Dev Log: FissureVerse #38 - Crusaders 2

First, a couple of notes:

I've decided to move the Frenzy Distortion out of this initial set of cards.  Firstly, having an even 24 cards for all card types/colors (and 48 locations) makes things simple to print out (since there can be 8 cards per page).  Secondly, Distortion was the biggest Frenzy I was kind of iffy on the artwork, so when I do the next set of Frenzies I'll be looking for other artists and maybe a better match will be found.  Lastly, the big one, is that this is a card that might really mess with things, and I want the other more "standard" cards to be thoroughly playtested before adding in a card like Distortion.

Also, I got into contact with Lane Brown, whose artwork I've "borrowed" for a few cards so far.  He's happy to let me use his personal artwork, but commissions might be a sticky issue, so I have to change any art I've used of his that have been commissioned.  Thankfully, only Steadfast Clan needed artwork replaced, so I'll replace it in a later post. Also, since I know his last name now, it'll be added that to the credit on the side of each card.

Last quick one: I've changed the name of Android 8 to Android 4, just because there's a character named Android 18 from Dragon Ball, and that's a little too close.  Might have been in the back of my mind or something when I created the card.

In the last set of 24 cards, there were quite a lot of Blue cards.  For these next 24 cards, the number of each is a bit more even, though there's a few extra Greens than anything else.

[Edit 10/7: Some artists asked me not to use their work, so they have been deleted from this post.  Any missing cards will be added in a later post.]

Click to enlarge.

Dichotomous was a tough one; being that it's a an adjective, and I was using it to describe basically how the big two attributes are Reason and Fire.  So the suggestion of the name is that it's torn between two very different ideals.  Hopefully at least a smidge of that comes across in the artwork.  But, having found that artwork, I found a quote from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which naturally flows with the initial idea of Dichotomous, and ties with the new artwork.

Servants of Emptiness is Blue's basic card.  Although it suggests Green a little bit with the robot, the robot and the person are watching the sunset in peaceful silence, so I thought the picture would be better for a Blue card.  No text because it's just nice to enjoy a beautiful moment in silence.

Fireflies is adorable.  When I saw that artwork, I didn't think it would fit with the style I was shooting for, and I wouldn't be able to place it, but a looser interpretation of the word "fireflies" makes it work.  Here, the original attributes were 1's straight across the board, but I boosted the Reason attribute because the special rules didn't justify such an abnormally weak card.  We'll see if this balances out a little better.

Dead on Arrival is one of those cards where I had a particularly gruesome idea for the artwork, and there was no way in seven hells I'd be able to find what I was looking for, so the next best thing would be to re-imagine it and see what come up.  The artwork for this is kind of like a tree-skeleton hybrid, and looks better when it's not cut off by the condensed space of the card, but hopefully it captures enough here that you can get the gist.  I decided to go with no flavor text on this one because I felt that most unattributed text would seem like it's coming out of the mouth of the character in the card, and I couldn't find a voice that quite worked for it.  Perhaps its stunned (or perhaps creepy) silence works better.

Shameful is a tricky one; I added 1 to its Water attribute to make it even like a Servants card.  This partially works in the favor of the idea of Shameful: it's a card which could be anywhere, but it's not proud of that fact.  The trick with the special text here is that Fearful and True Conversions have their own advantages and disadvantages.  If you Convert by Fear/Fire, you get to keep the card completely, and there's no chance of losing it, but you also don't get to play with it.  If you Convert by Reason, you get to use it as if it were your own card, but that means there is a chance you could lose it.  So to me, at least for now, those two ideas balance out, so the special text here should not significantly affect the balance of the card.  For the art, I guess I can see how someone might see the red and consider that a Joker's grin, but the eyes make him look sad, and his lack of real mouth sadder still, so I think it looks appropriate for a card called "Shameful".

José Arias likes to use chained creatures in his art, and the artwork for Caged is just one of many.  It works in lots of circumstances, but none more so than Caged.  I could have picked practically any of his chained creatures for it, but for a Blue card I settled on one that looks more human and less vicious.

Kamikaze, like Fireflies, began as 1's straight through, but this one was even tougher to balance because it just seems so unbelievably devastating.  However, I changed the text so it only pulls off it's big kaboom if it's Killed, when it used to be "Killed or Fearfully Converted", so to begin with that mitigates it a little.  Also, I bumped the Sword to 3, which, despite making the card more powerful, makes the special text less effective, because it becomes harder to straight up Kill Kamikaze now, and it's harder for Kamikaze to intentionally Kill itself (by charging into battle knowing it won't win).  The player would need to Frenzy the Sword down, or the Opponent would have to make a big mistake.

The Architect was probably inspired by the God of War character, who always intrigued me, so it makes some sense to me to keep the artwork Grecian.  I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted for artwork, since it could be any sort of person, but I think this woman gives an expression of that shrewd, critical glare that works well for the card.  It would have been nice to add some flavor text, but alas, no room.

