Yeah I can get behind blackening the ogres.

We've got one red ogre so what say we bend them r/b and to represent the greater power of vampires after one side of the world goes perpetually dark they go into the midrange slot?

That gives us skeletons and zombies as iconic, vamps as midrange with some ogres for variety, and demons as the iconic.

Not really sold on Black Demons.
The only one we have right now kinda got shoo'd in when colored artifacts didn't make it in and Salvage Titan got re-made at PO's discretion.
I guess we do have angels, though...

Heh, typing on smartphones.

And assuming we have a protagonist whose goal is to kick start the season cycle again, the vamps can be the main villains.

Edit: Also, there is always Archons for white though like what they did with Theros.

I guess my question would be what we get here out of changing our iconics for more obscure stuff when we've already got a lot of weird stuff going on here. They might be useful as familiar touchstones.

But that said, I'm not wedded to the black and white iconics. Archons could be interesting and I guess vamps could be bumped to iconic though I'm not a huge fan of the way vamps keep bouncing all over the power level spectrum these days.

Planar name brainstorming...

Option 1. Real word or compound word

This is what we already have for our major locations – Illpyre, Frostwynd, Steelbridge – and it seems to work fine. It makes sense that the inhabitants of the plane would follow a similar naming structure when it came to their world. The main problem is that this approach is really generic and doesn't lend the zing that more exotic options would offer.

Possible names: Antipode, Cleft, Halfearth, Neverfar, Sunderlight, Starstill

Option 2: Made-up etymology

This is the approach that most Wizards worlds have taken: Innistrad, Shandalar, Theros. It has the advantage of being immediately resonant with a particular Earth culture, which can help to add depth to the world. A made-up name can also suggest other words, like "Theros" and "hero," that help to associate the world with its themes. The pitfall here is that the name may sound ridiculous if you don't know what you're doing.

For the example names I tried to stick to vaguely American English names. We could use other languages, like Arabic or Finnish, if you wanted a wholly different feel.

Possible names: Acarock, Antiva, Antigon, Clysmis, Irovion

Getting the Feel Right

I think a lot of the value of a name comes in how well it resonates. A good name doesn't feel ridiculous or out of place: it just feels right, like there's no better term to describe what you're naming. This means that to name the Starstill plane, we first have to figure out the core of what we think the plane is like.

Personally, I think of the Starstill setting as a post-apocalyptic setting. It's a very deadly place, full of forgotten ruins and beautiful but inhospitable wastes. Life is defined by the day-to-day struggle to survive. This is what influenced my choice of names above. You might have a different picture of the Starstill setting in your head, in which case the above names won't work as well. In that case, go ahead and voice your opinion! It's only with a collaborative discussion that we can hit on a name that just clicks with the plane and feels right for everybody.

We are naming the plane pre-starstill, right?
Did we ever decide what the place was like pre-starstill?

Well, we know it was technologically advanced in some regions, there was extensive trade (at least on the side that eventually became Frostwynd and probably into the other regions as well), and there was enough scientific advancement to facilitate the creation of multiple disciplines in different forms of magic, which have locked into patterns of mutual distrust since the Starstill. And of course we know that the dragons migrated with the seasons.

I think that about sums it up.

Hm, maybe what eventually became the followers of Elori were nomadic and travelled the world in the wake of Anjo?

IDK. Last I checked, nomads tend to hunt for food, and it's kinda hard to hunt for food in the wake of a dragon.

I mean it doesn't have to necessarily be literally directly behind the dragon.

Although... it just occurred to me... how did seasons work anyway? Like... did it work like Earth where there was a tilt in the axis? If so, why didn't the dragons just move north and south? For that matter, why didn't Glac just hang out at one of the poles and Anjo hang out on the equator?

Suddenly nothing makes sense anymore.

Maybe it's not tilted. Maybe it's not a sphere. Maybe the seasons weren't extreme enough for them.

Meh.

Well, there's also the issue of day and night. The former equator wouldn't be nearly as bad as Illpyre because any given point still would have been in darkness about half the time. So they're still gaining something out of it, even if the seasons explanation doesn't make much sense.

Now that I think about it, though, Maraka is basically equivalent to the Earth's north pole in summer, i.e. still about freezing. Maybe this plane's sun is hotter, or maybe the habitable zone isn't quite as far back as the terminator.

EDIT: Or even more like the south pole, which is even colder than the north pole because the ocean isn't right there.

I think we're thinking too heliocentrically.
Maybe it's the sun that revolves around Starstill, or even just move around erratically, not in a circle.
Maybe Anjo and Glacinorak stopped the Sun from moving somehow.

Call me a narcissist, but I'm actually liking the erratic seasons thing.
Maybe pre-starstill, the plane had very erratic season depending on how Elori (the Sun) moved around it.
This forced its inhabitants to either adopt to a nomadic life that follows Elori wherever it went (the Cult of Elori) or develop their technology to deal with it.
When Starstill occurred, the Cult no longer needed to follow Elori, since it would always be in one place.
Would also make sense for them to see Anjo as Elori's messenger for delivering this to state to them.
On the other hand, all the technology developed to deal with erratic seasons are now useless, making them "relics".

I like that a lot. It's a very neat and tidy solution.

