This project follows a hypothetical scenario where the entirety of Kamigawa block was never released, and we are tasked with telling the story of the Kami War for the first time, while bringing the story into the present age of design and M:tG lore. This means Tamiyo is likely to make an appearance, and the set will follow NWO principles. It also means we're drawing inspiration from the original block but will be diverging from many of the design choices made, especially when relating to the failed "Wisdom" theme. This also means we'll be designing a two-set block to expound the Kami War.
We're starting small, making two duel decks. One for Samurai, one for Spirits. From there we'll iterate until we're happy with their mechanics, then move on to other factions such as Ninjas, Moonfolk, Ogres/Oni, etc.
FLAVOR QUESTION: Assuming we include Tamiyo: Are we going to assume Tamiyo is an incredibly old oldwalker up there with Nicol Bolas and Ugin or do we retcon the Kami-War into more recent history?
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MORE IMPORTANT FLAVOR ISSUE: I looked back at Kamigawa and researched some fan content and noticed an issue with the Kami faction in lore: It is a lot less well-defined than the mortals. There are several issues, but the best way to describe it boils down to the fact that we have on the side of the...
Mortals:
Humans (with several well-defined factions based on locations e. g. Minamo Wizards/Advisors etc.)
at least one non-Human race with its own theme (Kitsune, Soratami, Nezumi, Akki, Orochi)
at least two very filled out classes with their own mechanical identity and keyword (Samurai and Ninja).
Kami:
the subtype Spirit and Arcane representing the Kami as a whole
the quite well-defined Oni and their mortal servants (Demon/Ogre)
the Myojin with their Shrines and the eventually released Zubera
two-three Glasskites (mechanically defined)
three (of five?) Kodamas
thrice Iname
Can you tell me what their places in the world are? Do they belong to a larger group within the Kami? I think the Myojin/Zubera and the Oni faction are really well-defined and as a group consist of more than a cycle of five cards each. (I would grant e. g. the Spirit Dragons being flavorwise interesting, but as so many Kami things they are worth just a single-cycle of cards)
The problem tome is definition. The Kami are one five-color faction, so we get individual ideas or inividual ideas cycled out (over five colors or as vertcal cycle) and then forgotten. I bet most people could have told me more about Eldrazi division before BfZ than about Kami division. I feel we should have some intracolor-division that defines better what kind of Kami falls into what color beyond "water: blue, fire: red", so we don't run into the obscure flavor problem the original design had.
Oni were black with a hint of red.
I'm not the most well-versed in the folklore, but I could imagine e. g. tsukumogami (one-hundred year old tools becoming sentient) becoming a white-blue type of Kami (my guess is that Lantern Kami and similar are based on them, but it would help to give them a more readily apparent group identity); Goryo were mentioned as vengeful dead on two black cards and could be expanded into something greater; Kumo (two cards) could be expanded to be a large green tribe etc.
I hope the gist of my idea is understood. Whatever we do, we should rework the Kami flavor in some way to make it more approachable, because while Kamigawa had great overall flavor and individual ideas, its many (apparently?) unconnected ideas still made it overall a miss in the creative department.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I would like to retcon the Kami War to occur in "present day" history, so Tamiyo wouldn't need be an oldwalker.
You're right that the Kami are less defined, and I believe part of that is Wizards' intentionally trying to make them mysterious and ambiguous (as they are in Shintoism). This "mysterious" quality is a mistake for Kami. They're revered by mortals and commune with them before they become enemies, so they should be well-known. This gives us a great opportunity to define them for ourselves. We'll need Spirits to exist in all five colors, but they should absolutely have mechanical and flavorful divisions. You've given me an idea, which I've charted out below. The gist is that there are five Kami subsets and five mortal subsets, each with a primary color and a supporting color. We'll need to better define those that aren't well defined, but I think it will give much better structure to limited. Mortals are relatively well defined, but we definitely need to take some time and decide what kind of themes we want our Kamis to take.
Kami Divisions:
Primary W, secondary G: Vessels. (Kami that live on as 1/1 colorless Spirits)
Primary U, secondary W: Tsukumogami aka Sentient Tools (some kind of utility theme)
Primary B, secondary R: Oni aka Demons with Ogre servants
Primary R, secondary U: Baku/Spellsmatter Kami
Primary G, secondary B: Iname underlings/gravedig Kami/Kami of the mortal realm/????
Mortal Divisions:
Primary W, secondary B: Samurai (Kitsune?)
Primary U, secondary G: Druid/Lands matter (Moonfolk?)
Primary B, secondary U: Ninjas (Nezumi?)
Primary R, secondary W: Monks (Goblins would be strange Monks; alternatives?)
Note: This is not Ravnica. You don't need to have exactly ten factions equally distributed over ten color pairs; later you will want to have ten mechanical archetypes for draft, but that also is something different. You also heavily mix mechanical and thematic terms. I would rather not mix these discussions from the get-go.
