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storycircle · 3 years

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Character Question List: Fanwalker Edition

You probably know those kinds of lists from various accounts. This one is more specific to MtG and more specifically fanwalkers, though a good number of the questions can apply to planebound characters as well.

What creature types would a creature card version of your character have?

Which planes have your character visited or know of?

Does your character cry, and what would likely make them?

What alignment would your character be in the D&D system?

What would cause your character to give up their spark?

What did your fanwalkers have in mind when they sparked, and what plane did it send them to?

What is a random piece of information about your character that you know but have never shared?

What are your character’s most valuable items?

Does your character have any behaviours or mannerisms that strike other people as unusual or odd?

What does your character do in their downtime?

What would your character look like if they had completely different color alignments?

What are your character’s sleeping habits like?

What is the worst thing your character has ever done? According to them and according to you.

What one quote from them would you pick to define your fanwalker?

What was your character like when they were younger? What’s something they always used to dream about?

Is there any type of magic your character can’t do but would like to be able to?

How would you describe your character’s usual outfit?

What family does your character have? What is their relationship with them like?

If your character was to add a color to their identity, which would it be?

What kind of sport would your character most likely practice?

How tall is your character?

Your character gets to meet any mtg character you want. Who do they meet?

How easily would your character consider a new acquaintance a friend?

Is there someone (other than themselves) your character trusts more than anyone else?

How much of physical and athletic abilities does your character currently have?

How did their life shape your character’s hands look like, if they have anything resembling?

Where does your character live?

What form of art does or would your character most likely create?

What existing creature card is your character most likely to be able to summon?

How did your character obtain their magic or defining abilities?

Alright, your character becomes an anthropomorphized animal version of themselves, what kind would they be? If your character already fits this category, pick a species that doesn’t fit this (elf, human, dwarf,…).

What is your character’s hygiene like?

Is there a concept that seems obvious to us and people on most planes that your character has a hard time understanding?

What is your character’s reputation like?

How did you name your character?

What is the most feat thing your character has ever performed?

What is their most spectacular failure?

How did your character spark?

Summarize the defining abilities of your character in as few words as possible.

What strategy would your character play, if they actually played Magic?

Who would be their favorite commander to play, if they played commander?

What’s your character’s biggest secret?

Where would your character go on a vacation?

What is your character’s biggest regret?

Is your character currently in a relationship?

How does your character cast magic, and what does it look like?

How easily does your character lie, and what wouldn’t they lie about?

What does your character planeswalking looks like?

How old is your character? How old do they look like?

How could your character be legitimately trapped or disabled, requiring rescue or assistance to escape, if planeswalking is not an option?

What is your character most scared of?

What is the biggest misconception your character has?

What colors are your character’s eyes? Hair?

What is your character’s ideal weather and temperature range?

Your character decides to write a book. What kind of book is it, what is it about and what’s the title?

What would your character do on Kylem, and if they’re participating to the tournaments, what would their moniker be like?

What does a typical day look like for your character?

What would be your character’s dying wish or statement?

How would you describe your character’s personality?

Does your character have any quirk of language when they talk? An expression, an accent?

How long ago did your character spark?

Was your character involved in any canonical magic event? Which and in what ways?

Is there a fan character from another person that you would like them to meet? Who?

How open is your character about being a planeswalker or about what they are?

How much does your character know about what planeswalkers are?

Who are three people that shaped your character’s life?

What does your character’s magic look like when it’s used?

Have you made cards for your character? If not, what would one of their main mechanics be?

Isn’t this question nice? Might as well make it useless.

If you have multiple characters, which ones does your character know and how do they know each other?

What card’s art looks the closest to your character’s aesthetic?

How does your character earn money? How well-off are they?

Who is or was your character’s role model?

What is your character’s opinion on their home plane?

What would your character say is the biggest perk of being a planeswalker?

Are they more diurnal or nocturnal?

How easy is it for your character to ask for help?

How does your character act on planes or in places they stand out in?

What are the limits to your character’s abilities?

Does your character care more about others, or themselves?

What is your character looking for?

What are your character’s views on killing? When, if ever, is it tolerable?

What confuses them the most about planeswalking and other worlds?

What is your character’s diet like?

Do they prefer to live in the present or to plan ahead?

Do their senses differ any from your average human?

How much do they care about their looks?

Is there anyone your character particularly dislikes?

How good is your character at lying?

How fine is your character’s control over their magic?

What do they think of other people?

What do they see they future looking like?

Do they belong to any group or organization?

Are they more comfortable in cities or in the wilds?

What is their FULL name?

What do they think of each of the five iconic creature types? (Angels, Sphinges, Demons, Dragons and Hydras)

Do they carry any items from planes other than their home?

Do they have a signature weapon?

Have they ever been convicted under any jurisdiction?

How would they describe themselves?

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storycircle · 4 years

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Designing Planeswalkers: Overview

Alright, I’ve been doing quite a few of those and for some time now, so I feel confident enough doing a write-up on how planeswalker cards are designed and how to make your own. This article will be dedicated to the creation of planeswalker cards themselves, not necessarily the character behind or getting ideas. It will also be focused on designing cards that could likely be printed on cards by Wizards of the Coast, and most likely in a standard set (planeswalker deck planeswalkers are balanced completely differently, and supplementary set ones are also separate from that) but card creation is still a creative act and, in the end, you’re the only judge of what you can or cannot do on a card.

Examples of good and bad planeswalker designs will be given from existing cards, Wizards printed enough of both to allow this. Without further ado here comes the full overview of the elements of a planeswalker card, with notes on each’s design.

Cosmetic elements

Name, subtype, as well as set/number, language and collector info are all mostly cosmetic elements or determined by outside factors, with little influence on the rest of the card. The subtypes can sometimes matter when abilities refer to “a [NAME] planeswalker” but it rarely comes up when designing a single card or set. A planeswalker must have all the associated subtypes of all the represented planeswalkers, and the name in general contains that subtype. The introduction of a dual-typed planeswalker in The Royal Scions goes against this, but you want the character(s) to be recognizable.

