I was thinking about this for Chainsaw already. We'll see what the rest of the set brings. I'd imagine the set on average isn't power tools and televisions.
Sets [DMH] Duskmourn: House of Horror
- Thread starter Velrun
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
We have never seen TV screens, and those are way more modern than what we’ve seen before. Obviously Kamigawa had neon signs and sort of a modern industry, but even there no tv screens. I think it’s just the stark contrast in technology level with every setting that has come before that’s jarring to people.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Fractals and neon signs baby! Yeah, that does look rather futuristic, doesn't it?What about ?
Yeah.
Some years ago I would have an issue with futuristic inventions on a Magic plane. But then came Universes Beyond and I found my new mortal enemy!
Now I am fine with everything as long as they are meant to be on a Magic plane.
Duskmourn is Universes Within. Because it is within the universe.
The Walking Dead, My Little Pony, Stranger Things, Arcane, Street Fighter, Fortnite, Warhammer 40.000, Transformers, Creepshow, Doctor Who, Evil Dead, The Princess Bride, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Tomb Raider, Cluedo, Fallout, Hatsune Miko, Assassin’s Creed, Final Fantasy and Marvel are not. They are beyond our universe. They are Universes Beyond. We could maybe also put Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings in that catagory.
Some years ago I would have an issue with futuristic inventions on a Magic plane. But then came Universes Beyond and I found my new mortal enemy!
Now I am fine with everything as long as they are meant to be on a Magic plane.
Duskmourn is Universes Within. Because it is within the universe.
The Walking Dead, My Little Pony, Stranger Things, Arcane, Street Fighter, Fortnite, Warhammer 40.000, Transformers, Creepshow, Doctor Who, Evil Dead, The Princess Bride, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Tomb Raider, Cluedo, Fallout, Hatsune Miko, Assassin’s Creed, Final Fantasy and Marvel are not. They are beyond our universe. They are Universes Beyond. We could maybe also put Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings in that catagory.
I'll take a dozen D&D sets before I find the appeal in a single mtg set looking like the freakin' 80s. It's no rational behind this, I know, we've had sets playing on other past periods of our real world since forever, most of them are actually. But the 80s is just too close, non-mystical and too far off from the aesthetics.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Duskmourne would make one heck of a D&D horror setting. Have you read that primer Chris shared? Just saying.
Agreed
But the topic is universes within (aka inside the planes that Wizards of the Coast created for Magic: the Gathering)
D&D seems to be a great fit. At least if we keep the legendary named characters out. There probably wouldn’t be a Zendikar if there weren’t any Tolkien, Middle Earth and D&D. Just my guess.
But being UB or not doesn't really matter. There are so many, so different worlds in mtg, like Lorwyn and Mirrodin, even more so as New Phyrexia.
If wizards would not use that horrible metallic frames, nobody who doesn't know anything about LotR or 40k could tell that these cards are originally from another franchise not familiar to them. They'd see the cards and just think it's another magic world.
And then, why would they care if the lore was written by someone paid by wizards to craft a story that sells their product or by someone who wrote books on it as an artistic act of passion? And if so, why would the latter be worse?
UB sucks only when/because they do stuff like transformers, mylittle pony or doctor who, stuff that doesn't even fit under the wide umbrella of a game about magical spellcasting wizards. And Duskmourn seems to suck imho for similar reasons Stranger Things sucked as mtg cards.
What fits and what sucks of course is subjective. That's why I am kinda okay with all that stuff existing. But your point to hate on it because it's not writing and worldbuilding done by wotc employees, makes absolutely no sense to me.
If wizards would not use that horrible metallic frames, nobody who doesn't know anything about LotR or 40k could tell that these cards are originally from another franchise not familiar to them. They'd see the cards and just think it's another magic world.
And then, why would they care if the lore was written by someone paid by wizards to craft a story that sells their product or by someone who wrote books on it as an artistic act of passion? And if so, why would the latter be worse?
UB sucks only when/because they do stuff like transformers, mylittle pony or doctor who, stuff that doesn't even fit under the wide umbrella of a game about magical spellcasting wizards. And Duskmourn seems to suck imho for similar reasons Stranger Things sucked as mtg cards.
What fits and what sucks of course is subjective. That's why I am kinda okay with all that stuff existing. But your point to hate on it because it's not writing and worldbuilding done by wotc employees, makes absolutely no sense to me.
I’m totally on board with it being subjective what is cool and what sucks!
People for sure don’t have to agree with me.
It was the wording Universes Within that caught my eye and started my participation. I am of the belief that within means within the lore. And beyond means beyond the lore. AKA other IPs.
People for sure don’t have to agree with me.
It was the wording Universes Within that caught my eye and started my participation. I am of the belief that within means within the lore. And beyond means beyond the lore. AKA other IPs.
Why is this so difficult to understand for you?
Our planeswalkers and characters can visit the planes in the Magic multiverse. Our story happens here. Doctor Who can never interact with Sheoldred because Doctor Who is another IP and another universe.
What tv? Where?On the subject of TVs in magic art:
Some kinda monitors anyway?
Granted that was a very different era in terms of art direction.
just gonna drop in to shitpost in the middle of this conversation, I hadn't seen the tweets of stuff from the panels yet and
Aww man, I was really excited when they first announced it as a horror set.
This piece of art got me even more excited for Duskmourn than Bloomburrow:
I was a bit disappointed with the art direction for Elesh Norns followers in Phyrexia: All will be One ("scary but no gore") and was hoping for some scarier, darker plane, that reinvents the "haunted mansion" trope in the Magic world. It reminded me a bit of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. After the few previews from Friday it looks less like a brand new plane in the Magic Universe to me, but more like a "let's cram every trope and stereotype from 80s horror movies and call it a set". I'm exaggerating of course, I read the planeswalkers guide and it had cool and novel ideas. I just feel like all these on the nose references diminish the creative work for the set and the appeal of the plane.