We likely will have about ten to twelve groups on the Mortal side alone as I laid out above. There can also easily be overaps between races and classes e. g. Goblin Samurai in red and so on. It's not necessary nor advisable to associate a single race with a single class. The lore of the Orochi alone makes it quite clear that they have e. g. three "tribes".
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One thing we should consider is whether the Kami side of the war should be restricted to the creature type Spirit again. We already have the oni which are Demon Spirit creatures and the mortal Ogres to go with them.
I could imagine that we go on and advance this further. Goryo would be Zombie Spirits. Kodama are basically Treefolk (in variants of the original lore they are Tsukumogami of trees). I'm not certain Iname has been represented in any form in the storyline, so there is much open to interpretation - in fact the Goryo could easily be the "Iname underlings" without challenging canon too much.
Baku would probably need the most work to be turned into an interesting part of the world as they are quite one-note creatures in lore. I hardly have an idea what inspired their cycle. They are basically just weird things made from leftover body parts and "stuff". Maybe they could be flavored as scavengers/hermit crabs of sorts to explain their "manes".
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Promise of Bunrei is interesting since "bunrei" are apparently split Kami. There is a lot of baggage in the real word, but in-universe the concept is easily adaptable to represent "vessel". There is unfortunately no simple translation for this term, so "vessel" is still the best term we have.
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I agree, by the way, that vessel is a mechanic which could have a good solid focus in green-white.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Ok, sounds like the general set discussion is supposed to go here.
I'm not sure if the "bunrei" concept really exactly fits leaving a token when something dies. I believe the idea is like, you have a major shrine to a kami and you want to start another branch somewhere, so you split it off (but not diminish it). What is the vessel mechanic establishing for the kami identity, that they are hard to fully expunge?
This brings me to a point I wanted to make about kami, which is that Shinto is really closely connected to the land, with shrines to mountains, trees, coasts, rocks, etc. I don't have any immediate ideas, but I think it could be cool to try to capture building or destroying shrines on particular land features with a mechanic or cycle of some kind. That said, the Kami War lore doesn't really have anybody building new shrines, but I guess shrines are sort of featured as places where kami manifest. (Full disclaimer: my Master's degree was about shrines and politics and the environment and history and stuff like that.)
Tribal Spirit spells is the cleanest way I can see to capture the way that the kami blur the lines between creatures and spells. You can make the spiritcraft "Whenever you cast a Spirit spell" an ability word, and/or expand it to use like landfall to add effects if you have cast a Spirit spell this turn.
Vela, the Night-Clad's ability that was designed to work with ninjas is cool, maybe it could be expanded to other effects.
@Gerard's Mom: Remember: We don't want to copy the mythology, but take inspiration from it. THat's what I mean with real-world baggage that can easily be ignored. And the flavor explanation for vessel can be anything as long as it conveys the idea that they are not 'mortal'. For all I care the token can represent that the Kami leaves behind one of its floating energy objects.
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So, I looked into some of the background behind the Myojin/Shrine/Zubera-stuff and I think it would be nice to use the concept of the five Myojin and expand it to some sort of "court" for each of them with some distinctive traits.
Interesting tidbit: The Zubera were worshippers at the shrine that got turned into youkai ("monster") when the shrine was destroyed. I don't know how that translated to their current mechanic.
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I mentioned it in the comments of one of the multiverse sets, but my editing privileges are not fully unlocked yet.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Perhaps a more interesting and tweakable take on Vessel would be a riff of Penumbra. It might even be neat to have it make a mirror image token:
Empty Vessel (Common) 1W
Creature - Spirit
1/3
When you have no cards in hand, sacrifice Empty Vessel.
Vessel (When this creature dies, put a 3/1 white Spirit creature token onto the battlefield.)
Perhaps a more interesting and tweakable take on Vessel would be a riff of Penumbra. It might even be neat to have it make a mirror image token:
Empty Vessel (Common) 1W
Creature - Spirit
1/3
When you have no cards in hand, sacrifice Empty Vessel.
Vessel (When this creature dies, put a 3/1 white Spirit creature token onto the battlefield.)
I do not see the gain outweighing the -otherwise aforementioned- cost. There is little actual gain since having a single token type is not per se a problem, so this is not really an improvement. At best this is a lateral movement.
Is there any flavor to the mirroring here that is specific to the Kamigawan theme? I feel like this brings in flavor baggage as well as the issue of non-universal tokens. This seems like the forced attempt to "fix" a working system. Is there an issue that needs to be fixed going to such great length? I'm not aware of vessel being "untweakable".
