I'm with Ace on voting against undoing the starstill being the primary goal. That's part of why I think the Moonrise idea is a good one: it has a significant impact on the plane and alleviates some of the plane's problems without fundamentally undoing what makes the plane unique.

(Although I gotta disagree with the assessment of Innistrad--it's still a horror plane full of vampires and demons, the particular monsters in power just shifted somewhat.)

One card mentioned water and an intellectual society under the surface of the planet in Illpyre. Maybe Merfolk could be down there? (I don't think they're super necessary though.)

I like vampires but I have totally selfish M:EM related reasons for not wanting them here, mostly because we've got a frozen plane in the works that also uses them. >_< They are an obvious and assuredly flavorful choice, though, and if we want someone opposed to the Moonrise... vampires could be that someone, potentially.

Attempts made to get the world moving again by reversing whatever caused the Starstill. Joy of joys, they get the plane moving again and they think they've solved their problem. Unexpected result is that they basically just 'reversed polarity' on the Starstill and while in the short term this returned the plane to life (Frostwynd thawed, Illpyre blossomed), the long term effect is that the land formerly known as Frostwynd becomes the land of eternal sun and the land formerly known as Illpyre becomes the land of eternal cold.

So the net result would be that the plane would return to a plane to the two extremes, and once an eon some great plan hatches to return it to full life... but in the end, is just another reverse of polarity. For most of time, except these brief hiccups, the plane is what it is - a land of two extremes.

Random thought about the dragons: they can't be Elder Dragons themselves, but maybe they're closely related to the old bloodlines/leftovers of the Age of Dragons? I don't think that would contradict continuity and it'd be a neat tie-in. Possibly leftover colonizers from that period who decided to terraform the world to their preferred specifications after most of the other major powers died out?

I was under the impression skeletons were going to be an primarily illpyre type, seeing as you probably don't really decompose in frostwynde.

I like this idea.

@Skeletons - Yep, skeletons in Illpyre, zombies in Frostwynd.

@Reversing the Starstill - I think it's the only natural goal for this story. That said I have no intention of letting anybody succeed. Minimize the consequences, sure, but never succeed.

@Dragons - Yeah, I've come around to thinking that just 2 dragons is best. Having them be fairly close relatives of the elder dragons would be nice. We need to get across that these two are not a force to be trifled with. These guys'll rock your world (off it's axis). As a note though I always found extremely weird that all the dragons in the multiverse are supposed to be related.

@polar regions - Yah, I was thinking totally uninhabited and unexplored. Elementals, spirits, enchantment creatures and maybe the dragons are the only things that can "live" there. I was thinking there could be a lich lording over an undead empire somewhere deep in Frostwynd, but even he couldn't survive a trek to the pole. Much like Canada, 90% of life is within a fairly narrow band of land.

@The Academy - My plans for these guys was basically that when the Starstill happened, academics and established governments holed up in the cities and set about tying to solve the crisis. One bastion of knowledge stands higher than the others - _____ Academy.
Basically these guys were the Alamo or MIT of their world before the Starstilling. Now they're the most important faction in the hemisphere. Their artifacts provide the people of Frostwynd with much-needed heat and light. And while they lack the martial prowess to conquer anything, they hold too much importance to every factions in the region for anybody to consider attacking them. Warlords are eager to curry the academy's favour with food, labour and unburied relics (which act as a defacto currency in the area around the academy). Most of the barbarian kings were probably sent there for their education. They're half renaissance scholars, half medieval Vatican city.
FIT's (Frostwynd Institute of Technology) stated goal is to preserve knowledge throughout this dark age (dark age, get it?) and eventually return the stars to motion. Of course, that last bit has proved a little tricky. Saving the world has proved difficult, and very, very easy to put off. At least until a new discovery reignites hope of salvation...

I like that a lot.

It is weird. Weirder even than that is the fact that the Elder Land Wurms were originally dragons cast down from grace when they lost the Elder Dragon War. Hah, maybe we should have some Elder Land Wurms on this plane...

Anyway, if we wanted, these could be Sub-Elders, part of the firstborn generation of dragons following the Elder Dragon War that also counted Piru and Scarzam. I highly doubt that this information is ever likely to be contradicted.

Incidentally, since Viashino are going to be a part of the plane, it's worth noting that Viashino are also descended from the Dragons.

This also provides a real strong incentive for The Academy/FIT to NOT solve the problem of the Starstill:

They'd be going against Lesser Elders.

And Lesser Elders are only "lesser" relative to the Elder Dragons, the most powerful of whom (Nicol Bolas) could not physically manifest on Dominaria without magical aid because if he tried the sheer magnitude of his power would crack the foundation of the plane. Elder Dragons are REALLY FREAKING SCARY, and attracting their ire is NOT a good plan.

Could the Academy get away with raising a moon to alleviate the effects of the Starstill? Maaaaybe. But I bet there's some factions that would really rather they not risk pissing off the dragons that are powerful enough to quell the stars.

Should the fire dragon be someway related to the sun god? Would seem reasonable...

Related how?

Also, are we talking literal definite "god creature type" god here or Fiers-style "maybe god maybe Planeswalker maybe totally made up" god? Like is this an entity that definitely exists in the storyline in the same way gods exist in Theros or is it more like gods on... every plane that isn't Theros (or Kamigawa)?

Depends. We haven't decided on who/what Elori is yet.

I think the sun god might just be the literal sun?

I can see why the Illpyre cultists would view the fire dragon as an agent of the sun god, but the dragon itself probably doesn't care either way, since if they caused the Starstill they must be pretty uninterested in the other life on the plane.

What would happen if someone made the dragons mad at each other?

The red dragon chases the blue dragon clockwise around the world. At the same time, the blue dragon chases the red dragon clockwise around the world. They never see each other because they're always half a world away from one another. But the act of them going around the world with such speed and ferocity causes the world to stop spinning. Or something.

OK, I've watched way too many cartoons. And Superman: The Movie. Ignore.

I could see the red dragon encouraging his own worship just to feed his vanity. He could be "The Sun on Earth", pumping himself up as the physical manifestation of the sun. He may not care about the lives of the people, but they can be pleasant vanity objects.
Also, which dragon was which gender again?

Maybe they're both agender

Glacinorak (Blue) has the flavor text: "The seasons disturbed me, and for once, my brother agreed with me."

It isn't attributed, though, so it is unclear whether the quote represents Glac talking about a brother, or if the quote is Glac's sibling talking about Glac and referring to Glac as a brother.

I think Parad talked about the red one being female and blue one being male.
I can't remember why.

I was kind of aiming for a yin-yang total opposites angle though

Yeah I wasn't exactly holding my breath for that, but what the hell, might as well toss the idea out there anytime I can in case it sticks someday.

But yeah Parad talked about making the red one female and changing the flavor text on Glacinorak accordingly.