[FUR Friday] Worldbuilding, Pt VII: Call Me Billie Eilish

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia, the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, we're setting up Creative elements in-between playtesting the set (you can learn more about that here). Last week we talked about the lovable rascals that the audience will be rooting for; this week, we're talking bad guys.

The "Bad Guys"

    When we first started talking about the story, we introduced the idea of an Eldrazi as the big twist villain of the set. That's not what we're talking about this week. (Sorry!) Instead, we're going to look at the rare Legends who bridge the A-plot and the B-plot.

    Much like the uncommon Legends, these antagonists are more grounded. They're village elders, community leaders, authority figures; they're not standing in our heroes' way out of malice, but from a place of duty and tradition. After the big twist, they may even turn about-face and become allies to the protagonists in the face of the larger threat. 

The Story So Far

    In order to set these characters up, we need to talk lore for a second. Something fell to the plane a thousand years ago-- let's call it the "Seed of Creation" for now. The Seed of Creation accelerated evolution for six hundred years; the Festival lasts six days, each celebrating one of those centuries.

    The final day of the Festival represents the Age of War, a time when the tribes all fought constantly for control over the Light. This culminated in a truce, wherein the Light was sealed away and each of the Tribes was entrusted with part of the key. These keys have been passed down through the ages, protected by the leaders of the tribes. 

    Our B-plot protagonists, crazy kids that they are, want to break the rules and take a peek at this forbidden thing that the elders have hidden away. The elders, of course, want to keep that from happening.

    Now that we have an idea of their motivations, we can get into the characters themselves. Rather than using the Five-Man-Band-model again, I think each of these characters should be a foil to one of the protagonists. This time, we will be using the Big Five tribes.

    

White

    I already have a pretty strong idea of the white character in this cycle. Early on in my forays into r/CustomMagic, I had a minor run-in with one of the mods. I poked fun by posting a design of them (nothing bad, mind you-- in fact, it was a pretty cool design), resulting in a short ban. I explained the situation to them, they unbanned me, and we laughed about it.

    After that, though, I knew I wanted to use that design for this set. For flavor, I like the idea of making this character a monitor lizard so that their title can be "Festival Monitor."

    Tentin, Festival Monitor is the elder of the Scale Folk and a foil to Corex (the red mischief-maker from last week). He's a stickler for rules, and he personally oversees the enforcement of Festival policy. He holds the Key of Xoperia.

Blue

    Like MaRo always says, restrictions breed creativity. This slot had to be a Wolf, Fox, Dog, or Cat; but blue represents the aquatic biome, which none of those animals particularly love. I cut Wolf and Dog from the list, as neither feels very blue; and Green wound up being the Cat. 

    That leaves us with the Fox. Foxes are known for their cunning, so that works. And Foxes may not be aquatic, but there's a fortuitous connection to be made: Miyagi Zao Fox Village. Miyagi Zao Fox Village is a Japanese tourist attraction where you can feed and interact with tame foxes. 

    Haitana, the blue region of Urbestia, is inspired by southeast Asia, particularly China and Japan. (And if you need a more explicit connection to blue, Miyagi Zao is colloquially referred to as "Fox Island.") MZFV is also known as Kitsune Mura, so we'll call her Mura.

    Mura will be the foil to green's gentle giant, Xiong Mao the Panda. I imagine him as a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, so Mura will be the detail-oriented Festival Planner. She is the holder of the Key of Haitana.

Black

    I've been wanting to do a legendary Arctic wolf in black ever since I came up with the Starklands. Appropriately enough, black foils white, and the white protagonist is Leza the Gazelle. If Leza is empathetic, then this wolf should be callous and cruel.

    I have an unused name from some previous worldbuilding that feels like it would fit here-- Ulfsbirke. There's not a cool meaning or allusion behind it, I just think it sounds cool. Ulfsbirke holds the Key of the Starklands.

Red

    While looking into different species for Corex, I stumbled across this very good boy. 

    The painted dog is not technically a dog, but taxonomy isn't exactly Magic's strong suit anyway. Based on the name, I like the idea of this character as an artist. Ceremonial costumes are an important thematic and aesthetic component of the set, so he could be in charge of that.

    We'll call him Lycaon, after the genus that the painted dog belongs to. Red is the foil to blue in this set, so Lycaon opposes Phalop the Octopus. (That name makes me smile every time. It's so good.) Lycaon holds the Key of Skahelos.

Green

We used white as the foil to red, so green has to be the foil to black. Who better to oppose a bird (Nyctea, the snowy owl) than a cat? 

    The green region of Urbestia, Hiranest, is based on India and Russia. If restrictions breed creativity, then freedom breeds indecision; there are so many cool cats from those regions that I can't choose. Normally I'd go with whatever has the best aesthetic, but here's the rub-- this region is home to the Royal Bengal tiger, the caracal, the Asiatic lynx, the snow leopard, and dozen more species of beautiful wild cats.

    In times like this, I break out my trusty companion: the Reddit poll. I'm not surprised that the tiger won, but do yourself a favor and look up all of the cats above. You won't be disappointed. We'll call her Thera (after Panthera tigris tigris). She holds the Key of Hiranest.

The Lyrics to That Song Are Actually Pretty Fucked Up

    That's all for this week. What do you think of our rogue's gallery? What villains have you made for your own projects, Magic and otherwise?

    Next week, we're doing a Workshop on Wednesdsay (ever envy all the equipment that your creatures get? Now you can suit up too!), and next Friday we'll get into the big bad Eldrazi that we mentioned before. If you're interested in making your own custom Magic sets, check out Monday's analysis of the latest official set to see what we can learn from the professionals; or look into last week's FUR Friday for more of the Creative process.

See you soon!