![]() You don't have to include all aspects of a setting in a card set. ![]() (Personally I love Kaladesh and am not that keen on Innistrad.) But my point is it's possible. Now, I'm not actually proposing this setting for Tesla: it's not a perfect fit, and I can't see any reason to do that rather than Kaladesh. We focus away from Thraben and Avacyn and focus perhaps on some areas of Stensia where the vampires are still oppressing the populace. I think it would just about be possible to tell Tesla on Innistrad: we'd focus away from the angels and wolfir and focus on the mad scientists like Ludevic, and specifically imagine some kind of trend in their machine designs (perhaps prompted by a new discovery in the wake of the opening of the Helvault) that means a lot of the devices being built are X, where X is the kind of criterion we want for our set. Remember how diverse the stories told on Dominaria we're. ![]() A perfect balance.Īlthough this is clearly a big decision, I'm not sure it's quite as big as you're describing. This means Kaladesh can diverge from steampunk to make itself unique, yet is still identifiable as steampunk in order to draw interest. ![]() Furthermore, though Kaladesh is a plane inspired by India, it still includes many of the visual elements that distinguish it as steampunk and gaslamp-fantasy. (It's implied that there exist 'dissidents' that the consuls take care of as well.) So, it's pretty clear that Kaladesh captures almost every idea that was pitched in the Set Design Contest, and is a strong example of the steampunk story. Naturally-born mages - 'mancers' - are "something that's not been seen in many years", and are quickly crushed or recruited by the Kaladesh government, the 'consuls'. Instead of channeling magic themselves, the people of Kaladesh power their filigreed artifice with Æther canisters. As seen in Chandra's origin, Fire Logic, Kaladesh is a world that thrives on artifice, where naturally-born mages are so rare that they're practically unheard of. Innistrad's horror theme allows for some exploration of this tech - in the vein of 'mad science' - but not enough to carry a set, unfortunately.Īlongside Vryn in Magic Origins, came a more promising plane: Kaladesh. The problem, like Ravnica, is that the set has a much greater focus than this technological level. Innistrad also has the Victorian aesthetic to boot. In Innistrad, the geistmages and necro-alchemists wield some advanced geist- and lightning-powered technology, along the lines of Verne's speculative science. Though in Ravnica they have pretty advanced technology (relatively), the plane comes with the baggage of being a two-color set, and the technology is mostly specific to the Izzet. Even without what would become Tesla's themes - progress and anticipation - we nonetheless had a strong start.įor most of Tesla design, we've made the assumption that no existing plane in Magic could capture the themes that we were looking for. This gave us a setting that was an interesting mix of 'gaslamp fantasy' and steampunk, and a pretty clear direction in which to travel. It was the 'steampunk' plane - it had to have the highest level of technology in all of Magic's multiverse, it had to feature a classist conflict of some sort, and it had to combine artifacts and magic in some interesting way. Regardless of the mechanics or aesthetics of the set - which already alluded to steampunk, as HavelockV noted - this was apparently something that struck a chord with the audience.īy the time the set was officially dubbed Tesla, it seemed most of us were in agreement about many of the things that Tesla's setting would have to account for. Why? Because this conflict is the defining feature of most 'punk' genres, including steampunk. Whether it was a technocracy versus a mage rebellion, or the factory management versus the workers, or even other more exotic ideas, they all involved this type of conflict. Despite the fundamental differences in everyone's pitches, by just the second round, almost every pitch included a classist conflict between oppressors and the oppressed. So, to put it simply, there were a lot of competing ideas. It became a set about mana, a set about colorless, a set about artifacts, etc. However, this vision didn't last long - in each of the rounds of the Set Design Contest, the pitch was refined by different contestants. Ekkremes began as a "world without mana" that "rediscovers magic" because it ebbs and flows periodically, in millennium-long cycles. In the very beginning, Tesla was a plane called ' Ekkremes', pitched by Circeus. ![]()
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