Yeah, placeholder names are really helpful. I've often found that minor details like that are the biggest time drain for projects. Don't obsess over writing in a linear way--if a section at the end comes more easily to you, get it on paper. If you need to write it with placeholder names, do so. That seems to be what works the best for me, at least.

You might be able to suss out the basic phonemes that are common to Kor language from the names given in the comics. That way you can shuffle them around and get something that still sounds Kor-like. Pay attention to what consonants and vowels they seem to use a lot. It's obviously simplistic since no real languages use such hyperrestricted naming conventions but it's a way to start.

Can Zendikaran(sp?) vampires turn non-vampires into vampires much like Chosen of Markov?

hey everyone, just unwinding after GP CHI and joined up with this forum to link up with the team. i took the role of quest for the gemblades on tumblr and am going to write it in the next two weeks. i was wondering if anyone could give me the most baisic guidlines for this? ive got a few story maps done for what i want to do but i know some will probably not be acceptable (one involves domri returning to zendikar after the release) so getting some direction would be appreciated. feel free to contact me here or on tumblr. i am mtg-thoughts (http://mtg-thoughts.tumblr.com/) thanks in advance

oh as a quick P.S. i read into the teeth of akoum last night to get a base line for life on zendikar... is there any other matieral i can read to keep consistent? i noticed mention of comics? sorry i am currently trying to read my way through the entierty of this thread.

Yeah the Domri idea is probably a nonstarter both because he's a canon character and because I'm preeeetty sure the timeline on that really doesn't work out.

...Also I forgot till just now that Domri existed. Hrm.

Maybe it would be easiest to turn things around and ask you what other ideas you have. Broadly speaking we're trying to organize things according to the relative feeling of danger and growing threat... where do you think your story might fit? Lighter or heavier?

(Also spellcheck is a good tool to have in the toolbox )

Glad to see you made it over here! Hope you stick around

thanks for the reply! the other story mapped out i have is a planeswalker of my own design probably ends up being R/G or B/R/G. this would be center around this guy... or girl.... or it. but for now im using he pronouns... hes a impulsive untrusting selfserving planeswalker but he considers all of his creatures a part of himself as well as his home lands on... wherever hes from... but in a very simple way it goes like
- arrive on zendikar, maybe he goes for the sake of the wildness and then hears of the gemblades
-leaves for his quest alone (no other humanoids or sentient creatures in his party)
-traps roil beats vampires spawn.. you know rising action stuff.
-finds a gemblade or gemblades (ohhh shiny)
-is attacked by a baloth of the turntimber
-when he pierces the baloths skull with the gemblade, it (the gemblade) explodes into Red/green mana and imbues the baloth with an even more savage feroicity and also his preivous attempts to communicate and calm the baloth that failed are now causing a response in it and he manages to tame the beast to his side.

trying to figure out exactly how to put in a last fight with him and the baloth against some spawn... maybe he should be in bala gaed (SP i know... but the fetid jungles of the joraga) so it could roughly end right before that nissa story? but i think that this could honestly fit just about anywhere on the timeline and i am not partial to a particular part.

but yeah thats probably a pretty good baseline for what my main idea is at the moment. ill gladly take adivce...


p.s. forgot to mention this, but the whole point is he thinks he is going to gain massive power from these blades but in the end finds out they grant him nothing and only imbue his truest friends with the savage power held within zendikar (his creatures)

the vampires make "nulls" pretty savage and scary beings in and of themselves. its stated they are created when they drain them to an inch of life but then stop. they are the empty husks that remain after the vampires feed.

and not to nit pick but the denziens of zendikar ar the zendikari from what i have read at least.

So in the end the true prize at the end of the adventure...

is friendship?

I like it. Fund it.

Although I think Barinellos wants everything to happen pre-Rise of the Eldrazi so he'll probably want a non-Eldrazi enemy for your 'walker.

