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Guide5. Quests & Side Quests

Quests and side quests icon5. Quests & Side Quests

Quest tower illustration

Every cohort has a Main Quest: a theme-driven build challenge that all participants engage with. This quest anchors the cohort, gives teams shared purpose, and produces the demos showcased in the next cohort’s Week 1.

Alongside the Main Quest, ambitious participants may take on Side Quests — optional missions that deepen their contribution to the Guild, explore advanced ideas, or tackle internal needs. These quests do not replace the Main Quest, but they may be demoed, celebrated, and rewarded in similar ways.

Main Quest icon5.1 The Main Quest (Required)

Every cohort’s Main Quest is defined by the monthly theme — e.g.:

  • Agentic wallets
  • Crypto Micropayments
  • AI Agents in DAO ops
  • Onchain Games
  • Public goods infrastructure
  • Chain-specific tooling
  • Experimental DeFi mechanisms

Main Quest Objective: Build a working prototype, research artifact, product spec, or operational improvement aligned with the theme.

Main Quest Deliverables:

  • A team (or solo quest)
  • A scoped project
  • A repo or artifact
  • A working demo
  • A narrative that explains the why

Valid Main Quest Formats:

  • Product MVP
  • Smart contract / backend prototype
  • Small onchain experiment
  • Research or design exploration
  • Internal RaidGuild ops tool
  • Strategy document
  • Creative experiments (memetics, onboarding, education)

This is intentionally broad — the goal is creative execution, not template-following.

Side quests icon5.2 Side Quests (Optional)

Side Quests are missions for ambitious Raiders who want to go above and beyond. They are optional, open-ended, and self-directed.

They can be pursued in addition to the Main Quest or, with DM approval, instead of it if the side quest significantly benefits RG.

Examples of Valid Side Quests:

1. Guild Infrastructure Improvements

  • Improving a RaidGuild tool (Dungeon Master, Smart Invoice, Cookie Jar)
  • Writing or improving documentation
  • Prototyping a new internal system
  • Making a ShadowOrg agent for RG

2. Research Quests

  • Deep-dive into a new EIP
  • Technical analysis on agentic wallets or x402
  • Market scan or competitive research
  • Write-up or whitepaper draft

3. Memetic or Cultural Contributions

  • Designing cohort posters, memes, intro videos
  • Creating lore assets
  • Making a Cohort Archive page

4. Ops & Community Support

  • Helping run a cohort session
  • Assisting hosts with logistics
  • Mentoring a team
  • Running a lightning talk

5. Experimental Builds

  • Weird Dune dashboards
  • Data explorations
  • Micro-agents
  • Tiny DeFi experiments
  • “What if…” prototypes

Side Quest Deliverables:

  • Anything that meaningfully moves RG forward
  • Presented (optionally) at Demo Day

Side Quest Reward:

  • XP
  • Recognition
  • Raider of the Month eligibility
  • Stronger pathway toward sponsorship
  • OG visibility

Quest completion and Demo Day icon5.3 Quest Completion & Demo Day

Whether pursuing the Main Quest or a Side Quest, participants share the same final ritual: Demo Day.

Each cohort’s work is showcased the next cohort’s Week 1 — creating an intergenerational bridge.

Demo Day Expectations:

  • A real artifact (even scrappy)
  • Clear storytelling
  • Functional or illustrative demo
  • Reflection on learning
  • Honest scope-setting (“here’s what we cut”)

Demo Day is not about perfection — it’s about proof of initiative and the courage to ship.

Absolutely — here is a clean, self-contained subsection you can drop directly into Section 5: Quests & Side Quests.

It expands on Theme Selection as a formalized but flexible process, grounded in real signals from the ecosystem and the Guild.

Theme selection icon5.4 Theme Selection (How the Main Quest Is Chosen)

Each cohort’s Main Quest is defined by its monthly theme — the central technology, pattern, or idea that all teams will explore. Themes are chosen by the hosts, but they are informed by a combination of community signals, Guild needs, and real-time trends across the ecosystem.

A good theme is:

  • Timely — relevant to current conversations in web3, AI, or open-source culture
  • Actionable — something teams can build around in 3–4 weeks
  • Flexible — supports many idea directions, from technical to creative
  • Exciting — sparks curiosity, energy, and experimentation
  • Meaningful — ideally contributing back to RaidGuild or the broader ecosystem

Inputs to Theme Selection

1. Participant Signal

  • Interest polls during or after the previous cohort
  • Ideas surfaced during Demo Day
  • Topics with strong momentum in the chat or standups
  • Themes that resonate with newer builders

2. Last Cohort Retrospective

  • What worked?
  • What fell flat?
  • What skills or tools participants needed more clarity on?
  • Emerging requests (“Could we do more AI demos?”)

These insights shape what the next generation of Raiders may benefit from.

3. Ecosystem Trends & Conference Hype

Themes often align with what’s happening right now:

  • New EIPs (ERC-8004, 4337 variants, etc.)
  • Payment standards (x402, AP2)
  • Breakthroughs in AI agents or LLM tools
  • Layer 2 / appchain / modular stack innovations
  • Onchain games
  • MEV research
  • Culture hacks & memetic patterns

Cohorts often follow or anticipate the “wave” happening in the broader web3 scene.

4. Current Needs Inside the Guild

RaidGuild always has internal opportunities:

  • Ops tools needing updates
  • New agentic workflows requiring prototypes
  • Public goods the Guild could build
  • Internal systems that need docs or revamps

A theme that aligns with a real Guild need has a higher chance of generating projects that become RAIDs or RIPs.

5. Host Pattern-Matching

Hosts bring:

  • experience from previous cohorts
  • intuition about where the momentum is
  • insight into what ideas spark the best builds
  • knowledge of the skill mix among participants

This turns “signal” into a coherent theme.

Examples of Strong Themes

  • Agentic Wallets )
  • x402 Crypto Micropayments
  • Onchain AI Agents
  • Guild Infra Month: Tools, Docs, Ops
  • Onchain Games & Experiential Contracts
  • Public Goods Month
  • Smart Contract Security (Practical Auditing)
  • Privacy Tech
  • ZK tech
  • Cohort-as-a-Service

When the Theme Is Announced

Typically on Week 1, Day 1, during the Info Sesh — with a short reveal moment to create energy. Hosts prepare a Theme Deep Dive deck or resource pack so participants can immediately begin ideation.

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