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Perhaps a more interesting and tweakable take on Vessel would be a riff of Penumbra. It might even be neat to have it make a mirror image token:
Empty Vessel (Common) 1W
Creature - Spirit
1/3
When you have no cards in hand, sacrifice Empty Vessel.
Vessel (When this creature dies, put a 3/1 white Spirit creature token onto the battlefield.)
At best this is a lateral movement.
Replacing 1/1 Thopter Spirit tokens with 2/2 Zombie Spirit tokens or 3/3 Golem Spirit tokens or any other X/X universal token would be a lateral move.
Is there any flavor to the mirroring here that is specific to the Kamigawan theme? I feel like this brings in flavor baggage as well as the issue of non-universal tokens.
@Gerard's Mom: ...the flavor explanation for vessel can be anything as long as it conveys the idea that they are not 'mortal'.
The perspective I am using here is the following: A mechanic that creates a generic token (and "always the same 1/1 creature" is the most generic you get in token-terms) does not imply any further flavor than "when this dies, there still (or now newly) is something".
A mechanic that goes out of its way to make tokens that are less generic and even dynamically depending on the creature the mechanic is placed on implies a deeper story wants to be told. There are connotations to the P/T switching (that you yourself bring up) that seem to go beyond the needs of the set. The issue I have is that it seems to me that these connotations actively work against the flavor we want to represent here top-down. The Kami do not get twisted into a mirror version.
I can imagine projects where a "mirror" is sensible representation of a flavor element, but in this context the mechanic invites (supposedly) unintented associations. So I wondered whether you had a specific reason to go with a "mirror" token in case I missed your reasoning. It seems though there are no conscious intentions behind introducing the flavor baggage of a "mirror" token, so I can now advocate not to introduce this twist unless there is a new reason to think it adds to the overall feel (and the non-uniform token-issue is addressed etc.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
We're starting small, making two duel decks. One for Samurai, one for Spirits. From there we'll iterate until we're happy with their mechanics, then move on to other factions such as Ninjas, Moonfolk, Ogres/Oni, etc.
Here's the thread that kicked off the project.
Here's a link to the Samurai Duel Deck.
Here's a link to the Spirit Duel Deck.
---
MORE IMPORTANT FLAVOR ISSUE: I looked back at Kamigawa and researched some fan content and noticed an issue with the Kami faction in lore: It is a lot less well-defined than the mortals. There are several issues, but the best way to describe it boils down to the fact that we have on the side of the...
Mortals:
The problem tome is definition. The Kami are one five-color faction, so we get individual ideas or inividual ideas cycled out (over five colors or as vertcal cycle) and then forgotten. I bet most people could have told me more about Eldrazi division before BfZ than about Kami division. I feel we should have some intracolor-division that defines better what kind of Kami falls into what color beyond "water: blue, fire: red", so we don't run into the obscure flavor problem the original design had.
Oni were black with a hint of red.
I'm not the most well-versed in the folklore, but I could imagine e. g. tsukumogami (one-hundred year old tools becoming sentient) becoming a white-blue type of Kami (my guess is that Lantern Kami and similar are based on them, but it would help to give them a more readily apparent group identity); Goryo were mentioned as vengeful dead on two black cards and could be expanded into something greater; Kumo (two cards) could be expanded to be a large green tribe etc.
I hope the gist of my idea is understood. Whatever we do, we should rework the Kami flavor in some way to make it more approachable, because while Kamigawa had great overall flavor and individual ideas, its many (apparently?) unconnected ideas still made it overall a miss in the creative department.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
You're right that the Kami are less defined, and I believe part of that is Wizards' intentionally trying to make them mysterious and ambiguous (as they are in Shintoism). This "mysterious" quality is a mistake for Kami. They're revered by mortals and commune with them before they become enemies, so they should be well-known. This gives us a great opportunity to define them for ourselves. We'll need Spirits to exist in all five colors, but they should absolutely have mechanical and flavorful divisions. You've given me an idea, which I've charted out below. The gist is that there are five Kami subsets and five mortal subsets, each with a primary color and a supporting color. We'll need to better define those that aren't well defined, but I think it will give much better structure to limited. Mortals are relatively well defined, but we definitely need to take some time and decide what kind of themes we want our Kamis to take.
Kami Divisions:
Mortal Divisions:
We likely will have about ten to twelve groups on the Mortal side alone as I laid out above. There can also easily be overaps between races and classes e. g. Goblin Samurai in red and so on. It's not necessary nor advisable to associate a single race with a single class. The lore of the Orochi alone makes it quite clear that they have e. g. three "tribes".
---
One thing we should consider is whether the Kami side of the war should be restricted to the creature type Spirit again. We already have the oni which are Demon Spirit creatures and the mortal Ogres to go with them.
