Recently I decided I want to try writing some mtg fan fiction.
I've never read any of the mtg books, so for a long time I felt like I should just wait until after I've read them, otherwise I'll make lots of errors and wrong guesses about the details of the mtg story universe.
But lately I've been thinking about how when I was young, I used to spend hours imagining all sorts of stories in my mind, just based on the artwork of random cards when looking through through my collection.
So I've been thinking I could try using my lack of having read any of the mtg books to my advantage, by just writing whatever stories come to my mind when I browse through some of my old cards. Obviously it will be very different from the actual official mtg storyline stuff, but it could still be a fun writing experiment.
But, I do think there are at least one or two basic details I should know before I get started:
From what I understand, the early sets of mtg took place on a single plane called "Dominaria", unlike the later sets where each block (mirrodin, ravnica, innistrad, kaladesh etc) took place on their own separate planes. This is confusing to me, since the regions of the early mtg sets looks very different from each other. For example the setting of Arabian Nights looks very different from Fallen Empires which looks very different from Ice Age which looks very different from Mirage and so on.
So without including any specific storyline spoilers or details I was wondering if it's supposed to be that these different looking regions are just different continents on a single planet, or different planets in the single plane (of "Dominaria") or different planes, like maybe they aren't actually all in Dominaria and I've been mistaken about that?
Again, please please please DO NOT tell me any specific spoilers! I just want to know that most basic concept of whether these settings were all taking place on a single planet, or different planets or different planes or different time eras of the same planet or plane or what. But I don't want to know anything else about any of it. Literally just that. And even that, I only want to know it in that most basic style like: "yea they are all on the same planet called Zorgsphere, but they are separated by oceans", but not like: "well, so and so killed so and so, and thus this civilization moved to such and such place because it contains such and such stuff on it which is why such and such happened..." Don't tell me anything like that, please. Instead just explain it like "they are on 3 different planets or eras in a plane called such and such" and just leave it at that without explaining any spoilers or additional details about any of it.
You are better off asking this in the storyline forum.
But essentially yes a lot of the early blocks did take place on Dominaria. As for why they appear so different just look at the geography/sociology of our planet even our time. Asia has a very different character to Europe which again very different to Africa and again different to Antartica.
Likewise looking back over the history of our rock different periods of history are very different to each other with things like landmasses moving, forming and collapsing at different times.
The same thing applies with Dominaria as each block is set on a different continent to the others or during a different time period, for example The Ice age block takes place a lot earlier than the Odyssey Block and Onslaught Block, during an actual Ice age that turned the Plane of Dominaria into an ice cube.
For the two you picked out spefically Arabian Nights is not set on Dominaria it was an attempt to extend the franchise out into existing properties in this case 1001 Arabian Nights and similar stories. Not to sure about Fallen Empires but the other thing to consider is that during the early years WOTC did not have a defined style to how they wanted each set to look so there are more differences in look and feel than there is in the modern era.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
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I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
If you have ever played Kingdom Hearts, this will be a lot easier for you to understand: Dominaria is just as Kahedron said: with it's different time periods and continents. Ravnica (by my understanding) is more like Traverse Town. The entire plane is the city. It is a big city, true...but it is more or less the city. Kingdom Hearts worlds seem to fit really well with the planes of today, Innistrad seems a bit more diverse, but I feel like there isn't anything on the other side of their ocean aside from the far side of the same land mass.
Certain olden day planes were actually made in layers... I'll let you think about that one there, but the spoilers are so fun...
Lastly: Back in the day Planeswalkers were more or less Gods. Premending Planeswalkers not only didn't age, but could change their age, appearance, and MAKE PLANES (yes Nicol Bolas did recently, but he seems to be the closest we have to a premending-power Planeswalker in the current storyline).
Yea, I know what you mean about how different regions and continents on Earth look vastly different from each other, and so, in this same way it makes sense that the different sets of MTG could look different from each other even if they are set on the same plane or even the same planet.
I guess what I meant when I said I was confused about it was that in the more recent blocks, it seems like each block is its own entire plane, and there is no variety within these planes. Like, if I understand correctly the WHOLE entire plane of Ravnica, or Innistrad or Kaladesh or whichever recent block of your choice, are each stylistically consistent across their entire plane.
So, given that the recent sets seem to be showing a precedent where any stylistically different block has to be its own entire separate plane from one another, this is what made me wonder what the deal was with the early sets if they were all taking place on a single plane called "Dominaria".
I also am unsure as to the basic setup of these "planes" themselves. Are these planes meant to be thought of as entire universes? Solar systems? Or just merely a planet?
Basically, I guess to explain why I am even trying to ask about this or figure this out:
Let's say I'm browsing through various old cards from the early sets from my collection, looking at the card art and spontaneously coming up with random stories that pop into my head as I look at the cards...
And let's say I look at some random card from Revised edition, and then the next card I look at is from Antiquities or Legends or something, and then the next card I look at is from Tempest and then the next one is from Mirage and then the next one is from Homelands and so on and so forth like this.
What I wanted to figure out is:
Where are these locations set, RELATIVE to one another. Like, are all of them on the same planet. Or different planets but all in the same solar system/cluster. Or just continents on random far away planets scattered across a huge universe that is referred to as a "plane" called "Dominaria" or all the same place but in different times/eras (which is what I was guessing about, say, Ice Age, which it seems you have confirmed is the case for that one).
Because, sometimes I'll see a cool looking artifact or non-basic land card or whatever from Mirage, but then also a cool one from Tempest, but then also a cool one from The Dark or whatever, and, since I'm trying to link them all up to create a fan fiction story, the one bare minimum thing I at least need to know is how (if it's even possible) I can link them together to create that story.
Like, if they are all just different regions or continents on the same planet, then I know I can just have the characters physically travel from the location of one card to the location of the other (as in sail there by boat, or walk there or whatever).
But, if they are on different planets, then of course that changes things. Or if they are on different planes, then that changes things even more.
So, I guess the bare essence of what I'd want to know would be if someone could make sort of a list of the early sets of something like:
Alpha - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Vulhemran"; Continent(s): "Schmorgville" and "Zurfoshire"
I'm just making up names and location-types completely at random, but hopefully you guys see what I'm trying to ask.
