[WB] Design Journal: Khorrim

[Zatara]

I like building worlds. Mostly I have experience building worlds for D&D, which has been my roleplaying bread and butter for the past 10 years or so. I often have more fun building the world than I do playing the game, stemming mostly from my shortcomings as a DM. But for this project I wanted to try something a little bit different. I’m going to build a world (one that I’ve built many iterations of over the years) for a Magic: The Gathering card block.

For those of you aren’t familiar with it, Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game that puts the player in the role of a mighty Planeswalker, a being of immense power that wanders the multiverse, casting spells, summoning creatures and doing battle with other Planeswalkers. Every year a new block (composed of three sets of cards) is released set in a new plane of existence, with new creatures and new dangers. Khorrim will take the place of the next block—in my mind anyways. (More information regarding Magic: The Gathering and an in-depth breakdown of its rules can be found here.)

My goals with this project are to:

• Create a vibrant setting for a fantasy roleplaying game.
• Create a fully playable Magic: The Gathering block of three card sets.

With that in mind, this will be a journal of my progress where I will document my thoughts and ideas for personal reference as much for anyone who is interested in the project.

I welcome any feedback, critical or supportive, of both the idea and its execution.

Note: This is a not-for-profit project that does not intend to, nor will it ever, sell the cards it creates. All artwork has been collected from the internet and is given credit on the bottom of each card, crediting the username and site where it was discovered (when possible). If anyone sees a piece of work they have created and would like it to not be involved in this project, please message me and I will remove it.

 

[Zatara]

PART 1: BROAD STROKES

To start this project off I want to decide what the overall themes should be for the three separate sets in the block and do some brainstorming. But before we do that the three sets have to have names so we can more easily describe and discuss them. We don’t have a name yet for what each set is going to actually be called so, in typical Magic: The Gathering fashion, we’ll choose ‘codenames’ for the three sets. When the designers of actual Magic sets choose codenames they use a unifying theme to link the three set names together (e.g., “Huey”, “Dewey”, and “Lewey”). I recently saw Macbeth again so I think that will be the theme for the codenames. One of my favourite lines of Macbeth comes from the witches: “Double, double toil and trouble.” So that’ll be what we call the three sets: “Double”, “Toil”, and “Trouble” (in that order).

So now that we know that let’s do some brainstorming jot notes. (I’ve tried to be consistent in writing down my first thoughts but upon reading the jot notes back I had some additional thoughts, expressed in indented bullets; likewise, I have gone back through and struck out some ideas I didn’t like/didn’t think were compatible.)

