Darksteel Designer 2: Plane Info

[Cashew]

This season on Darksteel Designer drama will heat up as the competition takes a serious turn. Unlike the previous season, the design has a purpose. Every week dreams will be broken and people's very will to live will be devastated as Lord Kaga and the Darksteel Team bring aspiring designers to their knees.

In the last season of Darksteel Designer, various contests pitted contestants against each other for the right to be a Darksteel Designer. From the flame of battle, two Darksteel Designer's emerged triumphant, their very mettle proven in the arena as inspired designers of near impeccable talent. Yes, those seemingly random and often bizarre contests, served a purpose. From the hundres of cards and numerous participants, Lord Kaga narrowed down two people to join the judge team. Don't get fooled into thinking you're safe from them either, because like Lord Kaga, the Darksteel Design team will often enter the arena itself to hand out vicious beatings.

The first card creator invited to the team has a fiery temper, that is only matched by a tenacity for impeccable design. Highlights from the first season include two head-to-head wins and almost all entries provided by him were top three material. It's probably no surprise who the first person is as many people come to him for wording advise on cards. Our first Design Team member is no other than Darksteel Designer Your_Worst_Nightmarel.

The second card creator has a flare for the dramatic, tending to favor cards that stretch the bounds of design and Magic itself. In season one, he he held the longest streak of head-to-head wins, and also handed YWN two head-to-head defeats making him almost a shoo in for the position on the team. That's right, the second member is Darksteel Designer Maleficent!

Maleficent and YWN, along with Darksteel Designer Cashew will lead this season of Darksteel Designer. Maleficent with his flare for the creative, YWN and his almost obssessive adherence to card wording, join Cashew's innovation and seemingly endless time to come up with stupid ideas for this season. But wait, there is a fourth member.

That fourth member could be you. Each week one card and designer will be crowned the winner by the Darksteel Team. This season there are no head to heads, each and every round is a free-for-all with the Darksteel Design Team choosing a winner.

While this season will continue the tradition of random and zany rounds that constantly change, every single round will be contained to a single plane and it's themes will be persistent. So pack your sandals and flying carpets, because we're headed to Rabiah!

Rabiah is the home plane for the Arabian Nights set and every round this season will take place in Rabiah. The winning card (and sometimes runner-up's) will combine together to make a custom set that is a spiritual successor to Arabian Nights. The most defining aspect of Rabiah is that the plane exists not just once, but in one thousand and one seperate mirror planes call Rabiah the Infinite. We will make one of those thousand mirror planes the home for Darksteel Designer this season. As with many mirror universes, a single event changes our plane of Rabiah from the rest vastly.

In our plane, Taysir (a future planeswalker and one of Urza's Nine Titans) never manages to make himself whole. The Sorceress Queen Nailah after successfully seducing the Black Taysir performs a ritual stealing his power and leaving him a lifeless Thrall. Fatima an insane planeswalker residing in the City of Brass detects this event and in order to prevent the Naliah from hunting down the other four Taysirs casts a massive spell that glasses all the endless deserts of Rabiah isolating each Taysir from the world. Long latent powers in each of the Taysirs activates a massive protective sphere around them that breaks their immediate area off from the rest of the plane effectively shattering Rabiah into a large colorless plane and five surrounding planar spheres. As the years pass, the latent powers of each Taysir continue to increase the size of the spheres and transform each sphere's inhabitants. Slowly each of the sphere's become polluted by the color of each Taysir becoming vastly different from one another.

So get ready for another fun season of Darksteel Designer, our Rabiah is waiting for you to create it. See you in the contest, round one will be starting sometime very soon.

[Cashew]

Plane: Rabiah the Infinite
Where: Rabiah
Major Themes (so far):
- Color (mono) and loss of Color.
- Arabian Mythology
- Deserts

The Story:
Naliah the Sorcercess Queen is on the prowl for the One Made of Five to steal his prophesized power to walk to other planes. In this fold of Rabiah, the Naliah never hunts down the Ring of Maruf after deciding to enthrall the Black Taysir. Stripping that Taysir of his power and very mind itself, Naliah sets her eyes on the other four Taysirs.

Fatima in her City of Brass had detected the unbalance in the plane caused by Naliah. Long driven mad by her visions, Fatima sees a world of utter darkness and despair ruled by Naliah. Unwilling to let that become a reality she taps into all the power of the City of Brass to glass the endless deserts of that Rabiah's fold. As the wave of destruction sweeps across the plane, latent powers in each Taysir and Naliah activate creating a sphere around their location protecing those inside from the glassing.

As the years go by the latent powers that created the spheres continue to exude mana into the spheres causing them to grow and evolve. Heavily polluted by a single color source of mana, each sphere takes on more and more charteristics of that color. With each passing year Naliah grows closer and closer to finding a way to finish hunting down the remaining Taysirs, while Fatima watches from afar in the now colorless glassed desert of the old Rabiah.

Major Characters:
- Naliah (Black): Sorcercess Queen empowered with 1/5th the power of the Taysir. Naliah was in the city of Baghdad at the time of the glassing. The entire city becoming encased by her protective sphere Naliah ruled over the citizens with an iron fist. The Black mana exuding from Naliah eventually bathes the city in an eternal twilight as she continues to enthrall members of her populace to increase her own power. Creatures of undeath and dark legends appear occasionally at first, but as the years pass walk the streets of Baghdad with impunity.

- Taysir (Green): A Green-aligned goat herder. Taysir and his flock were at an oasis when his sphere activated. The Oasis continued to grow into a dense jungle over the years. As the jungle grew in size, so did the creatures, many of them into predators. This Taysir once a simple shepard now is a mighty hunter protecting his flock from becoming prey however he can.

- Taysir (Blue): Just a small baby when his sphere activated, Taysir was on a ship destined for the Isle of Wak-Wak. El-Hajjâj had sent him there in an attempt to hide him from his daughter Naliah. As Taysir grew in age, so did the ocean, yet the Isle stayed the same, a mere speck in an increasingly violent sphere of water and air.

- Taysir (Red): A red-aligned nomad, his caravan was deep in the desert itself when his sphere activated. As the years passed the nomads continuously roamed as the dunes themselves rose larger and larger, eventually creating a vast system of mountains, caverns, and canyons. The skies becoming increasingly unfriendly to open travel, Taysir lead his people underground.

- Taysir (White): A dervish (ascethic priest) that was in Alexandria at the time of the glassing, many people witnessed him unleash it. Heralded as the savior, over the years he was glorified, renowned, and then deified as the "One True God." Alexandria became a land of priests, farmers, and healers with little need for an army or laws with a living God amongst them to pacify the masses.

- El-Hajjâj: Naliah's father and former king. Slain and reanimated by Naliah as her servant after learning she had hid the Blue Taysir from her.

- Fatima: The mad prophetic planeswalker residing in the City of Brass. Her and her army of Brass Men are the only creatures left alive on Rabiah after it was glassed. Fatima's vision of a dark world ruled by Naliah was made true only by her interference of glassing the plane. Fatima needless to say is more insane than ever.