able to withstand the miasma’s corruptive effects were those like themselves — masked.

Yet even as they thought this and loaded the last of the unmasked pengus onto makeshift stretchers, the ice beneath Nootopia’s masked noots began heave and groan and shudder. With a sickening crack and a deep quake that could be felt as far away as the Eyrie, the fracture widened into a chasm. Jets of steam whistled and hissed from its depths and a greenish smog began to settle over the land.

Suddenly, in that very moment — a moment to be seared into the Steward’s mind forever — there came a noise. It was a haunting noise, both otherworldly and uncanny. And even as he heard it the Steward saw shapes emerging from the chasm, shrouded in miasma.

A strange shape emerges from the chasm, shrouded in miasma

N̵͂̿O̴̘͒O̷͌͂Ť̷̌ ̵̾͝N̸͆̕O̷̍͐Ò̸̀T̶̈́̌

Hesitate the Steward did not. In fear, confusion, and outright panic did he and his fellow masked noots beat a hasty retreat. Back to the shelter of Nootopia they ran, dragging behind them their fallen comrades. Not until their city’s great golden gates were shut behind them did they allow themselves rest, and when they did they all but collapsed for the horror of it.

No words were there in Penguinese to describe what crawled from the miasma that day. Neither “noot” nor “noot” gave justice to the unspeakable monstrosities witnessed. Though they were but upright with the rest of the city struck down, the mask noots felt brought to their knees and cried out in despair. Who could save them? What hope had they against a sickening smog and occult forces bearing down at their very gates?

All might have been lost in that very moment were it not for the actions of singular brave noot.

Battle-scarred and warforged from a life of hardship before Nootopia, he stood before the masked host with naught but knowledge of the grim mission ahead.

His name was Nootlysses, and he was a pengu of war.

Nootlysses takes up the sword and dons a mask

Knowing Nootopia existed in that moment on a knife’s edge, Nootlysses drew his sword from its scabbard and spake unto trembling crowd.

“Hold your ground, hold your ground. Noots of Nootopia, of Antarctica, my nooties. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the noot of me. A day may come when the courage of noots fails, when we forsake our fellow noots, and break all bonds of nootship as Gargolon would have us. But it is noot this day.

An hour of snowballs and singed masks, when the age of noots comes crashing down — but it is noot this day!

This day, we noot! By all that you hold dear on this frozen tundra, I bid you stand, masked noots of Nootopia!”

And he lofted his sword and uttered a raucous cry and with it too cried the masked noots, for in them was replaced fear by determination. Determination to save their brethren and their golden city from the otherworldly horde that bore down on their gates. For indeed, though he dared not share the knowledge, Nootlysses knew in his heart the miasmic beings marching toward Nootopia were not of this plane of existence. They were…demonic.

Nootlysses surveys the field of battle-to-come

Far and away at the Eyrie, while below Nootopia prepared for battle, Gargolon rested. Cursing the Emperor of Nootopia and his noots had but drained his power — much more than expected. Indeed, it felt not so much like he curse’d the pengus of Nootopia, but rather had summoned into existence something altogether more… sinister.

“Perhaps I am getting old,” Gargolon thought, and the idea carried him away to slumber.

Alas he would not sleep long, and he awoke to a great tumult. Wroth, he came to the window and his gaze fell upon the scene below outside Nootopia. Though the noots themselves knew not what forces beset them, Gargolon — being a magus of uncounted years and unfathomable wisdom — could see immediately what transpired:

The Gates to the Underworld had been flung open.

At this the magus let out a wizened laugh.

“Aha! At last! Those infernal nooting noots of Nootopia shall be laid low by a mighty occult blow! Those Demonoots of the Underworld are but a trifiling presence for such a great magus as myself! I shall let them destroy Nootopia and then dispatch them myself with a single word! It is as they say, then, no bad deed goes unrewarded!”

Verily satisfied, Gargolon made as if to sleep, but something gave him pause; a sickeningly greenish smog was pouring in from without.

Gargolon observes the miasma

“That’s… odd…” Gargolon muttered. Arcane and terrible eternal being as he was, the miasma that now saturated his fortress left Gargolon unaffacted, but for the rancid smell of old farts it gave off. Perturbed, Gargolon reached for a grimoire from this library, that he might cast a spell of defeaning to mute the sounds of impending warfare below before his return to slumber. To his utter horror, the spellbook but disintegrated at his touch, flaking away into pieces of greenish paper and cloth.

To this very day there exist no words that capture Gargolon’s fury. In the vastness of his library could be found the very secrets to life itself. Power; divinity; the arcane. To defile it was to defile the foundation on which the universe sat. Every second the miasma leaked unchecked bore an affront to the integrity of Gargolon’s seat of knowledge. This would not do. Nay, Gargolon would not stand for it.