I could imagine that we go on and advance this further. Goryo would be Zombie Spirits. Kodama are basically Treefolk (in variants of the original lore they are Tsukumogami of trees). I'm not certain Iname has been represented in any form in the storyline, so there is much open to interpretation - in fact the Goryo could easily be the "Iname underlings" without challenging canon too much.
Baku would probably need the most work to be turned into an interesting part of the world as they are quite one-note creatures in lore. I hardly have an idea what inspired their cycle. They are basically just weird things made from leftover body parts and "stuff". Maybe they could be flavored as scavengers/hermit crabs of sorts to explain their "manes".
---
Promise of Bunrei is interesting since "bunrei" are apparently split Kami. There is a lot of baggage in the real word, but in-universe the concept is easily adaptable to represent "vessel". There is unfortunately no simple translation for this term, so "vessel" is still the best term we have.
---
I agree, by the way, that vessel is a mechanic which could have a good solid focus in green-white.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
I'm not sure if the "bunrei" concept really exactly fits leaving a token when something dies. I believe the idea is like, you have a major shrine to a kami and you want to start another branch somewhere, so you split it off (but not diminish it). What is the vessel mechanic establishing for the kami identity, that they are hard to fully expunge?
This brings me to a point I wanted to make about kami, which is that Shinto is really closely connected to the land, with shrines to mountains, trees, coasts, rocks, etc. I don't have any immediate ideas, but I think it could be cool to try to capture building or destroying shrines on particular land features with a mechanic or cycle of some kind. That said, the Kami War lore doesn't really have anybody building new shrines, but I guess shrines are sort of featured as places where kami manifest. (Full disclaimer: my Master's degree was about shrines and politics and the environment and history and stuff like that.)
Tribal Spirit spells is the cleanest way I can see to capture the way that the kami blur the lines between creatures and spells. You can make the spiritcraft "Whenever you cast a Spirit spell" an ability word, and/or expand it to use like landfall to add effects if you have cast a Spirit spell this turn.
Vela, the Night-Clad's ability that was designed to work with ninjas is cool, maybe it could be expanded to other effects.
---
So, I looked into some of the background behind the Myojin/Shrine/Zubera-stuff and I think it would be nice to use the concept of the five Myojin and expand it to some sort of "court" for each of them with some distinctive traits.
Interesting tidbit: The Zubera were worshippers at the shrine that got turned into youkai ("monster") when the shrine was destroyed. I don't know how that translated to their current mechanic.
---
I mentioned it in the comments of one of the multiverse sets, but my editing privileges are not fully unlocked yet.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Empty Vessel (Common)
1W
Creature - Spirit
1/3
When you have no cards in hand, sacrifice Empty Vessel.
Vessel (When this creature dies, put a 3/1 white Spirit creature token onto the battlefield.)
Vessel X (When this creature dies, put a 0/0 colorless spirit creature token with X +1/+1 counters onto the battlefield.)
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
I do not see the gain outweighing the -otherwise aforementioned- cost. There is little actual gain since having a single token type is not per se a problem, so this is not really an improvement. At best this is a lateral movement.
Is there any flavor to the mirroring here that is specific to the Kamigawan theme? I feel like this brings in flavor baggage as well as the issue of non-universal tokens. This seems like the forced attempt to "fix" a working system. Is there an issue that needs to be fixed going to such great length? I'm not aware of vessel being "untweakable".
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Replacing 1/1
ThopterSpirit tokens with 2/2ZombieSpirit tokens or 3/3GolemSpirit tokens or any other X/X universal token would be a lateral move.Didn't you just say to G_M, and I quote:
For the record, I think Vessel is a fine mechanic.
Of course it's a working system - Thopters have proven that. So I'm not trying to fix anything. It was just a friendly suggestion.
A 1/1 Spirit creature token is a 1/1 Spirit creature token. Kinda hard to tweak those parameters.
I think so. These, too, would be approximately lateral moves. The "at best" is an issue though.
The perspective I am using here is the following: A mechanic that creates a generic token (and "always the same 1/1 creature" is the most generic you get in token-terms) does not imply any further flavor than "when this dies, there still (or now newly) is something".
A mechanic that goes out of its way to make tokens that are less generic and even dynamically depending on the creature the mechanic is placed on implies a deeper story wants to be told. There are connotations to the P/T switching (that you yourself bring up) that seem to go beyond the needs of the set. The issue I have is that it seems to me that these connotations actively work against the flavor we want to represent here top-down. The Kami do not get twisted into a mirror version.
I can imagine projects where a "mirror" is sensible representation of a flavor element, but in this context the mechanic invites (supposedly) unintented associations. So I wondered whether you had a specific reason to go with a "mirror" token in case I missed your reasoning. It seems though there are no conscious intentions behind introducing the flavor baggage of a "mirror" token, so I can now advocate not to introduce this twist unless there is a new reason to think it adds to the overall feel (and the non-uniform token-issue is addressed etc.)
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO