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Rezatta, the life-matters Renaissance plane — SET DESIGN PHASE
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Actually, the Mona Lisa being one of, if not the most known piece of art in the modern world, I wouldn't be surprised if she was widely known, so the cult is made up of high-ranking artists and connoisseurs. This "cult," which might be described as some strange, secretive occult group, is stealing and/or defacing art (This is serious considering art is alive. They're murdering/kidnapping living beings). This leads us to have artists as additional protagonists, trying to stop this destruction of their passion.
@LordTachanka123 I don't think Eco should team up with Lizza. I think that Eco would lend herself to anyone's cause if she was the embodiment of selflessness, but the stroyline just doesn't pop to me. I think that Lizza relishes in and uses the cult to her advantage and the twist should be that the people who are stealing the art are actually doing it to:
a) Please Lizza by destroying/defacing/burning them in front of her,
b) Extract secrets from unwilling art that they kidnapped (art observes in this world, after all, and it can also be imbued with the secrets of its creator).
c) Create some sort of enormous art monstrosity to destroy the celebration and secure it for their ritual. (Lol this one is pretty dumb but hey, why not just throw it out there).
I think to meld the two characters' (Eco/Lizza's) storylines together, I have an idea that isn't actually too far from your original one. As Avinzi is scouring the planes for inspiration (perhaps on some sort of glider reminiscent of his designs that he uses to ease the process), he feels Serra's overwhelming white mana and finds her resting place, probably on Dominaria (I just checked, it is, in Sursi). There, he also finds Eco, as innocent as a child, stripped of all her memories, only existing in selflessness. Struck by the image, he transports them back to Rezatta with his planeglider. Upon learning of Serra's fallen body, the church of Serra (which already exists in this version) organizes the festival of Rebirth to celebrate an attempt to reanimate her. As this happens, Avinzi, who in infatuated with Lizza, his own piece of art, witnesses a cult gathering and how she burns art in front of her for her own pleasure (or doing whatever evil thing to them). This affects him severely because he is in love with her, but also in love with art. Thus, he turns his attention to Eco, who consoles him and does anything she can do make him feel better, as she is the embodiment of selflessness. Avinzi turns his attention more and more to Eco, as Lizza becomes jealous that anything could turn her "husband" from her. Thus, she reaches out to take her secrets, which is still her thing. She discovers that she is actually an aspect of Serra (perhaps from one of Avinzi's many notebooks?)
From there, I think we have Lizza try to use her to help with her corruption of Serra's resurrection, followed by an interaction between Michella and Eco, which leads to Michella discovering Lizza's actions. Eco is then caught is a conflict of emotions, wanting to help everyone but not understanding that Lizza's actions are evil. By the day of the festival, Michella wants to stop Lizza with Eco's help, and Lizza wants to use her to reanimate Serra in Lizza's form. As everything culminates, Michella and Lizza begin to fight as Eco weeps, Avinzi watching, conflicted. Lizza strikes Michella down with the help of her cult, but too gleeful at the opportunity to finally become worshipped by all to kill her. From there I'm not really sure where to go, but there needs to be a big twist that I want to end with Eco's sacrifice, Lizza being killed in the blast, Michella freezing the scene in marble and finding her perfect piece, and Avinzi repainting Lizza with a softer, more compassionate air to her.
Honestly, I don't see the issue with having Dimir being a villain often. What's wrong with being a villain? We don't have to treat fictional characters like they're someone in the real world. I've always found villains to be some of the most interesting characters in fiction. To me, Lizza just isn't a good person (or art). You can come up with an arc for her if you like, but I just can't really push something I don't believe in.
Plus, she gets repainted, but as a better version of herself. Is that not redemption?
I'm free to take suggestions obviously, but this is too vague to work into the story atm and I just don't see a traditional redemption arc for Lizza myself.
I like the idea of having Mona Lisa play a bigger role in the story, she'd make a cool main antagonist. And yeah, I definitely could see her pretend to help the good guys at first before revealing she was plotting against them all along. I have a feeling she'd definitely be the kind of villain for a collision plot where a villain sets two heroes against each other. For instance, she could convince the good guys that Serra needs to be destroyed (even though Serra is the embodiment of Good).
I'm lukewarm about the cult thing so far, I'd need to see some cool illustrations and concept to be convinced they won't feel like plot convenience.
I completely forgot about the Michelangelo thing that would be a female gorgon xD I still like the idea though I'd be interested in seeing a male gorgon to differentiate it from Vraska as well. It could really be any of our famous artists though, not just Michaelangelo. I have a feeling that, because of his name, we could make an Angel lord out of him, so maybe keep the Gorgon idea for someone we really have no idea how to depict them like Donatello?
Renaissance has very few tropes available and a lot of them are famous characters. So yes, I'd be interested in making uncommon legends, and maybe have legendary-matters as a secondary theme at uncommon.
I like the idea of having a nonBlack villain but I'm not opposed to the opposite either. It's cool if we can make it work but I don't want us to force it and pass a good opportunity for a Black villain just to be original about it.
- What prompts the Renaissance era? If it's the rebirth of Serra, this has to happen at the beginning of the story, it's our inciting incident, which means we can't use that as a climax at the end.