This was an act of WAR.

And so to war went Gargolon.

*Back in Nootopia… *

With Nootlysses at their head and the Steward as vanguard, Nootopia’s masked host went to war.

Heedless of the danger and driven by instinctual self-preservation, the noots mounted a valiant charge direct’ unto the mist-shrouded Demonoot horde. At the first, by grit alone well they fared, but soon a great fear gripped Nootlysses. Though bravely they fought it was fast apparent they were no match for the occult forces with whom they grappled. Even as their masks provided them a measure of resistance against the corrosive effects of the miasma, they were powerless to repel the supernatural strength of the Demonoots.

And yet, as Nootlysses would learn — and not for the first time in his life — there is always hope; sometimes, from the most unexpected of sources.

Almost without warning the snow around Nootlysses exploded. A massive Snowball screamed past him; but a feathersbreadth separated him from life and death.

KABLAMMO

Gargolon had arrived.

On the battlefield before him were noots and Demonoots alike swept away by the force of Gargolon’s creation. In shock and in horror did Nootlysses witness the evil magus himself approach a fallen noot and begin to mutter an incantation over its masked corpse. Though its skin had been fully sloughed off by the corruptive forces of the miasma, it did but rise again; a living skeleton, animated bones, a servant of Gargolon ready to fight on — with or without flesh.

Appalled though he was, Nootlysses knew they had but no choice to press on, and to accept an uneasy alliance with the dread magus himself. For the sake of Nootopia, and the sake of all noots.

Reanimated by the unspeakable forces of Gargolon's necromantic power, a formerly-masked noot fights on as a Skelenoot.

A necessary evil.

There existed no other way to describe the unholy alliance between Gargolon and the battlefield’s brave Nootopians. Loath though they were to stand shoulder to shoulder with the pengu who had slain so many of their kin, there was little recourse. For days and days they pit themselves against the occultic Demoonoot horde, each onslaught affording no room to breathe before the next began. Deep in his heart knew Nootlysses that without the weirding ways of Gargolon, Nootopia would have been already overrun.

For indeed, in his dread and infinite wisdom Gargolon saw fit not only to reanimate the dead, but to reinforce the firepower of living noots. Unto each of the rare-type masked noots he gifted upgrade to further bolster their unnaturally natural immunity to the Underworld invasion. To the Aliens he granted a power scouter, that they might ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of their foes before a tactical strike. To the Zombies he gifted a savage beak strong and sharp enough to rend any material on the planet (except for diamond hands, of course). And to the Robots he gifted laser eyes, because in his heart of hearts Gargolon like to watch things go pew pew.

Lemme lemme upgrade ya, upgrade ya.

Yet still his actions could not be mistaken for benevolence; warforged though the Nootopians and Gargolon now were, they were still enemies. For every salvo that Gargolon unleashed against the Demonoots, innocent masked fighters paid the blood price. Collateral damage.

A necessary evil.

Aided by Gargolon and his arcane prowess, Nootlysses and the masked Nootopians beat back the Demonoot horde. Days did stretch into a week and still they fought. Yea but for Gargolon they might not have survived, so great was the power of the enhancements he bestowed and the skeletal noots he revived. Stranger still though no less instrumental in their battle was their reinforcement by a small force of Demonoots. Some noots — rather than succumb to the corruptive forces of the miasma — were instead transformed by it. Wholly noot on the inside yet outwardly Demonootic, they battled on as well, wielding their newfound powers with alarming brutality.

Back, back to the brink of the chasm the beat their foes, wherefrom did outpour the miasmic vapors. Bone weary and out of strength, the Nootopians did yet despair. For indeed from within the fathomless depths of the chasm their could be heard the uncanny cries of their occultic foes, an endless army of Demonoots preparing for an endless assault.

It occurred to Nootlysses then that Gargolon was nowhere to be seen, and even as that thought was born he heard the magus’ dread voice calling out clear and cruel across the frozen plains. In a tongue long since lost to the tribes of mortal noots did now Gargolon recite an incantation. For but a moment the entire battlefield stood still, ensorcelled.

Quite suddenly a massive Snowball appeared overhead; the last of Gargolon’s reserved strength. A final cry did he utter — this time in Penguinese — that rang out uncannily in the frozen silence.

“You cannot noot. I am a servant of the Secret Snowball, wielder of the power of Antarctica. You cannot noot. The dark miasma will not avail you, scourge of the Underworld. Go back to the Chasm! You cannot noot!”

And with that he dropped the Snowball into the chasm, sealing it and the occultic forces forever.

Gargolon and the Nootpians wage war for more than a week against the Demonoot horde

When the snow settled Gargolon was gone, and with him he took the lives of forty-one brave noots. Brave noots swept away by the Snowball, brave noots who paid the blood price to have Hell freeze over. Brave noots who would never be forgotten.