Basically, I just want to know the bare minimum of what continents, or planets, or planes, or eras the settings of the various early sets took place on, and what the names of those regions or locations were (if they had names). Like I assume the place Mirage took place wasn't called "Mirageville", and I also have no clue if it was supposed to be on the same planet as Tempest, but just a different continent, or a different planet altogether, or the same planet and same continent but separated by a few hundred years, or so on.
BUT, I don't want to know any in-depth spoilers or storyline details if it can be avoided.
So, for example:
Don't explain it like: "Mirage turned into Tempest when Urza decided he wanted to murder Lim-Dul and the army of Tolaria fought against the army of Volrath and then a bunch of Cockatrices flew in and caused x, y, and z to happen which is why etc etc happened which is how etc became such and such."
Instead, I would prefer just the bare minimum details of something like: "Set - Plane: ____; Planet: _____; Continent: ______; Year/Era: _____" (or whatever the most simple, basic way would be of explaining what the names of the locations the various early sets took place in were called, and roughly where they are located relative to one another, and in what physical format (individual planets, or same planet but different continents, or what, etc).
Also, I apologize if I asked this in the wrong forum. I guess I'll give it a day or two here since it's still the mtg "general" forum so maybe some people will know, but if people aren't able to answer it here then I will try asking it in the storyline forum instead. Sorry about that.
Anyway, I appreciate the info and advice, thanks. Although I guess I still have some aspects I need to figure out.
For the recent planes like Innistrad and Kaladesh we have only seen small parts of the them and in similar time periods.
For others like Mirrodin and Zendikar whilst we have and idea of what the whole plane looks like the story and the cards only concentrate on a couple of areas and the same time period. Other areas and times are left for when/if they return to the plane.
As to the physical lay out of the planes it depends on what Storyline needs it to be.
Speficially for Dominaria all the action takes place on a planet that bares the name Dominaria all the blocks that take place there all take place on that planet just at various different times or in different places. For an idea of its history check out the Wiki article for it here.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
I would definitely check out the link that Kahedron posted. The MTG Wiki on Gamepedia has a ton of answers to your questions. I personally find it more enjoyable to discover these things by reading them myself.
I wish I could. But, I am terrified of clicking on any links because of the risk of seeing any spoilers or in-depth details of any kind.
As I explained in the original post (especially the parts highlighted in bold font), I DO NOT want to accidentally see anything about the storyline or mid-level or high-level specifics of any kind.
I just wanted to know the bare minimum of what the names and formats of the early locations were. Like, whether they were on a single planet or multiple planets or multiple universes or what, and, what the names of the regions/planets were, if they had name, and which ones were offset by time from which ones.
I didn't want to know anything else other than that though, as that would ruin the whole writing experiment I'm trying to do.
Anyway, I think I know almost enough now, as it seems that most of these early sets took place on the same planet, which is what I was trying to find out, without risking seeing the spoilers I would've inevitably seen if I had just looked it up on some website.
I guess ideally it would be best if someone was able to just list from Alpha through Exodus the name of the plane/planet/continent and time-era of each set in the format of the example I provided a couple posts up above. But even without something like that, I think maybe I already have enough to go off of from Kahedron's answers to start writing some stories. So, thanks for the info everyone, this will come in handy.
I wish I could. But, I am terrified of clicking on any links because of the risk of seeing any spoilers or in-depth details of any kind.
As I explained in the original post (especially the parts highlighted in bold font), I DO NOT want to accidentally see anything about the storyline or mid-level or high-level specifics of any kind.
So you don't want to write fan fiction then. You just want to write fiction using names from MTG regardless of where they show up.
I just wanted to know the bare minimum of what the names and formats of the early locations were. Like, whether they were on a single planet or multiple planets or multiple universes or what, and, what the names of the regions/planets were, if they had name, and which ones were offset by time from which ones.
I didn't want to know anything else other than that though, as that would ruin the whole writing experiment I'm trying to do.
Again if you want to write coherent fan fiction you can not do this. I am going to give you the same advice I give to people who turn up here proposing assorted rules changes. Don't bother unless you are willing to do the grond work. And for writing fan fiction that is learning what the current story is and working out where and what you slip in to the current storyline with out it not making sense.
Anyway, I think I know almost enough now, as it seems that most of these early sets took place on the same planet, which is what I was trying to find out, without risking seeing the spoilers I would've inevitably seen if I had just looked it up on some website.
Yes the same planet but in vastly different areas and at different times. The current History of Dominaria is of about similar length to that of civilised history on our rock. If you don't know what you are doing it would very easy to make very large errors like having Confucius and Napoleon wandering around the same place at the same time with out any form of time travel.
I guess ideally it would be best if someone was able to just list from Alpha through Exodus the name of the plane/planet/continent and time-era of each set in the format of the example I provided a couple posts up above. But even without something like that, I think maybe I already have enough to go off of from Kahedron's answers to start writing some stories. So, thanks for the info everyone, this will come in handy.
No you don't. And you won't until you ditch the I don't want spoilers/storyline information schtick you are displaying. Do your ground work first then start writing the fiction it will be a lot better in the end.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
in the more recent blocks, it seems like each block is its own entire plane, and there is no variety within these planes.
That's because the planes in modern Magic are all Planet of Hats (TV Tropes link). A planet of hats it much easier to market in a single sentence, and is thus better for sales.
I also am unsure as to the basic setup of these "planes" themselves. Are these planes meant to be thought of as entire universes? Solar systems? Or just merely a planet?
It varies. Some planes are a universe, some planes are a solar system, some planes are a planet, and some planes (especially artificial ones like Serra's Realm) are even smaller.
Arabian Nights - Plane: Unknown/not mtg-consistent
FWIW, Arabian Nights took place on the plane Rabiah the Infinite, which was created when the original plane Rabiah was subjected to the Thousandfold Refraction, and was split into 1001 copies that are all slightly different. One of the Rabiahs is "Dark Rabiah", and shares similarities with Phyrexia.
I don't want to know any in-depth spoilers or storyline details if it can be avoided.
Speaking as a fanfiction author, the is the WRONG thing to do. You need to be fully familiar with the setting you're writing in and/or crossing over with to that you can write something sensible. I can guarantee that if you don't, your readers will complain about your inconsistencies.