There is one thing you can do here that will influence the rest of the card. All planeswalkers released this far are exclusively planeswalkers, and all legendary. While it is possible to strip the Legendary supertype to represent an anonymous member of a planeswalker-filled group, be aware the entire card will have to be designed around that fact. It is also theoretically possible to add more types to a planeswalker, but Wizards made the decision so far that the planeswalker type superseded any other potentially-relevant type. No Karn card is an artifact planeswalker. Calix isn’t an enchantment planeswalker. But those are possibilities if you want them, be aware it will create a lot of additional interactions with your planeswalker, both ways to synergize with it, tutor it or cheat it into play and removal.

Creature planeswalkers are functional within the rules of magic but very, very complex and confusing, combining the two most confusing permanent types is not recommended unless you know exactly what you’re doing. The solution is generally to make a planeswalker that temporarily turns into a creature during your turn, or a double sided card, or something in that vein, since planeswalker creatures are at their most confusing when being attacked and in blocking situations. Be aware that if something is both a creature and a planeswalker at the same time, they will lose loyalty counters if they’re dealt damage AND may die to being dealt more damage than their toughness.

Also be aware that the “required” elements of a planeswalker typeline, “Legendary Planeswalker - NAME” already fills up quite a bit of space, and typelines are better when they’re readable.

Rarity

I won’t spend long on rarity. The vast, vast majority of planeswalkers are mythic. Mythic planeswalkers are powerful, often game-changing cards featuring iconic characters. Rare planeswalkers are… The same thing, but aimed a bit less splashy, complex and powerful. Uncommon planeswalkers are often less powerful, typically don’t have an “ultimate” or the ability to win games on their own, or it will take a long, long time. Rarity might warp your design, but generally speaking, stick to mythic planeswalkers unless you specifically want your planeswalker at a lower rarity.

Play patterns

Mana cost

Mana cost will guide you on what impact your planeswalker should have. Planeswalkers are typically very powerful cards, with an insanely high ceiling (best case scenario) and a decent floor (worst case scenario). The converted mana cost first, and then number and weight of colors second, will tell you how to balance your planeswalker. Of course, you can always design the abilities and loyalty first and then determine which cost to set it at, but you generally start getting an idea pretty quickly for both color and cost.

There’s printed planeswalkers all the way from 2 mana to 8 mana. The standard scale for planeswalkers, where you’ll find most of them, is at four and five mana. Two-mana planeswalkers are insanely hard to balance in a way that makes them provide a fair advantage for the two mana invested without being unplayable. Wizards themselves haven’t managed to do that, the two printed two-mana planeswalkers being on opposite ends of that scale, Wrenn and Six being ban-worthy in legacy and Tibalt being a joke to this day, even a constructed-playable card later. I don’t recommend attempting to design a two-mana planeswalker, especially if only to prove you can. Seven and eight mana planeswalkers tend to be insanely powerful and win the game on their own in a couple turns, putting you at a major advantage immediately upon resolving. It’s hard to go overboard on them short of making them an actual, instant win, but they’re also pretty rare.

Six mana planeswalkers will often be able to swing a game in your favor in a couple of turns, or generate more than a single card worth of card advantage immediately after hitting the battlefield. Three-mana planeswalkers are not quite as hard to balance as two-mana ones, but the line is thin between the sweet spot of powerful and balanced and the issue of TOO powerful and unbalanced. Three mana planeswalkers generally can’t protect themselves all too well, and don’t generate positive card advantage the turn they enter. They can have “ultimate” abilities, but they generally don’t win the game without some help.

Four and five-mana planeswalkers are the bread and butter of planeswalker design. At those cost, they can have powerful effects but still be fair, they can win the game if left unchecked but be vulnerable to spells and/or creatures, they can protect themselves from one but not the other, they can generate card advantage repeatedly, etc…

Loyalty

Loyalty is simultaneously the life and the charge of your planeswalkers. Both loyalty costs and starting loyalty can make or break your planeswalker. Together, and with the abilities, they form your planeswalker’s play pattern, or how it will be used.

Starting loyalty generally ranges from 3 to 5, with a few being higher and a few lower. As a general rule, a planeswalker that costs more mana will trend towards the higher end of starting loyalty, and vice-versa, but exceptions exist. Planeswalkers without the ability to gain loyalty tend to have slightly higher starting loyalty.

Now, loyalty costs. They’re generally separated in four categories.

“Plusses”, or positive abilities, abilities that give you loyalty when activated. The vast majority of those are +1, a non-negligible amount are +2s, and a handful are higher than that. Considering how hard a planeswalker with even just a +2 can be to remove, I would recommend against going any higher unless it’s the entire point of the card. Always consider the fact you can activate plusses immediately when setting starting loyalty. If your card has a +2, the starting loyalty will tend to be lower, etc…

“Zeroes” are abilities that cost no loyalty to activate nor do they grant any… Or at least that’d be the basic definition. I would expand zeroes to -1 abilities as well. While you technically lose loyalty to activate them, a typical 4-loyalty planeswalker will be able to activate their -1 four turns in a row without any setup, which in an actual game of magic is very close to forever. -1 abilities are zeroes with downside more than minuses with upside.

“Minuses” are abilities that cost a significant but not huge number of loyalty to activate, generally less than the starting loyalty. Most of them are -2s or -3s, with a few -4s. They will generally represent the most immediate impact your planeswalker will represent on board. Together with starting loyalty and plusses, they make up the play pattern of your planeswalker way more than anything else. How many times can you minus from the starting loyalty? Does it result in the planeswalker dying or sticking around? (Recommended to go with the latter.) How many times do you need to plus before being able to minus another time? Is it different if you’re willing to let your planeswalker die or not? (That last one mostly with +2s.) A subset of minuses are “-X” abilities, scalable effects that slot somewhere between zeroes and ults. The versatility there is to take into account when considering their power level.