Anyways, I'm sure there will be some great and flavorful cards (and we even have Bloomburrow first, which looks great) and I'm looking forward to those. For everything else I have "universes within" to fight WotCs beyondification of Magic planes ("universes within", for me, just means that the set/card feels like being part of the Magic Universe and personally I could do without Assassin's Creed, Doctor Who, Dungeons&Dragons and even Cluedo: the set or 80s Horror movies with flying saucers (though from UBs so far, DnD and LotR are still the closest fit for my Magic tastes).
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. No one is suggesting that planes like Innistrad should have cell phones, only that it's ok if new settings can work with that space if it fits the world.
To be fair, we don't see much of the resource extraction on Innistrad beyond Woodcutting, Corpse-Digging, Blood-Sucking, and Rooftop Storm. Just because we don't see the mine from which Village Ironsmith is getting his material doesn't mean the production chain doesn't exist. It's not even like coal mines were a new thing by the early 1800s; people had been using coal for various purposes for several centuries at that point.
Beyond that, there are several more modern elements to the Plane that definitely could be utilized in the story. For example, electricity is already a commonly used resource on Innistrad. It has applications both in and outside of polite society on the plane. Unless this is simply some new innovation that has only recently appeared on the plane, you'd think someone would have come up with something like an incandescent lightbulb by now. Even then, half the people working with lightning are scientists in some capacity anyway– it's definitely plausible that someone could have come up with a game-changing technology between the first and third visits. Maybe they're a ways away from proper industrialization, but there's certainly room for something like a "mad science" set to exist.
But either way, I think this whole conversation misses the larger point. Innistrad has intentionally been written to keep the status quo fairly similar to that of the first Innistrad set. Shadows over Innistrad reversed the outcome of Avacyn Restored and actively removed Avacyn from the board for future stories. The end of Eldritch Moon locked Emrakul away for future use but minimized her influence for future stories, specifically to reset the plane to its 2011 state. The only major difference going into Midnight Hunt was adding in the Hedge-Witches, who, despite apparently being an ancient force on the Plane, were only mentioned for the first time. The influence of Emrakul and the Eldrazi were absent from the set, the permanent loss of Avacyn was barely explored, and the resolution of the two-set story allowed for things to once again return to something similar to the first outing. This is not good storytelling– it keeps the world fairly stagnant, while closing natural opportunities for future growth. I think the Mad Scientists of the plane inventing something new would be a good way to move things forward without needing to continuously retcon the existing lore. The problem is, since Innistrad exists at the end of the acceptable timescale for older Magic worlds, having a set revolve around the mad scientists would likely lead to places that feel dissonant from normal, even if it is a natural extension of the setting. Worlds like New Kamigawa, Kaladesh, and Duskmorne help to expand the acceptable range of technological levels for Magic sets, and make it easier for something like a mad science Innistrad set to happen.
Now I'm doubting myself. My brain interpreted it that way the first time I saw the card and it made enough of an impression that I immediately thought of it when the subject came up.
Anyway, either way it didn't warrant the derail, sorry everyone carry on.
That looks like a telly! Derail away!
Because it is nothing that you can tell by looking at a card. The mtg multiverse is such a broad concept, to be from it or not is totally arbitrary.
If you wouldn't have the background info, you could by no means tell me what is in-universe and what is not. Even if you had, and if I would just read to you the mechanics and showed you the pictures, you couldn't. We could have the cavalier and Szeras easily as magic cards in a parallel universe where tolkien invented magic and some person writing for 40k was writing for MtG instead.
So why hate on something that doesn't change anything? Why not instead hate on the specific things that do change something?
My whole point is: Magic's multiverse has been such a vast space of so, so different things, there is very little coherence. Cards have to be really stark outsiders, like Blaster here, to be obviously not in-universe. And sets like Duskmourn are radically expanding MtG's scope of what's possible. So maybe, in a few years, you would also look at something like this without being alienated:
Well then it’s a you problem. Because I can for sure tell if a card is from within the lore or beyond the lore by looking at a card.
First tell is the set logo. If there is a Warhammer 40.000 set logo then I know we are dealing with a forreign IP. If there is a Emrakul set logo then I know we’re on Innistrad.
Second is the name. Same logic. If the card name is The Thirteenth Doctor then I know we are in Doctor Who’s universe.
Third is the abilities and their names. If something is called Spear of the Void Dragon or Matter Absorption then we are here Shard of the Void Dragon.
I could go on
Because the reasoning for the hate, if we can call it that, is not that the cards have futuristic art (although I wasn’t a big fan of those before Universes Beyond) but because the sets are outside our lore and also because they are made with the purpose of power creeping Modern, Legacy and Commander formats. If our characters visit the place in our story then it’s OK with me.
If you would've shown me that card five years ago I would've 100% believe it's from the magic multiverse. Now I know what the frame indicates and the set symbol has become known to me as another IP as well.
See, I get that people are skeptical towards UB, so am I, for several reasons. I just don't get this point you make:
Because it's so arbitrary. Because we have so very different worlds in MtG already. The good choices they've made added characters to the game that could be from it.
and sure, they retconned the literal definition of "Eye of Ugin", but "the eye of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon ... see his fiery breath" is really damn close to "Spear of the Void Dragon" and 100% original WotC IP from 2007
edit: also I wish they'd do more art like that. that person has invisible fire breath and it's very clearly obvious from the name and the art and the flavor despite not being visible. seriously nobody gives Ghostfire enough credit for being sweet