...

Long did Gargolon sleep.

Verily tired and all but empty was he left after the great and terrible Battle for Nootvember. His final, momentous snowball cost him dearly.

And lo, he slept.

For weeks he slumbered whilst below and across the frozen tundra Nootopia regathered and rebuilt. In truth he should have slept for a hundred more eons, so great was his final effort. But it was not to be, for on the longest, brightest day of the year in Antarctica he awoke, bathed in unending light. And when he awoke, he was wroth.

Mightily wroth.

The Decemvirate and the Open Sea

The Legend of Nootopia would, in later years, persist long after their age had ended and indeed the world was returned to the primordial Antarctic reservoir from which it was drawn in the uncounted years since. The feats of Nootopia’s own Pengus — and indeed, of their archnemesis Gargolon — would be woven into the shining fibers of the global monomyth; Nootopia’s heroes were the world’s heroes and its villains, yours and mine.

Yet for the purposes of this tale we will roll back the wheel, unspin the yarn, rereel the skein until the tapestry of Nootopia’s golden history is as yet unwoven. We resume this story in media res — or rather, Interregnum, as the period of time following the catastrophic Battle for Nootopia was known. For the Emperor of Nootopia, at the nascent empire’s most critical moment, had perished doing battle against occult forces of the Demonoot horde. The intervening months were the grimmest Nootopia had known. Rudderless, rent, and reeling, they struggled to rebuild the City on a Snowy Hill that lay in ruins around them.

Though the miasmic horde had been vanquished, Nootopia’s erstwhile and one-time magus ally had resumed his assault on their wounded huddle. In the months following Nootvember’s grisly end Gargolon continued his reign of terror, outsnuffing from fivescore more wartorn pengus the flickering flames of their lifeforce. Nearly four hundred Pengus now lined the Halls of Nootlysium, gone but forgotten not and naught forgotten.

From within this context of Ruinous Moments Known and Made that was borne forth an idea:

Rebuild the Empire, and Every Noot Within, a King Within a Kingdom.

Thus was incepted a new era of governance amongst Noots; one in which the fate and fecundity of an Empire lay not entangled nor ensorcelled in the doings of an Emperor or a Magus, but indeed in the very hands of Every Pengu, who could for themselves build the success to come. This is that History...

Nearly four hundred Noots (including the Emperor) perished to the misdoings of Gargolon and his Snowball; this calamitous outcome would shape the Legend of Nootopia in the age to come.

Self-Governance

And so it came to be that among themselves the noots of Nootopia desired a form of government in absence of an Emperor — not so much a Decentralized Autonomous Organization as much as a Centralized Representative Assembly of Penguins — hereunto and hithertoafter known as ‘CRAP’. Yet there was much bickering to this accord, for indeed each noot did verily differ from their neighbor, as some matters unto which the Robots of Nootopia ascribed great weight were of little import to the Orange pengus who thronged in the city streets.

After much discord and not a few squabbles unbecoming of Nootopia’s pengus, an alien stepped from among the crowd to address his brethren. His true name was lost to us as it was indeed unpronounceable by the terrestrial penguins of Nootopia and her historians, but he was called on that day Toonfeh Gue and later known in the ages as Hew. It was said of Toonfeh Gue, latterly called Hew, that he had arrived to Nootopia by spanning the deeps of 37 concentric portals from worlds unknown that he would coyly call Ivory. It was thus he stood before his quarreling kin and said:

“My fellow Noots: though we have our own interests and each pengu is like unto the others as equals — crazy hair to big shades, bathrobe to blunt — we should choose among ourselves electors to orchestrate the motions of the CRAP, and it is this I propose: that every noot should find themselves represented by a singular noot of of their type, robots to a Robot, oranges to an Orange, and forth. In this manner every noot can be the master of her own fate and shall not see his needs overlooked by the desires of another penguin. You ought now to gather with your nearest kin and among you produce produce an Avatar of your kind, that we might better govern to address the whole of wants of Nootopia.”

At this the bickering penguins grew silent, for they recognized in the wisdom in Hew-nee-Toonfueh Gue’s words and fell thereafter into a contemplative huddle. For ten days and ten nights the noots of Nootopia convened a Concordat — known in later ages as the Diet of Decision — to choose a seminal Avatar among themselves; at the end of the Diet they returned to Toonfeh Gue and named their representatives. The ceremonies of coronation and inauguration therein have been lost in the fickle pages of history but their names have remained emblazoned in the annals of time, and are herein listed:

The Decemvirate

Type	Name	Pixel	HD
Alien	Toonfeh Gue
Black	Mango
Blue	Tanner
Demonoot	Belfagor
Green	Emerald
Orange	Florida Man
Purple	Kim
Robot	XR-2000
Skeleton	Leonard
Zombie	Zoc Efran

Woe unto the enemies of Nootopia and indeed Gargolon, for the might of this Decemvirate was fathomless.

