[FUR Friday] Worldbuilding, Pt VIII: The Promised Beginning

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    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia, the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, our story-boarding is coming to an end. Or is this only the beginning?


The Circle of Life

    In the first article of this creative push, we hinted at a darker secret behind the world of Urbestia-- a mystery for our heroes to unravel. That secret (surprise!) is a fourth Eldrazi titan. But why is there a four-dimensional horror from beyond the stars at our cheery little Festival?

    I have a fan-theory about the Eldrazi. Back in Battle for Zendikar block, Ugin warned the Gatewatch against destroying the titans Ulamog and Kozilek. His reasoning was that they are colorless just like he is-- well, okay, maybe not. He was afraid that their deaths would somehow disrupt whatever meta-planar ecosystem begot the titans in the first place.

    So my theory is this-- the Eldrazi don't just eat planes, they recycle them. Much like fungus feeding on decay and releasing vital nutrients into the environment, the Eldrazi lifecycle somehow sustains the Multiverse by returning the mana of depleted planes back into the Blind Eternities. By destroying the titans, the Gatewatch disrupted that balance.


The Seed of Creation

    Urbestia's lore starts one millennium before the events of the set, with a beautiful light falling from the stars to land on the plane. That light was the Seed of Creation, and its influence imbued the plane with life and vigor. That massive influx of energy led the disparate animals of this world to evolve rapidly into sapient, bipedal creatures capable of forming civilizations.

     Six centuries of rapid evolution culminated in a century of warfare as the tribes fought for ownership of the light. Eventually, the tribes reached a truce, under the condition that no one could have the it. The Seed of Creation was sealed away, and the leader of each tribe was entrusted with a key. Only with all five keys can it be released.

    Of course, if something is sealed away in a fantasy story, it must be unleashed before the story's end. Chekhov's MacGuffin is unsealed by none other than our plucky protagonists.

    When the elders of Urbestia sealed away the Seed of Creation, they didn't understand what it was. During the four hundred years that it was dormant, something changed-- two titans fell. The balance of the Multiverse shifted. What went into that arcane prison was a glowing, heavenly light. But what came out...


The Promised Beginning

    ...Was a new Eldrazi titan. Having seeded this new plane with the stuff of light, it is time for it to reap.

    The art is a little bit... intense. Actually, the everything is a little bit intense. This is going to be one of those moments where it becomes painfully obvious that we're figuring this out as we go.

    Originally, my plan was to have Jin-Gitaxias  on the plane without calling too much attention to it, a la Vorinclex in Kaldheim. Buuut, as they so often do, Wizards beat me to the punch with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. So, no pretty blue praetor for my prospective beast plane.

    After a quick poll, we pivoted to Eldrazi. Without rewriting our worldbuilding, though, this feels like too much of a stretch. So now it's time to pivot again.

 

The Second Take

     Given everything we've discussed so far, we have two options. We can keep our world-building and replace the Eldrazi with a less-extreme big bad; or we can keep the Eldrazi and scrap everything else. 

    The thing that makes this choice difficult is a running tension in FUR. So far, the two main pieces of feedback that I've had are 1) It's too furry and 2) it's not furry enough. I decided to double down on the theme in order to capture the flavor of a festival, but there's definitely a world where this is a more straightforward fantasy setting about factions vying for control.

    So I'll put the question to you. Which way do you want FUR to go? Lighthearted festival, or gritty brawl?

 

    That's all for this week. Let us know what you think down below or on the sub. We'll be back on Monday with a game design challenge and a non-Magic-related game, and next Friday we'll talk about the fate of FUR. In the meantime, I did a two-part analysis of Kamigawa: Neon Destiny (Part 1/Part 2) if you're interested in stats, and a sci-fi version of the Suit mechanic that we considered for FUR during Exploratory design if you aren't. 

     

    See you soon!




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