what kind of āmystical archiveā would your fan plane have?
To fit with the Mystical Archive style of fitting a specific theme, Balatog's version be all enchantments that try to fit a more nature-themed feel since it's a plane overflowing with mana and going off Halona's penchant for exploration. Something named like "Enchanting Locations."
I had a partial list hashed out back a few years ago, so it's not a complete list, but I touched it up some:
Mono-colored enchantments were Leyline of Sanctity and Endless Horizons for white, Leyline of Anticipation and Kindred Discovery for blue, Leyline of the Void and Polluted Bonds for black, Leyline of Punishment and Fiery Emancipation for red, and Leyline of Lifeforce and Concordant Crossroads for green.
For pairings we'd have something like Cadaverous Bloom, Enchanted Evening, Flooded Woodlands, Rhthym of the Wild, Smoldering Tar, and Thousand-Year Storm.
There's probably some lands that would fit in here two, but they'd need the Godzilla-name treatment to fit.
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How would you describe the soul and avatar of your fan plane?
For Balatog, it looks very human in appearance like Soul of Shandalar. I imagine glowing orange "tattoos" covering her arms and legs like vines. It wears a long and layered flowing dress covered in an intricate floral pattern reminiscent of swirling pattern I started adding to Halona and Pahandi's clothes. I've imagined it before dancing and spinning and the winds and water around it following it's movements. I remember having fanfic notes of if Nissa visited Balatog, and being "overwhelmingly welcomed" by it. It had a joyful energy for it that was nice, but "tiring" in a way for her (like an introvert being steamrolled by an extremely excited person kind of way).
For Freimrann, it is covered head to toe in a full suit of patchwork armor, dented and worn from battle, but its damascus steel like pattern showing through. It carries a sword that is as long as it is tall. It has stood or sat in the same place so long that moss and vegetation has started to grow over it. Underneath, it looks halfway between human and corpse, eyes glowing with an icy white glow. Where the Soul of Theros is this glowing warrior, the Soul of Freimrann is something of grit, spite, and vengeance. It stands guard, unwavering of its duty even against death itself.
I had this idea a long time ago to do a sort of height map of Balatog to show off both the normal world and a metaphysically altered side of it. Itās also a little bit of a preview of the last 2 things Iām doing for the plane.
Ā It took forever to get done, partly cause I didnāt really put much planning into it outside the last couple weeks and partly cause it is, at its highest quality,Ā 6 feet tall and I have no idea why I thought making it that big was a good idea.
Okay, final post for Balatog.Ā No story for mood and setting this time. It was too much of a rehash from last timeās post with Halona standing in front of awe-inspiring power that dwarfed her that it didnāt feel necessary. But to cap off this whole shebang, I commissioned this piece from @hazoretā about 2 months ago and Iāve been sitting on it so I can post it and Iāve been sitting on this character for almost a year now.
The Setting
The Root is the inner most part of Balatog, a collapse in time and space created by its protective spell. Found far beneath the Fold and accessed by diving off its iconic cliff, it is more similar to a pocket dimension than anything. The leylines of the world wrap around here, both protecting the Root and powering the spell. Crystals of condensed mana dot the expanse, giving it the appearance of a starry, galaxy filled sky. While ground is not hard to find here, most of its āsolid groundā is composed of floating pools and lakes of mirror-like, opalescent water. At the center is a large amethyst like crystal acting as both a channel for the planeās mana for the spell and housing its creator, Pahandi Tulog.
Pahandi Tulog is the planeswalker from Balatogās legend and the one who cast the spell to protect it. Somewhere between several hundred and a thousand years old. She had spent much of the first part of her planeswalker existence off plane, traveling from world to world studying and learning the Multiverse. Where Halona would come to travel to planes as an explorer and thrill seeker, Pahandi was a scholar and a shaman and treated this new life as more of a spiritual enlightenment. But over the decades, that wonder turned to horror. Events such as Urzaās wars and experiments, the fighting between Ugin and Bolas, the binding of the Eldrazi, and the Phyrexian invasion showed her how small and how fragile her world was. When she eventually returned home, she resolved to be its protector.
At first, she started combating hostile arriving planeswalkers directly, but even after creating a great avatar to fight by her side, she knew that was not enough. Using the spells she had learned from her travels she thought she could deter more from arriving, but found that only the most determined now came to her home. She would travel more to learn more and add to her wall, but each spell was just a raised the barrier of entry and the writing was on the wall that one day one of these interlopers would be her doom. Determined to protect her home to the bitter end, but knowing that her magic would not last without her to guide it, she made one last sacrifice. She bound herself to the world, putting herself in suspended animation at the center of her spell to make her own body and soul both a battery and focus for it. As she fell into her slumber, her mind drifted and her subconscious merged with the elemental creature she had created and fought along side for centuries. Athal-Pati, gaining the new sentience and power, continued the mission of protecting the world never truly knowing how it worked or for what purpose until Halona damaged the spell with her sparking.