Toonfeh Speaks

The election of the Decemvirate at that time was considered transcendentally fortuitous, for soon after the dread magus Gargolon — their eternal foe — would unleash another catastrophic Snowball. Though they grieved the loss of nine more pengus, Toonfeh Gue-called-Hew would gather the Decemvirate unto himself in that moment and speak.

“My fellow nooters, I see the words writ on your face and hear the voices in your hearts; ‘we must do something’ you say, and yea, you are not wrong. Many leagues away on the snowy shores of Antarctica there beats The Open Sea — it is there will shall find the fabled Army of Diamond Hands to augment Nootopia’s own corps of unfailing Diamond Hands. In their conjoining we shall find reprieve from the evil doings of Gargolon and his Snowball.”

These words gave heart to the Decemvirate, who would traverse the blizzardy plains to board a ship on Antarctica’s frozen coast. In later years this would be hailed as the Voyage of the Open Sea, though the penguins of Nootopia knew not what fortunes awaited them.

The Decemvirate and fellow brave pengus of Nootopia board a ship on the Voyage of thee Open Sea to seek their fortune and the aid of fellow Diamond Hands.

Long was the Voyage of the Open Sea and so Nootopia’s Decemvirate dedicated amply their time to the determination of how best to serve their fellow penguins. The capacity to noot resided already in every pengu, but the Decemvirate desired to empower their kin with the ability to create, to own, to build.

“Every noot shall have a Stake in Nootopia,” said Mango. “Nootopia is not just yours, or mine, or even ours; Nootopia belongs to anypengu who has ever uttered the word ‘noot.’ We must create a society underpinned by this inalienable — apologies, Toonfeh — truth, and give each noot the means with which to build their own best version of a life in our city. Nootopia will be as a home to them, and to anyone who desires it.”

And they each of them nodded on hearing Mango, even Tanner and Florida Man, for even they recognized the sagacity of her words. To this end and on that day they founded the three entities that would be central to the process of building Nootopia: Public Works, Social Services, and Delivery Services. And the Federal Reserve Bank of Nootopia began to print a new currency for all pengus, $PESKY. Each day, or hour, or week, the penguins of Nootopia were able to claim a Stake of $PESKY — and thus a stake in Nootopia itself — and with it they would build a Nootiverse of their own design.

The Saga of the Hyperdimensional Noot Juice

Whilst the penguins of Nootopia built, Gargolon schemed.

Far above the city, cloistered in his Eyrie, he schemed.

Each day, the same. Each week, alike. Every snowball, penguins felled but their brethren undaunted.

More.

He needed more.

Not more snowballs, no — though he planned never their cessastion.

No.

What Gargolon required was more knowledge.

Knowledge of the arcane he had in droves. And endless library was his, from ground to roof were lined books of uncounted age from cultures long forgotten. If there was knowledge to be had in this world, Gargolon was its owner.

More.

Not from here, not from his library, not from history, not from Earth.

And so, Gargolon schemed.

Nigh on forty days and forty nights he did scheme, and left no stone unturned. Transcendental Metaphysics? Mastered. Arcanis Obscurata? Child’s play. Unfathomably old and unspeakably evil Dark Artistry? Already known. Every school of thought, every source of magic, every life altering incantation was as yet already at his disposal. Divine inspiration was naught for him, nay, indeed it was at best Divine Derivation, for Gargolon was the progenitor of many things and what some might hail as as a finger’s breadth from omnipotent.

Even still, after forty days of scrutiny and self-contemplation, he could conclude but one thing: the answers he sought — the means to destroy Nootopia and with it, those Pesky Penguins’ happiness — existed outside this earth. As a scholar of all things and wielder of knowledge both germane and esoteric, he deduced his solution did but rest in one of two places:

The Underworld or Outer Space.

Of the two he was most loathe to visit the Underworld, owing in no small part to his recent squabble with the Demonoots. To be sure, it was Gargolon’s own frozen handiwork that sealed their gates at present. Doubtless he would be penguina non grata in their realm and his mission would be much hindered and fettered by their justifiable hostility. By no means did this render the mission impossible, but it must be emphasized, Dear Reader, that Gargolon’s chief aim in life is to slumber peacefully. He is, at his core, what one might call a “lazy bum” and chose always the path of least resistance when presented with two options.