As a small example, just yesterday I was reading a piece of Black Butler crossover fiction. The author decided to use the English subtitles of the anime as his source for Sebastian's catch phrase: "I am a devil of a butler". However, the English dub uses an English pun, "I am one hell of a butler", as a faithful idiomatic translation of the original Japanese which makes a pun of the homophonic phrases "akuma de" and "aku made". While the two can sound identical, the translation of each (when included with the rest of the sentence) results in either (roughly) "I am a devil and a butler" or "I am a butler through and through".
The fanfiction author prioritized the subtitled translation over the dubbed translation, not considering why there is a difference, and his story lost some of the anime's flavor because of it.
Plane is another term for dimension. Usually doesn't sound quite as... science fictionish. The individual sets will take place as appropriate as others have desribed, continents, planets, whatever. But a plane is a dimension.
There are different theories about planes, but WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves. Less like Sliders or The One and more like Half-Life or Flatland. Rabiah, like Lithl wrote, was given the "infinite worlds/infinite selves" treatment. Likely to keep canon within Shahrazad. If WotC says the planes are more like Stargate then someone needs to hand them a dictionary.
That's not to say the different sets don't take place on relatively different planets, I'm strictly talking about the planes.
It varies. Some planes are a universe, some planes are a solar system, some planes are a planet, and some planes (especially artificial ones like Serra's Realm) are even smaller.
Ahhh, interesting. No wonder I was having trouble figuring that part out. That makes sense though. I'm visualizing it sort of like that scene in the matrix where Morpheus kind of imagination-summons up that formless white void and then has racks of guns slide into view, or a little Earth-esque city-scene for example-giving when he's trying to show Neo some stuff to explain the matrix-world to him. Like, the locations could be of any size/style depending on what was needed in that moment kind of. Well, I mean obviously the behind the scenes aspects and underlying concepts are still completely different though, but yeah.
Speaking as a fanfiction author, the is the WRONG thing to do. You need to be fully familiar with the setting you're writing in and/or crossing over with to that you can write something sensible. I can guarantee that if you don't, your readers will complain about your inconsistencies.
Yea, I actually completely agree with you!
Basically, my thought process wasn't that I wanted to strictly, only ever do it this way. Definitely not.
Instead, my thinking was more that once I learn all the storyline stuff, I can't un-learn it. So, just for fun, I might as well try writing a few stories based entirely on whatever random stuff comes to my mind based on what I'm seeing in the card art when I browse random cards. Since, due to not knowing the actualities of what all the stuff is "supposed" to be, the scenarios I come up with might end up being kind of weird and interesting (even if only interesting in the sense of just looking to see how different the imagined/guessed scenarios a random person came up with by just looking at the card art ends up being compared to the actual storyline. Like, it could be sort of funny how two writers could look at the same batch of card art, and take it two completely different ways).
I did think to myself, though, about how annoying it would be any time I just had some blatantly lore-inconsistent thing happen in a story, to where it could be very frustrating to read for people who know the actual storyline. But, I figured:
1. It's only a temporary thing that I wanted to briefly give a try before learning the official lore, since there's no going back once I do.
2. There might be some percentage of people who, like me, also haven't read the lore, and thus for them the annoyance-via-lore-inconsistencies aspect would be irrelevant, and they'd be able to just enjoy the actual story itself for whatever it itself was.
3. On top of those two things, I was thinking one additional mitigation tactic I could (and plan on) using is to write kind of "small"/offshoot stories where I intentionally try to avoid using any cards that seem particularly likely to have heavy lore (like avoiding legendary creatues or planeswalkers or anything that seems particularly blatantly lore-heavy, among other things). So, for example, I was thinking I could take like a basic and a non-basic land, where there is a swamp setting in the card art, and then maybe a jungle setting or a small village or something, and have it just be some random self-contained sort of a story where a couple of minor, random characters (like, some random non-famous human from some card where the human shown in the card art isn't some famous specific guy, but rather, the artifact he's interacting with is the main aspect of the card, and the human is only there to be able to demonstrate what the item is able to do to a person, so just a random irrelevant background-character type of guy who most likely doesn't actually appear in the book lore, and some random elf or druid, end up teamed up via some small adventure circumstance I come up with, and they end up having to navigate through some settings based on the look of the land shown in the card art of some land cards, and end up using some artifact or spell of some mtg card to fight off some small-scale villain or monster (again some low-level mtg creature, not a major one that has too high a risk of having major known-lore behind it in the books) for the climax confrontation moment of the story, and then that's it. Like just a short story/snippet-style story, and not some big sprawling saga or anything.
And I guess if it went well, and people enjoyed it, then maybe I'd do a few of them before moving on and reading the official lore. Or if it went bad and even despite my best efforts to avoid story-types that ran a particularly high risk of being severely lore-clashy, it still lore-clashed super hard to where it wasn't fun to read, then I'd just be like "oh well, experiment failed, no biggie, time for me to move on to the post-lore-learning phase" and I'd go do that instead and start doing some actual normal-style fan fiction at that point.
Either way though, even if it did go well, like I said, I still plan on learning the lore regardless. Since, like I said, I agree with you guys that to write "true FAN FICTION" rather than mere b.s.-style fiction with mild MTG-related elements, I would need to know the lore. So, I agree and plan on doing exactly that. But only after I give this a try just for fun, since I'll never unlearn the lore once I learn it.
Anyway, I knew this would probably make people mad, or sound like a terrible idea, lol (I know this because I can imagine myself in your guys' shoes and how I come across with the question I was asking, and I can totally see how it would seem like the guy didn't understand how important it is to know the lore, otherwise tons of aspects of the story would just blatantly clash with what the actual stuff is in the official canon, which would be brutal to read for someone who knew the actual stuff), so I fully sympathize, and apologize for my weirdness in this regard. And I genuinely appreciate that you guys still tried to answer my questions in spite of your misgivings. Thanks again everyone, and sorry for being weird.
WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves.
While any sufficiently powerful mage can in theory create an artificial plane (and, as demonstrated by old Phyrexia and Rashmi, you don't necessarily need to be a planeswalker to reach another plane), there are a finite number of naturally-occurring planes in the MtG multiverse. The number is large, but it's not infinite.
