Here's the current incarnation of Xirn:
Now that I feel like I've nailed down the "learning from death" theme and scavenging style of gameplay for U/B in this set, I am really enjoying this iteration of Xirn. It is very attached to the concepts of the set, but it's not so parasitic that Xirn can't be a good U/B Johnny build-around planeswalker. His plus is intended to facilitate reave on your black cards. The play pattern here is that you dispose of your creatures this way and gain knowledge from exiling them. Then, when he grows strong enough, you recycle your spells.
I need to put together a "races of Guthreham" post on the cephalids, but I do want to make it clear that they're not black because they are evil or even naturally predatory. They have unfortunately become widely afflicted with diseases and corruption, requiring them to make some very harsh, very black choices to try to survive. Xirn himself is afflicted with disease, and he thought he was at death's door when his planeswalking skills sparked. Why this disease growing inside his body would make him aware that the plane is pregnant is an intriguing and relevant mystery.
Meanwhile, though I had initially planned for Janell to be W/G to reflect the ties between the humans and elves of the Arbor, her borderline obsession with believing she can "manage" Guthreham's growth and her refusal to recognize that the spread of disease and plagues are connected to this growth really pulls her away from green. The more I develop the set, the more she feels monowhite, and this will help make her an antagonist for the set--not necessarily evil, but obsessed with trying to make sure that whatever it is Guthreham is going to give birth to is pure and holy:
Her second skill is intended to "reset" mutate creatures and eliminate artifacts in tune with her concepts of managing beasts and eliminating the corrupting influences of the unnatural. Her emblem is designed so that it doesn't target anything, so it allows white to compete with mutate creatures while not itself triggering mutate abilities.
As I'm worldbuilding more, I'm coming to realize that the storyline is drawing me towards having planeswalker leader types among the elementals in the Deep Tangle and also perhaps among the tribal ogres.
Here's what I imagine to be either a dryad or a treefolk planeswalker
Her first power is intended to be used on mutate creatures. I gave her a mana-producing easy-to-get-to "ultimate" because this set doesn't really have any mana-ramping mechanics. I do worry that red-green might be a little too slow.
I have a red legend among the mage hermits in mind, but as I'm building, the hardy ogres seem more and more like a race that has some secret insight and strength to resist the nature of the overgrowth and survive. That got me thinking about a leader among the ogres with enough power to actually implement those harsh solutions to keep pestilence and overgrowth at bay.
Like Xirn, Skurn isn't evil per se (Oh god, I just realized their names rhymed. I'll have to change Skurn's). But he's a strong believer that the reave concept--disintegrating the dead and taking them completely out of the cycle of life and death--is the only way to keep the overgrowth at bay.
So the big question here is whether Iya and Skurn also realize that Guthreham is pregnant, and what are their attitudes about it?
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