In my last post I discussed how I incorporated the first culture of Cazia, the brawl-loving Fomori. Good designs build upon existing structure and successful concepts and provide a return on promised payoffs. The Fomori are such an existing structure, however they had little native mechanical identity. I told the story in my last post how I developed a mechanical and cultural identity for the Fomori and in this post I will look at the other great nomadic people of Cazia, and how I developed a core mechanical identity for Nomads in general.
I discussed when looking at the Fomori that I am looking at the exalted-type, “whenever this creature attacks alone” group of mechanics. I think there’s still a lot of interesting design space here to explore, the idea of attacking tall rather than wide. It’s still in the early stages but I’m looking at including a ‘work together’ type mechanic for green-white, specifically green-white Nomads. A green-white nomadic culture like this one would be defined by their cooperation in the face of insurmountable environmental odds. Creatures would grant abilities to other creatures rather than having them themselves, akin to Outlast and the Abzan (although I would like to note that I came to this idea before Khans, although it was more of a vague notion than an explicit mechanic). This cooperative, trader branch of Nomads is part of a larger society of Nomads centred in white, the Sutaki.
The Sutaki are Arab themed Nomads, much the same way as the Fomori being Jewish themed. They ride camels, they travel the dusty highways of Cazia’s deserts, and they are a deeply spiritual people seeking their true prophet. The Sutaki principally show up in white, representing the strict code of social etiquette and ethics a nomadic trader society needs to thrive. The Sutaki have a deep reverence for their ancestors and their desert homes. The first part comes out in the Sutaki’s use of restore (see Cazia Part 2) while the second comes out in a close association with Deserts (the sixth basic land type I introduced in Cazia Part 1). Along with the ‘helper’ mechanic I loosely described earlier (I will go into more depth on this topic when I discuss the green-white archetype of Cazia, Deadworld), this gave more than enough for the Sutaki to be getting on with, enough to spread them to a third colour.
As I mentioned in my last post, ideally each creature type should be mechanically defined in at least three colours and by this point I knew I had enough mechanics to push the Sutaki further. Looking at the other three colours, there was really only one best choice. By coincidence as much as design both major Nomad cultures, the Fomori and the Sutaki, ended up in red-white. By this point it was clear that any specifically Nomad tribal cards were going to be red-white (similar to how Warriors in Khans appear in four colours but are only tribal in white-black). But what mechanically would Nomad tribal actually mean?
Real life nomadic peoples such as the Arabs or the Mongols were feared for their mastery of the camel or the horse as weapons, and respected for their use as beasts of burden. It should be obvious where this is going: the red-white Sutaki are masters of warfare from camelback. Fighting from camelback offers several key advantages, such as increased height over horsemen or infantry, speed and mobility, and the ability to dual use herds for combat and beasts of burden. Mechanically this can be represented with a simple aggro strategy built around haste. To make the strategy more unique, instead of gaining extra value from higher cost efficiency (read, lower mana cost creatures) why not get it from extra abilities such as first strike or vigilance? But was this really enough? I thought not so I turned to the other established parts of Sutaki culture, their cooperative nature and their strong association with the deserts.
What mechanic combines cooperation, deserts, and red-white? I thought quite a bit about this problem, and the solution came from a rather unlikely source. I remembered a card from my early experiences with Magic, Dune-Brood Nephilim. While the Nephilim were a resounding dud (they were tonelessly bland ad incredibly out of place in a block as rich as Ravnica), I really like the idea of tying token generation to lands. More specifically, tying 1/1 Sand tokens to Deserts. Sand tokens are weak by themselves, but with the cooperation of a strong leader they can become a potent army. The separation of the Sand tokens from the Sutaki would additionally allow me to recycle their use for other parts of the block without colour or flavour problems. Red-white had a strong identity mechanically and flavourfully, without one stepping on the toes of the other.
Taking a step back from the cards and looking at the creature type ‘Nomad’ from a broader perspective helped me to develop two interesting and unique Cazian cultures and provide a broad mechanical focus for two archetypes and the Nomad type. Far too often I see people on these forums jump right into the mechanics of card creation, especially when it comes to custom set creation. Taking a step back allows you to see the bigger picture and create far more evocative, meaningful designs. Magic has become increasingly sterilized since its early years. While much of this sterilization has been in the pursuit of a better game with tighter, more fun rules, a lot of the magic of Magic has been lost. I firmly believe that good design, great design, is about producing that sense of childlike wonder that comes from a story well told as much as from a set of cards which play well together.
As GRRM said, every story grows in the telling, so sorry it’s taken this long to finish the story of the Nomads of Cazia (and honestly there’s a lot more to talk about). Join me next time as I finally introduce Cazia’s “Big Bad” and the central conflict driving Cazia, Deadworld.
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