Negashard Story Concept
Custom Cards forum
Posted on May 18, 2010, 3:28 a.m. by Zanven
As promised, I'm home from work and going to write up that revised over-view of the Negashard setting.
My agenda :
1) The plane still needs a name. Negashard is fine for us in development because we know what we're talking about, but Alara was still called Alara over-all and each shard had its separate name.
2) A general loose plot. Since this is an inverse of Alara, I figured we'd do the opposite. Alara's backstory was that it was initially one plane and an unmentioned planeswalker sucked it dry of mana until it broke apart and screwed off with a huge sack of mana with a dollar sign on it. Years later, each piece is floating around as its own shard. This is where the players of the set come in and are introduced to the shards. Then the Maelstrom happens and the shards are all wedged together and fighting, and Alara is reborn as one plane.
What is the inverse of this? Backstory : Potentially that same unmentioned planeswalker went and created artificial planes/plane shards out in the Blind Eternities. As everyone knows, artificial planes are doomed to deteriorate on their own and fall apart, so in an effort to save his creation, he wedged them together in the hopes that they would bind together and self-sustain. This is where the players of the set come in; each shard is currently surrounded on both sides by strange and foreign shards and have to work together and fight. Eventually, at the end, the Undoing is the opposite of the Maelstrom, the shards break apart from each other, and No-name is separated as individual plane shards again for peace.
Also for fun, we can have all of the shards fade away and cease to exist, which reflects the fan nature of our project (non-canon and thus no lasting impact on the actual blocks).
Currently for a plane name over-all, I was thinking Sarcoma, which is any malignance similar to cancer, but it (Wikipedia ahoy!) "arises from transformed connective tissue cells". In this case, the transformed planes that are connected to one another. It was never a real plane to start with, and it only exists because several fake planes were wedged together.
3) Races on the planes. I'm going to expand on this in another post in just a moment rather than have a gigantic chunk of text here, but since the angle I was going for was artificial planes, I wanted to borrow under-used races and creatures from other planes. Magic backstory in general states that artifical planes end up with all kinds of transplants and immigrants from all over, which would explain the odd mish-mash of keywords we have going on at the moment (although that may be smoothed out in the selection process).
Suggestions and extrapolation are always welcome, this is just a rough over-view for now.
I'm assuming this is the over all plot of all three sets. If so awesome. (first being them being all by themselves, second being them getting thrown at each other, and third being them all breaking apart.?)
otherwise im down.
May 18, 2010 1:06 p.m.
I think they should start together. Then have the breaking process and then have the final part where they are still barely linked before total separation.
May 19, 2010 7:30 a.m.
mistergreen527 says... #5
This looks excellent! (by the way Zanven , I was dumb and read your three new threads in reverse order, oops).
Story-wise, this is superb. It goes along with what the community had discussed previously. My main concern is that, conceptual-wise, it's easier to create five worlds separately, rather than trying to create them when they are melded together. I think the best solution to this would be to create the sets in reverse order. That is, the set we're currently building would be the last set in the block. I know it may be non-conventional, but like I think that's the best way to go. Thoughts?
May 19, 2010 11:38 a.m.
I was thinking of them started together as well, because Alara starts with them apart, but storywise, they were together first.
Alara Story : Together, Apart, Coming Together, Together. Set order : Apart, Coming together, Together.
Sarcoma Story : Apart, Together, Breaking Apart, Apart. Set order : Together, Breaking Apart, Apart.
We can create them in reverse order if you want; it really has no impact on me creative-wise since I intended to flesh out the story forwards and backwards. Whichever is easily mechanically can be the focus.
May 19, 2010 1:16 p.m.
I love the overall scope of the story and the idea of it disapearing altogether, nice touch there. I am not a fan of the name Sarcoma though. Maybe Tractera coming from the Latin tractus which can mean , space, time, and pulling. Meaning that in one word we could represent the pulling apart of a plane in space and time.
So the sets could be
Set order: Tractera born, Divergence, Tractera Evanesced
Set order : Together, Breaking Apart, Apart.
May 19, 2010 2:29 p.m.
Just throwin names around. Cyqua. Not the best but I think it tops Sarcoma and Tractera. Too many syllables.
Cyqua's Prime, Diminish, Aether of Cyqua.
Alara was created apart but in this world we need to build it together and then break it. We can make them in reverse order but the storyline is still in the direction to the destruction of the planes. Because of the mana colours of the planes they can only exist as one plane when they separate they boot the enemy colour.
Our unnamed plane can only hold together whilst all together. As soon as one breaks free the rest will begin to crumble. Draw out a WUBRG mana star then put each of the wedges in a triangle of colours with the weakest colour of each wedge at the tip of one of the points of the wedge. Then the other colours line up to form a double bond on the outskirts of the star forming a second mana star overlapping the first. The plane is like an atom and incredibly hard to pull apart but when one link breaks all hell breaks with it.
http://tappedout.net/users/Tama/concept-cards/links-of-the-planes/
May 19, 2010 9:03 p.m.
I don't like Tractera because it sounds too much like Tractor, and Cyqua sounds too watery. I have no strong attachment to Sarcoma either though; probably for the best to not use a real word.
I'm content leaving it unnamed for now while we work on everything else though!
May 20, 2010 1:47 a.m.
mistergreen527 says... #12
What do you guys think of Lacera? Letter-wise, it's similar to Alara. It's also the "root" of laceration which means a jagged tear. Just an idea.
May 21, 2010 10:58 a.m.
to hard to pronounce doesn't ring of the tip of our tongue. I would say maybe that for now we use a code name and the name may present itself as we go along. As codewords go i like Arala...backwards Alara.
Otherwise Vergent (fromg disvergent) sunder (from asunder) The vorce (from divorced) algama (from almagamate)
We should also have a place called either the rupture or fisure which should be the dividing void between the shards. possibly where the planeswalker that created it all resides
If we are going to go with a counter theme, we should have the lands that have two counters on them when they come into play, remove a counter put one mana of any color into your mana pool. lands
May 21, 2010 1:06 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #14
Unto Grixis We Return if anyone is willing to take a look at my Modern Grixis deck which I have created and tend to stick with for Modern please do so. I would like feed back concerning some of my card choices as well as the best way to optimize the deck.
November 10, 2013 12:49 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #15
This is probably bad form, however, I felt it better to bump this into sight than to start a new thread. I play online, so that means I am able to enter the online tournements given I have enough tickets. I am intending to enter a tourney either this weekend or the next and would like to have the finishing touches done (until I learn from my tourney experience). Any advice would be helpful, please see the link in the OP.
For some reference: the online meta is currently being dominated by: Jund, Affinity and Melira Pod decks. UR Splinter Twin is also rather popular as well.
TAMA says... #2
I love it so far. Needs more flesh but the skeleton is very beautiful.
May 18, 2010 7:09 a.m.