So MTG decided to explore cowboys in their set and brand new plane Thunder Junction. This, however, is not the first time something Magic related has attempted to explore the Wild West: the fan made plane Jakkard has been a community darling for years now.
So a comparison is worth being made.
Perhaps the most distinguishing aspect between both planes is the story and thematic focus. Thunder Junction is secondarily a villain world, the premise being that, due to omenpaths, outlaws from all over the Multiverse have targetted this pristine world and its abundant resources. By contrast, Jakkard is about the theme of scarcity, an once vibrant world dealing with the aftermath of some event in the past that depleted its mana, and so the people venturing into the wilderness are not (only) outlaws but pioneers.
Perhaps the most interesting theme is how both sets explore colonalism. Thunder Junction alledgedly had Native consultants and depicts an off world tribe, the Atiin, based on the Navajo, who are as alien to the plane as the outlaws. This kind of plays into terra nulis myths that the Wild West was a pristine landscape without people in it, which historically has justified the murder of Amerindian tribes. I suppose the consultants decided that playing into this narrative was the lesser of two evils, as the other option would be outright invasion and genocide.
Jakkard, however, has true Native analogues, the Viashino, Snakes and implicitly some human cultures. These were dealt a rough hand: Viashino and humans were forced to abandon their traditional culture while the snakes are hibernating in the wilds. While somber, I find this to be very thematically relevant to the themes of the plane, and paints an otherwise "cowboys yeah pew pew" setting with a much heavier light and historical dignity. I would seriously like to hear your thoughts on this.
Overall, I think Jakkard is a better world if you want a meatier story, as I'm not into guilt-free spectacles.
Jane appeared to take a moment to register the scene inside before her face contorted with anger, and she took another step into the room, training her pistol on Jackie as she did.
“Now I know why I couldn’t quite place you,” Jane said. “You’ve changed.”
“Whereas you haven’t changed at all,” Jackie said, her voice cool and level. “Granted, the last time I saw you, you were just a plain Jane. That was before this diamond business, before you got rich and tried to get respectable. You may have acquired a new coat of paint since then, but underneath, you’re still the same rotten crook I knew back in Verkell.”
This week on Legends of the Waste, we learn a bit more about the lovely young fox Trotter and the ruthless Diamond Jane, who runs the town of Zymmer with an iron fist.
But who is Jackie De Coeur and what business does she have with Diamond Jane?
Two Bullets and a Pocketful of Hate, the first serial in the Legends of the Waste series, just wrapped up on No Goblins Allowed! This is a great place to start reading the M:EM.
It's getting real close, and we're rapidly reaching the point where we'd have enough stories, potentially, to do an anthology of just stories set on Jakkard... is that something people would be interested in seeing?
I'll probably start posting snippets of the Guide to Jakkard soon with some of the concept art I did for the plane.
In case the narrative introduction left you a bit befuddled, here's a quick and dirty overview of the basic composition and eight major races of Jakkard, our latest fan plane.
Jakkard is the Magic: Expanded Multiverse's western-themed plane. It is a world that, until recently, was almost completely drained of mana outside of a small patch of mana-rich territory: the crowded city of Verkell. Recently, however, the mana has been seeping back into the wasteland known as The Jakkard, and early explorers have discovered crystalized mana along the old leylines that cross the plane.
This has led to a kind of gold rush as people desperately move Wasteward out of the cramped and often oppressive city. There is little law on the frontier, the land is still very much untamed, and dangerous creatures are reawakening after centuries of dormancy, but the call of freedom and fortune are too great to keep the people of the city away.
As leylines are converted to rail lines and bullets are stuffed with pure mana crystals, the wild waste of Jakkard threatens to erupt in a maelstrom of violence.
Ready your gun, Planeswalker. And be ready to draw.
RACES OF JAKKARD
Humans (WUB): Humans are a versatile race on Jakkard, and mostly managed to rise to the top in Verkell. They managed to create enemies in the process, however, and they will have to struggle to survive in the lawless wastelands.