Of course, artificial planes tend to be unstable, and they'll unravel without maintenance. Mirrodin is the only known exception.
WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves.
While any sufficiently powerful mage can in theory create an artificial plane (and, as demonstrated by old Phyrexia and Rashmi, you don't necessarily need to be a planeswalker to reach another plane), there are a finite number of naturally-occurring planes in the MtG multiverse. The number is large, but it's not infinite.
Of course, artificial planes tend to be unstable, and they'll unravel without maintenance. Mirrodin is the only known exception.
You are correct on your first point. I'm merely trying to tie in how WotC treats planes to "real" world concepts and ideas without diving into all the stupid B.S. that goes with it. More importantly, point out that "planes" do not define planets, continents or whatever but, rather, entirely different dimensions.
If you wish to use a better example like the "13 planes" theory from I can't remember where or the 10^10^16 perceivable planes theory from Linde and Vanchurin or some other random theory, by all means go ahead.
Your second point iregwrding artificial planes s a direct result of WotC's terrible writing and I refuse to approach the subject with anything other than scorn.
WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves.
While any sufficiently powerful mage can in theory create an artificial plane (and, as demonstrated by old Phyrexia and Rashmi, you don't necessarily need to be a planeswalker to reach another plane), there are a finite number of naturally-occurring planes in the MtG multiverse. The number is large, but it's not infinite.
Of course, artificial planes tend to be unstable, and they'll unravel without maintenance. Mirrodin is the only known exception.
You are correct on your first point. I'm merely trying to tie in how WotC treats planes to "real" world concepts and ideas without diving into all the stupid B.S. that goes with it. More importantly, point out that "planes" do not define planets, continents or whatever but, rather, entirely different dimensions.
If you wish to use a better example like the "13 planes" theory from I can't remember where or the 10^10^16 perceivable planes theory from Linde and Vanchurin or some other random theory, by all means go ahead.
Your second point iregwrding artificial planes s a direct result of WotC's terrible writing and I refuse to approach the subject with anything other than scorn.
They explained how Mirrodin is stable, Karn found some empty space in the blind eternities to build Mirridon.
A metaphoric way of thinking of is if islands are planes (which include the world, the space around etc), walkers like Serra would part the oceans (the blind eternities) until land could be found and build thier planes on that new island. The walker then had keep mentance on it so the water wouldn't fall back in and sink the island (collapse the plane). What Karn did was find an island already sticking out of the ocean(empty space where a plane was or could fit) and didn't need to worry about it sinking back in.
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I've written on the concept of the MTG world in the fan rulebook i've made (base on wotc real rulebook aka players guide).....from what i was able to find in books, internet and intuition...
Look at the end of the documemt, there is a section about the storyline
WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves.
While any sufficiently powerful mage can in theory create an artificial plane (and, as demonstrated by old Phyrexia and Rashmi, you don't necessarily need to be a planeswalker to reach another plane), there are a finite number of naturally-occurring planes in the MtG multiverse. The number is large, but it's not infinite.
Of course, artificial planes tend to be unstable, and they'll unravel without maintenance. Mirrodin is the only known exception.
You are correct on your first point. I'm merely trying to tie in how WotC treats planes to "real" world concepts and ideas without diving into all the stupid B.S. that goes with it. More importantly, point out that "planes" do not define planets, continents or whatever but, rather, entirely different dimensions.
If you wish to use a better example like the "13 planes" theory from I can't remember where or the 10^10^16 perceivable planes theory from Linde and Vanchurin or some other random theory, by all means go ahead.
Your second point iregwrding artificial planes s a direct result of WotC's terrible writing and I refuse to approach the subject with anything other than scorn.
They explained how Mirrodin is stable, Karn found some empty space in the blind eternities to build Mirridon.
A metaphoric way of thinking of is if islands are planes (which include the world, the space around etc), walkers like Serra would part the oceans (the blind eternities) until land could be found and build thier planes on that new island. The walker then had keep mentance on it so the water wouldn't fall back in and sink the island (collapse the plane). What Karn did was find an island already sticking out of the ocean(empty space where a plane was or could fit) and didn't need to worry about it sinking back in.
Exemplar of why certain people need to stay away from writing anything. At all.
2. There might be some percentage of people who, like me, also haven't read the lore, and thus for them the annoyance-via-lore-inconsistencies aspect would be irrelevant, and they'd be able to just enjoy the actual story itself for whatever it itself was.
I'd guess that there's very little overlap between "people interested in fanfiction relating to a property" and "people who know little to nothing about the property". The people most likely to read your work are the people most likely to know it best. Anyways, if you're writing fanfiction without understanding the world about which you're writing, for people who also don't understand the world, why write fanfiction at all?
I feel like most people going looking for fanfiction won't be satisfied if they read a generic story with a little bit of MtG window dressing and a handful of card references. The really old MtG novels are written like that and comes off as very strange when every character is casting ALL YOUR FAVORITE SPELLS FROM THE HIT CARD GAME and encountering Hurloon Minotaurs and Forces of Nature while they wander their generic fantasy lands.
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My decks
Standard - RIP Cat
Modern - Death & Taxes
Commander - Mazirek, Trostani, Angry Omnath
Arena which is the first novel writen is as you describ Token_Hunter ....and it is a novel that i realy enjoyed reading.
Whispering woods was nice too, but you could immediatly see a difference in the form of how magic would be cast....between the first and second novel
Nevertheless both stories were nice and did bring ideas how the MTG universe would work
Im in the process of reading them....i have them all lined up in my bookshelf....
Read The Purifying Fire which realy accentuated on planeswalker but more story oriented instead of explaining how the MTG universe works...
Im reading the Myths of Magic at this moment....very fun little stories with a little bit of MTG...but it could as well not be MTG at all...
Overall ive enjoyed everyone of those....so it is realy up to the writter to decide where to go with their story.....
Maybe what ive enjoyed best is when it didnt refered at specific cards but that i knew what it was because of the description of each creature...and my.knowledge of the card game......doing that allows the story to go on without forcing reference to the card game
I'd guess that there's very little overlap between "people interested in fanfiction relating to a property" and "people who know little to nothing about the property".