The Idea
The general gist of the story would be that Halona, after deciding that neither keeping the Ban as is or taking it down were all that great options, would go to find the source of the spell and see if she could manipulate it. She and a party, either her planeswalker friends or planebound locals, would bum rush the Fold before diving deeper into the Root. They would explore for sometime, amazed at the splendor of this warped part of the plane until they stumble upon the sleeping Pahandi in her jewel. Pahandi would break out of her trance and attack the party in a haze, thinking they are invaders. Driven to back to the surface by her magic, she would overwhelm the group as her connection to the plane gives her power near if not equal to that of her height pre-Mending.
After forcing several of the friend-walkers off plane, pushing them into forced planeswalks, she stops only when Halona is able to get an upper hand fighting back when Pahandi find her magic has no effect on Halona (both because of her anti magic nature and for the fact that Pahandiās spell forces the walker as close to their home plane as they can and Halona is already home). Pahandi, realizing the gravity of the uncontrolled collapse of her spell without support, tries to rush back to the Root, but Athal-Pati uses what they believe to be the last vestiges of their power to slow her down and let Halona beat them there.
The Problem
I really didnāt have much planned at this stage of the world actually. What I have here in the section above is just all the loose notes I have strung together and even the ending isnāt the final one, just the one I had written the most coherently. I think the main issue and the reason why it didnāt have many concrete or exclusive to itself problems was because all the problems from the earlier stages, the unfinished world building and the indecisions from the previous post, meant that there wasnāt enough to build up from.
I guess to end on a happier note than last time, I still really enjoyed the project and Pahandi as a character and I really should do a full write up of her eventually.
Kinda sucks that tumblrās gonna compress the hell out of this image so it might be hard to see that small Halona in the foreground. This is some Balatog concept work I had started wayĀ before theĀ āmapā I did and is connected to an important character to Balatog.
Since this is probably one of the last posts Iām gonna be making for my plane, I wanted to do something special for it. Thereās a little short story after the break that goes along with the picture and a write up throwing out my thoughts and troubles I was having with the this whole leg of creating the custom plane and story. Hopefully Iām able to get the next and last post for Balatog out quicker than this one.
Halonaās small boat, barely a raft, coasted gently through the calm and clear water. Nestled in the gravel bed of the shallow water were crystals of all colors, glowing and fading as the boat came and went casting a soft rainbow spotlight from underneath, the only source of light in the inky black, never ending darkness around her. She knew she was underground, far farther than she thought was possible, but the only ends to the water she ever found were the entrance she took and her destination and the only sounds she could hear were her own breath, the soft ripple of the water, and the occasional creak of her boat in the void.
The gravel rose in a subtle, painfully slow pace that, after a near eternity of drifting, ground the boat to a stop. As she hopped out of her boat and continued her journey trudging through the now ankle deep water, the scattered crystals at her feet became more and more sparse as a source-lessĀ shaft of light slowly started to shine down from above following her. Eventually the gravel bed became a gravel beach and that too soon thinned and broke into solid stone. The water and her boat disappeared into the darkness behind her as the stone disappeared into the void in front. Still, she continued on her path.
The landing itself eventually started to vanish as well, thinning first slowly into a road before coming to a point. She stood near the cliffās edge, the light gray outcropping jutting out into the vast ever present nothing that had accompanied her through her journey so far. She took a second to compose herself, her eyes wandering as they found less than nothing to focus on. She took a long, full breath before calling out at the top of her lungs.
āAthal!ā
For a long moment there was only silence, not even her voice echoed back at her. Then she heard it. It started as a low hum, a silent almost inaudible thrum that reminded her more of a distance machine than something natural. It started to build into a rumble coming from all directions as the stone at her feet started to shake. Two points of light suddenly appeared in the distance, widening slowly into long thin lines and hissed liked arching lightning. Cracks of bright light spilled from the growing lines turning the darkness into a cracked black mirror as a howling and buffeting wind kicked up. With each sudden fracture, the world around her strained under the unseen force and the unnatural base-filled groan of miles of rock around her pierced her skull and shook her to the very core.
The world settled into a moment of silence, but Halona already knew what came next. The two lines suddenly opened in all their splendor, one last gust of wind blasted forth and almost made her stumble back. Two eyes stared down at her, shining bright as they seemed to vibrate with color. Although there was no way for her to judge distance in the darkness, her gut told her they had to be more than a hundred paces from her and yet it was near impossible for her to keep both in her field of view.