“Ultimates”, or “Ults”, are minus abilities that take a lot of loyalty to activate. More than the starting loyalty at least (although arguably abilities that cost the entire starting loyalty are minor ults). They generally have major effects that change the game. The more time they leave the opponent to be able to stop them, the more they can do. Ultimates’ costs are often determined by a number of turns of activating the highest plus ability before being able to use it, rather than raw loyalty numbers. Planeswalkers with +2s will generally have higher ultimate costs. The absolute highest number of plusses needed to reach an ult on printed cards so far is 5, on Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Temporal Archmage, excluding cards that have means to add loyalty counters to themselves in other ways than loyalty costs. Most are between two and four plusses needed, with a few ones. Ultimates are also the main thing in the game capable of generating Emblems (a few minor emblems are generated by some plusses and minuses, and a few big spells can have game-altering effects that aren’t called emblems but are similar.) Emblems can do a lot.

Not all planeswalkers have all of those types of abilities. The most common combination is plus, minus, ult, but any combination of one to four of those is in theory possible (although I would recommend avoiding a planeswalker with just four ults.)

Play pattern

Circling back to that term, the play pattern of your planeswalker can now be established.

This is a very common play pattern, mostly because it works very well. A five mana planeswalker, with five starting loyalty, that has a plus, a minus and an ult. It can minus once when it enters, but not two turns in a row. It can minus another time after a single plus, but will die as a result. Otherwise, it requires three plusses to fully cover a minus. Three plusses are required to get it from its starting loyalty to its ult. Now to see what will drive the choices the player will take among those options.

Abilities

Abilities are the playing ground of planeswalkers, of course. They’re what they do. Sadly they’re also the broadest topic there is, and more fuzzy than the rest of what we’ve covered. As such, the following paragraphs are gonna be a bit more disjointed than the rest of the article.

First off… Statics! They weren’t covered at all previously, because they don’t influence loyalty, but they’re always stronger than you think. Statics are additional value you get ON TOP of your normal planeswalker activation every turn. If you have a coherent design, they’re also a modifier that apply to those abilities. If we take the example of that image, making a 2/2 zombie is much stronger if it draws you a card when it dies. Each player sacrificing two creatures is much stronger if you draw two cards as a result.

Which brings us to coherent design. While it is possible to just take three on-color abilities that have value and slap them onto a planeswalker, if you want an “elegant” design, you generally want abilities that play onto each other, feel like they click together. Ults are generally a bit more standalone because of how powerful they are, but it’s always interesting when the plus is magnified by the ult, incentivizing one to wait an extra turn and keep the planeswalker around after the ult if they can.

Talking about that, the interesting part about planeswalkers is the CHOICE. The skill-rewarding decision of which ability to activate. As such, it is important to make sure the abilities are balanced accordingly to make it a real choice which to activate. One of the easiest ways to make a planeswalker boring is to put them “on rails”, more akin to a Saga than a planeswalker. Generally, this issue raises up by having either a plus or a minus that’s way better for their cost than other options, so the choice will always be to activate that one ability as much as possible or get to it as much as possible. Ults can do that, of course, but even ults need to be balanced in a way that doesn’t invalidate minusing even if it puts you behind on the race to the ult. A recent example of bad planeswalker design there (at mythic) is Lukka. While his design might look coherent on the surface, his minus encourages deckbuilding that makes his +1 irrelevant, which in turn leads to choice between his plus and minus void since his +1 is blank. Only cases you would activate his +1 is if you can’t activate the -2 or it would do nothing. Good examples are too numerous to count, even recently, but Calix and Ashiok are excellent examples, offering two potentially useful abilities relevant in different situations.

Now let’s go over what kind of abilities can do what.

As shorthands, plusses generally will generate effects that are two and a half (often rounded to three) mana below the cost of the planeswalker (hence the difficulty of designing three mana planeswalkers… and two mana planeswalkers’ very hard conundrum). Zeroes will be closer to two, but still a bit more than two mana below the planeswalker’s cost. Minuses will be one and a half mana below, and ults can generate effects that would cost a lot of mana. If you want a hard number, something that’s worth at least the planeswalker’s mana cost plus a number of mana equal to the number of plusses necessary to reach the ult from the starting loyalty, often more than that.

Ults are really strong, often winning games solely on the back of the advantage they provide, but all ults should leave a fighting chance to the opponent(s). Even Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God’s ult that outright kills people has a way for opponents to survive it.

Card Advantage is a big concept of magic and similar games. Each card generates an advantage and more options, and as such the player who gets to choose between and play the most cards is heavily advantaged in a long game. Similarly, mana advantage is another, less talked about concept. The most mana you use to play cards and activate abilities, the more you do and the more advantaged you are. Planeswalkers, by allowing you to activate abilities that have spell-like effects for free, generate virtual card AND mana advantage with each activation. If you get to activate a planeswalker twice before they die, it’s as if you cast two spells in one, for the cost of a single spell. As such, abilities that generate further mana advantage or card advantage by their effect are valued even higher on planeswalkers. You can add another one or two mana to their worth if you use the shorthands from a couple paragraphs ago.

On card advantage specifically.

A three-mana planeswalker should avoid generating unconditional card advantage outside of an ult, and should not under any condition generate card advantage as a plus. Of course, there’s example of printed cards that do both of those things and I can’t stop you, but I would recommend avoiding it, or restricting it heavily if you do. One can argue Liliana, the Last Hope is a good example of how to do it if you want to do it, having card advantage both on her plus (in the form of removal) and minus (see also, domri rade), but both being restricted in what they can target or when they can be activated safely, while Teferi, Time Raveler is a bad example, having a minus that’s unconditional card draw AND half a removal, and the right choice to pick in 95% of situations. And a static to top it off.

A four-mana planeswalker can generate card advantage with a minus, and conditionally with a plus. A five mana planeswalker can generate unconditional (singular) card advantage on a plus. Generating two or more cards worth of advantage on a plus doesn’t happen until you get to the seven or eight-mana planeswalkers.

There’s two important subset of card advantage that need to be expanded upon: tokens and removal. Both of those have the potential to protect your planeswalker from attacks and give you an immediate and lingering advantage by ensuring you keep your planeswalker around for further activations. Different colors have access to different forms of removal and tokens both. Green and white will have the best tokens while red and black will have the best removals, and blue will have middling of both but the best raw card advantage.

Removals generally stick to minuses. The more expensive the planeswalker, the less conditional they get. Plusses can occasionally have removal, particularly on higher-costed planeswalkers, but almost always conditional.

