Somnia

the Evanescent Plane

Part 3: The Enduring City

Welcome to the Wakening World

Memoria.  A bastion of stability in an everchanging world.  The last stand of a people being slowly consumed by an endless night.

At a glance, Memoria is a place where the original residents of Somnia have finally achieved peace.  The city is ruled by a council of representatives from each of the top five plurality races that inhabit its walls.  The Auran Humans, the Mistform Illusions, the Cubi Vampires, the Sonoro Minotaur, and the Faded Elves.  These peoples once warred and skirmished across the face of the world before being forced together by a common threat.  The council's responsibility is to settle the inevitable clashes that still occur between the districts of Memoria, while providing appropriate guidance, law, and common defense for the city.  Ultimately, the council bears the burden of ensuring Memoria does not succumb to the Dream, especially not by eating itself from within.  They are only so successful, for at the end of the day -- when dusk sets in -- there are always people lost to the Dream.  Life in Memoria is tragic above all else.

This is a huge, 27-card set spoiler.  Combined with the last spoiler about the Dream, this pretty much covers 90% of the horizontal cycles of the set.  Below, I'll step through each of the races one by one; given the size of this release, hopefully it helps to stagger between text and cards.  Since Somnia is part of my own NaNoWriMo interpretation this year, I have a lot of ground to cover over the remainder of the month (it will probably stretch through December).

The Auran Humans

Humans are in a hard place on Somnia.  They tend to be more vulnerable to the dream than the other races, due to a necessity to sleep *a lot* in order to live.  They rally around people within their community that can plan ahead, have foresight, and have the courage to hold fast to their beliefs and laws against obviously more powerful creatures.  Their confidence and determination prepare them to face challenges that without such morale, would surely sweep over them with ease.  Their leader, Anaka, is notable for having such a keen wisdom and insight that she will readily turn a battle lost into a war won.  She is placed with the trust of humanity, and the sheer force of her composure will knock any foe off their feet.

Anaka Show

The other humans follow in Anaka's footsteps.  Her steadfastness to enforcing the law, devotion to their cause, and bravery in the face of adversity give a character for her people to emulate.  Humans know their weakness, and though more Humans are taken by the Dream than any other race, far more Humans have travelled to the Dream and yet returned alive, as well.

Auran Show

Of course, not everyone manages to hold to such a force of will to survive.  The burden can often be simply to great, and for those who lose their light, there is always hope that their time spent managed to make someone else's life just a little bit better.

Lost to the Dream Show

The Mistform Illusions

The Mistform are an enigmatic race.  Among the other residents of Memoria, trusted even less than the Vampires.  They keep to ancient magics and prophecy, refusing to belie their intentions and their intuitions.  A straight answer is an alien concept to the Mistform, and many believe they are secretly working to undermine the city so they can be subsumed by the Dream.  In reality, the Mistform see the Dream as encroaching upon their territory and reputation, yet it's true that they would be friends if they weren't already enemies.  The Mistform councillor is no less mysterious than the rest of the Illusions, a manifested consciousness among figmentary beings.

Mistmatter Psyche Show

The Illusions are the least collective of the races of Memoria.  Each vaporous creature an independent being, with their own plots and plans.  They are loose fitting, and often work towards counter purposes.  But still there remains no absolute proof that the Mistform truly seek to see Memoria fall.

Mistform Show

The complexities of the Mistform machinations can often delude even themselves.  The Illusions are the most convinced that due to their nature they are the least vulnerable to the Dream.  But by fact of matter, the Dream is unprejudiced, and will willingly consume all things on Somnia.

Lost to the Dream Show

The Cubi Vampires

The Cubi ("cube-eye") are delicately treated by the other races.  The incubi and succubi possess an ageless connection to sleeping and dreaming that causes everyone else to fear them, if not at least be wary of their powers.  Rumor is that the Vampires are to blame for the onset of the Dream, some catastrophe of their magics -- no one is willing to say it to their faces, of course.  Their leader is the most fearsome among the lot; a succubus with the tendency to entrap other residents of the city for her own malevolent desires.  While her indulgences are despised by the other councillors, there is often nothing that can be done without risking a war within the walls of the city.