Yeah, the Eldrazi are the climax of the anthology, so something else would be better.

okay, maybe i am a little confused on the timeline of the zendikar block itself, as i was on a tremendously long hiatus at the time, so my only info is from reading into the teeth witch i actually really enjoyed. but it seemed to me like the block itself would have started with the spawn as the foreshadowing or whatever. but i mean an army of nulls is pretty terrifing as well. so no spawn got it

Nulls work.

The actual timeline involved with Zendikar spans a fairly large portion of time.
We sort of consider the start of it to be Chandra's arrival on the world, and it takes her a few months to reach Akoum where the Eye of Ugin event happens. Following that though, there is 6 months before Nissa gets involved where the Spawn escape from Tal Terig and start to permeate the world. A couple of months after that, the Titans are released, and that is essentially the climax of the Teeth of Akoum.

The most we want to do with the Eldrazi up to the climax and their actual appearance is rumors and hints that the spawn has been released. So, it's not completely verboten for the Eldrazi to be mentioned, but they shouldn't really make much more than cameos.
The ones that knew the most about the Eldrazi release were the vampires, incidentally, so you might be able to work that angle if you like.

thank you, that is very helpful. i have a rough idea of what happens between chandra jace and is it sarkan? but havn't actually read the material... im about to go search uncharted realms, is there anything else you are aware of i can read to get a better handle on all of zendikar, i feel my scope is limited at best at this point. but i shall be changing that shortly. got nothing to do for three hours so ill be reading and hopefully start writing by then.

There wasn't an Uncharted Realms for that. It was something else altogether:

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Multiv ... omics/main
It all started with Fuel for the Fire, but Zendikar doesn't get involved until Journey to the Eye. Follow that with Awakenings and Enter the Eldrazi.
Aside from that, there's also the Planeswalker's Guides:
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazi ... ily/stf/55
and a few other things
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazi ... feature/56
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazi ... ily/stf/82
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazi ... ily/stf/86
http://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazi ... feature/84

oh awesome! thank you for the links highly appreciated !

Would it be too far-fetched to imply that a minor character decided to take someone to the Bloodchief, where it might be assumed said person might have been changed? Considering the quest is an adventure to a source of healing, I've so far considered making the main character a father of a dying boy, the mage he hires is barely together; missing a hand, perhaps an eye, and more I presume. The druid he hires to assist them in bonding with the nearby lands (to channel these mana bonds through to the Sunspring, supposedly activating its magic) is an old woman, and I'm not sure if they shall take a vampire party member or said vampire will merely follow them and make trouble later on in the expedition. I was hoping to have the option if things went south for the father, if the father could make a deal with the vampire and request the vampire take his son and have the Bloodchief turn the boy, so his illness will not take his life.

That's dark, but interesting. Kinda undermines the importance of the Sunspring itself but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Even darker when I explain that the party's healer is none other than the father; though he was not always so. When no professional believes they can help your only son, you BECOME a professional with stronger conviction. When THAT doesn't succeed, you become desperate. Desperation goes a long way.

In that way, I think the sunspring only working on one person, in this case maybe the father, but unable to help the son would still work.
In the end though, I think it would undermine the entire story if you went much past the sunspring failing to heal him. Lead the reader to the conclusion you want for the best effect.
The vampire making the offer, maybe alluding to it throughout the story, that would work, but I wouldn't actually show the kid being taken TO the bloodchief. It would drag out the denouement too long, but the above idea is good for a climax.

It would also probably set the story later in the anthology, which is no problem.

Oh, thanks, no no of course not, I in no way expected to write out the actual events beyond the explanation that the offer was made, and that the boy was brought to the Bloodchief, and from the father's PoV, he got what he wanted, sort of. Well, you do have to "sacrifice" the enchantment to get 8 life, so I imagine it would be one-use sort of thing. I might play around with the idea that the unexpected vampire party member temps the father to this conclusion via his desperation and fury at falsely hopeful attempts, so that he may preserve the spring for the sake of using sangromancy to repurpose it: a Bloody spring for himself and his kin, of which he swears the father's son will become and whom he will be able to care for if the spring comes under his control. All that's left are the events leading up to it.