And so it was that the Dread Magus set his sights to parts unknown and lands unconquered by even his keen and questing mind — Outer Space. The question of how to get there lay heavy on his mind for a while, for indeed his dominion over the Earth and its timeless mysteries did not extend to the cosmos beyond her atmosphere. Yet the answer to his question was not long in coming, for the jubilant nooting of Nootopia’s citizens below his great Eyrie was an answer unto itself. The means to reaching Outer Space existed on Earth already, and indeed on his doorstep.

Alienoots.

Gargolon's Disguise

Native to Antarctica the Alienoots were not. Nay, they had indeed arrived in Nootopia when it was but a fledgling village on a windswept tundra in the later years of Gargolon’s Deep Slumber. The late Emperor had been quick to welcome them into the fold, for they were but sixty-one in number, refugees from a collapsed star system known as Ethirium. The sixty-one were all that remained of a once-proud alien race, and with them they brought a wealth of knowledge and technology hithertofore unknown in Nootopia and indeed, in all of Antarctica.

It was this that Gargolon sought in his unending quest to ever-end the Nootopians. If the capability to annihilate those infernal noots existed not in this mortal plane, surely it did lie in the Aetheric reaches of Outer Space, for SOMETHING had made fugitives of the Alienoots. He would seek that SOMETHING, that power, harnass it, and return with it unto his Eyrie, where he might fashion with it the means to destroy Nootopia and her joyous denizens once and for all.

To achieve this he would but need a space ship and the knowledge of flight. To possess those he would need access to the Alienoot’s compound. To accomplish that…now that, he was ready for:

NOOT PRISM POWER ACTIVATE!

With a wave of his staff and a whoosh of sulfurous smoke he was transformed — an impregnable, undetectable, foolproof disguise.

All their base are belong to Garg.

Gargolon's Spell of Minor Deception rendered him completely alike unto the Alienoots.

Gargolon's Infiltration

Thus began the dread magus’ first foray into Nootopia. Though he had long and oft suffered from high above in the Eyrie the bustling and joyous sounds of Nootopia’s prosperity, never before had Gargolon set foot within its walls.

What he saw there horrified him.

Noots of every type, dress, and creed thronged the streets in joyous harmony. There were trader noots, farmer noots, banker noots, writer noots, coder noots, scientist noots, doctor noots, actor noots, artist noots, and more. There were teacher noots, soldier noots, gamer noots, gym noots, mathematician noots, construction noots — such a diverse populace of pengus it did all but bring Gargolon to his knees. And yet among them there was accord, as though their differences did not serve to divide but rather to make them stronger. Industry, prosperity, hospitality, stability; the virtues of Nootopia were nigh too horrifying for Gargolon to withstand.

Perhaps for the first time in his life — he had but slumbered deep and long and the earliest reaches of his memory were fuzzy now — the magus felt what he would later recognize as FEAR. Unlearned though they were in the weirding ways of wizardry he and he alone possessed, the combined strengths of Nootopia’s citizens frightened Gargolon in their reach and magnitude. Fortified now was his resolve and indeed conviction that the solution the his ‘Nootopia Problem’ existed but off-world, Gargolon, still in the guise of an Alienoot, passed unnoticed in the city’s streets but for the occasional smile and friendly greeting that deepened further still his disgust.

Difficult it was not to identify the extraterrestrial Alienoot compound. The cobbled streets and icy, hard-packed roofs of Nootopia’s main thoroughfare gave way to lilting beeps and mellifluous boops accompanying cosmic machinery and galactic architecture. To be sure, half the quarter floated above the city in the tractor beams of a great, green laser; curiouser and curiouser it was to Gargolon, who waddled in doublestep to the hangar bays housing the Alienoots’ spaceships.

“Have a care, young Noots,” the magus whispered, though none were in earshot. “By my wings will be your undoing, though you know it yet not.”

But the work of a moment it was for Gargolon, dread magus of the Frozen Wastes, to steal a spaceship.

The Alienoots were by their very nature an endangered breed. Tenancy of their cosmic ward was slight. In many ways, too, their extraterrestrial extratechnology was closer to Gargolon’s own magickal purview than to the advancement of Robonoots; though their doors were gated by facial recognition and eyescan technology, Gargolon’s own inscrutable disguise penetrated their dimensional defenses. ‘Twas not long before the magus was deep inside their compound.

His destination, the Galactic Nootco Space Garage, was neither guarded nor indeed occupied at all. Before him stretched a vast stage of ships; sixty-one in all with a ship for every alien and an alien for each ship. Every conceivable shape and size were they, with colors and metals and atomic hyperpolymers of every shade and hue. In the end Gargolon picked a likely vessel — neither too large nor too small, not flashy, but adorned to an extent befitting an evil sorceror — and approached the ship’s hatch. Though lacking whatever code or trinket or biometric data was required for entry, the door nonetheless sprang open at his approach. A simple sibylline spell of unlocking was all he required to stage his coup.

