Community Set: Story / Universe: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Community Set: Story / Universe: (Generated at 2026-08-21 06:15:49)
I suggested before pitching the Aer attitude something like European countries' empires: they're vaguely aware that there's some sort of life, even civilisation down there, and possibly even occasionally have minor commerce with it, but they don't think it's important, and aren't used to thinking of the monocoloreds as people (devils, plants, etc). Then when draining the mana starts to be a problem for the monocolored's development, a few bleeding-hearts suggest doing something about it, but no-one knows what and no-one wants to give up their cosy cloud existance. Then one of the monocolored nations makes a direct attack on the mana source, and Aer is suddenly in serious trouble and the nation of scholars and aesthetes suddenly lash out, trying to suppress the various monocoloreds before the mana is cut off even more and their cities start to fall from the sky...
So, I think we have this for a timeline:
the past: Early Aerans deposit Mana Stones on the 5 monocolour planes of Aer. These stones power the Aer city/plane.
some time later: The dark clouds dividing Aer from the 5 planes form. Life is brought/begins on the 5 planes. The Aerans don't try to explore past the cloud cover because ???? (insert reason here?)
near-present: The flow of mana to Aer is disrupted somehow (the mana stones are disrupted or something). The sentient life is probably responsible.
present: The lack of mana is causing Aer to descend (through the cloud cover?) The 5 monocolor planes can now see the Aerans, and vice versa. FIGHT!
How does this sound so far?
Yep, I agree that you probably want to base a block around it. I was just throwing some ideas around. :)
This idea has definitely grown on me.
What, no "Charlie the Unicorn" style stag annoyed that everyone keeps following him, and declaring him the lord of all things?
Edit: For the love of god, read this post as me being humorous.
To clarify (since this has been in my head but apparently I never wrote it down), the stag I spoke of with the sun in its horns is an elemental, not really a stag. Sorry. It's a creature formed of vines and wood, and is far larger than a normal stag. Though the sun in its horns is small compared to a real sun, it's bright enough to illuminate much of the Green continent.
@cmeister: I really like that idea, but it seems like something to build an entire block around. Kind of like how one of the major themes of Pulp Fiction is a sense of being lost in the movie's timelines. It's a big part of what's going on, and was probably scripted that way from the start to make the most sense after being chopped up.
@Vitenka: Early magic definately did have compelling stories. The authors for the books, however, were abysmal, and the connection between them and Design (which did flavor back in the early days) was non-existant. Still, Antiquities, Homelands and Fallen Empires have very strong stories for small sets. They just never got good books.
In fact, if you want a non-linear story to base anything off of, you'd go to Urza's Saga. After having followed the Weatherlight through 4 expansions, heading all the way back to the tail end of Antiquities was an interesting leap. By the time the Urza Block was done, Magic was set up so that Both Urza's and the Weatherlight Crew's timelines were going off simultaneously in Masques block.
Hmm... perhaps they're a little like how Rome used to feel. Like they were the only bastion of civilization, having conquered 'the world', and that everyone else outside their kingdom was just barbarians?
If they act like that, imagine how they'd react when they found out that they were just a colony of a much larger empire...
I know I haven't been saying much in story, because I've been spending so much of my time on mechanics. It happens.
I like this. I think people haven't been giving too much feedback because they haven't been disagreeing with anything here and realize that they're entire response would boil down to "I like this" or "This seems acceptable", which can feel like a waste of a post. It isn't, though. It's good to know where people stand.
Could be done, I guess - aftermath, prequel, fall.
Early magic sets didn't really bother with having a story; there were novels of extremely dubious provenance - and it took them a while before settling down to having triple sets anyway.
Have all official Magic sets had linear stories? I'm not familiar with many of the older sets.
Having a "prequel" set naturally creates issues with the design of the second set. Usually, the small set develops the themes presented in the first set, adding new twists on the mechanics and developing new mechanics. Having a prequel set would mean we'd have to make the first set feel like a development of the second somehow, and if we added a new mechanic, people would wonder where it "went" in the first set.
My only issue with this is that it seems sets always start at the beginning of conflict.
How's this for a radical idea - we start the first set in the middle of the conflict, then the second set is a flashback to the start :)
Ugh, wait. I said all of that without thinking enough. Is it too similar to black now?
I would argue no, because the blue rulers aren't really enslaving, merely manipulating natural wildlife. Okay, let me change the flavor a bit. Hearkening back to cmeister's suggestion, the blue rulers are instead sea-mages able to manipulate the tides (flood) and the creatures that inhabit the water. Think Aquaman. That sounds sufficiently far from black, right?
Green can't be described as mindless anymore, not if they're actively worshiping a deity. I agree that the two need distinct cultures, and in fact, I agree that they need cultures period. The beings of the Gloaming can't really be angry or feel repressed if they don't have some sort of intelligence.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea that blue is ruled by a species of some sort of sentient sea creatures. They are outnumbered by the non-intelligent life, but are powerful enough to bend those creatures to their whim.
I'll take suggestions on what type of creatures the "ruling class" of blue should be. I propose octopuses or squid.