Well, you'll encounter readers unfamiliar with a property you're writing about if you write crossover fiction. When a reader comes to your story because of Property A, that doesn't necessarily mean they're familiar with Property B. But you'll also likely get readers with the opposite experience, unless the story is posted to a site that caters to one of those properties specifically.
The really old MtG novels are written like that and comes off as very strange when every character is casting ALL YOUR FAVORITE SPELLS FROM THE HIT CARD GAME and encountering Hurloon Minotaurs and Forces of Nature while they wander their generic fantasy lands.
Lol, I was actually thinking about this earlier, about how many directly named artifacts or creatures or spells I should use, if any. I figured it might start to seem weird or annoying if I overdid it. I'm glad you mentioned this, as it kind of confirms a concern I had about it, so I'll definitely keep that in mind when I write the stories, and I'll try not to overdo it.
Maybe what ive enjoyed best is when it didnt refered at specific cards but that i knew what it was because of the description of each creature...and my.knowledge of the card game......doing that allows the story to go on without forcing reference to the card game
It's funny, when I was contemplating the issue from the previous paragraph, I actually thought about using this method. I figured it could be a good middle-ground strategy between not including any direct references vs using lots of directly named creatures and items. I guess I could try using a small amount of both, or maybe a small amount of the former and none of the latter. Definitely not a large amount of either though. I agree that would probably get old quickly if I went overboard with it.
Anyways, if you're writing fanfiction without understanding the world about which you're writing, for people who also don't understand the world, why write fanfiction at all?
Yea, I can definitely understand people having this reaction, and I actually agree with you for the most part. I think this writing experiment will most likely be a failure.
It's just a small, temporary thing I wanted to try out before moving on and learning the lore. It's not as though I want to just permanently do it that way or anything.
I guess I just figured that probably all the fan fiction stories ever posted on here are of the normal, proper kind, where the writers actually know the lore, so it might be kind of fun to have at least some small, but non-zero amount of stories done in an oldschool, pre book-era, purely card-art inspired method. Even if only for the experimental aspect of getting to see what it would even be like (for curiosity's sake), or how different the imagined version of the mtg world would be compared to the actual mtg world.
I suppose there's probably also a bit of a nostalgia element to it for me. I was thinking back to how much fun I had when I was a kid, back before there were a bunch of mtg books, when I would just create entire mtg stories in my head from whatever random stuff came to mind when I'd look at the artwork on my magic cards. I remember I enjoyed doing that more than I even enjoyed playing the game. Sometimes I just sat around imagining stories like that for literally hours on end, lol. But, I never wrote any of those stories down, I just visualized them in my mind and then forgot about most of them by the next day. So I figured I might as well try doing that one last time, but actually write it down and see what it looks like, before I irreversibly learn all the official lore, and move on to writing proper fan fiction after that.
I mean, worst comes to worst if people hate the art-guesswork stories I could always just delete them anyway, so it's not like there's really anything at stake or anything. If it goes badly, I could just wipe all that stuff away and just only post fan fiction that I wrote after learning the official lore. So, there's not much to worry about it I guess, in the grander scheme of things.
Its what i did with the fan rulebook i was talking earlier....i had to learn microsft word, wanted to do something fun ....and it started like that, a copy of the wotc rulebook..... And then i started to add more and more ....and ended up adding anything that i would want to know about the card game... then added that storyline i was talking about... it could have ended up in the garbage...who knew at the time....but it felt i was getting somewhere with it......at some point i though it was good enought to share with other people.....and thats what i did.....but i did it for me first
I've never read any of the mtg books, so for a long time I felt like I should just wait until after I've read them, otherwise I'll make lots of errors and wrong guesses about the details of the mtg story universe.
But lately I've been thinking about how when I was young, I used to spend hours imagining all sorts of stories in my mind, just based on the artwork of random cards when looking through through my collection.
So I've been thinking I could try using my lack of having read any of the mtg books to my advantage, by just writing whatever stories come to my mind when I browse through some of my old cards. Obviously it will be very different from the actual official mtg storyline stuff, but it could still be a fun writing experiment.
But, I do think there are at least one or two basic details I should know before I get started:
From what I understand, the early sets of mtg took place on a single plane called "Dominaria", unlike the later sets where each block (mirrodin, ravnica, innistrad, kaladesh etc) took place on their own separate planes. This is confusing to me, since the regions of the early mtg sets looks very different from each other. For example the setting of Arabian Nights looks very different from Fallen Empires which looks very different from Ice Age which looks very different from Mirage and so on.
So without including any specific storyline spoilers or details I was wondering if it's supposed to be that these different looking regions are just different continents on a single planet, or different planets in the single plane (of "Dominaria") or different planes, like maybe they aren't actually all in Dominaria and I've been mistaken about that?
Again, please please please DO NOT tell me any specific spoilers! I just want to know that most basic concept of whether these settings were all taking place on a single planet, or different planets or different planes or different time eras of the same planet or plane or what. But I don't want to know anything else about any of it. Literally just that. And even that, I only want to know it in that most basic style like: "yea they are all on the same planet called Zorgsphere, but they are separated by oceans", but not like: "well, so and so killed so and so, and thus this civilization moved to such and such place because it contains such and such stuff on it which is why such and such happened..." Don't tell me anything like that, please. Instead just explain it like "they are on 3 different planets or eras in a plane called such and such" and just leave it at that without explaining any spoilers or additional details about any of it.
Sorry if this is sort of a weird question. Thanks
But essentially yes a lot of the early blocks did take place on Dominaria. As for why they appear so different just look at the geography/sociology of our planet even our time. Asia has a very different character to Europe which again very different to Africa and again different to Antartica.
Likewise looking back over the history of our rock different periods of history are very different to each other with things like landmasses moving, forming and collapsing at different times.
The same thing applies with Dominaria as each block is set on a different continent to the others or during a different time period, for example The Ice age block takes place a lot earlier than the Odyssey Block and Onslaught Block, during an actual Ice age that turned the Plane of Dominaria into an ice cube.
For the two you picked out spefically Arabian Nights is not set on Dominaria it was an attempt to extend the franchise out into existing properties in this case 1001 Arabian Nights and similar stories. Not to sure about Fallen Empires but the other thing to consider is that during the early years WOTC did not have a defined style to how they wanted each set to look so there are more differences in look and feel than there is in the modern era.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
Certain olden day planes were actually made in layers... I'll let you think about that one there, but the spoilers are so fun...
