What about the city idea, where we just have this constantly growing, almost cancerous, single goblin megalopolis? That's one thing that I really like the visual of, but admittedly, I took part of that inspiration from the movie Noah.


I keep trying to keep myself from suggesting the moons were Cosmos' juggling balls. That's... just too silly.
And no, I think a single sun is preferable rather than more than one.

I still need to see that. >_< Yeah, I like that idea. I don't think Ruwin or I got that the goblins had moved above ground--I was assuming they were still in the warrens. But yes, I think that'd make for a pretty incredible visual.

Particularly since some of the goblins would be sort of... rampant architects. I'm imagining a positive riot of styles in the city, with a LOT of structural problems. Things are sort of held together by spit and (fittingly) prayer.

If we want to bring back the whole semi-goth aesthetic, I think we could take a lot of cues here from Labyrinth, not just the goblin city but a lot of the darker areas of the maze, and maybe even Jareth's castle.

Part of this is actually the visual that the heart of their entire civilization has... somewhat fallen to ruin. Like, the edges just continually push outwards, but the interior starts to become abandoned and the further in you go, the less used it becomes.

Oh yeah, I never did answer you on the Labyrinth mention from earlier.
Which I still shan't because I have to go look it up.

The one thing about Goblin architecture that I want to stress is that they are a VERY horizontal people, as kind of a counterpoint to the verticality of the Moonfolk, so they spread out, but nothing gets too terribly tall.


So, back to the icons, I was toying with an idea today at work and inspiration struck like... well, a meteorite.
The idea I was assembling was to do with the angels, this idea that they were specifically created as an aegis against the stuff from outside Empyrean, they gatekeepers to Oblivion. The entire thing came up because I was thinking the gods finally start to realize that Beings from Outside had brought about the previous destruction, so they wanted to take steps to defend against those sorts of beings if they were to come back. But aside from that, it would also be their ultimate punishment for anybody that threatens the world. They would be tossed Outside and torn from existence.
There was just a really strong idea of "Angels of Oblivion" for B/W and that's when I suddenly though "well what if they did something with exile?"
For example "Exiled cards remain in Exile" to crank up the viciousness of things like Oblivion Ring and at about that point, it him me...
What if the icons were tied to each of the Zones?

Hand
Library
Graveyard
Battlefield
Exile

Huuuh, it'd be an interesting way of differentiating them from the characteristics and the avatars alike. And it's a clever way of tying the history in. Yeah, I could dig that.

I'm glad. The problem still comes up with establishing them as creations of the gods that meaningfully wouldn't be filled by the avatars later on, with them being essentially the Hands of the Gods.

I mean, the angels dealing with exile means that they have a strong idea that they can draw from.
I would imagine Fate would tie to Graveyard and Cosmos to Library.
World would seem an obvious choice for Battlefield, and Time for Hand, but in practical terms, U/G really wants to do with Hand as much as W/R wants to be about the Battlefield.... so I'm torn.

Additionally, it means that I don't think Vampire is going to work for B/G icon, leaving us open for B/G and U/G.


thoughts more on the Goblin megacity's description?

Barinellos, In one of your responses you said you wanted to stress the alien sky more and liked the idea of Hindu beliefs. Why not change the color of the moon? The moon is white, sometimes tinted towards the yellow, the orange, and occasionally, to stress times of emotional and physical conflict, red. A different color would really jump out at the imagination, its pale light being of that different color could radically change how people see and perceive the night. Or, if the color isn't something you want to see changed, the texture of the moon to the eyes and other senses could work just as well.

As for the Jackalfolk, going back to the Anubis like idea that spawned them, Jackals were creatures that both feasted on the dead and would be culturally adopted as its defenders. There's a big cultural significance for life after death with the protection of Anubis who would lead Osiris, the God of the Dead. An interesting note to build off of that is around Ra, which according to this traveled to the underworld and merged with Osiris to become the new god of the dead. Through this, you might be able to have some inspiration to tie in the Sun with Fate and Death, which might be able to add some Green tones to something that is more traditionally Black and to a lesser extent White.

Agh, didn't mean to leave you hanging there Fake.
Anyways, I don't see why we could have a different colored moon, though it's questionable which color we'd want to go for. Maybe blue and red and... I just realized that's the exact colors of Cosmos' domains. I'd made the suggestion thinking we could riff on Blood Moon and Moonlace. On the other hand, I don't think we could really justify having it shift colors like a moodstone.

I'm still of the opinion that we need to just rest on the jackalfolk for a while. For one, we need to actually spawn a NAME for them instead of calling them jackalfolk all the time.

Hm... How about the Moon being blue/red, but as it goes through the phases instead of it becoming black and disappearing, it becomes red/blue? Instead of the moon actually changing color, it is the shadow of the moon not being illuminated.

Another, somewhat cheaper, way to get around it would be to have two moons.

You could always call them Anubians, but fair enough.

Honestly, I feel like that might be a bit too derivative for us to use.

Going back to the goblin mega-city, there were elements of a labyrinth that I actually do like using for the abandoned areas that are being recovered by nature. Part of this though, is that it ends up with this large swathe of inhabited city that is pushing outwards, but there is one small remnant of civilization left at the core. The Goblin Palace, which... ironically, has started pushing out and consuming the most ancient ruins, causing a sort of second city to start sprouting up.

