*This is meant to be a pun in reference to the notorious card, Nexus of Fate. Thank you for laughing


Below is a collection of ideas. This is not meant to be a portfolio of “finished” or “well-designed” cards or characters; it's a provisional document. Its purpose is to show the thought process behind their creation.I overestimated my ability to quickly convert everything into a digestible digital format. Updates are coming.updated: 3/6/23Unfortunately the holidays and a bout of COVID have slowed me down a bit. Slowly but surely!


“What if there were a Magic the Gathering card of a sentient hood ornament? That’d be fun.”


I was sitting in the studio trying to finish a few pieces when the thought above crossed my mind. Normally a thought like this would leave just as quickly as it came, but there was something about this one that grabbed me; I couldn’t stop turning it over in my head. This seemingly unremarkable idea prompted a cascade of questions that ultimately led to the creation of new characters, cards, and locales all set within the Magic multiverse.


PRELIMINARIES

I began thinking about that sentient hood ornament. What kind of creature would it be? What color(s)? Would it be a vehicle? Would it be some kind of enchantment or equipment that could attach to another vehicle? Can you fit “Legendary Enchantment Artifact Creature - Equipment Shapeshifter” into the typeline of a Magic card?! These immediately obvious questions intrigued me and inspired rough ideas for other “vehichles matter” legendary creatures.I did not set out to make cards per se. I was originally driven to create a character that would fit within the flavor of each of the ten color pairs while also having some sort of relationship with vehicles. But in doing so, I couldn't help but think about how a character would manifest mechanically. It began this interesting process of flavor informing mechanics, then mechanics informing flavor, and so on. I found this dialectic/iterative process of refinement really intriguing and enjoyable. I realized that trying to make a card was a useful tool for learning more about a character. However! I am not a card designer. While I have listened to and read almost everything that Mark Rosewater has produced, sadly, this has not yet translated into actual skill. Still, I have learned a lot about the various levers that can be pushed/pulled to change card behavior, design, etc., and I’ve attempted to incorporate this knowledge into these cards. Some cards don't have any power/toughness; I'll get there eventually.Unfortunately I have not yet been able to mock up cards to make this unending stream of text more interesting. While I have specific ideas for the art of each card, I lack the technical skill to create the pieces myself. It seemed silly to put up a card with no art, so in the meantime all we have unfortunately is more text. Please bear with me.I've tried my hand at writing some art briefs. I've tried to use (what I believe to be, as per this post) the format the WOTC uses. I've also included possible flavor text for each card. The tone of many of these characters is pretty light-hearted.There is a mixture of top-down and bottom-up design here. "Sentient hood ornament" is pretty top down; I had no idea of of color, mechanic, setting, etc. But some of the characters were inspired by mechanics that I found intriguing. Sometimes I started with a vehicle in mind, and sometimes a guild.I tried to fit these characters into already existing planes. For some of them though, I needed to create new spaces. This led to the development of a setting I'm calling "Another New Capenna." That is also explained further below.