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Renaissance Set — Creative Design
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I'm guessing it's the discovery of different emotions? I can see how ambition can be considered emotion though maybe jealousy, envy, or pride would be closer to actual emotions? Patience is on the same boat, I get how it could be seen as an emotion though there may be more emotional options like calm, serenity, or even anxiety? As for valour, I don't really see it as an emotion at all.
For the arts, I couldn't find for a green one, the closest thing I found was this which displays a green light hanging from a stick instead of the character actually catching it like in the rest of the illustrations: http://huussii.deviantart.com/art/Exiled-Druids-of-Lornwood-622851414
There was also this alternate blue one that I liked:http://vibrantvectron.deviantart.com/art/Fairy-Fountains-688262703
@everyone Here's a little mix of evil hands to illustrate the weird little story skeleton above:
Is that Black Lotus in Work of Inspiration? O_o
Just remember to spell it "artifact" instead of "artefact." I know this isn't your native language
I like the rough story outline you've presented, but there are a couple things that conflict with the insofar accepted story basis.
First, I think we've settled on a vast archipelago, so a single monarch (the Princess/assassinated King) might not make sense. Maybe the leader of a specific island?
Second, I don't really like the idea of a "greatest art" ever. Remember, greatness in terms of artistic creations, is subjective and relies on the viewer's perspective. Although it is a good way of keeping the story pinned down, so to speak.
Third, I don't think there should only be eight muses. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we earlier tentatively settled on five to eight main Muses, with countless others. So maybe just tweak that to some of the main Muses are kidnapped.
Fourth, I find "Realm of Shadows" to be a little cliche XD
And finally, I think that there needs to be a more explicit evil than "a malevolent force." Is it a Planeswalker? Is it a rogue Muse? Is it a natural phenomenon? Are the Muses overflowing with so much emotion that it creates a natural negative? If we're going to have an antagonist, it can't be too vague.
@Everybody
Now, it's time to take a look at some archetypes. For major tropes, we have the following: Art, Exploration, Emotion, and Innovation. Add to that the mechanical trope of life-matters, and, in particular, Psylian life. Minor tropes include religion and humanism.
- Art: I think art should really be all colors. Virtuoso probably mostly on blue, red, and either black or green, though I think it is definitely workable in all colors.
- Exploration: UBG for sure. Green because, duh; blue because of the cartography/mercantile aspects, and black for the danger.
- Emotion: Again, all colors, but the most emotion-y color is red.
- Innovation/Science/Technology: UR is the classic science color combo. I think black could be ostensibly added to that if we want it to be more versatile.
- Religion: WBR. White for worship and solidarity, black and read for the zealots. I think that a whole bunch of new religions should come into conflict in this set. WotC hasn't really played around with monotheism, unless you count Avacyn on Innistrad, so I think we could try that out.
- Humanism: WUG. Drop that casually into your next MTG conversation XD "How was your day?" "Oh, it was wug. Distinctly wug." "Huh??" "Oh, you know... white blue green."
This is a very Renaissance concept, and right out of the womb it locks horns with religion. I think WUG is a good color combo for this, though this is the one I'm least sure about. Suggestions?
- Psylian life: Oof, this is a hard one. I think mostly in............... I have no idea XD Can anybody help??
Otherwise, I think you did a very fine job at distributing the themes ^^ Now, what we want to do is to take a bicolour combination and describe how it should play (roughly).
Here's an example:
GU Exploration (Control) — Tempo gameplay that seeks to both ramp into huge spells thanks to Green and slow down the opponent thanks to Blue. Heavily relies on the mechanic Discover, it both helps you discover what you're looking for with manipulation of the top cards of your library and then rewards you when you succesfully manage a discovery.
Great feedback on the story thanks! This will be especially useful to finally set the basic story plot in stone.
- Renaissance makes me think of beautiful castles, princes, princesses, knights and a court. Considering the amount of artworks on the subject, it would be a shame to cut it from the set because it slightly conflicts with the archipelago theme. I'm sure there are multiple ways to make it fit, they could be auto-proclamed rulers of the world even though they don't really know what's on those islands for instance ^^
- I thought the idea of a piece of art recognized as the most beautiful ever created was an interesting concept precisely because it makes you wonder how such a thing could be possible ^^ But it's just a try on a plot device, and can easily be replaced. And yes, I used the black lotus as a reference for something unfathomably beautiful, I thought it would startle players x) Was it too much?
- Yes, everything in the story is still pretty maleable for now. I needed something that could be stolen and that was important, so I declared there were 8 muses and 3 were gone (to mimick how Amonkhet Gods were handled.) But it can be rewritten as anything else: a multitude of muses with plenty stolen, or only five remaining, only 5 muses and 1 stolen, etc.
- Shadow Realm is quite cliché XD I'm looking for ideas, a cool name or something.
- I think it could be vague, but yes I do also think it would be more satisfying to have a tangible answer behing the mystery. Someone must be behind this. I just don't know who yet XD I'll try to think about it tomorrow morning and come up with a new version with all those changes ^^
Absolute Daus: fear
Absolute Daus: Hope
Absolute Daus: Vigor
Absolute Daus: Insainity
Absolute Daus: Innovation
Absolute Daus: control
I'm more curious what's up with the absurdly large numbers on ALL of the cards and what their context might be in terms of the set...
I'm putting together a doc for myself to keep track of everything we have for the set in terms of story, mechanics, archetypes, etc., and ideally it will be less cluttered than this thread haha. So, if @ningyounk could please put the current versions of the mechanics we have in a quick comment on here, that would be awesome, and @MagicChess if you could either put the current story aspects we have (or at least put the page number of the last summary lol) I could put all of that in the doc. Then I can update it as we go, and if anyone needs the most current (official, not speculative) changes to anything, I should have them all organized.