Tokens come in varying numbers and sizes. Creating more tokens is more powerful than creating bigger tokens because they’re more effective at protecting your planeswalker. Similarly, creating tokens with defensive abilities, such as reach or vigilance, is stronger than creating ones with offensive abilites, like haste or trample. Abilities that can do both, like first strike and flying, are at a premium.

Plusses and zeroes are where you’ll see most tokens, because it’s where they’re at their most powerful, protecting your planeswalker while you tick it up to its ult or minus. Here’s a quick list of what kind of tokens have been generated on printed cards for different mana costs.

3-mana:

+: One 0/1 (Nissa, Voice of Zendikar), one 1/1 with defender (Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast. Not from a standard set)

0: Two 1/1s you sacrifice at end of turn (Chandra, acolyte of flame, not actually protective tokens)

-1: One 1/1 with flying (Dovin, Grand Arbiter. Being a -1 here doesn’t allow to hold forever, which is the one difference between 0s and 1s)

4-mana:

+: One 1/1 (Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Saheeli, the Gifted (not a standard set)) with lifelink (Sorin, Lord of Innistrad)

0: One 2/2 (Arlinn Kord, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Garruk Relentless) with haste (Xenagos, the Reveler)

-1: One 3/3 (Garruk Wildspeaker)

5-mana:

+1: One 2/3 with minor upside (Ashiok, Nightmare Muse), one 1/1 with major upside (Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury, Tezzeret, Artifice Master, Nahiri the Lithomancer), one 3/3 (Garruk, Primal Hunter, Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate, Nissa Who Shakes the World), one 2/2 (Liliana, Death’s Majesty)

0: One 3/3 (Huatli, Warrior Poet)

6-mana:

+1: One 2/2 with major upside (Vraska, Relic Seeker, Ugin, the Ineffable, Liliana, Dreadhorde general), three 1/1s (Elspeth, Sun’s Champion), two non-defensive 3/1s (Chandra, Flamecaller)

0: Two 2/2s with minor upside.

It should be a good basis as to what can generate what kind of tokens on plusses and zeroes, which are very commonly something a design calls for. The last thing I’ll add for tokens is to try to avoid mixing and matching many different tokens on the same planeswalker. If an ult and a plus or minus generate different emblems/tokens it’s fine (particularly if the smaller ones are very generic), but having different tokens on different or the same plus or minus can become annoying and confusing.

On that note, one thing you frequently run onto when trying to make plus and minus ability synergize is effects that last until after your next activation opportunity. Whenever possible, avoid those, even if it restricts design. It’s not worth the memory issues. You’re better off making the effect permanent with a reminder in that case, although prefer those when the cards are in exile and can be easily separated/attached/moved around instead of the battlefield.

The next detail I want to get to for abilities: “Up to”. “Up to [N] target [X]” is how most plus abilities (and some minuses) that have one or more target are formulated. It allows to activate the ability even when there is no target for it, be it to just add loyalty counters onto the planeswalker and not waste a turn doing nothing, or to get an extra effect out of the ability that doesn’t need the targeting part. If your planeswalker’s plus ability targets, use an “up to” wording.

Finally, to close out this very drawn out part on abilities, I’d like to talk about brevity and text size. The size of the text for all of a planeswalker’s abilities the largest size possible where every ability fits in its box. Generally, it means a planeswalker ability should be constrained to three lines or less if possible, with four being an upper limit. Wizards sometimes goes a little (or a lot) overboard, hence why you can find some five-line abilites, and even some six-lines abilities (although most of those are on planeswalkers with more room because only two abilities. Most. I’m looking at you Gideon, Champion of Justice.) Don’t feel constrained to hard numbers, but depending how or where you render your cards, you may not have the creative freedom to enlarge a text box just to fit more text, so it’s a good thing to stay aware of throughout the design.

Bringing it together

So, that post ended up much longer than I initially intended it to be. Oops? There’s definitely much more to it than the little I summarized here, but it should already be a solid basis into understanding the card type and making great cards from it. In the end, you’ll take all the elements we talked about, and make a single card. So where to start?

Planeswalker designs generally start from an idea, either of flavor or mechanics. A specific ability, a name, a play pattern, an ult, a role… From that starting point, one of the first things you’ll want to determine is whether it will lead to a gimmicky planeswalker, or a generic planeswalker.

Gimmicky planeswalkers are ones that have a “twist” to them, only having negative abilities, maybe being an uncommon ‘walker, a nonlegendary one, one centered around only zeroes, one that transforms, one that has a plus that can get it to an ult directly by adding loyalty counters, etc… Gimmicky planeswalkers, once you’ve figured out the design, will be relatively straightforward to create, since you’ll have set restrictions to guide your creativity for the rest of the card. They’ll also look more unique, but will generally be one-note and weird, exploring a single concept in depth.

Generic planeswalkers are more traditional planeswalkers, with one or more plusses and one or more minuses, sometimes with a static or an ult on top. They will be more open, but once you get ideas, keep what you know in mind and you should arrive to a end result you like. If your original idea is an ability, try to figure out what loyalty costs it would have on planeswalkers with different converted mana costs. Or try to find another ability that would feel at home alongside it, and once you have a pair it is easier to figure out the converted mana cost of the card and their relative play pattern. If your original idea is a mana cost, look at what else Wizards has done in those colors, both on planeswalkers and outside of them. If one interests you, or feels like something the character could do, try to adapt it into a loyalty ability (or even a static!)

Don’t feel bad if you end up with a “classic” planeswalker design (5-mana, 4 or 5 starting loyalty, +1 card advantage, -2 to 3 removal, -7 or -8 ult that has the potential to win the game if you can back it up.) This design, and other often seen designs, are classics for a reason: They work! Is a 2/2 for 1W with a slightly taxing ability a bad design? Surely not! Is a pizza with just tomato sauce, ham, mushroom and cheese bad? I can assure you it isn’t. MaRo himself has recognized at multiple occasions that Planeswalkers had some of the smallest design space of all the card types (except maybe lands?) Due to how inherently powerful their concept is, providing mana and card advantage, and the fact they all have multiple abilities, and so many other restrictions, it is no wonder that many designs converge towards somewhat similar end results.