• A sprawling empire. I would like the focus of the set to be on one sprawling empire that spans the main continent(s) of the game world.
• A Crusade. The empire will go on a crusade to lands distant to spread religious beliefs, recover artifacts or a third mystery option (yet unconceived).
• Different types of magic. There will be four distinct magical types: Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Psionics and Elemental Magic. Each type of magic will have its own flavour and, in game terms, be activated with different triggers.
• Arcane Magic vs. Psionics. I’d like the main focus of at least one set to be a showdown between these two types of ‘magic’, with Arcane magic being the commonplace and Psionics seen as something exotic and dangerous.
• Goblins. Goblins are my favourite Magic: The Gathering creature and I’d like to see them get some love in this setting; maybe they won’t be the ‘founding race’ who formed the major empire in the game, but I’d like them to carry some kind of pivotal or noteworthy role.
• Holy orders.Tying in with the Crusade theme, I’d like there to be Holy Orders who are searching (or have found) secret relics and treasures.
• Arcane Shards. Maybe Arcane Shards (crystals filled with magic) are the thing that sparks the crusade into the Far Realm (placeholder name for the place that’s far away where the crusades are taking place).
  • Maybe Arcane Shards power the psionic powers of the Far Realm’s inhabitants, pitting the Arcane magic of the major empire against the Psionic magic/powers of the Far Realm.
• Decline of Divine. Divine magic and the worship of the Old Gods is declining throughout the realms of the major empire. The Faith based theocracies that used to rule individual kingdoms have been replaced by an empire focused on Arcane magic (read: science).
• Arcanix. I had this name for a nation in the first iteration of Khorrim I ever made and I think I’d like to bring it back for this for the name of the major empire, which is so dependent on the Arcane arts that it even is reflected in their name.
• Elemental Magic. Elemental magic is outlawed by Arcanix the major empire because it’s a dangerous and destructive magic that is practiced only by the elves.
• Six Five Seals of Khorrim. There are six seals that keep the ‘echoes’ (the planes of existence from where all Khorrim’s magic comes) tied to Khorrim and from colliding into it. There are Five ‘known’ seals: The Seal of Creation (White), The Seal of the Wild (Green), The Seal of Destruction (Red), The Seal of the Eventide (Blue), The Seal of the Moon (Colourless), and the Forgotten Seal (Black). There are five seals: The Seal of Creation (White), The Seal of the Wild (Green), The Seal of Chaos (Red), the Seal of Eventide (Blue), The Seal of Shadow (Black). These seals are represented physically in Khorrim by the five moons that rotate the world.
  • The seals are invariably destroyed at some point by Arcanix’s the major empire’s conquest for power.
• The Five Echoes.[/b] In Dungeons & Dragons there are planar states known as the echoes, of which there are two: The Feywild and the Shadowfell. On Khorrim there are five echoes of creation: The Feywild, the Shadowfell, the Eventide, the Elemental Chaos, and the Astral Sea. Each of the echoes has a mana type that is most closely associated with it (the Feywild is Green, the Shadowfell is Black, the Elemental Chaos is Red, the Astral Sea is White, and Eventide is Blue).
  • Players familiar with Magic: The Gathering will recognize Eventide as a previous block. Unfortunately I have yet to discover a better alternative to call the Blue echo of creation, so I have been forced to go with Eventide. I am open to suggestions, but otherwise Eventide is what will have to stay until I think up something more original.
  • I’m leaning towards using Arcanix as the name of the plane and finding a new name for the empire.
• Magic reflected in colours. Maybe the different types of magic should be reflected by the in-game colours of cards: Blue represents Arcane magic; Red represents Elemental magic, Green represents Fey magic; White represents Divine magic; Black magic represents Shadow magic; and colourless (Artifacts et al) represents Psionics.
• Five colour decks. I’d really like to see one set (maybe the first or the last set) be all about five colour decks, the unity of all five colours working together.
• Return of the Orcs. Orcs in Khorrim have, for a long time, been missing from the world, or the main continents at least; they make a triumphant return at an opportune moment to reestablish themselves as a superpower to rival that of Arcanix the major empire.
• Return of the Old Gods. There were five Old Gods, each hailing from one of the echoes of creation.

That’s quite a few things so that’s probably a good place to stop brainstorming.

Some things that stand out to me are the repeated use of different types of magic. I’d really like to find a way to incorporate elements of Dungeons & Dragons magic with the different colours of mana that exist in Magic: The Gathering. Part of me wants to invent mechanics for each of the different colours of mana to represent the different types of magic, but that seems like both too much work and too complex of an addition to the game when it comes to balancing later on (generally Magic: The Gathering blocks introduce a single new mechanic, or a new mechanic for each of the three sets that make up the block). I also really like the idea of a crusade, and I think that’s going to be a reoccurring motif going forward. The idea of the elves being elementalists is also appealing to me. I like to think of them as ‘out-of-color’ so to speak. Elves are, and have always been, a creature type that was represented by green mana, but as elementalists that would make them red creatures (remember elementalists use red mana).

As I think more about it, I might need to rename the different types of magic in the same vein of thought as I named Fey magic, naming them not for the type of magic they wield, but for the seal that they are represented by. This could make things a little bit more complex and differ from Dungeons & Dragons more, but it might make more sense. For example, there is more than the element of fire, so having elementalists represented by just red mana wouldn’t make too much sense. This leads me back to the aforementioned idea of introducing new mechanics for each type of magic so that the different types of magic aren’t bound to a single color. I’d still like certain types of magic to be more profound in one type of colour, but there should be the freedom for the magic types to transcend colour as well.

Alright that’s a good start for what I want to put in this world. Not all of these things are likely compatible so I’ll have to mull some things over and decide the direction I want to go. Next time, we’ll discuss potential gameplay mechanics for the cards to have to represent these themes and motifs.

 

[Zatara]

PART 2: MECHANICS OF MAGIC

I’ve been thinking about how the mechanics for this will work and I’m more and more convinced that the best way to achieve what I want is to break the mold of Magic: The Gathering sets and to generate game mechanics for each of the different types of magic. I don’t know how yet I will be engineering this, but suffice it to say, it should be an interesting undertaking. We’ll just brainstorm some ideas and themes for how mechanics will work and then we’ll see if we can’t make something from nothing.

