Are there? I thought there were several Eldrazi, and just three of them ended up on Zendikar, while the others are still roaming around and eating planets at their whim.

So the role of the three (I thought there were more) eldrazi going from plane to plane will be explained, how will they know if they've missed a plane? They won't have gone to it, and because they missed it / didn't know about it; how would they know enough to go back.

As far as I know, the eldrazi were mostly drifting through the multiverse annihilating any plane they came into contact with. If they are drifiting aimlessly, then they don't 'know' where they are going, thus they don't know if they missed anything. As such, Starstill being halted for this specific purpose, stays away from any eldrazi trouble and doesn't conflict with any eldrazi storyline; while still adding to ours.

For storyteller: Maybe Starstill is the source of Anjo's/Glac's immortality? Maybe there is a source of (untainted) immortality on starstill and the dragons don't know of any other in the multiverse. That would make them want to protect starstill as it would prolong their lives indefinitely.


Same here

There are three Eldrazi Titans. The rest are all descended from the three.
There might be small ones still roaming free, but I don't think any but the Titans are really going to be big enough to cause Lesser Elders to stop a plane just so they could avoid them.

Which, might not even be possible at all.
Just because you aren't approaching them doesn't mean they can't approach you.
Though, if they can be baited using mana from somewhere, perhaps the Starstill can keep mana from leaking from the plane so that the Eldrazi don't notice.
Who knows. It's all very much speculation at this point.

The way I see it, the Zendikar three eldrazi are like the lorwyn five planeswalkers.
There are more, but they have to start somewhere.

As for stopping mana from leaking out, that could be the prupose of the starstill. Freeze time so that mana doesn't/can't leak out. It's stuck in it's own personal bubble. I think of it as the solution in the first Artemis Fowl book where they sealed off the manor from the rest of the world.

Time was left unadulterated outside a specific area, but within that area time stood still for everything but the living people.
For anyone who doesn't want the book spoiled, ignore this:

Nope. Three. Exactly three. They are The Eldrazi. In fact, everything else on Zendikar isn't an Eldrazi, they're all spawn. It doesn't matter how you see it, altimis, those are the facts.

And originally the Eldrazi Spawn were anomalies created specifically because the Eldrazi were trapped in material form. That... seems to have been retconned so that now they always show up. Or at least Doug has said stuff that implies as much.

Which highlights the sketchiness of the territory we're in here. We KNOW who the Elder Dragons were (except that we're not certain if Piru was an Elder or a Lesser Elder) we KNOW the result of the dragon war (the losers were turned into Elder Land Wurms) we KNOW roughly when the Primevals ruled Dominaria and how they were defeated and how they could rise again. There's a lot of hard information there that we can base things upon.

And more importantly, as far as judging the relative goodness of the idea is concerned, we already have ancient powerful dragons on this plane. Making the leap to "maybe they're Lesser Elders (of which we KNOW there were multiple--Scarzam was one, Piru may have been another)" is not that much of a creative stretch.

Saying "But what if SUDDENLY ELDRAZI" when NOTHING on the plane has ANYTHING to do with the Eldrazi, or how they consume worlds, or their timeline as far as we know it, or their mechanical identity, or their unique color identity, or the aesthetic tropes they draw upon... that is a real creative stretch! There's just zero justification for it.

I must say I was not expecting Artemis Fowl to enter the argument.
I do own books 1-5. Good old days.

The problem of the "time stop" argument then would be... why ARE living things exempt?
What about mana? If you're stopping the mana from leaving, then they're frozen too, right?
Then how do you get more? Will you eventually run out of mana?

Aretmis Fowl is my favorite series.

The dragons are the foci of the starstill.
If you take this into account of some hidden method of immortality: The lives of the dragons are linked with the starstill. In order to end the starstill, the dragons have to die; but they can't die because they continuously partake of immortality. They would need to be killed.
The connectiong to the immortality keeps things alive and working inside indefinitely, while maintaining the starstill.

They saved the plane in the one way that granted them almost undeniable immortality, and effectively made themselves gods on the plane. That is a selfish method to a positive goal.

The reason this is the case, is because they prevented the eldrazi from invading it. I don't understand how this is an argument against using the eldrazi as a definitive tool for the plot.

That answered none of my questions.
It also puts into question why they'd ever want to end Starstill.
Also not sure where the immortality thing came out of. More than just a bit of a stretch.

Altimis, that justification is totally anathema to anything resembling good storytelling.

Whatever. Point is, if the Eldrazi are in, M:EM is out.

It might be good time to pause card creation and go into development mode.

Hello, everyone!

I'm not around YMTC much, but the name is RuwinReborn! It's nice to meet all of you.