Mystics was very tough to pick for, since any number of pieces of art could have worked, but I want to differentiate it from the more "general" feel I kept getting.  So I went with a pun.

Just like each color has a Servants card, and a card that is opposite to its ideals, each color also has a card that stacks all of its power in the defining attribute of that color, and embodies that color.  For Yellow, it's Cavernous.  Cavernous was originally in reference to an empty chest cavity, as in "heartless", because it is the most vicious creature there is.  I decided to go with something hopefully disturbing for the flavor text.  Maybe it comes out cheesy.  To me it's something Pennywise might say. [Edit 10/3: Cavernous removed, see above].

I had many options for Lidless, too, and like Mystics, I didn't want it to be too generic.  The suggestion is basically that Lidless can see through a person to find their true weakness, since Frenzies can really change a card's attributes.  I should probably add some errata for how it deals with The Hidden, now that I think about it.  The Hidden shouldn't be forced to show its Frenzy if it's not using it. [Edit 10/3: Lidless removed, see above].

The Derelict is probably from Grime, if I were to place a Crusader with a Location.  They are Yellow precisely because Yellow is all they know.  Grime is like Yellow's breeding ground for crazies to use for their purposes.  But the special rules text indicates that, if The Derelict is in another Player's Field of Play, it must have been Truly Converted (there are probably lots of special circumstances, but as a general rule), so being that it's convinced of its new religion, it is even more hot-tempered.

Systematic could have been quite the generic card, as well.  It seems a lot of them are that have no special rules text, which makes sense.  For systematic, the name and attributes suggest that it prefers to win over by Reason first (hence it's Green), and failing that, Fire, and failing that, just Killing its Opponent.  The picture is a tad cyborg-y so that works.

Vermin needed some kind of animal for its art, and using actual rats would be too on-the-nose, so this hellish alien dog-bee-thing works well.

Returned is meant to mean "returned from the dead", and it is now equipped with knowledge of the afterlife (hence it is Green).  The quote may be a little cryptic, but it's a bit of a joke: now that Returned has seen that afterlife, it never wants to go there again.  The artwork is very zombie-like for an alien, so I went with it.

Servants of Solidity is Yellow's "Servants" card, and naturally looks like Master Blaster, and of course the flavor text is a pun.  Cuz that's the way I do things.

The original placeholder for Creatures was a unicorn, which worked well.  I wanted to juxtapose the term "creature" which suggests a less-than-human intelligence with attributes that suggest otherwise, like a dolphin.  Here, this big pack animal works well for it.  The special rules basically makes Creatures to be a very tame animal that startles easily.

Pollen was tough to find art for, as well, without just a picture of pollen.  But this works well, if you imagine the blue mist as being the Pollen, and the xenomorph-type creature as being the victim.

Echoes is pretty awesome.  Far better than the original placeholder, which was the Greek legend of Echo.  A mite different, I'd say.

The Expired was tough, partly because I'd forgotten what my initial intent was, and also because the name suggests something zombie-like, but I knew it wasn't meant to be just the Returned or Dead on Arrival.  So this interpretation is vaguely demon-like, as if these creatures live in a hellscape, and cannot be killed.  Because of that, you can't Kill them in a Crusade, so Killing them instead acts like Conversion through Fire.

I bumped up the Fire attribute on Lost Souls by 1, because I think the difficulty of the special text makes it worth it.  In fact, it might be so frustrating I might want to bump it up to be even more powerful, if the balance just isn't there.  We'll have to see.  For the art, it's got angel wings, but is clearly emaciated, and it's a very, very Red card.  I think I like where that story is going.

I spent too much time trying to figure out both what artwork to use for The Awoken, and what flavor text to use.  I went with this artwork because she looks a tad tired, but beyond that I didn't have much of an excuse.  I suppose I'm partly keeping it because it's a Blue card, and Blue needs more pacific-looking artwork, and this works for that purpose.  I think I settled on no flavor text because I couldn't capture the voice.  But heck, just because there's room for flavor text, doesn't mean there always needs to be some.

Take, for example, Sorrow Symphony.  No flavor text because I wanted the art to speak for itself.  I had many options for where to put this piece of artwork (Lost Souls and The Winged among them), but I think in the end, this art goes with this card best.  It is similar to Lost Souls in feel, though it's Yellow, and hopefully a bit more sorrowful.  I really like how you can see the second one in the background.

Slaughterhouse is Red's super-Red card; the card that typifies it completely.  Slaughterhouse was always meant to be a beast of some kind, and this one certainly looks the part to have those attributes.  As far as the flavor text goes, I considered having none, but this Poe quote is awesome, too, if you read it as from the little guy in the bottom left corner.

Next set of cards will have new artists; this set have been pretty much used up!