Lylium Show

Were the Vampires more populous, it is quite likely they would already control the city.  Even still, many of Memoria's richest elite are the Cubi, who have found their services in great demand by the rest of the peoples.  It is this love-hate relationship that allows the Vampires their rare indescretions, though it certainly does not help to keep the growing tensions between the gates of Memoria low.

Cubi Show

The Vampires are the least vulnerable to the Dream, and most often join it willingly, despising the fact that they are forced to share residence with the lesser races.  However, many a Vampire is weak to their own lusts, and the Dream is quick to capitalize on such desires, tantalizing even the Cubi to let down their guard.

Lost to the Dream Show

The Sonoro Minotaur

The Sonoro are decidedly the strongest among the races of Memoria.  Heralding from Resonant Mons, their environment has always been harsh and unyielding  They were toughened on the rocks and crags of the mountain, and so they remain still today.  Their brashness becomes trouble in the tight confines of a much more fragile city, and they remain frustrated by the fact that they cannot so easily physically overcome the threat they face today.  Their Chieftain represents them on the council, a battle-worn veteran of former wars.

Podaboo Show

The Minotaur are prone to swing widly at the Dream to keep it at bay.  They constantly reassert their presence through both voice and fist, anything to keep them aware and moving.  Were it not for their Chieftain holding them back, they would readily be the first to charge into the ether, likely to never return.

Sonoro Show

The Dream, of course, thinks nothing of their stomping and shouting.  All it often serves to do is keep the beasts aware to the very end of their consuming fate.

Lost to the Dream Show

The Faded Elves

The Faded are a fragile race.  Unfortunately, their life essence was connected directly to the forests from which they came.  Now stuck in civilization, alienated from their natural surroundings, not only are they beset by the dream, by on their own, they are slowly dying away.  Once the most populous of Memoria, now they are outnumbered by even the Minotaur.  Their leader, Tæsin Everglade, is still a powerful user of the natural magics, and through his own abilities, has managed to keep a complete extinction at bay.

Tæsin Show

The Elves are varied in nature, some resent the Dream and hate has grown in their hearts.  Some are thankful for the life they have remaining, and share and share alike among their people.  Some even seek to retake the woods, perhaps finding a way to live in harmony with the Dream.  They see Centaur of the less populous races of Somnia still living within the Dream, apparently with their will intact, and wonder if they can strike such a balance, as well.  These latter have indeed managed to make progress, but whether it is far enough and fast enough, only time can tell -- time that the Faded do not have in surplus.

Faded Show

Many Elves will seek out the Dream, not because they desire such a life, but because they desire to at least live.  They recognize their fragility and accept what the Dream has to offer.  It is most difficult on the ones they leave behind, for they were not defeated or worn down, but disappeared unremorsefully into the eternal sleep.

Lost to the Dream Show

Memoria

So, that is the state of the Enduring City and its peoples.  Some waiting, some fighting, and some willing to enter the Dream beyond.

Recently, a glimmer of a faint hope appeared.  A group of advisors to the councillors made a breakthrough in the ability of the people to defend their last home.  Some believe they had outside help, from worlds beyond, but regardless Memoria seems to have at least to grind the advance of the Dream to a halt.  Magical constructs have been deployed around the outskirts of the city to assist the sentries and watchmen.  Machines that are apparently immune to corruption by the Dream.  While it is not much, it is hope, and that is what the citizens of Memoria need most.

Memoria Vigilant Show

While the city leaders celebrate this small victory, there is one person who knows just what danger their world is in, and how much time is truly left.  He has seen what Dreams may come, but whether he can get that message across in time is a future not yet written.  In his vision of the future though, the Dream has won...

TRAUMA Show

Next Time: The Plot Unfolds

I must admit I didn't read a single word, so consider that. However, the R/B Devil can lock an opponent out on his draw-step really easily, so a sorcery clause would probably be a good idea.
I don't understand why Padaboo has Echo, and certainly not Echo 1R.

I could never build a competent phasing deck

I like the fade tranforms

Nov 18, 2012 -- 2:39PM, TherealphatMatt wrote:

There's a lot of this stuff to take in, but I'm not sure why you've brought Echo back. Fading and phasing at least have the potential to be fun, but I'd need to be convinced pretty strongly that the set needs Echo to get behind a strict drawback mechanic.

You also have a load of mechanics.