Arcane Magic

The first one I want to look at is Arcane magic, which will be, arguably, the strongest type of magic in the realms of Khorrim—at least to start. The major empire uses Arcane magic regularly, as a science and as an art. I’m becoming more attached to the idea of the empire using Arcane shards as a way of generating or enhancing their mana output; maybe as a type of unsustainable fuel (as discussed briefly in the brainstorm, I think I’d like arcane shards to be a part of the reason why there’s a crusade into the Far Realms). In terms of game balance, arcane magic simply can’t be stronger than the other types of magic, or else everyone would only ever choose arcane magic. But the appearance of it being stronger is something that I can definitely look into. Perhaps by creating a mechanic that is weaker, I can give it some stronger abilities, allowing it to look stronger than it actually is. But that’s all gypsy mumbo jumbo.

Arcane magic should be something that’s variable in strength. Maybe Arcane magic is severely limited by the type of Arcane shards that are available to the caster. The weaker the shards, the weaker the spells and the stronger the shards, the stronger the spells. In game mechanics, this could potentially be represented by Arcane Magic being determinant upon the number of land types among all known land types a player uses to pay for the spell, expressed as:

• 
  Arcane magic — For each different colour of mana used to cast this spell [effect].

Players who were playing with Arcane decks would then be pointed towards playing towards a five-colour deck in the game, which makes the deck substantially weaker (in my experience playing three colours or fewer in a deck is the most efficient strategy), but the abilities can be a little stronger to give a reason to players looking to play as an Arcane caster.

I like that. So let’s move on to the next type of magic: Elemental magic.

Elemental Magic

Elemental Magic should be fierce and powerful; an unrestrained, nigh uncontrollable type of power. Casters who use it should be able to use any of the four elements (Air [White], Water [Blue], Earth [Green], and Fire [Red], with black being omitted). But it should come with a heavy price to the user. In game lore, I want Elemental Magic to be one of the old types of magic, more ancient than the trees and the rivers. Elemental Magic comes from the Elemental Chaos, which is where all of creation originates from (out of the chaos came the Gods who created the world, or something to that effect). Yet of all the creatures in the world, it is the Elves who still use it. The other races have discovered Divine or Arcane magic, or Psionics, but the elves cling to the old ways of the past. This makes them tribal and shamanistic. Elemental magic should be damaging to all participants whenever possible.

Elemental Magic should also be about big creatures. The other types of magic should have creatures, and some of them be bruisers—but Elementalists should have access to the most of these big creatures, capable of killing a player in only a few turns.

Players who play with a deck that has Elemental magic in it should have the strategy of dealing damage while building up an army of creatures for the final attack. Trample will be an important keyword in elemental decks, and so will creatures and artifacts that are able to produce mana by being tapped. But what do we do about new mechanics? I’m thinking I might not need a new mechanic for this. The Devotion mechanic, introduced in the Theros block might work perfectly for a mechanic. The devotion mechanic counts each mana symbol among permanents you control and then has an effect which is determinant upon that total number.

An example of a Devotion ability.​

In terms of lore, I think this matches up nicely with the insinuation that elemental magic is tribal. Mana casters want to have as much devotion to their chosen colour as possible. In game mechanics, I think it works as a good foil to the Arcane ability discussed previously as well. Where the power of Arcane will come from amassing as many colours as possible, the Elementalist will want to be frugal in the colours he or she chooses for a deck.

Up next we’ll take a look at Divine Magic.

Divine Magic

This is the type of magic that comes from the worship of the new Gods. It should be separate from the worship of the Old Gods, who are primordial beings of immense power. The new Gods are the ones who deposed the Old Gods and replaced them. They grant wishes, miracles and other divine interventions for the races of Khorrim but don’t walk the world or otherwise interfere in mortal affairs. The Gods also allow for clerics and other magic users to cast spells by channeling their divine essence through them. Yet despite the power of the Gods their favour with the people is waning. The people now prefer the simplicity and ease of Arcane power over the rituals and prayers to the Divine.

Mechanically I would like to represent the flavour ability of channeling through divine beings. Luckily there already exists a mechanic called Channel in the Magic: the Gathering universe. The mechanic works essentially by being able to discard a creature card for a temporary ability that would be similar to what the creature’s ability would be if it were put into play.

