Your stories, carried forward

Today the stories in Arfur come from documented collections of folklore, and every story is traced to its source. We also want to work with storytellers and tradition bearers who wish to contribute versions of their own, on terms we agree on together. Regional variants are treated as part of the heritage rather than flattened into one official version.

AI helps us adapt and translate, but people decide. Every story is to be reviewed by people with knowledge of the culture and language: some already are, and the rest follow over time. Nothing is published against a community's wishes.

The right to say no is real and permanent: a community or contributor can decline a story, ask for changes, or withdraw material that has already been published.

Your stories reach the families who need them most: children growing up far from where the stories come from, in the diaspora and in mixed-language homes. They arrive in your language next to the language the child goes to school in, with your cultural context traveling with every tale — and, through schools and integration programs, they reach children who would never otherwise meet them.

Every story is built to be shared between a child and an adult, with cultural notes, a short quiz and conversation prompts after the tale. You help shape the prompts and the cultural context, so the conversation a story opens is the one your community would want it to open. Regional variants stay variants. And a fixed share of the profits from each universe goes back to the area the stories come from.

Contributors and tradition bearers are credited by name unless they prefer otherwise, and consent is documented in writing before material is used.

Participation goes beyond contributing stories: communities can take review roles, shape the cultural context that accompanies each tale, and set the standard for language quality in their universe.

A fair value-sharing model is something we decide together with communities — we have deliberately not locked it in before those conversations happen.

What we commit to already now: transparency about how contributed stories are used, and no commercial use of community-contributed material without a written agreement.