Legends say when Balatog was sealed and hidden, the worldās guardian pleaded with the land, the sea, and the sky to protect it in their absence and Athal-Pati answered. Athal-Pati the Waking Dream. Athal-Pati the Ever Watcher. Athal-Pati the Worldās Voice. Halona composed herself once again, standing tall and defiant in front of the behemoth. She cared little for their titles and they had much to discuss.
The Setting
The original spell cast over Balatog was not a singular spell done at a specific time. Instead, the original planeswalker had taken centuries studying multiple planes; the Ban of Ulgrotha, the fold over Ravnica, the split planes of Theros and Kamigawa, the Shard of Twelve Worlds, and even smaller occurrences like Zhalfirās phasing and the hedron prison on Zendikar. Each time they would take a bit and add it to their spell, weaving and layering a thicker barrier over the plane. The layering of hundreds of spells made the barrier redundant and practically impenetrable, but its shear immensity distorted the plane.
The Fold is the edge of this distortion. It is essentially impossible to planeswalk into, similar to Therosās Nix, although it does have many entrances on the planeās surface, a few permanent, well guarded ones and many more that appear and disappear seemingly on their own accord. Inside, it appears as a seemingly endless underground lake surrounded by a black void with the only landmarks inside being the entrance and a single long cliff extending out into nothing. The distance between the surface and the lake always seems to change, but the distance between any entrance and the cliff almost always stays the same.
The Idea
When Halona first returned to Balatog, several months and many planes after her first planeswalk from her home, she didnāt appear back at her home town like she hoped and instead found herself on the cliff inside the Fold. She didnāt have much time to be confused however as Athal-Pati appeared suddenly and struck at her, unleashing a torrent of spells and raw magic on an unthinkable level and power to her. After a tense moment, Halona humbled by the display and Athal confused by her resilience, Athal started their questioning. Athal eventually calmed down after finding out more about the young walker and after some deliberation, revealed a deeper nature of the world.
As Halona had guessed, Athal-Pati was the legendary monster from the old legend, a formless guardian connected on a metaphysical level to the plane left to protect the world when the old walker had disappeared. Athal seemed to have most if not all the old walkerās knowledge and power believed they had the plane figured out. However, Halonaās first planeswalk had damaged the Ban in someway, a fact that Athal had trouble wrapping their proverbial head around, and because the Ban had been so integrated into the nature of Balatog, the damage had a rippled out. The natural balance of the plane had been upset and as far as Athal could tell, could lead to near apocalyptic damage to the world.
The main premise would be that Athal and Halona had teamed up after this to safe the plane. Athal tasked Halona with not only keeping the plane secret, hoping to minimize any further damage, to replicate their creatorās experiments believing that the relatively recent Mending had changed enough of the Multiverse that some new information could be gleaned from it. The main conflict was supposed to be that on one side, Halona did not truly believe in this cause. She was not sure if fixing the Ban and sequestering Balatog was the best path and keeping the secrets from her friends hurt her deeply. On the other hand, Athal wasnāt as confident with their plan as they tried to seem. They didnāt have the perfect knowledge they thought they had, not knowing what happened to the old walker, the full extent of the spells they cast on the plane, nor how the further inner workings of the plane worked. In truth, they were unsure of their own path, but did not think any other way was viable either. Halona would eventually try to go behind Athalās back and discover deeper truths of her world.
The Problem
I think the first problem, which I talked about in a previous post, was that the kind of setup I was going for just didnāt work out. Writing and acting as if it were some long form D&D or comic couldnāt mesh well with the kind of work flow and audience I have. Trying to set up the story in role playing just felt disingenuous and quickly felt like it was trying to force Halona as āthe main characterā.
The second problem was that having Halona stress over if what she was doing was right, trying to decide if having Balatog be free versus having Balatog be safe, seemed less relevant as she grew as a character. When the storyās original plot was created along side Halona, it made more sense, but as I wrote and drew and role played her, it didnāt feel like something sheād struggle with as much. Now, sheād probably have made her decision pretty quickly and wouldnāt think that free and safe had to be mutually exclusive.
The final problem was that I couldnāt really nail down what Athal-Pati nor the actual damage to the plane were going to be. Was Athal a piece of the planeās worldsoul, the planeās own consciousness? What were their actual power limits? They were a more or less formless being, but were they aware of everything going on on the plane? Could they even be tricked? What was the actual damage to Balatog going to be? Where the aether storms just going to get out of hand or was something much worse going to be? Would the damage to plane change Athal? Ultimately, I never really could hammer out a definite answer to these questions.