Finally, whether you intend to just make a singular card for your fanwalker or start a whole standard worth of sets, thank you for reading this until here, and be sure to have fun creating! It’s definitely a hard task, but it can be plenty rewarding. If you want feedback, don’t hesitate to show it off to others (if you feel comfortable doing it, of course). Getting feedback (and evaluating whether it’s worth something) is how you learn and get better! Feel free to reach out to me in my asks or in the comments of this post if you have any questions about specific or generic design or want to discuss this article!

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storycircle · 4 years

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We're still here and open for contributions and ideas!

HELLO EVERYONE I HAVE AN IDEA!!!

I thought Fanwalker Friday could be a good day to bring out this idea I’ve been having lately. Ok so remember when we did the MtG Month of Ship? (sadly the main blog for that seems to be deactivated so I can’t tag it) That was a lot of fun and the community seemed so energized by it. I know canon story situation has been frustrating lately, so what if we did a similar thing, but with fanwalkers/characters?

Not a month of just shipping though, but a month of love towards magics OCs! Each week could be a theme (adventure, origins, family, friendship, and romance are a few themes that come to mind) with maybe each day having a specific thing for theme (and maybe custom card prompts too?!)

Would this be a thing people would be interested in doing?

I’m gonna tag @storycircle for now but I’m not sure if it’s still active or not so I may reblog again later with some people who I know do a lot of fanwalker things :)

No worries if nobody is super interested, I just thought it was a fun idea!

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storycircle · 5 years

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Pizzip, Noise Artisan

Name: Pizzip

Pronouns: She/Her

Species: Goblin

Age: Late 20s

Plane of Origin: Ravnica

First Planeswalk: Lorwyn

Colors: Black/Red

Appearance (and/or Art):

Pizzip will often wear clothing in Rakdos red and black, but will also often have bright highlights of other colors, and will change up her look often, either buying new clothes or pulling old ones out of storage.

Pizzip is also a bit tall and somewhat chubby compared to the average goblin.

Backstory: Born impoverished in Ravnica’s Fifth District, Pizzip eked out a living as a street performer, using her seemingly innate musical ability to play a number of instruments well. She was noticed by the Cult of Rakdos, who took her in, refined her performances and taught her a bit of magic to go along with them, most notably a spell allowing her to conjure musical instruments. This all went well for a few years, until a mishap during a stunt on stage causing a volley of knives to be headed directly for her. Feeling her imminent death, she instead planeswalked.

Since figuring out her planeswalker abilities, Pizzip has realized that this gives her the opportunity to see and hear things the vast majority of people never will, and tries to incorporate approximate noise from other planes into her music.

Magic, gear and/or abilities: Pizzip’s main ability is a conjuration spell, taught to her by the Rakdos that allows her to summon instruments. However, Pizzip took this one step further, recognizing that just about anything can be an instrument if you’re creative enough, and as such can conjure practically anything she can conceptualize as an instrument. This includes quite a few tools and weapons.

However, her main instrument isn’t a conjuration, but is instead Cacophony, a dulcimer she hired the Izzet to line with mizzium in order to make it an effective bludgeon without risk of damage.

Card:

Other: (Pizzip has an in-character blog at pizzip-noise-artisan.tumblr.com.)

#black #red #fanwalker #submission #raw9rytel #Pizzip #ravnica #Goblin

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Vaalin, Spectator of Moments

Name: Vaalin

Pronouns: He/him

Species:Half-Merfolk/Half-Human

Age: It’s complicated

Plane of Origin: Dominaria

First Planeswalk: Theros

Colors: White, Blue and Red

Appearance:

Backstory: His parents met as her mother, a Vodalian merfolk of the Volshe caste, accompanied a Svyelunite expedition to the surface. She was called back and away from his father before his birth, and not wanting to risk dispelling the spell that gave her legs during the pregnancy, took refuge in and joined Tolaria of the Depths as soon as her report was made, trying to avoid the shame and dangers housed by the too often close-minded Vodalian empire. She died from his birth, and he was raised in and by the Academy.

He was bright and eager to learn from his early years, but even in the relative shelter of the Academy, voices were raised against the half-blood, by adults and children alike. He grew up acutely aware of hatred and difference.

From a young age, he was at the top of his classes and tests (well, most of them, some teachers felt like he had to “prove himself more” or “didn’t deserve it”) and as he got further into academics, he specialized in temporal mechanics with an interest in sorcery and their relationship.

His area of expertise was to be the perception of time and its variance, and what applications it could have to create individual-based time distortions that wouldn’t have to be rooted in space. His theoretical work was getting pretty far and partial experiments showed promise, however he and the academy had particularly tight safety measures when it came to any temporal mechanics experiments. And perception isn’t easy to test on subjects that can’t communicate it.

His first mer test, five years ago, wasn’t planned, or along with the rules. During one of his trips outside the academy, he was assaulted and beaten while thinking about his progress and the next steps. His mind, focused on his theories, fueled it with magic in an attempt to defend himself, and the world slowed to a crawl. His mind had sped up to much higher speed, but his body didn’t. Trapped in his own body, the pain however was still present, and prevented him for fully reveling in the proof of what so far had only been theories.

The fulfilment, pain and anguish was enough to ignite his planeswalker spark, sending him tumbling for (what felt for him like) several minutes through the Blind Eternities before he reached the waters of Theros, his magic stopping as he fell unconscious and was washed ashore. He was found and healed by a dryad and planeswalker, Shailyn, who taught him a little more in detail what planeswalking was (he’d guessed what he was without too much of an issue, as a Dominarian.)

He avoided Vodalia for a while after that, and began to love traveling and learning. He refined and improved his magic and its mastery, and since then has returned to his home of Tolaria, with the intent to keep on his research and travels. A Barrinite scholar, he’s still fighting for acceptance, but his theories earned him the respect of everyone but a couple of the most bigots, at least within the academy.

