Whether it was pokemon cards or video games, I always loved delving into distant lands completely different from the reality I faced day to day. With pokemon, I found an idalisitc world where 10 year old children were kicked out of their homes to engage in dog fighting while enslaving various animals in brutal battles to chase fame and fortune.
Also to battle that villinous team rocket for doing roughly the same things, but with porygon casinos. To my middle school brain, it all totally made sense, checked out, and wasn't horrifying in even the slightest. It was a great escape from my reality that was dominated by bullying and constant bellitelment from my family, teachers, and peers. Video games offered me an escape that made me feel good about myself. It was a world where everything made sense, which as an autistic trying to fit in, that wasn't something I thought was possible. From a young age, I felt something was horribly wrong with me, and video games offered me an alternative to that which my brutal reality presented me.
While I found a great deal of comfort and validation in video games as a youth, we grow by and naturally seek challenges. It's in our DNA-- the same mechanics that often led to my peers taking joy in pressing all my autistic sensory issues for their pleasure and my pain, drives us to build bridges, pyramids, and rocket ships. This drive for a challenge to do more and be better is core to us as humans, for better and for worse. As pokemon became boring to me, I found new joy in a game that I was absolutely terrible at (and still am): Magic the Gathering
Magic has rightfully been called the most complicated game in the world: the game mechanics and pieces can even be used to design a low tech computer that passes the turing test. Kyle Hill, evil mastermind and dollar store Chris Hemsworth impersonator, demonstrates it beautifully below:
This presented a game I could never master, but I still found quite fun. Surprisingly, my favorite part wasn't even the game itself, but all the beautiful lands in the art. Some of these pieces still stuck with me, and they captured my imagination in high school like none other.
Basic Lands from Tempest, Urza's Saga, and Ice Age by Wizards of the Coast
I started in Tempest, which took place on the stormy plane of rath as Gerrard
seeks out Volrath's stronghold wherein he unleashed the hive-minded slivers unto rath. The creature, introduced in this set, were discovered by Volrath on an undisclosed plane and introduced quite violantly upon an unexpecting rath when he brought the Hive Queen over. Slivers constantly evolve and take on the powers of other slivers in close proximity to the hive mind. Each card played added new abilities that affected all slivers in play, whether they belonged to you or your opponent.
I had a friend with a sliver deck who I could never beat no matter how hard I tried!!! It was pretty depressing to later learn that slivers were never really tournament viable-- that hurt my ego. 🤣
I certainly have never claimed to be a particuralry good Magic player, but I loved the game deeply, and I still do. The combination of brutality and escape always appealed to me in a primal sense.
One of the ways that Magic always kept things fresh with world ending events is that there were several worlds to save or let fall prey to their threat. You never knew in each set if the planeswalkers would suceed in saving the plane, as they did with Zendikar with the gatewatch agaisnt the fearsome eldrazi, or if the plane would fall prey to the creeping evil, as it did in New Phyrexia where players didn't even know the name of the new set on release day. Either the set would be named Mirrodin Reborn, wherein the phyrexian invaders would suceeed, or Mirrodin Reborn when Karth's vision for the plane would finally be realized. The players didn't know who would win till the day of prerelease where the name was ominously revealed, and, of course, the slivers still control rath till this very day. We also recently learned in Kamigawa Neon Dynasty that the phyrexians now control Kamigawa, and that our beloved Tamiyo is now Compleat and more machine than organic.
I swear, this really is a splinterlands post, but one of the things I think that Magic the Gathering lost in their epic planewalking sagas is the day to day intrigue and development of politics and culture of the day to day people. That to me is where the magic of splinterlands lore really comes to life.