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If you stood on the beaches of Balatog and looked out into the ocean, it is said that the Cephalid Kingdomās borders stretches into the horizon and while they donāt make any actual claim to running the many island tribes and kingdoms of the region, it is clear to see who has the most power. Cephalid outposts dot the open waters and lonely isles too small for the landlocked inhabitants. Cephalid soldiers patrol the vast seas and even lend troops to guard trade routes in darker times. Cephalid goods are an exotic commodity and often sought after by the public. Despite the massive scale and power the Cephalid empire wields, peace and security has always been its goal and its ruler, Empress Amakori, has always shown an unbelievable amount of patience and benevolence.
When the island tributary missions started to slow, Amakori thought little of it. Bad crops and trade were always a threat, but when news started to trickle in through the trade routes, she started to become concerned. Tales came of the sun scorching the land, diseases popping up suddenly in small communities, long dormant volcanoes coming alive once again, and the once mythic, hurricane-like aether storms carving paths through the once tame oceans. Concerned, she called forth the young scholar who had warned her of this news.
Karadagat was a young relative to his peers. He excelled at the royal academy, his gifts in magic and formulas letting him graduate early and granted him a job at the castle archives. The job was comfortable and safe, far from the front lines his family had made their name known in. When he first connected linked all the various stories coming into the kingdom, the slowly increasing calamities around the world and the patterns of their frequency, he only hoped for a promotions to a much more academic and leisurely position. He didnāt, however, expect to be called before the royal court and named the foremost expert on the situation that was sure to reach the kingdom itself. He was even shocked when he found forced into a new job to travel the various settlements and kingdoms, study the whole mess, and see what kind of solution he could come up with. Now on a ship halfway to White Wall all he has are a sack full of scrolls, a gut full of dread, and scrawled rumors of a sailor who has braved the storms and lived.
(Iāve actually had the art for this done since December. I just had the hardest time doing the write up for this)
So I decided pretty soon after I made my last Balatog post (with the help of some peeps on Discord) to just reveal my ideas for the project since Iāve been stuck at this road block for so long.
My idea was to make 3 more posts with 3 major pieces of art, one being a sort of map of the plane to explain some of the more meta-features (magic and setting physics and such) and two more to go along write ups for the key parts of the whole thing. 2 of the pieces are finished, 1 amazing one done byĀ @hazoret, and the map is almost there, but Iāve been dragging my ass trying to actually do the write ups. I donāt even know why its taking so long! Most of the stuff is just rewriting chunks of my design doc so it flows coherently.
I also I have to figure out Tumblrās deal with image compression cause the pictures Iām doing are very big and I make sure people will be able to see the details.
Deep in the wilds of Balatog, far from the cities and the seas, live the ever elusive Du-Tang. These monkey-like devils live in wild abandon, seeking to live life towards one goal: pleasure and entertainment. Just as helpful as they are dangerous, myths and legends paint them as capricious tricksters. In some tales they are the comedic companion, following the hero with a biting wit and a wild laugh, while in others they are horrific prankster, fooling the gullible into their own doom for a quick laugh before running off towards their next victim.
The Du-Tang live in rough clans, ten major clans and countless minor ones scattered throughout the outer lands. Each year, the clans unify under the banner of the Grand Revelry, both a party and political meeting where every clan is given their say on how best to raise the Du-Tang. Politically, there is one leader, the monarch, a title given to the leader of the largest and strongest clan. As the humans expand outward and the Cephalid Empire coddles their new allies with support and protection, the clans wait eagerly for guidance of their leader.
However, there is a second leader, the Grand Dancer. A position won through skill and grace, they lead the social side of the Grand Revelry by making the party one to remember for the ages. The current Grand Dancer is the upstart Nokoma, who has held the position an unprecedented three years in a row. While her names is almost chanted in the lesser clans and she gains followers by the day, most leaders are become wary of this small thing. Her call for unity and stronger kinship between the clans is a very uplifting message, but they question her loyalties as rumors spread of her friendship with one of the few humans curious enough to seek them out.
Mechanic: Revel
The Du-Tang love a good party and while it takes two to tango, you need more to get something really crazy going. Of course, parties canāt last forever and they can only go for one turn, but get enough people together and you can really cause some mayhem.
Originally, revel started off as a modified version of Unleash. It would last a single turn, but was repeatable. This didnāt really capture the party aspect, the sense of togetherness, that Nokoma tries to bring to the table. My second idea was to have them act as one unit, to block and be blocked as one creature, but that turned out to basically be banding, but the idea of working together like that gave me an idea. That in turn reminded me of Soulbond and had me askĀ āwhy not just bond with more creatures?ā
Thereās a lot of room for error here with how quickly a wide board could go crazy with enough reveling creatures and I didnāt check with anyone to see if the syntax works as is, but Iād love to hear you guysā thoughts on it!