A channel ability.​

It could be easy to reflavour the ability as only working on creatures of the cleric type, but I’m not yet sure if it is the ability I’m going to use for Divine magic going forward. I might want to retool it to make it a little bit more suited for Khorrim, and give it a renaming. For now though we’ll leave it as is.

Shadow Magic

The next type of magic is Shadow magic. In the flavour Shadow magic is forbidden and shunned throughout the major empire, even more so than the Elemental magic. Whereas elemental magic is seen as dangerous and unwieldy, Shadow magic is seen as perverse and unnatural. Coming from the Shadowfell Shadow magic is more analogous to demonic possession than actual magic. Beings of immense power from the Shadow realm are sometimes able to pass into the mortal body of a creature in Khorrim, when circumstances are perfect. Sometimes however these possessions go terribly awry and the result is a Horror, a creature that transforms into a horrifying being of great power. Transformed by the dark and secret magic this creature becomes a slave to the demonic force that created it.

But we’ll cover horrors later on when we get to creatures, for now we should stick to the matter at hand: how does Shadow magic differ itself from the other types of magic, in terms of mechanics? Well I want it to tie into the element of generating Horrors, so I’m thinking maybe it will show up on Enchant creature cards only (or, if not exclusively, mostly). Shadow magic will be all about creatures transforming, so maybe we could use it on creatures too. Similar to the way that they were used in the previous Innistrad block for transforming creatures into Werewolves and Vampires (or perhaps even bring the Morph mechanic back into action) creatures cast with Shadow magic will be transformed into hideous Horrors.

Left to right: A creature with morph, and a creature with Transform (the two cards on the right are the front and back of one card, respectively)​

I think the name has inspired an idea for me though. I’ll call the mechanic that distinguishes shadow magic Shadowfall. Yes, I like that. Shadowfall will work by checking the number of permanents in a graveyard that have Shadowfall, and then amplifying the effect of the ability based on that number (excluding the played card). So it will be expressed as:

• Shadowfall — For each other permanent in your graveyard with Shadowfall [effect].

I have a feeling, however, that this will be a slightly overpowered ability if it counts all cards in the graveyard with this ability. It will, almost certainly need to be toned down to be more playable, but for now I like that ability.

Fey Magic

Finally we come to the last of the true magics: Fey magic. Fey magic is what is known inherently by the Fey creatures of the world. Unlike many of the other races of Khorrim who have had to learn and harness their magical aptitudes, Fey creatures are inherently magical. Millennia ago there was a bridge between the Feywild and Khorrim, but it was destroyed when the seals were created. Those creatures who were on Khorrim’s side of the veil became the Fey races, and they have since carved out a home for themselves in this world, unable to ever return home. Fey magic is special in its inherency. It can never be learned. Only creatures whose spirits are linked to the Feywild can ever wield it.

For game mechanics, I’m thinking I would like it to be an ability for creatures only to represent its being used by only Fey creatures. I would like it to be the least powerful of all the magics in the first set of cards (“Double”) to represent the way that the link between the Feywild and the Fey creatures is beginning to diminish after so many millennia of separation. There should be three tenets of Fey magic: protection, vitality and mana. A Fey ability should either generate mana, protect the player or creatures by making them temporarily stronger (buffs), or grant life to the controlling player. I also like the idea of Fey magic being something of a foil to Shadow magic, in that Fey heals and restores while Shadow weakens and destroys.

I’m thinking that the Fey mechanic will be:

• Fey Magic — For each other permanent you control with Fey magic on the battlefield [effect].

I like that this kind of runs contrary to the Shadowfall mechanic discussed earlier, but I’m not sure if it quite fits in with the lore behind the game. The lore can always be adapted though to make it more inclusive. Maybe the Fey communities thrive on helping each other out.

For now, though, that’s how the magic mechanics will work. For those of you keeping score at home, you’ll notice I have yet to mention Psionics, and that is, I assure you, intentional. I don’t yet know how I want to present that particular off-shoot of magic with mechanics so I’m going to leave it alone for now and maybe come back to it later, before we start designing all of the cards. What I can say about it now though is that I want it to be on artifact creatures only, and I want it to represent something of a hive mind. But it’s still kicking around in my head, so I’ll leave it for now.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or criticisms please feel free to share them.