Arcavios Outside of Strixhaven
General forum
Posted on June 1, 2024, 9:30 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
In Mark Rosewater's most recent article about the Rabiah scale, he stated that, if the game were to return to Arcavios, players would most likely expect that Strixhaven would be involved in the story in some capacity, but I dislike that idea, because I feel that an entire plane should not be defined by a single location on it; if we presume that Arcavios is approximately the same size as Earth, that is a great amount of area to explore, so I sincerely hope that there is more to Arcavios than simply Strixhaven, as that would be very poor worldbuilding, otherwise.
What does everyone else say about this? If the game returns to Arcavios, would you like to see more of the plane, beyond Strixhaven?
There are several ways for a new set on Arcavios to involve Strixhaven that I would be fine with. Field trips, hands-on study, and even international travel are pretty common at all the schools I know of. There are some good historical sites nearby for the Lorehold students, Prismari could find someone hing to be inspired by, there's natural ecosystems for Witherbloom to study, and Silverquill and Quandrix could probably find some sort of cultural exchange.
If I had to pitch the next couple of Arcavios sets, I would suggest putting the next set in the area around Strixhaven and keep it involved. The third set goes further out, with less Strixhaven and more of whatever the focus of the sound set was. Keep expanding outward, using just enough of the previous sets to show the connection while continually revealing more and more of the world at large.
For a real-world comparison, let's replace Strixhaven with Harvard University. The first set stays on the college campus. The second set follows students to New York, the Atlantic Coast, and White Mountain National Forest. The third set builds off of those and adds Toronto University, the city of Montreal, and maybe something in the Appalachians, with only a handful of references to Strixhaven. Keep going outward until a full world develops.
On the other hand, most planes don't seem to be anywhere close to the size of Earth, and more than a few planes are defined by one location. I've gone off about Amonkhet before. Planes like Theros have a couple of suggestions that there's more to the world, but we just haven't seen it yet. Kaladesh could be much more than Ghirapur. Those two plus Innistrad, Tarkir, Lorwyn, and several of others could all easily fit on an Earth-like plane without actually coming into contact with each other, as demonstrated by Earth itself. (Let's ignore stuff like the Silk Road and various empires for the moment.)
FormOverFunction says... #2
I think I’ve raised the issue of having “Star Wars Planet” problems with media/games/etc. Every (most?) planet(s) in Star Wars are uniform in their general environment. Ice, sand, lava, city, and maybe one or two “it’s basically earth” here and there. This makes it easier on everyone, whether it’s art direction or the viewer being tasked to remember “Dagobah is the mud planet and everyone on Hoth is freezing cold”. This simplicity is pretty great for bubblegum-type enjoyment, but it also provides an opportunity; reveal a surprise aspect of the plane/planet/etc that makes sense... but none of us thought about it. COULD there be a desert somewhere on Dagobah? Absolutely. Endor is just a moon, so there’s a little less to work with maybe... but to say that there CAN’T be a giant lake/ocean on the other side would be silly. I don’t even know who/where Arcavios is, can’t say I remember reading that name before, but there’s the chance that they’ll pull something cool together. It’s not unreasonable to be optimistic.
June 1, 2024 11:13 a.m.