The Goblin King is actually the official head, but each district is ruled by an appointed noble that effectively runs everything while the Goblin King largely has no idea what's happening in his kingdom. It does allow him to deal with the foreign matters much more effectively, but it causes this sort of "let them eat cake" attitude about local issues.

I like that sort of image. It strikes me that the goblins were so intent on pushing outward that they likely expanded the city even faster than their population expanded, thus leaving the areas near the center largely unpopulated. I like it.

I enjoy that image a lot too. It has an intriguing sort of cyclical growth quality to it. It reminds me of Life.

So, I was turning over the Soltari in my head, not their physical appearance, but their architecture and society.
I felt like it was going to be very important to have a basically organic shape to their buildings, large archways and domes, and other less geometric shapes, but as I began trying to work that out, the more discordant the idea became.
So I feel like we might actually almost need to juke a little left to this and go for almost a Turkish influence for them to tie everything together.

Aside from that, I've been considering their society, and it is clearly ruled by a theocracy, but the structure of it is still less sure in my mind. The thing that springs most readily to mind is actually to borrow some of the structure of the Church from Final Fantasy X.



Aside from that, I feel like we need to talk more about this idea since past the concept, I have a lot less going on with it.
As well as taking suggestions for green's icon.

Honestly, I'm not really feeling the Zone thing. Not that I'm against it, I think I just need someone to sizzle it for me before I'm completely on board.

For green icon, what do you think of Treefolk? I know they often serve the mid-range, but I think that can be expanded upward. And if we're doing demonic/angelic for /, I think a nature image might be a good counter-balance in green. Also, I think treefolk could end up with an interesting relationship with the Satyrs, especially with some Satyrs moving out of the woods. Maybe some of the woods can come visit them...

For the Solitari, have you considered something like the Sagrada Familia as an influence, Barinellos?

Turkish is an interesting choice. What led you to that in particular?

I think, like Raven, I don't have enough of a sense of what the different Iconics as related to the different zones would... well... do, I guess. It's a very abstract concept.

@Raven:

Big spooky looking treefolk could be a kind of cool visual...

Honestly, it was mostly the more rounded shapes associated with their architecture that I felt would marry well to some of the gothic influences. Domes and other semi-organic and softer round shapes.
For example, look at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. I feel like that would marry well with some of the sweeping aspects of gothic architecture.

The Sagrada Familia could also add a lot of fairly interesting notes too.

something both of those structures have is a sense of vertical scale as well.


Oh come on, the entire project has been an exercise in realizing the abstract.
Actually, part of it is that I really haven't gotten anything past the Angels being related to the Exiled zone.
They guard and access the Blind Eternities. They try to keep walkers out and throw people into oblivion if they cause problems.

Everything else is less defined as it is.
I imagine the library as a sort of cosmic... well, library. Like knowledge written in the aether, so it attaches to the Sphinxes in an interesting way.

@Raven: I'll think more over. Though to comment on your comment, I haven't really settled on Demons for black. It's... going to be a problem too, I think.

I like Angels as guardians of the planar boundary. I like that a lot. Are you set on Angels there or are Archons or even Lammasu possible contenders?

And that idea with the Sphinxes makes a lot of sense too and has some interesting potential. Knowledge written on the aether in particular fits into the whole destroyed plane thing. That could be an act of recovery.

Green seems to be fairly obviously the Battlefield. Green deals with what is, in the here and now, in the material world.

What if hands here represented intention and impulse? Then it could fit in with red and the graveyard with black representing... uh... dead things.

I'm... not super enthused with black to be honest. >_> That feels so obvious.

Okay, well, if exile=white and library=blue, that leaves hand, graveyard and battlefield. Battlefield almost has to be red. Stereotype says graveyard should be black, but we might be able to subvert that a little with green. Maybe play into the life-cycle and returning lands from the graveyard or something, which might play into the Treefolk thing. That would leave Hand for black, which could play into a demon-themed draw theme.

Just some brainstorming, of course.

I actually am sort of set on angels for this. There's something about their aesthetic, particularly in a gothic world, that feels very true to it, and there is an established precedent for W/B angels.

Which actually brings me to something about the larger scale of this, in that the icons are going to be duo colored, to sort of separate them from the two sides of the Avatars and the characteristics.

U/R being the Library with the sphinxes and the mysteries of the heavens and aether is a pretty solid thing.

Then we start getting to the more abstract things.

U/G, I feel, really wants to be the hand, even though that's The World and seems more compatible with the Battlefield.
W/R, meanwhile, feels like it really wants to be the battlefield, mechanically.

G/B is... extremely obvious, but as much as we are bucking expectations, this feels like one that just would be too much trouble to fight.

Yeah, if you're doing multi-color for them, G/B pretty much has to be graveyard.

I have to say though, between the broad over-arches of the gods, the abstract concepts of the avatars, the small creatures bridging the color philosophies of those abstract concepts, the five zones, and now the multi-colored icons bridging zone representation, I'm getting mildly concerned that we might have too many themes here.

In fairness, a lot of those feed directly into one another.
The ones that really stand apart from everything else are the Icons and the zones.