It has come to my attention that Aloise was suggested as a character to appear in a possible plot-line for this plane. I am totally for this idea! Reading over the "Moonrise", I was struck by how visually interesting that idea was. I like to trust my writer's instinct, and the scene of the bright moon rising from the earth to take it's place in the heavens, bringing a little more balance to a stagnant, tilted world has some excellent imagery.

The Eldrazi, unfortunately, do not have this sort of imagery, or metaphorical "oomph".

You can't really use the Eldraze as a "tool" for the plot, because they're less of a "tool" and more of a "Giant Goddamn Sledgehammer" As has been noted, there really is no reason to include - or even mention - the Eldrazi at all. Lesser Elder Dragon's are all the explanation that should really be needed for why the Plane has stopped, because Dragon's have a long history of doing as they please, and the consequences being damned!

Besides, as far as creating sets go, we should keep the focus on what's interesting about this idea. This plane, this set, is ripe for exploration! Why bring in another set's - canon or otherwise - big, flashy monsters? We already have a plane that is locked in stasis! Who needs Eldrazi? It's not important, it's superfluous, and it comes across as gimmicky for the sake of recognition and attention.

This set can stand on it's own merit, and that's something to be proud of! You don't need WOTC's creations to make it interesting!

Just some food for thought, my friends. I'll probably pop my head in a few more time, because this concept interests me. Until then, I suggest you all give some serious thought to the Moonrise idea, because, as I said, it's visually and mechanically appealing. Give it a shot!

And leave the Eldrazi to WOTC.

Welcome Ruwin!

On an unrelated note, I had a random imagery of the plane being split at the top and bottom by Maraka, then the dragons had a contest with each other, with Anjo burning a scorched trail and Glac creating icicle mountains that together form a circle perpendicular to the marakan forest, and finally the moonrise taking an orbit perpendicular to both.

Just... random imagery.

Eight pages are too many to read them, what is the flavor of enchantment creatures?

1) It's the way the dragons did the magic. If living things were exempt, the dragons with die. As such, the dragons did not do that actually catapaulting their own immortality in the process.
2) Why would the mana be frozen? The mana is created from the bonds the caster makes with the land, not the land itself. There should be no subtraction of mana.
3) See above.

==xx==


Whenever you hear the word Eldrazi / Phyrexia everyone thinks planar domination. So saying that a planes currents existance was to prevent that from happening has immense "oomph".

This is in direct contradiction to your last statement. Eldrazi don't leave an impact; they have a massive impact. Perhaps this is teh reason I'm so confused, because the people fighting against the idea appear to be contradicting themselves. Not to mention that nothing has really been set in stone yet, though that's not anyone's fault it's just another reason I'm confused.

This is where the plot tool comes into effect. This land HAS to be very special if two dragons were to take extreme measures to protect it from the eldrazi. I personally, would simply evacuate the plane until I could come up with a solution to the eldrazi, but the dragons didn't do that. They stopped the entire plane at some great cost; but also for some great gain. Dragons are selfish, but that doesn't make them heartless.

I can see that a common factor of disagreement is me; so I'm going to opt out.
At most I'll make cards and keep my plots to myself.

I think we can pretty much conclude from all they've done (and all one particular one has done) that they actually are heartless.
If mana were not frozen, what's keeping the eldrazi from noticing the plane?

I don't mind Eldrazis being a possible plot tool, but their involvement has to make sense.
And right now it isn't quite clicking.

...I don't think we've even talked about the flavor of enchantment creatures at all.

Whoops.

See? This is what I mean about missing the important development of fine details while we're talking about Eldrazi!

Does anyone have a handy list of what enchantment creatures have already made it into the set? That'll tell us what we're working with and it might suggest where we should go. I honestly don't remember off the top of my head what colors enchantments go in, either, so that'd be good to go over again.

@Storyteller:

I kind of like that image, in part because it feels so... well... draconic.

One alternate thought I had was having the moon's path be sort of tilted so it doesn't directly affect the poles, thus keeping its effects away from the dragons themselves, to avoid pissing them off too much.

But yeah I kinda like the burned/frozen trail idea. It's kind of delightfully flamboyant.

[waves to Ruwin!]



I'm just going to ignore any talk of Eldrazi from here on out. I'm moving forward under the assumption that they have no role here. If Parad wants to step in and make a definitive call that they are, then that'll settle it, and M:EM can officially pull out of the project. Until then, I'm assuming this can still be an interesting setting.

I think the justification for enchantment creatures were that... normal things wouldn't be able to survive at the end closest to the sun, so they should be elementals and stuff like that! And since it's a type matters set they should be enchantments! And they give off a religious feel and there seems o be some kind of worship-Elori-who's-the-sun going on!

That's about it.

That's a decent start at least.

Are they mechanically tied to the Oblation cards at all or are they sorta separate things?

(Also, there seems to be a distinctly more religious bent to Illpyre... is that a contrast between the sides we want to play up?)