I'm also about to write a small story that'll hopefully work to at least partially establish the following:
- The primary force that drives the conflict in the story
- A possible story-event that could work with cards
- The tone of the conflict and some of the themes and tropes we've discussed
We'll obviously flesh these out more fully, but hopefully this short story will assist in cementing some of the ideas we've been playing around with.
Wow many many cards x) Mechanically (and on templating) you tend to go a bit everywhere so it's difficult to give you a thorough feedback. They are a bit too unrealistic to project what something similar would look like in the set, my best advice to create more realistic cards would be to check on the Gatherer http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx when you design for cards that do approximately the same thing and look for patterns to copy.
Now, they are concept cards so the important thing here is the concept! I'm still unsure of what's a Daus? How would they fit in the same world as the muses for instance? For the story card, what part of the story do you want to represent with that?
@syntheticreign
There is a design file actually (I won't make it public for now because you can see the real names of some of the people involved), but I haven't updated it since we started this thread. I'm going to update the front page of the thread with the mechanic information and story information so it's easier to jump in the conversation (though I doubt anyone would want to jump in the middle of a 13 pages conversation that's filled with tiny details about 5 pages ago ^^"). This is the reason why I plan on closing this thread and starting a second one for the design phase by the way, so we may attract new people, like some sort of checkpoint
- The muses going then coming back: I don't think it's possible to show that through cards, the time line is just too confusing and the cards will still coexist at the same time. Let's fine a time period where we have a fix number of muses at all time. For instance, the story could start either when the muses arrive on the plane and their arrival is the mystery, or the muses were there since the beginning but they get stolen and their kidnapping is the mystery.
- Lack of creativity: Similarly, I don't think it's a good idea to picture both cards about great inspiration with Virtuoso and everything, and at the same time a lack of creativity. We're setting the tone for a new plane, I think we should start simple and clear by putting the tone as an inspired plane, then keep the twists to the basic plot (lack of creativity) for a hypothetical return maybe.
- The idea of Royalty is better integrated.
- Exploration is better integrated.
- There's a tangible enemy.
- Definition of Muses allow for more flexibility.
1) Creation of the muse of Envy. Muses are everywhere on the plane, from the little muses to the four Great Muses of Bliss, Despair, Love, and Ire. A planeswalker specialized in dark arts successfully manages to create a piece of art so beautiful it hatches into the fifth muse, the Muse of Envy.
2) The Great Rapt. The apparition of the fifth muse disturbs the emotional balance of every living being including the planeswalker him/herself. He/she decides to steal everything in the kingdom with powerful art magic.
3) Disparition of the king. The king have been kidnapped in the Great Rapt. His daughter takes his place as the entire realm mourns, thinking he's dead.
4) The sirens reveal where the king is kept. Thankfully, the sirens know the numerous islands of this plane much better than the people of the land. They reveal that they know the king is kept prisonner on an island of the unknown world by the planeswalker of dark arts.
5) The final battle. An armada of explorers is sent to unravel the unknown world and find the king. They manage to find the castle where the planeswalker of dark arts is hiding, but he/she's prepared for battle.
I think we could go with the Muses having just returned a few years ago (for the cards they are simply present, for the story they just returned), and now something (or someone) is messing with the balance of emotions that the Muses bring.
@syntheticreign That could work cardwise ^^ But why are you so attached to the idea of them returning instead of just being new? Does it allow something specific you have in mind? Flavourfully, I don't see why we need that loop?
As I've said in a couple comments (that have undoubtedly been lost in this lingual sea haha), I really like the idea of this cyclical nature of the Muses because it makes the plane seems far older, giving it a history rather than making it feel like it was just created for this set (even though it was). Also, it sets up nicely for story on a follow-up set, even if one isn't made.
I've posited the notion that the Muses retreat to meditation for several decades to recharge, then return for several more, overflowing with emotion. This sets up a cycle that allows 2 mechanics focused on the story, "Overflow" and "Recharge", while simultaneously cementing the existence of the Muses as far more than spontaneous creations. This means that we can explore multiple tones and histories, all which technically would already exist in the plane.
the card (chain the vile) is in the story at the end of the battle,
following your story the citizens of said plane decide to restore balace by chaining up the muse in magic so her effect is not as feelt as it was.
The denizens of the plane don't want to bind the Muses? The Muses are the source of creativity and emotional outpouring, the source of the great art creations. They are the primary good force in the realm...
Where does that leads us storywise? I'd say there's a celebration for the return of the Muses, Story Spotlight #1. Maybe one Great Muse (the ones that get a card) is missing? Or there is an additional one this time? Or someone tries something bad at the Celebration? Or maybe it's just as perfect as it should be and troubles come later?
By the way, we discussed having many muses with some more important than others, but how do we picture the other muses on the cards? We shouldn't add important elements storywise that we can't reflect on cards. Maybe we can symbolize them? I was thinking butterflies or flowers earlier. They are a pretty common painting subject for artworks, and they are a metaphor for something that cycles.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G6RyW
I tried the image, the background indeed looks super weird I'm affraid
Because you mentioned me in that last comment instead of @Lujikul XD
This means that we'll need much weaker 2 and 3 drops and more powerful 6 and 7 drops. 2 drops currently are like 80% of the limited decks. Hour slowed down a bit, but not a whole lot. We need to emphasize the long-game a bit, giving people reason to gain life and live longer to play stronger things.