I can only agree with what's already been said; that "knowing" something personally is a conviction that something is fact, not necessarily that it is true. I can "know" that something is untrue, so there is that.

Sure, although I will point out that knowing something is untrue can itself be either a belief or quantifiably true. For example, if I tell you that I cannot speak English, you probably know that's untrue, but the "fact" that it's untrue is no less true...



I think...

I just meant that a person can "know" that something is untrue without knowing what the actual truth is. Like, say, I can tell that some plant is "not poison ivy" despite not knowing what the plant actually is.

Oh, I see. Interesting, and very true.

I have to admit that I find epistemology really dull

I know it and ontology are like fundamental philosophical whatsits but I just can't work up an interest in them.

I didn't "know" that...

Now I do...

Or do I?

dun dun DUN!

Keeper says, "Honestly, I find all this positively boring. I've been sitting here so long my poor little bottom's gone to sleep."

I says, "I know it has, I heard it snoring."

How unlikely would it be, from the perspective of M:EM entrance, to see a modern human planeswalker from Rabiah? Should the plane be avoided in favor of a generic?

Honestly, of all the canon planes, I think Rabiah is possibly the most acceptable plane to work with, owing to the thousand refractions and all. I think it would probably be okay.

Well as I have dredged up a brief barely there mention and consequently ruined one of the Rabiahs utterly, then I think it depends on what you'd want to do with it all in question.
Alessa, at least, has been to Rabiah... A Rabiah.

Like Raven said, there's essentially no danger from contradicting anything we know about Rabiah, unless some statement was said that somehow applied to the whole cluster. Even things from before the refraction could have changed beyond recognition in the 4000+ (Dominarian) years since then.

That said I feel like there are a lot of human planeswalkers. What about an ogre or bird maiden? Can djinn or efreet have sparks?

Bird Maidens essentially are just winged humans. It's a minor difference, but there aren't any bird dudes. They have to have kids with humans, which in my book, make them effectively human.

Djinn and Efreet are, very basically, like angels and demons. There is at least one small reference in the Ravnica novels stating that, it is apparently possible for there to be half-djinn, which itself could be somewhat interesting... BUT there is a GIANT **** TON of history attached to Rabian Djinn, so they aren't super free to just toss around.

Where was that history recorded/made available?

Taysir's Journal, if I'm not mistaken.
At this point though, it's far easier to just reference http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Djinn .

A lot of it also shows up on Jeff Lee's old site, but it looks like Salvation has largely duplicated that information.

This is more out of curiosity on the topic than anything else, but do we know any traits of half-djinn, and if they would necessarily be recognizable from humans instantly and unambiguously?

We have no idea. They were only a passing mention in Guildpact as members of the Izzet.

So, I want to approach the topic of kithkin.
Now, we know that they were supposed to originally be knock off hobbits, but Brady also stepped up and put a bullet in the hobbit characteristics when they decided to bring them back in Time Spiral. Aside from that, they also apparently had some dwarfish characteristics introduced to them to distinguish them, making them somewhere between halflings and dwarves, essentially.

The reason I bring the topic to the fore right now is the issue of Lorwyn's use of them. Basically how we want to approach the idea of the thoughtweft/mindweft as a common trait. We've only ever seen two examples, but the Amrou have virtually nothing to specially distinguish them as unique.

So what are everyone's opinions about what to do about the Kithkin?

I'm not overly keen on making thoughtweft a permanent facet of the Kithkin. I don't see their "Halflingness" as a problem, personally, and I think they make a nice replacement for humans if you don't want humans in a settling. I see them distinct from Kor as a strong option for a lower-power race because of their more sedentary inclinations. I don't have a problem with people giving them thoughtweft again, I just don't personally think it should be an automatic inclusion of their race.

Add to that the fact that people like me didn't realize that cards like Amrou Scout were kithkin until after Lorwyn because they looked so darn human.

I think the thoutweft being a racial thing for kithkin would be a distinguishing factor, or maybe just make it a vedalken-four-arm-thing: kithkin are naturally inclined toward telepathy, though it's not an automatic inclusion.