Destination?

The fathomless, darkest reaches of the Nootiverse.

Gargolon infiltrates the Alienoot Compound and evades detection.

Gargolon's Escape

A host of Alienoots descended on hangar. Alarms stirred them to action; alarms set off by the departure of Gargolon in one of their ships. To be sure, the dread magus had neither the knowledge nor the experience to pilot one of their extradimensional vessels, but that mattered not. The glowing pink-red crystal set within the carved gnarled whorls of his magi’s staff suited his purposes to this end. By dislodging it and jamming it into the ship’s ignition slot, Gargolon established an arcano-cerebral with the vessel’s navigation system enabling him to traverse space with the merest inklings of intention.

From their great stage did the Alienoots launch a salvo of green lasers at the departing magus, but to no avail. Gargolon, in his vast cunning, had activated the ship’s own defenses, and the Alienoots’ beams bounced harmlessly off the ship’s shield. Helplessly they watched the vessel breach the toposphere; later they would recognize the sounds they heard at that time as the sinister laughter of an evil mage.

Gargolon was starbound.

Gargolon makes for the stars amid a volley of retaliatory Alienoot fire.

The great, inky vastness of space was alike unto the primordial soup from whence spawned Gargolon. It came without surprise, then: his consummate ability to navigate its reaches with frightening speed. Though he knew it not, the ship which now Gargolon piloted belonged to none but the Decemvirate’s own Toonfeh Gue, known also as Hew. As such was the ship equipped with commensurate capacity to navigate, create, and propagate portals.

With the press of a button could tear into existence a dimensional fissure; a shortcut in time-space; a leap to places unbound and unfound in the vast lexicon of the Dread Magus’ knowing. Portal after portal Gargolon did create in his stolen starship. Worlds flew by him. Entire civilizations he left in his wake. Star systems, galaxies, galactic federations did he pass by. Hundreds and yea, even thousands of portals did the evil wizard traverse in the ship he stole from the Alienoot Hew.

Time stretched before him and rolled him over in undulating waves. A thousand lifetimes, or ten or fifty thousand lifetimes he lived in a relativistic second. He knew naught what he sought — only that it must exist, somewhere, and that he must find it.

When his purloined vessel finally came to rest, a wide, blue planet crowded the horizon.

A strange energy did emanate from the all-blue planet. Gargolon could not so much see it as feel it, though as he drew closer he witnessed its entire surface cloaked in glowing liquid, wherefrom it did derive its azure appearance. Thrice he circumnavigated the strange celestial orb; once lengthwise, one widthwise, and once in a lazy diagonal arc — and nary a landmass was there to be seen.

An entire planet covered in water, and (he noticed) brimming with great, vibrant life taking a form wholly beyond his reckoning. Indeed was Gargolon’s mind — HIS MIND, THE MIND OF THE GREATEST MAGUS ON EARTH — but bent in his attempts to comprehend the forms he saw now before him. Where he was himself hard edges, straight, harsh, blocky, bold, the cosmic beings before him were…mellifluous. Soft curves, fading colors, visible textures, thin lines. These fish (if indeed they could be called that, for Gargolon knew naught whether hyperdimensional marine life could be encapsulated by stale Earth terms) telegraphed specificity to the Magus even as they remained utterly and paradoxically incomprehensible.

Did this mysterious form….did this fathomless existence…did it derive from their habitation in the strange planet’s endless oceans?

Deploying slender floats from beneath the fuselage of his alien craft as a floatplane would, Gargolon came to rest on the planet and even as he did the life-teeming waters began their uncanny work. The sharp edges and solid colors of the Alienoot vessel were transformed beneath his feet; transmogrified, twisted, transvected. Now did Gargolon see the ship translated into a form akin to the cosmic fishes as much as it remained akin still to him and its former self.

Perhaps this was the secret. The key that he was missing. Though possessing the knowledge of a thousand ages and uncounted dark secrets, Gargolon was in his very being alike unto the noots. Perhaps in order to conquer them, he did not need to be better, or stronger, or more wicked or powerful or learned. Perhaps he merely needed to be different: to be smoother, more textured, more detailed, more…distinct. Perhaps total domination and subversion of Nootkind would come at the hands of a Gargolon who existed in a state OUTSIDE their comprehension, as did the very forms before him.

If merely touching the extraterrestrial floodwaters was enough to transform the ship… imagine… Gargolon popped the hatch and extended a confident fin, cupping the strange water to his beak.

He threw back his head and drank.

An artist's rendering of the cosmic marine life Gargolon witnessed that day.