And wow if I was an incredibly powerful dragon and the seasons were behaving erratically I sure would be liable to stop the sun.

Now that leads to another interesting question though: did Maraka the forest (as opposed to Maraka the region) develop as a unified organism in part to deal with the erratic seasons?

I like the idea of the plane's old seasons being more extreme than earth's. Maybe the planet was tilted at an extreme angle, or maybe it just wobbled around crazily. Or as storyteller pointed out, it could have been the sun that moved and not the planet. I think I like that suggestion.

@Prestarstill: It was a fairly advanced plane. Think Renaissance tech + magic. Maybe the plane was well on its way to becoming a less urban Ravnica. It was a prosperous place where trade flourished. It had seasons and a day/night cycle. There was a wide variety of cultures and a diverse ecology. All that's gone now.

@Name- I was thinking something Persian sounding. Maybe the whole Caucasus region. I'm still not sold on that cultural tie-in though. If you have a better idea please tell me.

@Maraka - I kind of figured it was always like that and the Starstill just undermined the competition so much that Maraka came to dominate a huge region. The forest could have undergone radical changes postStarstill though. That's hundreds of years and a huge crisis to spur some crazy developments. Perhaps the elves worked some magic to make Maraka the way it is now? Maybe the forest kicked them out afterwards? Elves at war with a sentient forest could be a great indicator of how Fed up the plane is.

Set one: Starstill
Set two: Moonrise
Set three: Sunfall

Starstill plot:

Introduce the setting. Get across that Aloise is the protagonist and Glacinorak/Anjomeddon are the antagonists. This is literally all we have to do in the first set as far as I'm concerned.

Moonrise plot:

Aloise recruits the help of a Planeswalker introduced in Moonrise to raise the moon. Basically I'm thinking she infuses the soul of (I mean I'd make it Tamiyo but you guys say it can't be a canon character—but insert and/or Planeswalker here) into a giant hunk of rock, and that becomes the Moon.

Introduction to a new threat as a consequence of raising the moon—i.e. using the Magius technology involved in raising the moon awakens all the Relics, who turn into our real bad guys.

Aloise and the Planeswalker lure Anjomeddon into Maraka.

They try to reason with him that the Starstill is no longer truly beneficial to his interests now that recently **** has gone haywire due to the raising of the moon. He decides he needs to council Glacinorak before deciding what to do.

Sunfall plot:

Anjomeddon travels to Glacinorak's lair in Frostblight. Glacinorak tries to manipulate him into keeping things exactly as they are, and Anjomeddon (who keep in mind has not seen his brother in two centuries) gets pissed at how much Glacinorak has changed. He tells him that his wings need work. You see, the whole time since the Starstill, Anjomeddon has been flying throughout Illpyre. Glacinorak is the one who has hidden in his Frostblight tower, hoarding Relics. They end up having an epic dragon battle. Anjomeddon gets Glacinorak by the throat, so to speak, but Glacinorak talks his way out of death. Anjomeddon flies away, leaving his crippled brother to lie in agony.

The Relics that were awakened by the Moonrise turn the broken Glacinorak into a giant mech-dragon.

Aloise, Totally-Not-Tamiyo (I'll just call her TNT henceforth) and Anjomeddon join forces. Aloise convinces Anjomeddon to fly TNT into Elori, therefore fusing and igniting them. Glacinorak and his Magius/Animated Relic allies tries to stop them, but I guess they're defeated somehow. (I'm never good with fight scenes.)

Elori and TNT fuse into a giant yin-yang in the sky. They recruit Anjomeddon to be the Harbinger of Elori, flying around and spreading the Sun's light, mana, and energy wherever he goes. They then recruit Glacinorak to be the Harbinger of TNT, flying around and spreading the Moon's darkness, mana, wherever he goes. Anjomeddon jumps at the chance to fly freely; Glacinorak is cursed to always have to fly to ensure he doesn't just cause the Starstill again.

Aloise is charged with being the warden of the plane, a charge she gladly takes.

Didn't know we were designing for full block.

Actually, where in the world did this come from?
I do hope that's a joke.

I get really ambitious when I'm stoned. I'm obviously just using Sketch. Don't use that tone with me please. I never make jokes where my work is concerned.

Are we doing a followup set? Hard to say right now, we might. I suspect that if we do another set people will want to start a new block. That said, it's fun to sketch out the possibilities. Really it's kind of what YMTC is about. Plus, even if we don't do the cards, we can plan out the storyline.

Eh, planning and writing are two separate things though. I mean look at how long it's taking/going to take Raven to finish War of the Wheel, which as far as massive plane-reshaping conflicts go is on par with what Parad is proposing.

Do I have to say again how not down with plotlines that totally undo the one thing that makes a plane interesting? (With some exceptions for stuff where it really can't be done another way)

Totally down for a black Planeswalker original to/native to? Starstill though. I can very much get behind that idea.

Also I'm like 99% certain that Ruwin wouldn't be thrilled with Aloise ending up as the warden of a whole plane. Pretty sure Aloise wouldn't be thrilled either come to think of it.

I at least want to take a break of seven months after this project I promised myself I'd see through to the end is finished. Round Easter of the following year, talk to me about starting it up again. But I find that projects like these need time to breathe.