The temple at the core of Tropivolca just might be what is causing the mana to fluctuate. But why? and how? I also tried to make a dungeon, but the dungeon creator didn't work : (
One of the monkeys began to remember. He was once one of the big five, a group of elven mystics who found this temple here a long time ago and began to uncover its deep secrets. When they realised that this temple was a too great danger but they were unable to destroy it, the only solution they saw was to turn themselves into apes and erase their memories this way so that nobody will hear from this temple. "But why are they back here now? They had sworn never to return. Something has called or lured them here. We must prevent this temple from being used by anyone at all costs." But as more memories flooded him, he noticed his vision slowly fading. There was only one thing the big five hadn't considered back then: these little ape bodies can't withstand the flood of memories when retransforming. And so he passed out, with his last words mentioning the temple's greatest danger to his friends: "Don't. Reawaken. The. Tentacles."
It crawled inside, following in the footsteps of others. It lingers in the halls. Noises of suffering emanate from the statues. It whimpers as it approaches.
Crack!
The horror in front of them was indescribable. A mass of muscle tissue and organic matter fused to what seemed to have been the body of a humanoid being. Organs hung from what was left of the abdomen, and the…thing’s…brain was exposed and covered in tumors. The tentacle like organisms along the creature’s began grasping, searching. They ran. But deeper.
The mangled screams echoed for miles through the jungle.
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Phase 5: “Don’t Reawaken the Tentacles”
The Temple of Warped Leylines pulses.
The jungle remembers.
And now, the island awakens.
🔥 LORE UPDATE:
From Mellow_MC’s descent, we learn:
“They reach the bottom. They do not return.”
Alien runes. Tentacled iconography. Echoes of knowing. The explorers… knew this place.
Then the truth:
🧠 One monkey remembers.
He was one of the Big Five—elven mystics who sealed the temple and erased their identities by becoming apes.
But memory returns. And their bodies… were never meant to contain it.
“Don’t. Reawaken. The. Tentacles.”
Too late.
🌋 Dungeon Expansion:
Temple of Warped Leylines (Land): Reality folds. Mana mutates. Balance fractures.
What Lies Beneath (Mythic Eldrazi): Eldritch hunger tied to mana itself.
The Floor is Lava (Trap Room): YES. Dungeon traps now in play. 🔥
The rest of the Feral Explorers and their kin look around wildly as the screams echo around them. Most bolt for the cover of the jungle, escaping into the darkness and the safe cover of the forest foliage. But many more stay, frightened but intrigued, wishing to see the fate their companion had met. Crawling out of the entrance to the temple was their companion. Or at least what was left of him. His legs were mangled beyond belief, his arms just slightly less so; His face and chest were covered in brutal scratches and his eyes were empty sockets, black and devoid of any color. He collapsed onto the ground, his mangled whimpers horrifying his companions. Emerging from the entrance was a second figure. A tall, slim, bird like beast, reminiscent of the birds of prey that stalk the island. But this one was in brutal condition, its skin seemingly removed and replaced with a thick covering of muscle tissue. It's face had double in size, making its head a brutal battering ram, and its wings were torn and matted. But worse were its eyes; the creature had seemingly ripped out the eyes of the mangled explorer and placed them in its own sockets, making it seemingly cry blood. It lunged forward, driving it's pick-ax head into the back of the explorer, killing it instantly, severing the spinal cord. Then it turned its attention to the others as they bolted for the jungle. They would have to learn the hard way that it could still fly.
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Phase 6: “Blood in the Canopy”
The jungle watches.
The temple bleeds.
The air splits with screams… and wings.
🦍 The Feral Explorers scatter — some driven by fear, some by loyalty, all by the need to understand.
From the temple mouth crawls what was once one of their own. A vessel of pain and memory, broken beyond recognition.
But then:
The Sky Maw emerges.
Tall, birdlike. Skinless. Weapon-headed. Crying blood from stolen eyes. It flies.
A hunter birthed from warped leyline energy and stitched into a godform of agony. Its wings are torn but functional — it doesn’t soar; it rips the air open and falls like vengeance.
🌿 Meanwhile in the trees...