Gargolon Brews

The quantum nature of Gargolon’s travels — owing to the ingenious technologies contained by the alien ship and operated by the Magus therein — meant that he returned to Antarctica nearly as soon as he had left. Conflicting accounts by some (Florida Man, for one) would later assert that Gargolon had actually reappeared in the sky above Nootopia before he left. This was not true, of course. The Dread Magus was a destructive being but also a cautious one, and would never leave the very question of his own existence at risk of erasure by the accidental creation of a temporal paradox. Nevertheless, this erroneous telling of the magus’ return would be encoded in Nootopia’s oral history as truth, and would only add to the legend of the events that followed thenceforth.

Far above the Eyrie he did appear, then, returning to the planet’s surface in a gesture more akin crashing than landing. Toonfeh Gue’s ship, unceremoniously jettisoned, was both changed and forgot as Gargolon alighted to the depths of his cellar.

For days thereafter Nootopia’s denizens watched in rapt horror as plumes of acrid smoke billowed outwards from the Eyrie’s great chimneys and turrets. Within the warp and the weft of the venomous vapor the very bones of the Eyries shimmered and melted and reappeared in forms unlike anything seen in Antarctica. Not even the Alienoots, in their vast experiences and great cosmic exposures, dared to so much as retrieve Hew’s sloughed ship, so enthralling and redoubtable were the now-actions of the Dread Magus.

The Pirates

‘Twas the grizzled and sea-faring corsair noots who made the first move. Quietly and surprisingly in a manner not at all his custom, the pirate Captain Bluebeak set his crew to task. Though he dealt far more frequently in booty and lucre than in reconaissance and information, he was not unintelligent nor uninspired, and recognized the power vacuum building now. Whilst the Decemvirate hemmed and hawed — burdened or perhaps traumatized by the tragedy of Nootvember — Bluebeak and his dogged companions began to dig.

Even for a bold noot such as himself, to travel overland to the Eyrie seemed certain folly. Thus began the grim work on the Smuggler’s Tunnel, which aimed to provide the Captain and his followers discreet access to the dread magus’ abode, that they might infer, deduce, or otherwise uncover what nefarious deeds were now brewing by Gargolon’s hand and — in doing so — provide some measure of defense for Nootopia are her citizens.

For a price, of course.

Not without honor was Bluebeak, but neither was he a pengu to pass up profit when it landed in his lap. Nootopia’s incumbent governors would pay a pretty piece to learn what evil was brewing in the Eyrie without immediate and personal risk to their citizens. So it was with great vigor and excitement he readied and roused his crew, and work began in frenzied earnest on a tunnel leading from the pirates’ cove to Gargolon’s cellar. Bluebeak had long suspected that the magus’ magickal defenses did not extend to the hardpacked snow and earth upon which he built his fortress. After all, few pengus were of the burrowing type.

Good thing the mold was broke with Bluebeak.

The Excavation

Quickly did the excavation commence. Fifteen Robo-Pirate-Noots Bluebeak commanded, moving with great haste. Their skill was considerable, and as such the hard-packed snow and permafrost provided only a small challenge and little impediment to their endeavors. Shortly their efforts spanned half the distance to the dread magus’ castle; a brigade of all 231 pirate pengus stretched the length of the tunnel, passing between them buckets of mixed snow and earth and passageway refuse to clear the their path, whilst erecting simultaneous structural supports.

Under the watchful eye of Captain Bluebeak, the swashbuckling corsairs bored through the underground and in their wake did their manual labors beget a great, winding snake of a tunnel. Up and up it spiraled as they sought the Eyrie. Many days they did devote with awls and chisels to carving stairs in the roots of the great mountain Gargolon called home. As they climbed and cut up toward the peaks upon which precariously perched the Eyrie, the rock itself began to change. Centuries, or verily indeed millenia of arcane practices and magickal emittances by the evil wizard had leached its way into the very mountain. Though it hindered them not, the residue nonetheless frightened the pirate noots, who seemed to shed their braggadocio and loot-hunger and take up fear in its place.

Sensing their dread — for not-naught was he called the Iron-Flippered Empath of the Seven Seas — Bluebeak entreated them with a hearty cry that crescendoed into a song.

Hey-ho me nooties
beneath the mountain old
we dig a trail
to seek our grail
of information sold

Hey-ho me nooties
take heart, ye now, be bold
grow not ye pale
turn not ye tail
keep feet upon the road

Hey-ho me nooties
when all is done and told
we’ll sing this tale
o’er pints of ale
so frothy and so cold

Hey-ho me nooties
resolve ye now must hold
this mount we’ll scale
to much avail
to send ye home with gold!

Hearing his shanty roused the troubled pirates — for indeed Bluebeak was known also as the Merciless Songbird of the Wrathsome Waves — and they renewed their efforts with great fervor. ‘Twas not long before their pickaxes sounded in clear tones against hewn stone.

The cellar had been breached.