Lastly: Back in the day Planeswalkers were more or less Gods. Premending Planeswalkers not only didn't age, but could change their age, appearance, and MAKE PLANES (yes Nicol Bolas did recently, but he seems to be the closest we have to a premending-power Planeswalker in the current storyline).
I guess what I meant when I said I was confused about it was that in the more recent blocks, it seems like each block is its own entire plane, and there is no variety within these planes. Like, if I understand correctly the WHOLE entire plane of Ravnica, or Innistrad or Kaladesh or whichever recent block of your choice, are each stylistically consistent across their entire plane.
So, given that the recent sets seem to be showing a precedent where any stylistically different block has to be its own entire separate plane from one another, this is what made me wonder what the deal was with the early sets if they were all taking place on a single plane called "Dominaria".
I also am unsure as to the basic setup of these "planes" themselves. Are these planes meant to be thought of as entire universes? Solar systems? Or just merely a planet?
Basically, I guess to explain why I am even trying to ask about this or figure this out:
Let's say I'm browsing through various old cards from the early sets from my collection, looking at the card art and spontaneously coming up with random stories that pop into my head as I look at the cards...
And let's say I look at some random card from Revised edition, and then the next card I look at is from Antiquities or Legends or something, and then the next card I look at is from Tempest and then the next one is from Mirage and then the next one is from Homelands and so on and so forth like this.
What I wanted to figure out is:
Where are these locations set, RELATIVE to one another. Like, are all of them on the same planet. Or different planets but all in the same solar system/cluster. Or just continents on random far away planets scattered across a huge universe that is referred to as a "plane" called "Dominaria" or all the same place but in different times/eras (which is what I was guessing about, say, Ice Age, which it seems you have confirmed is the case for that one).
Because, sometimes I'll see a cool looking artifact or non-basic land card or whatever from Mirage, but then also a cool one from Tempest, but then also a cool one from The Dark or whatever, and, since I'm trying to link them all up to create a fan fiction story, the one bare minimum thing I at least need to know is how (if it's even possible) I can link them together to create that story.
Like, if they are all just different regions or continents on the same planet, then I know I can just have the characters physically travel from the location of one card to the location of the other (as in sail there by boat, or walk there or whatever).
But, if they are on different planets, then of course that changes things. Or if they are on different planes, then that changes things even more.
So, I guess the bare essence of what I'd want to know would be if someone could make sort of a list of the early sets of something like:
Alpha - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Vulhemran"; Continent(s): "Schmorgville" and "Zurfoshire"
Antiquities - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Xrilianion"; Continent: "Oldfrindon"
Arabian Nights - Plane: Unknown/not mtg-consistent
Fallen Empires - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Vulhemran"; Continent: "Zurfoshire (780 years post-Alpha)
Ice Age - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Xrilianion": Continent: "Oldfrindon" (1,850 years prior to Antiquities on same continent)
Mirage - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Vulhemran"; Continent: "Tropolia"
Tempest - Plane: "Dominaria"; Planet: "Vulhemran"; Continent: "Flurxiarla"
I'm just making up names and location-types completely at random, but hopefully you guys see what I'm trying to ask.
Basically, I just want to know the bare minimum of what continents, or planets, or planes, or eras the settings of the various early sets took place on, and what the names of those regions or locations were (if they had names). Like I assume the place Mirage took place wasn't called "Mirageville", and I also have no clue if it was supposed to be on the same planet as Tempest, but just a different continent, or a different planet altogether, or the same planet and same continent but separated by a few hundred years, or so on.
BUT, I don't want to know any in-depth spoilers or storyline details if it can be avoided.
So, for example:
Don't explain it like: "Mirage turned into Tempest when Urza decided he wanted to murder Lim-Dul and the army of Tolaria fought against the army of Volrath and then a bunch of Cockatrices flew in and caused x, y, and z to happen which is why etc etc happened which is how etc became such and such."
Instead, I would prefer just the bare minimum details of something like: "Set - Plane: ____; Planet: _____; Continent: ______; Year/Era: _____" (or whatever the most simple, basic way would be of explaining what the names of the locations the various early sets took place in were called, and roughly where they are located relative to one another, and in what physical format (individual planets, or same planet but different continents, or what, etc).
Also, I apologize if I asked this in the wrong forum. I guess I'll give it a day or two here since it's still the mtg "general" forum so maybe some people will know, but if people aren't able to answer it here then I will try asking it in the storyline forum instead. Sorry about that.
Anyway, I appreciate the info and advice, thanks. Although I guess I still have some aspects I need to figure out.
For others like Mirrodin and Zendikar whilst we have and idea of what the whole plane looks like the story and the cards only concentrate on a couple of areas and the same time period. Other areas and times are left for when/if they return to the plane.
As to the physical lay out of the planes it depends on what Storyline needs it to be.
Speficially for Dominaria all the action takes place on a planet that bares the name Dominaria all the blocks that take place there all take place on that planet just at various different times or in different places. For an idea of its history check out the Wiki article for it here.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
- Matt
As I explained in the original post (especially the parts highlighted in bold font), I DO NOT want to accidentally see anything about the storyline or mid-level or high-level specifics of any kind.
I just wanted to know the bare minimum of what the names and formats of the early locations were. Like, whether they were on a single planet or multiple planets or multiple universes or what, and, what the names of the regions/planets were, if they had name, and which ones were offset by time from which ones.
I didn't want to know anything else other than that though, as that would ruin the whole writing experiment I'm trying to do.
Anyway, I think I know almost enough now, as it seems that most of these early sets took place on the same planet, which is what I was trying to find out, without risking seeing the spoilers I would've inevitably seen if I had just looked it up on some website.
I guess ideally it would be best if someone was able to just list from Alpha through Exodus the name of the plane/planet/continent and time-era of each set in the format of the example I provided a couple posts up above. But even without something like that, I think maybe I already have enough to go off of from Kahedron's answers to start writing some stories. So, thanks for the info everyone, this will come in handy.
So you don't want to write fan fiction then. You just want to write fiction using names from MTG regardless of where they show up.