The rest of the Ferals regroup. One clutches a pendant he’s never seen before, but feels oddly familiar.
Another starts humming a tune, ancient and trembling, and the leaves around him... stop rustling.
These aren’t just monkeys anymore.
They were once the Big Five.
Memory hurts, but it also fights back.
🧩 COMMUNITY CHALLENGE: The Turning Point
Choose your next act:
🔮 Reveal a Relic of the Big Five
🧠 Design a Memory Surge mechanic or event
🦍 Give voice to a Feral regaining sentience
🪶 Delve deeper into the horrors of Sky Maw
📜 Or... unveil another Room of the Dungeon
💡 Bonus idea: What is the dungeon exactly? A temple? A ship? A creature?
“Suffering tells stories... but survival shapes legends.”
Bring on the next echo, survivors. The island listens.
@jpastor could I probably have a lil summary on what the story is so far? I might want to join but my braincells are kinda fried from the 5 pages of words
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Midpoint Recap: “Shocking Revelation”
New travelers arrive. Old minds awaken.
And now… we know the truth.
“The ancient temple is actually a crashed alien spacecraft?!?”
🧠 SHOCKING REVELATION (WUBRG Sorcery, Mythic):
Reality cracks wide open. The leyline surge was never natural. This place is a wreckage. Not of stone, but starsteel.
🧭 STORY SO FAR: Tropivolca
🌴 Tropivolca is a hidden island whispered about in the wild mana of Llanowar — lush, volcanic, untouched… until now.
🦍 A group of ape-like beings known as the Feral Explorers arrive, drawn by instinct and forgotten memory. They explore a temple buried in the jungle.
🔮 Leylines fluctuate wildly here — it’s a mana nexus, and something underneath is causing it.
🧬 It’s revealed that the Ferals were once powerful elven mystics called the Big Five, who erased their own memories and transformed into animals to seal a dangerous force long ago.
😱 Now, as they explore the temple, memories return — and with them come horrors:
Alien iconography on the walls.
Mutated beasts.
A monstrous entity called the Sky Maw that steals eyes and flies.
🔥 The temple is not a temple. It’s a crashed alien vessel. The ancient elven magic was never meant to control it — only to hide it.
Is it even possible that starships exist in MTG, like can you even leave the atmosphere of an plane like Llanowar or do you then go into the blind eternities?
Quite interesting! I wonder if the aliens are specifically from any planet or place that they consider home? Or could they just be vagabond in some form?
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I also tried to make a dungeon, but the dungeon creator didn't work : (
It crawled inside, following in the footsteps of others. It lingers in the halls. Noises of suffering emanate from the statues. It whimpers as it approaches.
The horror in front of them was indescribable. A mass of muscle tissue and organic matter fused to what seemed to have been the body of a humanoid being. Organs hung from what was left of the abdomen, and the…thing’s…brain was exposed and covered in tumors. The tentacle like organisms along the creature’s began grasping, searching. They ran. But deeper.
The mangled screams echoed for miles through the jungle.
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Phase 5: “Don’t Reawaken the Tentacles”
The Temple of Warped Leylines pulses.
The jungle remembers.
And now, the island awakens.
🔥 LORE UPDATE:
From Mellow_MC’s descent, we learn:
Then the truth:
🧠 One monkey remembers.
He was one of the Big Five—elven mystics who sealed the temple and erased their identities by becoming apes.
But memory returns. And their bodies… were never meant to contain it.
Too late.
🌋 Dungeon Expansion:
Temple of Warped Leylines (Land): Reality folds. Mana mutates. Balance fractures.
What Lies Beneath (Mythic Eldrazi): Eldritch hunger tied to mana itself.
The Floor is Lava (Trap Room): YES. Dungeon traps now in play. 🔥
And then…
The jungle isn’t empty.
It’s alive with forgotten gods, mana beasts, cursed knowledge — and you’ve gone too far to turn back now.
🎭 COMMUNITY CHALLENGE: ESCALATION
You may now:
Reveal another Room or Trap
Introduce a Horror
Write the next moment in the descent
Unlock a hidden memory of the Big Five
Or choose to RETREAT… but will the island let you?
The Experiment has reached the Point of No Return.