Magic, gear and abilities: His primary magic is his ability to use time magic to speed up minds, mainly his own, and in a much smaller measure, bodies. For himself, he’s able to speed up his thinking enough that it seems like everything stopped moving completely. For his body, he can only go at most at twice its normal speed. He can use his magic on others, but it’s orders of magnitudes less effective, since on himself his magic can improve upon itself from its effects.

He’s also learned some minor telepathic spells, which allow him to send and receive telepathic messages, allowing him to communicate easily despite speed difference between the parties.

As for gear, he doesn’t carry more than a utility knife as weapons. More importantly, he disposes of some tools to help him, one of the most useful being a generator of illusions he can control with his mind to generate simple translucent illusions of the five magic colors. He mainly uses it to have visual support when his mind is sped up faster than his body can match, making what he’s able to figure out by himself less limited.

Card:

#white #blue #red #fanwalker #submission #merfolk #human #dominaria #Vaalin #Niuttuc

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storycircle · 5 years

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Silena, Corroding Martial Mage

Name: Silena

Pronouns: She/Her

Species: Human

Age: 24

Plane of Origin: Kylem

First Planeswalk: Alara (Pre-Conflux, Bant)

Colors: Blue, Black, Red

Appearance: She’s a dark-skinned woman, 5’4”. Her hair is in braids, dyed purple and red. She’s pretty fit from the fighting, and her armor, when she wears it, is a functional yet very stylish dark grey color with purple and red accents matching her hair. The weapons she carries vary from fight to fight and day to day.

Backstory: She was born and lived most of her life in Cloudspire, on Kylem. She looked up to Valor’s Reach but her family was too poor to watch the fights more than occasionally. She promised herself to one day be on one of those statues, and trained herself, well, as much as she could with her limited means and times. But Martial Magic also includes Magic, and training with that was ineffective without tutoring, which was exponentially more expensive than what she could afford with her little jobs.

So she resolved to trying her own with ‘petty’ physical sports, hoping to earn enough money or recognition through them to be able to get farther with magic than the cantrips she had been able to figure out so far.

And she did manage to get to someone. A duo of (second-grade) martial mages, Corlineo and Neleane.

The middle-aged woman, Neleane saw herself in Silena, having come from the streets herself, or so she said. Neleane was gifted in corroding magic, but had extended her repertoire beyond just that. The elf, Corlineo, welcomed her as well as a friend and trained with her, though she was to be his partner’s protégé more than his.

As it turns out, her mentor had other intents. She was aging and losing her physical faculties, whereas Corlineo was not, at least not at the same pace. He’d told her already that soon she’d have to lay down his weapons. He thought she chose Silena as a potential replacement. He was somewhat right.

Six months after taking Silena in, Neleane met her in private. She restrained Silena, and used one of her partner’s soulblade as a channel for a necromantic spell she’d learned, transferring her mind into Silena’s body and weaving their souls together. She was planning to take over her body. She made sure her soul was ingrained enough that no known magic may split them apart or stop her takeover.

What she didn’t count on, however, was that the experience was traumatic enough to ignite Silena’s spark. New yet old magic dwelt within her soul and she knew what had happened there, but not where she was. Whether it was by the spell’s design or due to the ignition, Silena retained her own mind and control, at least for a time, as she could feel and hear Neleane’s own slowly putting in its roots. She spent the better part of the next few months trying to find a solution to her losing control among the planes. She did go back to Kylem shortly after the start, and confronted/was confronted by Corlineo, who acted horrified. She didn’t –doesn't– trust him.

When she found a solid lead for a solution to her problem, her time was running thin. Spiritual artifacts in a temple of sorts. She headed that way, intending on trying to cure herself. She’d shied away from practicing her new powers, Nuleane’s own, by fear that it’d hasten the takeover, but when the guardians of that temple didn’t let her access or event see its relics, she had no other choice than to use her still unfamiliar magic to make her way through. And so she did. She lowered the acidity in the guardians’ blood enough to incapacitate them, took what she needed, and left.

She managed to stop the takeover using one of the relics, driving Neleane’s mind out of her body and entrapping it inside a small statue. Since then, she’s been training with her abilities and making a name for herself in some smaller arenas in the country. She gets enough coin to live and make her way in the world by blackmailing Corlineo, under the threat of revealing what Neleane did, and ruin his reputation. He always paid without a hitch.

Now, more than five years after her sparking, Silena is returning to Valor’s Reach, intending, this time, to compete.

Magic, gear and/or abilities: She’s managed to learn a few cantrips of her own, but Silena’s main magic is the one she “inherited” of Neleane. The ability to manipulate the acidity of water-based liquids. Other than that, she knows the common martial mage’s enchantments (to make her weapons glow the colors she wants, and send signals to the referees).

As for gear, in the arena, she’s got her armor, flashy and enchanted as it is. She’ll wear it outside of it when she wants to be recognized, but keep it off when she doesn’t want the attention or it isn’t practical (more often the latter than the former). Her weapons are generally bladed, but she often changes, as they tend to not survive her magic for long. She carries with her vial of bright (and glowing) purple and green “acid”, in reality just colored water before the addition of her magic.

To fight, she’s comfortable with most normal close range weapons and is able to use bows and crossbows properly, as well as throw knives. For more exotic things, she generally is able to get used to them, but she’ll need some time with it.

Card:

#blue #black #red #fanwalker #submission #Silena #Niuttuc #Kylem #Human

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storycircle · 5 years

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I'm really excited for the new MtG setting and I'm thinking about making an OC (either planebound or a walker). It all depends on what sort of info we get about the plane, but I'm excited! I'm going to make a witch based off of my favorite story I read about Baba Yaga and maybe throw in some other sorceress types in there.

That sounds awesome! Don't hesitate to share them with us when you do!

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Hmmmm. I mean, we have some basic info on everyone who submits it to us.

You know what would be really cool? If we made a wiki for fanwalkers, where we could easily collect lore for everyone's characters!

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storycircle · 5 years

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Szyra the Worldshifted

Name: Szyra

Pronouns: She/Her

Species: Nantuko

Age: 95

Plane of Origin: Dominaria (alternate)

First Planeswalk: Dominaria (regular)

Colors: Green-Black-Blue

Appearance: She’s a nantuko, and they can be hard to tell apart for humans. On the shorter end at 7'2", but larger than her counterparts in our reality, adapted to the cold. She’s generally dressed lightly of whites, blacks and greens, having a hard time adapting to the higher temperatures even today.