Again if you want to write coherent fan fiction you can not do this. I am going to give you the same advice I give to people who turn up here proposing assorted rules changes. Don't bother unless you are willing to do the grond work. And for writing fan fiction that is learning what the current story is and working out where and what you slip in to the current storyline with out it not making sense.
Yes the same planet but in vastly different areas and at different times. The current History of Dominaria is of about similar length to that of civilised history on our rock. If you don't know what you are doing it would very easy to make very large errors like having Confucius and Napoleon wandering around the same place at the same time with out any form of time travel.
No you don't. And you won't until you ditch the I don't want spoilers/storyline information schtick you are displaying. Do your ground work first then start writing the fiction it will be a lot better in the end.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
It varies. Some planes are a universe, some planes are a solar system, some planes are a planet, and some planes (especially artificial ones like Serra's Realm) are even smaller.
FWIW, Arabian Nights took place on the plane Rabiah the Infinite, which was created when the original plane Rabiah was subjected to the Thousandfold Refraction, and was split into 1001 copies that are all slightly different. One of the Rabiahs is "Dark Rabiah", and shares similarities with Phyrexia.
Speaking as a fanfiction author, the is the WRONG thing to do. You need to be fully familiar with the setting you're writing in and/or crossing over with to that you can write something sensible. I can guarantee that if you don't, your readers will complain about your inconsistencies.
As a small example, just yesterday I was reading a piece of Black Butler crossover fiction. The author decided to use the English subtitles of the anime as his source for Sebastian's catch phrase: "I am a devil of a butler". However, the English dub uses an English pun, "I am one hell of a butler", as a faithful idiomatic translation of the original Japanese which makes a pun of the homophonic phrases "akuma de" and "aku made". While the two can sound identical, the translation of each (when included with the rest of the sentence) results in either (roughly) "I am a devil and a butler" or "I am a butler through and through".
The fanfiction author prioritized the subtitled translation over the dubbed translation, not considering why there is a difference, and his story lost some of the anime's flavor because of it.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
There are different theories about planes, but WotC appears to use the infinite planes idea with a specific exclusion of infinite selves. Less like Sliders or The One and more like Half-Life or Flatland. Rabiah, like Lithl wrote, was given the "infinite worlds/infinite selves" treatment. Likely to keep canon within Shahrazad. If WotC says the planes are more like Stargate then someone needs to hand them a dictionary.
That's not to say the different sets don't take place on relatively different planets, I'm strictly talking about the planes.
Ahhh, interesting. No wonder I was having trouble figuring that part out. That makes sense though. I'm visualizing it sort of like that scene in the matrix where Morpheus kind of imagination-summons up that formless white void and then has racks of guns slide into view, or a little Earth-esque city-scene for example-giving when he's trying to show Neo some stuff to explain the matrix-world to him. Like, the locations could be of any size/style depending on what was needed in that moment kind of. Well, I mean obviously the behind the scenes aspects and underlying concepts are still completely different though, but yeah.
Yea, I actually completely agree with you!
Basically, my thought process wasn't that I wanted to strictly, only ever do it this way. Definitely not.
Instead, my thinking was more that once I learn all the storyline stuff, I can't un-learn it. So, just for fun, I might as well try writing a few stories based entirely on whatever random stuff comes to my mind based on what I'm seeing in the card art when I browse random cards. Since, due to not knowing the actualities of what all the stuff is "supposed" to be, the scenarios I come up with might end up being kind of weird and interesting (even if only interesting in the sense of just looking to see how different the imagined/guessed scenarios a random person came up with by just looking at the card art ends up being compared to the actual storyline. Like, it could be sort of funny how two writers could look at the same batch of card art, and take it two completely different ways).
I did think to myself, though, about how annoying it would be any time I just had some blatantly lore-inconsistent thing happen in a story, to where it could be very frustrating to read for people who know the actual storyline. But, I figured:
1. It's only a temporary thing that I wanted to briefly give a try before learning the official lore, since there's no going back once I do.
2. There might be some percentage of people who, like me, also haven't read the lore, and thus for them the annoyance-via-lore-inconsistencies aspect would be irrelevant, and they'd be able to just enjoy the actual story itself for whatever it itself was.
3. On top of those two things, I was thinking one additional mitigation tactic I could (and plan on) using is to write kind of "small"/offshoot stories where I intentionally try to avoid using any cards that seem particularly likely to have heavy lore (like avoiding legendary creatues or planeswalkers or anything that seems particularly blatantly lore-heavy, among other things). So, for example, I was thinking I could take like a basic and a non-basic land, where there is a swamp setting in the card art, and then maybe a jungle setting or a small village or something, and have it just be some random self-contained sort of a story where a couple of minor, random characters (like, some random non-famous human from some card where the human shown in the card art isn't some famous specific guy, but rather, the artifact he's interacting with is the main aspect of the card, and the human is only there to be able to demonstrate what the item is able to do to a person, so just a random irrelevant background-character type of guy who most likely doesn't actually appear in the book lore, and some random elf or druid, end up teamed up via some small adventure circumstance I come up with, and they end up having to navigate through some settings based on the look of the land shown in the card art of some land cards, and end up using some artifact or spell of some mtg card to fight off some small-scale villain or monster (again some low-level mtg creature, not a major one that has too high a risk of having major known-lore behind it in the books) for the climax confrontation moment of the story, and then that's it. Like just a short story/snippet-style story, and not some big sprawling saga or anything.
And I guess if it went well, and people enjoyed it, then maybe I'd do a few of them before moving on and reading the official lore. Or if it went bad and even despite my best efforts to avoid story-types that ran a particularly high risk of being severely lore-clashy, it still lore-clashed super hard to where it wasn't fun to read, then I'd just be like "oh well, experiment failed, no biggie, time for me to move on to the post-lore-learning phase" and I'd go do that instead and start doing some actual normal-style fan fiction at that point.
Either way though, even if it did go well, like I said, I still plan on learning the lore regardless. Since, like I said, I agree with you guys that to write "true FAN FICTION" rather than mere b.s.-style fiction with mild MTG-related elements, I would need to know the lore. So, I agree and plan on doing exactly that. But only after I give this a try just for fun, since I'll never unlearn the lore once I learn it.