The unity prophecy, which can be found within the first page of the splinterlands encylopedia sold with the Untamed kickstarter, reads "that which was splintered will be made whole. It is a fantastic book, which you can read here in a pdf put together by the amazing Carrie Allen before she left the Splinterlands team: Splinterlands Encylopedia
While Magic the Gathering hops around from plane to plane for themed overly generalized environments, the splinterlands is a very well developed fleshed out, politically diverse world with competing interests, disunity, and an impressive depth of worldbuilding. From the benign rivalry between Valnamor and Alric, the deadly competetion between the Lord of Darkness and Harklaw, the teamwork of the Serpent of Eld and Lir, and the Magi of the Forest working for good, but also encouraging the rampant spread of the Rexxie in Anumun.
While I love the lore and storytelling of both games, I feel like these incredible maps of the splinterlands really help illustrate the depth and intricacies of the relationships built in the splinterlands.
Not only how the splinters have conflicts within and with each other, but now the team is introducing the people beyond the rift and praetoria. And while the lore has shifted from the six main splinters for a time, the focus of the lore will always be upon the splinterlands. How will the splinters be affected by the Chaos Legion after they roll through praetoria? What unlikely alliances betwenn former enemies will form and what friends will find themselves at odds with one another Anakin/Obi Wan Kenobi style?
The splinterlands is dominated by a very complex web of enemies, alliances, and relationships in between. From the Kymerians and the Truthseekers, the gobsons and the centauri, and the Khymerians and everyone else, old conflicts will be tested in the face of the coming threat, and the Untamed Prophecy must be answered:
"The oceans shall rise, the planet shall split, the winds shall rip trees from the ground. The beasts shall be crazed, and anger shall spread among the living until everything that has been built is destroyed. I am no longer in control. What is happening to me? I am changed. I am twisted. I am Untamed.”
How will the dream warden react to Silus' encroachment upon his enthralled dreamers? How would those that burst forth from the tar pit of creation to become Dark Eternals and serve the twisted Lord of Darkness react to one who would twist them into their service? What will the mighty Gloridax leader Archmage Arius and the wizard council think of this invader from beyond the stars? So many characters with different motivations, interests, and personal challenges all about to be tested in quite an interesting way. Will Mimosa still be bored in her champers when the chaos legions march upon her doorstep? Will Owster ever leave mount mox? Will Lightning Dragons ever find something more tasty than pegusi?
This comes back to my earlier dive into video games as a kid. Did I fall in love with video games because they offered me an escape from reality, or is that love driven by art that imitates and makes sense of reality. Every great story is driven by the characters and conflict, and what I find most special about the splinterlands lore is the variety, variation, and effort put into those characters and conflicts. There is something special about the imagination and creativity, without a doubt, but it's the immense amount of time put into very realistic motivations and conflicts that really sets it apart for me. Alric doesn't despise Valamor because he's some insidious one sided character, Alric both respects his immense power while disdaining the qualities that Alric feels makes his power so dangerous. Alric views him as arrogant and fool-hearty, but that reflects just as much on Alric who often risks little and fails only to get along with the Lord of Darkness, who desires the old man as a dark eternal greatly. Even the Lord of Darkness, who could be seen as evil incarante by one who does not look closely enough, puts great effort into the protection and care of the pegasi of Draykh-Nakah who would have otherwise been hunted to extinction by the greedy Lightning Dragons.
It is through the motivations and conflicts of others we can often see and make sense of our own conflicts more clearly, and when you see the storm within yourself more clearly, the healing can begin. To know oneself is to know your enemy, and art is most effective and most appreciated when it shines a light on the truth. Truthes deeper than any current events or the remake chattel that gets cleared wholesale for tv and movies. Splinterlands lore is, indeed, great truth because it looks at both horrible truthes and often underappreciated beauty. I believe this is one of the core features that will help splinterlands pass the test of time, and I'm glad the team agrees and invests heavily into the lore.
This brings me to my final point, the developers love for and investment in the lore of the game from the beginning till no really illustrates how much this is a project of love. It's a game like this that I'm really willing to get invested in, not just out of joy, but in recognition of the developers deep admiration and love for the world they have created.
Now just to wonder if we will ever see land or boss monsters in the game? SoonTM, perhaps, but not as soon as the next Tome of Chaos chapter!!! Maybe you came for that land, but I hope you stay for that Lore!