Backstory: Szyra comes from the main alternate reality that connected to Dominaria during the Rift Era. There, the Ice Age never ended and there’s still Phyrexians to fight. She’s a nantuko from Otaria, the main center of resistance, and as such was trained in combat and magic to eventually be sent to fight. The magic she learned had been developed by a joint effort between the Cabal and the Krosan druids to allow more efficient, but also more respectful summoning of creatures, real or not, to help in the unending fight, as well as strengthening and bolstering allies and nature by… Most means available.

In her reality, their rifts were consolidating while ours were flourishing, creating that connection. Szyra was a potential planeswalker connected to the Otarian rift, and a manastorm particularly violent (that might or might not have been caused by someone) pulled her into the rift, where her unique makeup allowed her spark to ignite, which in the middle of the rift fundamentally changed her magic, and sent her to our version of Dominaria.

Soon after, the Rifts were closed and the Mending occurred (Like Venser and Radha, she was already a post-Mending planeswalker, so it didn’t really change anything for her). After a couple years of confusion and discovery, she settled and decided to enjoy the pleasures this new world had to offer, between its warmer climate more kind toward agriculture (despite the rift desolation) and the lack of Phyrexians. She did that for forty years, eventually growing bored even of that.

Nowadays, she’s more or less settled, visiting the occasional other planes and trying to determine which she isn’t attacked on sight on.

Magic, gear and/or abilities: Following her reality shift, her magic mutated into what it is now. She needs a target for her magic, and can either summon or temporarily shift said target into its version from a set alternate reality with one divergence point depending on the plane they’re from. On Dominaria it will pull from her own reality, on Tarkir from the Khans time-line, on Zendikar potentially from an Eldrazi-less reality,… She has little control on the result, and has to establish control on it if it is reluctant.

She has a rare feature amongst her people, wings, and can fly with them. Well. Jump far. Or sustain a couple seconds of flight. Growing up and onto her adult age, she couldn’t use them because of the cold, so even after some practice now they’re not able to carry her far.

She’s trained in close combat, very fast and taking advantage of her natural weapons and strength.

Card:

#blue #black #green #fanwalker #fanplane origin #submission #niuttuc #Szyra #Dominaria #Nantuko

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storycircle · 5 years

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Shakelan, Fabler Extant

Name: Shakelan

Species: Human

Age:26

Plane of Origin: Fiora

First Planeswalk: Theros

Appearance:

Colours: Red main then Black and Blue.

Backstory: Born to a glove maker and a maid, Shakelan was never destined to any life of greatness. He grew up in the lowlands beneath Palliano, at the age of 7 he was sent to be a tailors apprentice by his father. His master was an old man named Elestus, with a scraggly greying beard and constantly furrowed brow. Shakelan learned how to sew and stitch and stood by as Elestus did most of the work, until the day Elestus was requested to help costume a local playhouse for their production of “The Fair Maid of Trest.” Entering the round theatre, something struck within Shakelan, an odd feeling of staring at the stage for the very first time and yet he felt at home. The bustle and characters of the theatre both on and off stage enchanted him to his very core. This was where he was meant to be.

He was tasked with being the personal costumer for the queen in the show and like never before he threw himself into his work, stitched and sewed glorious gold strings into her gowns. All the while she talked about growing up in theatre so by the time it was opening night she looked like a true queen and Shakelan has decided there was no other place to be, telling Elestus on opening night who scournfully told him that he will fail, there is no future in something as volatile as theatre.

Shakelan joined the company as a costumer and before long had his place on stage as well, where he became a fairly noted actor. No one told of his great performances but they all still laughed at his jokes, though he could never get them to cry like other actors he compared himself too. And though his ego grew and he would flaunt his place and status to steal the hearts of local girls there was always that desire to make people cry at his command. Not to make them sad but just to be able to have the control of the other actors in his troupe.

Eventually he decided that clearly it wasn’t his acting that was at fault, but the writing. So he set about writing a play that would surely make the world weep. The story called “The Tragedy of Corona” was about a king whose daughter and kingdom would be destroyed by the other members of his court, and Shakelan was certain with the amount of death and woe in the tale that no one would be able to laugh. He would chase every other emotion. And so, when the curtains closed on opening night and the audience made no sound at all. Shakelan was certain that he had shaken them into silence, proud at his accomplishment he strode onto the stage to take his bow as writer and lead man ready for the thunderous applause.

Instead of applause he heard the audience boo and geer, the shock and horror of losing those who once loved him shook Shakelan until he saw a tomato fly out from the audience towards his face. Shielding his head he prepared for the splat of the tomato. But it never came, lowering his arms Shakelan looked around and found himself staring at a new sky. Beneath this sky, Shakelan would find stories worth telling.

Magic: A magic lute that allows Shakelan to control the emotions of others and recreate scenes using the special songs he can sing.

#blue #black #red #fanwalker #submission #Shakelan #Human #Fiora #ultradragonman

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Name: Hefni

Pronouns: She/her

Species: Gorgon

Age: 26

Plane of Origin: Ravnica

First Planeswalk: Theros

Colors: White, Red

Appearance (and/or Art): Hefni stands at 5’ 7" with pale skin. The tendrils that dance around her head are a pale white and her one good eye is white with a gold cat like slit down the middle. She wears leather armor bearing the symbol of the Boros Legion as well an eye patch with the same symbol adorning it. She wields a pair of gleaming short swords.

Backstory: Hefni was born in the Undercity on the plane of Ravnica she doesn’t remember her parents all Hefni knew growing up was Muddlefups Orphanage. It was a ran down old shack where the unwanted children of the undercity went to be put to work by a cranky old goblin by the same name as the orphanage she ran. Hefni spent her first 7 years of life picking various mushrooms and fungus from behind the old orphanage. After some careful planning she was finally able to escape Muddlefups and make her way to the city above.

