#branching evolution

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

So, like...is the guy in the front also a dinosaur?

[art-of-mtg]

Branching Evolution (Fallout) - Tomas Duchek

More cards with art by Tomas Duchek on Scryfall

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Branching Evolution

The Master discovered a new evolutionary path after tossing a human, a dog, and a cat into a vat of Forced Evolutionary Virus. He called his creations "centaurs" and unleashed them unto the wastes.

Artist: Tomas Duchek TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[markermage]

Time to make up for the missing context in the original postings of these charts.

Starting Idea

I was randomly remembering how some people wanted Sprigatito's evolutions to remain quadrupedal and that thought had sort of fused with some thinking about Trials of Mana's class change system, and I started thinking about what a game built around that would be like. I went with light being more human and dark being more beast, but then had the idea to rename them to civil and feral. Feral would focus on power while civil would focus more on versatility and customization. I even came up with a general plan for how each evolution would go and some actual names for each generalized form. I was also kinda thinking about smashability

The Forms

Base/Animal = Basic creature that is rather simple and perhaps cute.

Feral/Beast = More animalistic and fierce. Maybe given some special ability or element.

Civil/Standing = The big thing is that they are now bipedal. Given ability to equip things to somewhat customize their stats.

Fer-Fer/Monster = Make it monstrous/mystical. It should obviously look more intimidating. It goes all in on its special traits.

Fer-Civ/Divided = Obvious division between human and beast parts. Something that doesn't fit a levels of furry scale, like a centaur, a sphynx, or an animal that is able to create a solid illusion of a human. They'd get the ability to use extra actions, some of which could be affected by equipment.

Civ-Civ/Human = Human with ears and tail of base form and maybe differently colored skin. Might use for various fantasy almost-humans like elves, dwarves, gnomes, and maybe even goblins. Would have three character classes that they could swap between with maybe some ability to mix class features.

Civ-Fer/Furry = Pretty much a typical furry. It would fuse the three classes of the human evolution together.

What's Up With The Sword One?

I wanted to try it with something that wasn't an animal and decided to go with an animated flying sword (playing Palworld's Terraria dungeon at the time was certainly a factor).

I considered the idea of its feral ability being the ability to be wielded by other characters, although taking up a character slot while doing so. I felt that having its base form basically be Excalibur stuck in the stone provided a good enough reason for why it can't be equipped until it evolves.

After that decision, I felt that the idea of the sword becoming a sword-wielder made sense for the civil evolutions. Its magic would seep into the stone it's stuck in to animate it into a sort of golem it could pilot. Once it evolved again, its human form would either be the sword having separated and transformed into a humanoid with maybe metallic skin who would get sword-wielding classes (planning to go with Fencer, Paladin, and some sort of weapon enchanter class), while its furry form would basically be its consciousness transferring completely into the stone to turn it into a more humanoid form as its original body is now wielded by its new body.

For the divided form, I was thinking that the main thing would be that while it is wielded, if the wielder doesn't make an attack with it, it would attack for them. I felt that Benefall (pictured with her wielder, Murgath) from Red Dragon Inn was a good representation for what this form could look like, with the sword having a humanoid spirit connected to it.

[rexmatical]

just realised i forgot to post these anywhere. i'm really proud of how some of them turned out, and i haven't shown off much of my work lately, so enjoy some more mtg proxies!

vandalblast and blasphemous act; two cards that aren't too expensive, but owning 5 copies of each for 5 different commander decks seems redundant. really proud of how these two look

swords to plowshares and counterspell; the former much the same as the red spells, while the latter i had a neat idea for a drawing for it so i figured why not :P

ignore the spelling error

branching evolution and crucible of worlds; both are a bit expensive for me to buy more than 1 copy of. not as satisfied with these two, but at least i have them now

tokens for mono-green elves. i just like making my own tokens when i can :)

[markermage]

FerCiv Monsters: Boxy

Base/Animal Form: Black cat in a cardboard box, going for the "please adopt me" look. Choosing to defend will have them hide inside of the box.

Feral/Beast Form: Has filled out the box and now wears it. Tail is also starting to split. Might retreat into box turtle-style when defending.

Civil/Standing Form: Bipedal cat wearing a cardboard box with "ARMOR" written on it, like that old cardboard Gundam joke cosplay.

Fer-Fer/Monster Form: Monstrous nekomata. It has two tails, one decorated with the box that was its former home and one that is a small coffin. Might now have some bone or ghost flame armor that burns or chills melee attackers.

Fer-Civ/Hybrid Form: The box has taken over and just has various holes that attacks come out from. Some attack animations are accompanied with cat parts poking out. Some have human parts poking out. I'm thinking that the extra actions for hybrid form might be expressed as a special attack that gets charged up and can be unleashed at any point for a random attack. Want to go for a mix of Schrodinger's cat, "life is like a box of chocolates", and general mystery box stuff with this one. Maybe mix in some allusion to that cat-in-a-box coin bank.

Civ-Civ/Human Form: Cat-eared human that is able to switch classes between a knight with a cardboard shield, a necromancer with a cardboard coffin, and a gambler with a cardboard box with die pip markings/holes.

Civ-Fer/Furry Form: Anthropomorphic cat with fancy Gundam-inspired armor made of cardboard. Has decent defense (knight class), the ability to revive allies (necromancer class), and a technique with a random result (gambler class).

[markermage]

Ferciv Monsters: Plague Rat

Going text-based with my addition to my Ferciv monster collection this time. I started this with some sort of double-branching monster evolution shit posts that I eventually combined into one post. The general idea is that the base creature get a choice of a feral evolution that makes them more beastly or a civil evolution that makes them more human, and the resulting forms each have their own feral and civil branches to evolve into. Here's what it'd be like with a plague rat type of monster.

Base/Animal Form: Cuddly rat with white head and black body. Able to steal from enemies.

Feral/Beast Form: Bigger and body fur has become thicker and turned green. Now has venomous bite.

Civil/Standing Form: Standing on hind legs and probably holding a dagger dripping with venom. Unlike Animal form, it can equip weapons and armor.

Feral-Feral/Monster Form: Take Beast form and have head covered with bone white mask that looks like a rat version of a plague doctor mask (long beak with rat ears). Is overall bigger, body fur is thicker, claws are sharp and dripping with poison, and maybe some signs of infection like boils and pimples. Able to give different status effects.

Feral-Civil/Divided Form: Take Beast form and have head turn green as well. Surround in toxic purple (might go with green if the dominance of that color in the design could be dealt with) cloud from which can be seen a humanoid being that is probably just a hallucination brought on by the toxic fumes. The cloud gets its own turn where the player can choose which status effect it tries to give to which target.

Civil-Civil/Human Form: Standing form has transitioned into what's pretty much a goblin with rat ears and a rat tail. It is able to switch between a thief class (steal stuff and some poison), a plague doctor class (specialize in poison status effect and turning it into a benefit), and some sort of general status effect class that I haven't yet worked out the details for (maybe witch or witch doctor?). Can potentially equip abilities from other classes if tamer mastered them.

Civil-Feral/Furry Form: Standing form with a more human-shaped body and a hooded cloak. Averages together all of the classes of the human form into a character that can steal, poison, manipulate poison, and do other status effects, though without the specialization and customizability of the human form

[markermage]