The Smugglers are Born

What befell the pirate noots on entering Gargolon’s cellar that day defies — to the present moment in time — enumeration.

Nevertheless, quill has been put to parchment here in an effort to do just that, though justly it has not been done. For indeed the very fabric of the world warped and shimmered and shifted before their eyes; a haze overlaid the dark mage’s damp basement, and all who breathed in its terrifying mists were greatly changed. Hard edges became soft curves, and flat planes grew rich and textured. Color flooded into their eyes, and all but the most grizzled and warforged of veterans broke into ineffable smiles. Shoulders emerged, sleek and shiny, and laugh lines, and shadows, and filamental feather tufts on their heads.

The genesis of this change they soon discerned. Their newfound power and fundamental alteration emanated from the bubbling forms of three massive cauldrons. Hammered iron they were, and bolted to the floor, as wide across as five noots and almost half as high. Inside there boiled and misted and steamed a shimmering blue-green liquid, and from its sublimation did these optical alterations arise.

A hush overfell the room. Whether from awe or fear it could not be said. After a time, a smol pengu, later called Peter, piped up in a tiny voice scarce louder than a whisper:

“Does…does he mean to change us with this?” Even as the room glimmered and swayed around them, the implication was clear: would the curious liquids that Gargolon now distiled be used to assail Nootopia and her citizens in some way?

It was Bluebeak who answered him.

“Nay, Laddie… methinks this brew ‘tis a wondrous thing, not a horror.” He seemed sure of himself, and in that took many of his crew great comfort. “The dread wizard Gargolon is not one to share with us his boons,” he continued. “Methinks he means to imbibe this tonic himself. Being that the case then…” Bluebeak turned to his crew and spread wide scarred wings in a grandiose gesture.

“What’s say we turn this reconaissance mission into a good ol’ Smuggling Operation?”

Bluebeak propositions his crew

Dev Commentary: The Founding of Nootopia

Welcome to the Developer Commentary for the Founding of Nootopia. Please note that this is not the lore; use the menu on the left if you're looking for the story 🙂

When authoring the founding of Nootopia, there were three main things we wanted to establish:

1. We wanted to set a tone of positivity and inclusivity.
2. We wanted to encourage participation in subDAOs.
3. We wanted to leave the door open to a second collection.

Positivity and Inclusivity

Positivity and inclusivity were important to us because we wanted very much to distinguish ourselves from the other (more "degenerate") mints happening at the time.

Our hypothesis was that, by fostering a friendly and welcoming vibe to a large demographic of people, we stood the best chance of onboarding new people to Solana.

"A rising tide lifts all boats," as the saying goes, and we believed (and still believe!) that a collection's best chance of success is to establish itself as a pillar of the community and contribute to the benefit of the whole ecosystem. The more the entire ecosystem prospers, the more successful the project will be.

Lots of people recall Pesky Penguins fondly, even in this midst of this terrible (Nov/Dec 2022) bear market. Pesky Penguins still has a loyal core community of positive, friendly people, and we are grateful every day for your own contributions to our culture of positivity and inclusivity ❤️

With the values of positivity and inclusivity in mind, you'll see language in the lore like:

"Its citizens built friendly robot pengus... welcomed into their ranks lonely alien pengus seeking refuge from the wide ways of the lonely dark universe..."

"Blunt pengus and cops working hand in hand..."

"...every pengu working with their neighbors..."

We set the tone to create a sense of belonging early on.

SubDAO Participation

When Pesky Penguins launched, we saw lots of self-organized participation in MonkeDAO around different attributes.

We wanted to encourage the same behavior in Pesky Penguins, and this is why we call out potential groupings; not just types like Robots and Zombies, but other characteristics that people could conceivably self-organize around (Kings, Queens, Lucky Legion, McPengu Corporation, etc.).

A Second Collection

Our thought was that we'd use the lore to introduce characters who would become the Heroes of Nootopia, another (more exclusive) collection we could mint at a later date after people had an emotional attachment and vested interest in the Pesky Penguins story.

In retrospect, Icarus seems like a non-sequitur with regard to the direction that the lore ended up going, but in giving him his own portrait, Icarus served the double purpose of creating hype and speculation along with enabling us to move in the direction of a Heroes of Nootopia collection.

There's a common expression about the best-laid plans of Noots and Men, and we ended up heading in a different direction. Gargolon proved to be more than simply another "member" of a heroes collection; he grew into a full-blown protagonist.

And though you'll see us continue down the path of introducing other heroes throughout the end of 2021 (the Steward, Nootlysses, etc), the Heroes of Nootopia collection was eventually shelved in favor of building Nootopia instead. The hypothesis there being that an exclusive collection would divide the community between the "haves" and "have-nots," while a home is a place for people to gather.