It took time to adjust to life on the surface but she managed stealing a coin purse here and there. She stuck to the edge of the Gruul territory just keeping a low profile until one day she was caught by a trio of Gruul members who began to beat the small gorgon within an inch if her life. One even stabbed a sharp knife through her left eye. Her screams alerted a Boros patrolman who quickly leaped into action taking out two of the thugs with ease. The third however surprised the soldier cutting him across the cheek with his blade. Right before the thug could deal the final blow there was a flash of white light and the thug was nothing but a white marble statue.

The soldier took Hefni in and trained her how to fight and on her eighteenth birthday he took her before Aurelia herself. After Hefni showed her talent for combat the guild master was impressed and agreed to allow Hefni entry into the Boros Legion, however she was forbidden from using her gaze. Hefni began her training with the Boros and many of her fellow Boros were disguised to see a gorgon amongst thier ranks. Hefni however did not care what others thought of her and continued to learn and grow.

Hefni was eventually assigned to work in the Rubble Belt as a scout. It was her job to monitor Gruul activity and report back to her garrison. During one of her scouting missions she spotted a Gruul guildmage who was attempting to summon forth a powerful Elemental to assault the walls of the city. She didn’t have time to report back she had to act now and so she did.

Hefni leaped from the brush stabbing one of her short swords into the man’s abdomen. He yelled in pain and the she watched as her sword flashed with light while still inside the mage and traces of light began to travel all over his body just beneath his skin. He then pushed her back coughing up blood, his hands began to glow with magic but when he went to release his spell nothing happened. He looked at Hefni with confusion and then he drew a crude bone knife from his belt and ran at Hefni ready to strike her down. And then there was a white flash and the man was nothing more than a white marble statue. Hefni in that moment realised she had broken her oath to her guild leader she panicked and in her panic her spark ignited and she found herself falling and then darkness. She awoke in a lush green field with a brilliant blue sky above her she had awoken in Theros and her journey as a planeswalker began.

#submission #fanwalker #red #white #Gorgon #Symbidan #Ravnica #Hefni

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Kolvis

Name: Kolvis Pronouns: She/her Species: Angel Age: ? >1000 Plane of Origin: Alara (Vithia/Grixis) First Planeswalk: Innistrad Colors: White, Black Appearance (and/or Art): Kolvis is an angel, 6’2”, her hair, wings and eyes are of a medium gray. She’s still connected to her homeland and it affected her shape through its evolution into Grixis, she know sports bone spikes at her elbows and knees, that go against her arms and legs when they’re extended. Backstory: In the years before Alara’s Sundering, angels protected the land of Vithia. Then the world was shattered.

Vithia was stripped of its main magic, its weapons to protect itself and its tools to feed itself. Cut from the magic that sustained them, the angels withered and died, one by one. Most kept on the fight despite their waning powers, and died either from an ultimate spell or movement or at the hands of enemies they could previously hold off, emboldened by the disappearance of their enemies’ magic.

The defenders of the capital expended less of themselves to fight, and were the last angels to remain in Vithia. And then there was only one left. Her remaining days could be counted on one hand when she was called by the king, Sedris. The king was wise and smart. He had devised a way, using the magic that remained, for the angel to be given part of any person’s life to extend her own.

She was horrified at such a perspective, preferring oblivion to taking the life of others. But the king managed to convince her. It would be entirely voluntary, a gift of the people to their last defender, and none would give more than a week’s worth of their life to her. She reluctantly accepted, and the ritual was set. In a few days, the first ritual, a test, was organized inside the palace. She only took a day of whoever would give her inside of the palace, getting a few months of life this way. The test was a success, and Sedris wished to expand it to the capital and the country for the next one.

Unbeknownst to the angel, Sedris’s ideas and magic were whispered into his dreams by the demons of the plane, and slowly but surely turning his intentions inward. If he was to be Vithia’s savior, he would have to be more powerful than he was. His enemies both in war and in the palace would never be able to defeat him, and, along with the angel, he would be able to keep the peace in the kingdom.

Within two months, the larger ritual was organized. The angel had been able not only to survive, but also to fight more effectively, flying around the border to hold off or even drive back the necromancers, demons and their armies. She found that she was now capable of taking life without the ritual, thing she forbidden herself to do even to an enemy, by fear of becoming just like them.

She flew back to the capital for the ritual, and was greeted by an overjoyed Sedris. Reports had came back, and a large majority of the population seemed willing to give a day or a week of their life to help back the angel who helped them. Under the King’s direction, she lied back down on the altar, and he commenced the ritual. As it started, she connected to every living thing in the kingdom. The people knew what happened, and opened themselves, a hundred thousand voices thanking the angel and offering what they wanted as gratitude. She took, brought up to tears by the display of widespread generosity, benevolence and trust.

The king acted.

Through the angel, he pulled life. More than a day. More than a week. More than a year. He took everything. The angel felt the gratitude and trust turn into betrayal, a kingdom’s worth of it. She felt the power of a hundred thousand lives flow into her, the king siphoning as much of this power as he could for himself. With that power came something else. Something different. But with that power and by her will, she managed to stop the ritual before it went any further. But it was too late, most of the kingdom had already died by her hands. She wanted to give back, but even if she had had access to the magic of giving, a dead body can’t be brought back without more than its own life. Out of anger, the powerful being that had become the angel slayed the traitor king, bringing down most of his throne room in the same spell.

As soon as her vengeance was delivered, the angel disappeared into another world, forever changed. She took a new name, Kolvis, lifetaker, to remind herself of what she’d done, what she was used to do. The king, through her, had already taken the power of thousands of lives, and soon after his death, he stood back up, more powerful than ever. He blamed the angel for the massacre, and himself as the one who managed to stop her. In time, he would betray again, the whispers of demons making him yearn more power than he held. Magic, gear and/or abilities: Her magic changed after her becoming a locus of life, and she can now take lifeforce, give it to others or use it for various effects. The life of sapient beings is the most potent, followed by the one of sentient beings, and most non-sentient vegetals are next. She will avoid taking the life of anyone without consent, and even of plants if she can avoid it. As for gear, she wears specially made armor and carries a mace. Card:

#white #black #fanwalker #submission #niuttuc #Kolvis #angel #alara #grixis

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