Anyway, I knew this would probably make people mad, or sound like a terrible idea, lol (I know this because I can imagine myself in your guys' shoes and how I come across with the question I was asking, and I can totally see how it would seem like the guy didn't understand how important it is to know the lore, otherwise tons of aspects of the story would just blatantly clash with what the actual stuff is in the official canon, which would be brutal to read for someone who knew the actual stuff), so I fully sympathize, and apologize for my weirdness in this regard. And I genuinely appreciate that you guys still tried to answer my questions in spite of your misgivings. Thanks again everyone, and sorry for being weird.
Of course, artificial planes tend to be unstable, and they'll unravel without maintenance. Mirrodin is the only known exception.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
You are correct on your first point. I'm merely trying to tie in how WotC treats planes to "real" world concepts and ideas without diving into all the stupid B.S. that goes with it. More importantly, point out that "planes" do not define planets, continents or whatever but, rather, entirely different dimensions.
If you wish to use a better example like the "13 planes" theory from I can't remember where or the 10^10^16 perceivable planes theory from Linde and Vanchurin or some other random theory, by all means go ahead.
Your second point iregwrding artificial planes s a direct result of WotC's terrible writing and I refuse to approach the subject with anything other than scorn.
They explained how Mirrodin is stable, Karn found some empty space in the blind eternities to build Mirridon.
A metaphoric way of thinking of is if islands are planes (which include the world, the space around etc), walkers like Serra would part the oceans (the blind eternities) until land could be found and build thier planes on that new island. The walker then had keep mentance on it so the water wouldn't fall back in and sink the island (collapse the plane). What Karn did was find an island already sticking out of the ocean(empty space where a plane was or could fit) and didn't need to worry about it sinking back in.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Look at the end of the documemt, there is a section about the storyline
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/79zyh0fkaao5wgi/AABAPXx5ymAiyo9qEkQRGJW1a?dl=0
Wouldnt be able to copy paste this here, too many pages and pictures
Exemplar of why certain people need to stay away from writing anything. At all.
I'd guess that there's very little overlap between "people interested in fanfiction relating to a property" and "people who know little to nothing about the property". The people most likely to read your work are the people most likely to know it best. Anyways, if you're writing fanfiction without understanding the world about which you're writing, for people who also don't understand the world, why write fanfiction at all?
I feel like most people going looking for fanfiction won't be satisfied if they read a generic story with a little bit of MtG window dressing and a handful of card references. The really old MtG novels are written like that and comes off as very strange when every character is casting ALL YOUR FAVORITE SPELLS FROM THE HIT CARD GAME and encountering Hurloon Minotaurs and Forces of Nature while they wander their generic fantasy lands.
Standard - RIP Cat
Modern - Death & Taxes
Commander - Mazirek, Trostani, Angry Omnath
Whispering woods was nice too, but you could immediatly see a difference in the form of how magic would be cast....between the first and second novel
Nevertheless both stories were nice and did bring ideas how the MTG universe would work
Im in the process of reading them....i have them all lined up in my bookshelf....
Read The Purifying Fire which realy accentuated on planeswalker but more story oriented instead of explaining how the MTG universe works...
Im reading the Myths of Magic at this moment....very fun little stories with a little bit of MTG...but it could as well not be MTG at all...
Overall ive enjoyed everyone of those....so it is realy up to the writter to decide where to go with their story.....
Maybe what ive enjoyed best is when it didnt refered at specific cards but that i knew what it was because of the description of each creature...and my.knowledge of the card game......doing that allows the story to go on without forcing reference to the card game
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Lol, I was actually thinking about this earlier, about how many directly named artifacts or creatures or spells I should use, if any. I figured it might start to seem weird or annoying if I overdid it. I'm glad you mentioned this, as it kind of confirms a concern I had about it, so I'll definitely keep that in mind when I write the stories, and I'll try not to overdo it.
It's funny, when I was contemplating the issue from the previous paragraph, I actually thought about using this method. I figured it could be a good middle-ground strategy between not including any direct references vs using lots of directly named creatures and items. I guess I could try using a small amount of both, or maybe a small amount of the former and none of the latter. Definitely not a large amount of either though. I agree that would probably get old quickly if I went overboard with it.
Yea, I can definitely understand people having this reaction, and I actually agree with you for the most part. I think this writing experiment will most likely be a failure.
It's just a small, temporary thing I wanted to try out before moving on and learning the lore. It's not as though I want to just permanently do it that way or anything.
I guess I just figured that probably all the fan fiction stories ever posted on here are of the normal, proper kind, where the writers actually know the lore, so it might be kind of fun to have at least some small, but non-zero amount of stories done in an oldschool, pre book-era, purely card-art inspired method. Even if only for the experimental aspect of getting to see what it would even be like (for curiosity's sake), or how different the imagined version of the mtg world would be compared to the actual mtg world.
I suppose there's probably also a bit of a nostalgia element to it for me. I was thinking back to how much fun I had when I was a kid, back before there were a bunch of mtg books, when I would just create entire mtg stories in my head from whatever random stuff came to mind when I'd look at the artwork on my magic cards. I remember I enjoyed doing that more than I even enjoyed playing the game. Sometimes I just sat around imagining stories like that for literally hours on end, lol. But, I never wrote any of those stories down, I just visualized them in my mind and then forgot about most of them by the next day. So I figured I might as well try doing that one last time, but actually write it down and see what it looks like, before I irreversibly learn all the official lore, and move on to writing proper fan fiction after that.
I mean, worst comes to worst if people hate the art-guesswork stories I could always just delete them anyway, so it's not like there's really anything at stake or anything. If it goes badly, I could just wipe all that stuff away and just only post fan fiction that I wrote after learning the official lore. So, there's not much to worry about it I guess, in the grander scheme of things.
Its what i did with the fan rulebook i was talking earlier....i had to learn microsft word, wanted to do something fun ....and it started like that, a copy of the wotc rulebook..... And then i started to add more and more ....and ended up adding anything that i would want to know about the card game... then added that storyline i was talking about... it could have ended up in the garbage...who knew at the time....but it felt i was getting somewhere with it......at some point i though it was good enought to share with other people.....and thats what i did.....but i did it for me first