I'd just got done looking at a lot of the blue files. Originally, there was a giant monster theme in blue. When I submitted my own outline of cards, I had a soldier and a wizard (eels, acutually. I was still going for weird), but we discussed it and I downgraded them to Minions. Deep Ones style, I suppose. Later on in black we started using minions, so when I made my current pass, I traded them for a crab and a sponge.
That would seem fine if left alone, but we're currently having a mechanical identity issue with U/G, and it isn't helped much if both colors can also be described as 'mindless'. I think we clearly need two distinct cultures in these colors. Can we get something a little more than "theyv'e got a lot of tentacles"? I do like what's going on over in green, by the by.
I thought I had made a post on this card, but apparently I haven't. Maybe I made it elsewhere and got confused.
The current mechanical direction of green is that it's full of fungus that infects other creatures and turns them into fungus as well. At first, I really liked this idea, and while I do think it has potential, I feel that it's playing out too similarly to green mechanically, and I would rather revamp green so that it can stand on its own.
My current concept of green is different from my original one, but not vastly. Instead of fungus, perhaps green is a place where all of the creatures are plants, or are fused with plants. This temporarily presented a problem, since the story rests on the idea that Aer has been unaware of the life below it due to the sea of clouds that separates Aer from the world below. If this cloudcover is so dense that the Aerans couldn't even perceive a whole world existed below them, then how could plants survive? Wouldn't they be lacking sunlight?
Problems breed creativity, I suppose. After I came to this realization, I took to calling the "world below" the Gloaming, due to its dim nature. The light in the Gloaming emanates from the Green slice, where they worship a solar god, a great stag that holds a sun in its antlers (alternately, this could also take the form of a tree with the sun in its branches, but personally I like the stag). The plants worship this being as a deity.
This doesn't mean we have to abandon the fungus concept. Perhaps the fungi still exist at Green's borders, hating the Plants as much as the colors all hate each other.
What does everyone think?
I have a new proposition for the first set that lets us pave the way better for a second set. I believe that in the first set, the combat should have yet to begin. The first set should involve the Aerans disovering, for the first time, the land below the clouds. In this scenario, it's not truly Aer vs. the Gloaming, but the different facets of the Gloaming fighting each other and Aer observing. There could be hits of the Aerans discovering that this land below is where all of their mana comes from, and some foreshadowing that things are about to go poorly for them.
Aer is divided from the Gloaming (what I've taken to calling the collection of the five monocolor areas) by a thick barrier of clouds, leaving it in constant near-dark. The only plane with a consistent light source is ~Green Plane~, which has its own "sun."
Composed of enchantment creatures, I picture the White continent as having the most developed society. That's not to say that the others don't have society, but White has a definite culture.
The enchantment creatures are woven of white bolts of fabric that flows like silk in the water, through which glimpses of glowing light can occasionally be caught.
I envision the devils as white-furred, with cloven feet and ram-like horns.
The red continent is an ice and snow covered region far to the south. Yetis prowl the frozen wastes and devils live just below the ground in a network of boiling hot tunnels.
Then again, the fact that the Gloamlings, as a whole, "want" the destruction of Aer as revenge hints at some sort of intelligence. Perhaps there is a guiding force for Blue, whether it be one great mage or a group of sentient creatures.
The current set of critters seems unlikely to have been created by a white planeswalker. I rather like the idea of Gideon being on the Aerans' side.
Here are some things we have yet to decide or are contested on:
1. Are the Aerans aware of the presence of the Gloaming before Aer begins to fall?
2. How do the Aerans view the Gloamlings? Are they afraid of them? Do they look down on them, like gods? Or is it some mix of the two?
3. What role does the planeswalker fill in this set? Is it Gideon? Is there a planeswalker native to Aer?
Several different ideas have been tossed around regarding the plot, and I'm pretty sure different people have different concepts of what's going on. Here's what we know:
1. The flow of mana to Aer from the Gloaming (that's what I've taken to calling the land under the clouds in my head) has started to stop. It has been hinted that the residents of the Gloaming are cutting the Aerans off intentionally.
2. The Gloaming creatures are upset with the Aerans for draining their mana for centuries, and, though they don't all get along with each other, want to take out the Aerans.
@Link: It would certainly explain why they were being outnumbered. From their perspective, they've been minding their own business, drawing mana from these planes, when suddenly they're under attack from these unknown forces.
It would be cool if we reconciled the "Aerans didn't know about the existence of the other races" issue. I like the idea that they set up the infrastructure before the other planes were inhabited, which puts the Aerans as a much older race.
Ooh! Maybe Gideon populated the 5 monocolour planes with creatures after the Aerans put down their manastones! And, Gideon didn't know about the Aerans.
I propose that Aer has previously been a non-violent nation that has never fought a war. Petty squabbles, sure, but they've never really had anyone else to fight with. They don't have an army, or soldiers, but only law enforcement and a senatorial guard. This means we have to make Aer feel like they're scrabbling to find ways to combat the enemy.
I designed that, but it was just sort of thrown together. I think we can come up with something better. The only thing that I feel the need to stick is that it's Gideon.
I would be alright with that, though originally the Aerans were unaware of the presence of the others.
I'm pretty sure the discussion of the flavor came first. We discussed blue being full of cephalopod monstrosities that thrive in a humongous sea. In the original discussion, it was either hinted or decided (I don't recall) that there was no truly intelligent life. There are certainly no humans.