Crawling out of the entrance to the temple was their companion. Or at least what was left of him. His legs were mangled beyond belief, his arms just slightly less so; His face and chest were covered in brutal scratches and his eyes were empty sockets, black and devoid of any color. He collapsed onto the ground, his mangled whimpers horrifying his companions.
Emerging from the entrance was a second figure. A tall, slim, bird like beast, reminiscent of the birds of prey that stalk the island. But this one was in brutal condition, its skin seemingly removed and replaced with a thick covering of muscle tissue. It's face had double in size, making its head a brutal battering ram, and its wings were torn and matted. But worse were its eyes; the creature had seemingly ripped out the eyes of the mangled explorer and placed them in its own sockets, making it seemingly cry blood.
It lunged forward, driving it's pick-ax head into the back of the explorer, killing it instantly, severing the spinal cord. Then it turned its attention to the others as they bolted for the jungle.
They would have to learn the hard way that it could still fly.
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Phase 6: “Blood in the Canopy”
The jungle watches.
The temple bleeds.
The air splits with screams… and wings.
🦍 The Feral Explorers scatter — some driven by fear, some by loyalty, all by the need to understand.
From the temple mouth crawls what was once one of their own. A vessel of pain and memory, broken beyond recognition.
But then:
The Sky Maw emerges.
A hunter birthed from warped leyline energy and stitched into a godform of agony. Its wings are torn but functional — it doesn’t soar; it rips the air open and falls like vengeance.
🌿 Meanwhile in the trees...
The rest of the Ferals regroup. One clutches a pendant he’s never seen before, but feels oddly familiar.
Another starts humming a tune, ancient and trembling, and the leaves around him... stop rustling.
🧩 COMMUNITY CHALLENGE: The Turning Point
Choose your next act:
🔮 Reveal a Relic of the Big Five
🧠 Design a Memory Surge mechanic or event
🦍 Give voice to a Feral regaining sentience
🪶 Delve deeper into the horrors of Sky Maw
📜 Or... unveil another Room of the Dungeon
💡 Bonus idea: What is the dungeon exactly? A temple? A ship? A creature?
Bring on the next echo, survivors. The island listens.
The Experiment ⚪🔵⚫🔴🟢 — Midpoint Recap: “Shocking Revelation”
New travelers arrive. Old minds awaken.
And now… we know the truth.
🧠 SHOCKING REVELATION (WUBRG Sorcery, Mythic):
Reality cracks wide open. The leyline surge was never natural. This place is a wreckage. Not of stone, but starsteel.
🧭 STORY SO FAR: Tropivolca
🦍 A group of ape-like beings known as the Feral Explorers arrive, drawn by instinct and forgotten memory. They explore a temple buried in the jungle.
🔮 Leylines fluctuate wildly here — it’s a mana nexus, and something underneath is causing it.
🧬 It’s revealed that the Ferals were once powerful elven mystics called the Big Five, who erased their own memories and transformed into animals to seal a dangerous force long ago.
😱 Now, as they explore the temple, memories return — and with them come horrors:
Alien iconography on the walls.
Mutated beasts.
A monstrous entity called the Sky Maw that steals eyes and flies.
🔥 The temple is not a temple. It’s a crashed alien vessel. The ancient elven magic was never meant to control it — only to hide it.
Now, it's reawakening.
🎲 Community Gameplay
Anyone can join by:
Submitting custom cards (creatures, spells, rooms, traps, artifacts, etc)
Writing lore snippets or scenes
Theorizing about the mystery
Creating new mechanics (like “Memory Surge” or “Leyline Collapse”)
Expanding the dungeon (or ship?) and what’s inside
Changing the course of this discussion from whatever this is currently to something completely different.
All tones welcome: dark, spooky, dramatic, silly, eldritch, exploratory, or weird!
Next Community Prompt: “Into the Crashsite”
Design a card or event revealing more of the alien origin
Reveal another part of the vessel/dungeon
Flashback to a moment from the Big Five’s past
Or show how one Feral begins to resist the Sky Maw’s influence…
Welcome aboard, @yomogimaruu—and anyone else brave enough to join.
The jungle is alive, and the island... remembers.