- How does Serra get reborn? It's similar to the first question, is it the quest of our heroes and the culmination of their journey, or is it something that happens as inciting incident, maybe even at the hand of the villains?
I'm personally inclined on having Serra reborn at the beginning of the story, because the cards of the set are clearly going to depict the influence of Serra over this world (we even have a mechanic named after her). It would feel like the set happens after the story otherwise.
Also, we're going to need someone to accompany Eco as a main character. First because it's probably more interesting if the narrator is not in Eco's head most of the time so we have to interpret her unique ways of communicating. Second because for story convenience we need someone who can talk to move things along. So I'm asking the question: What kind of character would go well with Eco? We need someone that's fundamentally opposite to her in a way that creates interesting interactions. For instance, an art thief?
Of course, everyone is welcome to propose their idea on the matter ^^ Note that illustrations might help sell the concept, since we'd want a card out of them.
Also, I didn't expect this to be any kind of an issue, but our cast starts to skew a bit towards women (Eco, Serra and Lizza in the lead to be main characters so far, Da Vinci being our main male character and potentially being a side character). We can have other female characters, but we are going to need at least another man as well in a relatively important role xD
@ningyounk
The art
Then, one day, Gio was accused of murder when the body of the curator showed up, and he was hunted down for murder. He escaped his pursuers and went into the shadier parts of town.
Gio couldn't stand a life without art, and so he sneaked into museums again and again. Then, when the day came that his favorite museum was to be destroyed, he sneaked in and stole most of the art. Gio was a big supporter of the Rebirth, and a worshipper of Serra.
Gio now hides in dark places, selling art than stealing it back.
@ningyounk
I feel the timing of the resurgence could have an impact on how we write characters, the world, and even possibly the conflict, so it'd just be a good thing for us to all agree upon when it was.
The art monastery/museum is actually kind of cool. We could have Avinizi and Lizza be creating a museum to honor the great works of Rezatta, Eco and the other protagonists could be introduced to Lizza under the light of “She’s a good person who wants the arts to be celebrated” then in the final act Lizza attempts to destroy the museum. It could be apart of the ritual.
@LordTachanka123 I agree that black/blue gets vilified a lot but it’s important to remember why: The combination is very sinister and mysterious and the mechanics that they combine make it easy to translate “This is a bad character” to cards.
I like Gios art and name but if Lizza is dimir I think he should be another color combination, otherwise the set would feel “lopsided”. Ultimately it’s up to @ningyounk to decide wether Lizza is Dimir so let’s wait to figure that out.
@ningyounk Yeah that’s what I’m struggling with as well for the cult. Normally I would imagine black/red robes with a demonic flair but that doesn’t feel very Rezatta...
Ideas for answers to your questions:
How did the rebirth happen: Rezatta has always been watched over by five muses, the people of Rezatta would look to these strange figures for inspiration and guidance. However one winter they disappeared, no one knew where they had gone but the winter never ended. Eventually the nations of Rezatta turned against each other each claiming the other had taken the muses away and were keeping the avatars for themselves. They turned to war and violence eventually they forgot they had ever fought for a cause other than war. This winter lasted for years until one day when the five returned, the war was halted as the five muses set foot on Rezatta again bringing new spring. People drew this event and in doing so rediscovered their love of art, scholars tried researching the mysterious event and in doing so reignited their curiosity. It’s been about a year since they returned and Rezatta is being reborn.
I was actually contemplating the idea of having the Renaissance being a thing that happened very immediately, like during the events of the set. Basically, it would depict a very sudden change and we see everyone trying to adjust. We could even start during winter.
I like the look of him, now we need to imagine why he's forced to team up with Eco, and what that would look like. I'm getting a Razpunzel and Flynn Rider vibe, which isn't a bad thing.
@ningyounk Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, but Rapunzel is a lost fragment of a god-planeswalker with no direction in her life and Flynn Rider's reason for stealing was because he was falsely accused for the murder of his close friend.
It's easy to think of black as evil, but truly it's not. Dimir is just the color of self enlightenment.
Oh about the Muses, they could still be a central part of the story if we wanted to, but they're not necessarily the drive of the Renaissance anymore since we couldn't really make the emotion theme work at the cards level (surprisingly, not enough illustrations were available). We actually considered Serra as the new motor for the Renaissance change, as her Church will play a bigger role on the cards now that she has a mechanic tied to her than we initially planned.
This means that the idea that the Muses bring the Renaissance is not dead yet, but it's not mandatory anymore and we can totally explore other options as well. The Muses could be a minor side thing.
For a reason for teaming up, just a possibility, but, possible love interest...
Well, I think that a character that's dimir would fit well as a hero if we have a dimir villain.
Luv it.
I also think this would be interesting if at first Gio is forced to work with her but he hates it because she doesn't talk and he feels awkward. They could get to know each other over the story and when he finally learns to care for her she has to die?
Also I want to clarify something: I don’t think that dimir or black are always evil or sinister. What I said earlier was in reference to the fact that the mechanics that dimir and black typically use lend themselves to a sinister character well. I agree with you that black is not the color of evil, it’s ambition and power, and dimir being the color of self enlightenment is a great way of describing it that I’ve never heard!
Overall I really like Gio as a character, he’s a fun contrast to Eco’s more tragic story and his backstory does a good job of setting him up as a character.