---
title: "The Gnomes — The Awakening"
description: "How a gnome becomes yours: the shut hill, the hidden waking threshold, striking the hour with a mint, and the respect ladder."
category: "gnomes"
keywords: ["awakening", "gnome", "threshold", "mint", "hidden hour", "respect", "favour", "kin of the vein"]
last_updated: "2026-07-19"
---

# The Awakening

Gnomes are free. Nobody buys one from PD; nobody mints one on purpose. A gnome is **won by minting the project's art** — and nobody knows exactly when.

**How:** Mint the project's art — a gnome is won at a hidden hour, never bought.

## The shut hill

Before its hour, a project's GNOME tab shows only a closed hillside: a dark mine mouth, two lamplit eyes blinking in the dark, and a line — *something lives down here*. Nothing about the keeper leaks: not its name, not its temperament, not its look. The hill is shut.

## The hidden hour

Every project has a **waking threshold**: a mint count at which its gnome wakes. The number is seeded per project, computed only on PD's servers, and published nowhere — it genuinely cannot be known from outside. Somewhere between early in the mint and deep into it, one mint crosses the line.

**The wallet whose mint strikes the hour owns the gnome.** That's the whole rule. The crossing Output's minter is recorded as the keeper's keeper the moment the threshold is crossed, permanently, along with the Output number that struck the hour and a rarity cast from the project's real traded volume at that instant. Every mint you make in an unawakened project is a lottery ticket you were buying anyway.

The awakening is written once and never rewritten. Selling the crossing Output later changes nothing — the gnome is not attached to the Output; it was won at the hour and lives in your [gnomewallet](/docs/gnomes/the-gnomewallet) until you trade it on [the mushroom market](/docs/gnomes/the-mushroom-market).

## The keeping, on record

Once awake, the gnome's tab shows the full record under its journal: who keeps it (their PD handle), the awakening date, the Output that struck the hour, and the rarity. Everyone can see it; it is part of the project's story. The keeper's gnome-world identity — the `.gnome` name, the `6n0m3…` address, the wallet itself — never appears in the tab; that whole world lives behind the [gnomewallet](/docs/gnomes/the-gnomewallet) pill in settings.

## Respect — the keeper's ladder

Own it or not, every signed-in visitor has a standing with the keeper, climbed with real ledger facts only — Outputs of the project held, unbroken held-days, and **favored** Outputs (held at least 7 days, never listed):

| Rung | Name | Earned by |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | A STRANGER | no Outputs held |
| 1 | KNOWN AT THE DOOR | hold ≥1 Output |
| 2 | FRIEND OF THE HILL | ≥21 total held-days |
| 3 | FAVORED | ≥1 favored Output |
| 4 | KIN OF THE VEIN | ≥3 favored Outputs and ≥60 held-days |

The ladder is drawn in the tab as the gnome's own gems, with an honest line naming exactly what earns the next rung. It changes what you hear: the keeper greets strangers, holders, and its favored people from different pools entirely — and at FAVORED, it writes **the Appraisal**: a real, fact-only written case for your longest-held Output, in its own voice. Listing an Output breaks its favour; the keeper notices such things.