It's interesting that in the first post I had an effective comment about Phasing being an unfortunate choice of abilities to bring back.  I'm trying to keep the mechanics isolated, so that different people may find something differently fun to play.  There's some concepts not yet revealed to keep Echo from being strict drawback if you're playing Minotaur.dec or Echo.dec.  But I'm always willing to hear suggestions that could fit the Minotaurs, the set is by no means perfect.

I'm aware of the mechanic spread, of which there are 9 -- though for the YMTC folks that will be easier to deal with than a beginner crowd.  Think of the set as a step above an Expert level set in complexity, while ideally not breaking the power level of the game:

Custom:
Dream (supertype)
Laced (keyword)
Enduring (keyword)

Reused:
Transform (indicative of the Dream)
Fateseal (mono-white)
Scry (mono-blue)
Phasing (mono-black)
Echo (mono-red)
Fading (mono-green)

Outside the equipment shown here, there's only a couple other bleeds to the above list in set 1, and only at mythic.  Two mechanics are slated to be added in set 2 (subtype, keyword) and there may be some bleed of the mono-color mechanics; 1 mechanic added in set 3 (ability word).

Edit: I forgot I put "Changeling" on Mistmatter Psyche.  That's not a mechanic that's going on any other card in the set.  I'll wind up taking the keyword off and spelling it out like on Mistform Ultimus , I just forgot before getting that uploaded.  And Taesin still references "ephemeral" which he shouldn't anymore.

Nov 18, 2012 -- 2:25PM, Matt_Holck wrote:

I like the fade tranforms

Thanks!  Transform was such a cool thing, I was sad to see them not continue it in AVR.  There is so much open design space with it still.

Thanks for all the points, TPmanW!  I think I've managed to answer all your questions below

Not all the transform cards function the same way, Memoria itself for instance is transforms when it has no fade counters.  I am trying to explore ways other than Innistrad's primary transformation method (spells cast the previous turn); the cycle here is one of those ways.  I don't want to make the set have a significant number of transform cards, the total will still be in the 20's for this set.

Each race can transform into one of two allied color pairs that it shares a color with.  So the Vampires can transform into Devils or Mythkin, but Devils are always R/B and Mythkin are always B/U.  Which one of those two is more personality based -- Devils have a distinct persona from Mythkin.  Also, I'm limiting it to allied colors like that because I really don't want to give Black a White card for instance, but I am willing to let Black temporarily borrow resources or perhaps some powers from Red/Blue.  Other than a pair of mythics, there are no multicolor transforms in set 1; maybe later sets.

I want to keep the set distinct from feeling like Ravnica, so it's about half of the cards represent the city, the other half represent the Dream.  Some of the city cards would be living outside the walls of the city itself and braving the wilderness, some of the Dream cards are infiltrating.

Yeah, I would love to see your work on a similar theme; enchantments are a subtheme in Somnia, they're just difficult to present while trying to introduce the characters.  I love sources of inspiration.  And artwork you've found would also be great, just finding the right art to use is probably about 40% of my time working on this.  There's a lot of art that is exceptional that just didn't fit the theme quite right.

The Red Rancor doesn't have a one word name (it was going to be "Intimidate") because I was worried about confusion with Intimidation which is already a card, and because typically an Enchant Creature Aura that has the name of a keyword grants just that one keyword.  I'd be cool with giving it a different one word name, I just never got around to thesaurusing it.

You're probably right, I've removed the line.

Thanks for the feedback, the mechanics will bleed, but Fateseal will not bleed to Blue and Scry will not bleed to White.  That's a balance decision I've had to make; I don't think one color should have access to both.  That's for later down the road though; I've had multiple instances of feedback from peoples' first exposure to the set that it's busy with mechanics, so I'm doing my best to keep those mechanics in cognitive stovepipes for set 1.

I'm of an older genre of magic players, and I still prefer Shroud to Hexproof and "All white creatures get +1/+1" over "White creatures you control get +1/+1."  I'm a big fan of a more subtle game rather than a more obvious one.  But I do understand the excitement, pace, and simplicity that upside mechanics provide.  So I'm definitely trying to keep that in mind.  Like the Cubi Oneiromancer, rather than just giving a creature "Phasing" it also needs to do something with that.  The Ulfserker similarly gets double strike for his echo downside, and even gets to swing at least that once.  At most, there will be one french vanilla with each of the mono-color abilities.  At most.