Foxes (UW): The aristocrats of Verkell, the foxfolk revolutionized the technology and magic use of the city, and in the process cemented their hold. Now they want to turn the wastes into a further extension of their city, and they won't let a few dragons and snakes stand in their way.
Centaurs (WG): Community-minded and largely peaceful, the Centaurs occupy the role of negotiators and lawkeepers on Jakkard. They find themselves caught between their desire to see Rattler and Viashino lands protected with the need to establish order in the lawless waste.
Rattlers (G): These snakefolk are divided into two camps: a group that stayed in the waste, hybernating to avoid the mana drain, and a group that lived in servitude in the city. They are united by one conviction: their beloved wild lands shall not be yoked by the technocrats of Verkell.
Viashino (RG): Kept as low class workers in Verkell, the Viashino seek an escape from their oppressive masters, and they won't fall to the foxes' modernization strategy without a fight. They survive mostly as bandits in the wild, but dream of greater power.
Minotaurs (RB): Bandits and brutes, minotaurs were used in Verkell to detect leylines. Although they lived comfortably, they resented their status as glorified dowsing rods, and now carve a bloody swath of destruction and theft across the wastes, using the viashino as pawns.
Nogs (RU): Noggles are a strange race, embracing progress on the one hand and total lawlessness on the other. On the wrong side of the law as often as the right, they were the first to create crystal-powered guns, and are the major sellers of weapons both to lawmages and bandits.
Nightstalkers (B): A desperate mortal might, in a time of need, go to the place where leylines cross. There they may make a deal with a demon--their soul in return for some boon. Nightstalkers are the collected souls of such deals, let loose on the world to consume and destroy.
PLOT AND MAJOR IDEAS OF JAKKARD
There are cracks forming in the great crystalline ceiling that formed over Jakkard and blocked out its mana. That means the mana is starting to come back, and Planeswalkers can enter the plane in greater numbers.
The frontier is rich in mana crystals, which are in high demand both within Verkell, and even off-world. Those crystals are guarded, however, by fearsome native creatures like dragons, wurms, sand serpents, and thunderbirds, and by races such as the snakefolk known as "Rattlers" and the Viashino, who object to the incursion of the city of Verkell into the wilderness of the Jakkard.
What's more, bandits are common in the lawless wastes, and shootouts are frequent. Thankfully, most people only have access to standard firearms, but some utilize guns that are enchanted, or bullets that contain mana crystals. These weapons have strange, often unpredictable magical effects. A powerful spellcaster with a powerful enchanted sixgun is a force not to be trifled with.
The leylines are the most contested territory of Jakkard. They kept creatures like the Dragons and some Rattlers alive through the barren times, and are now the nexus of the plane's rebirth. What's more, mana crystals form commonly on leylines, and the flow of mana across them allow trains to use them for power. This makes them highly contested territory for numerous races. To make matters worse, sites where leylines cross--"Crossroads," colloquially--are centers of power that attract supernatural beings--demons, angels, and even stranger entities.
Jakkard is a plane in conflict--between lawfulness and lawlessness (white vs red), and between civilization and the wild (blue vs green). And behind it all is greed and simple destructiveness, using the chaos for its own ends (black, naturally). Stories set on the plane should touch on one or more of these themes.
The Magic: Expanded Multiverse project is proud to present: Jakkard, the Wild West Plane.
"The Star People," the Rattlers call you folk. Said your kind come from other worlds older'n ours and carry a deep gift of power. But when the blue heavens turned to crystal and the land turned to poison a few centuries ago, your kind stopped coming, mostly. I reckon whoever cursed the land cursed the sky as well, and we were left here on our own, no no star people, no one with the great old gifts, just us regular folk, crowded together on an island sanctuary on a big ol' sea of desolation. At least, we were, until...
But here I am, getting ahead of myself again.
Lemme start way back, stranger, and tell you about our little slice of desolation. Lemme tell you about the place we call Jakkard.
Pull up a chair, partner. It's gonna be a long tale.
The world weren't always like this. Used to be--and we're talking centuries ago, mind--the land was full of life. But then something happened to the mana. Someone in this city cast a spell the like no one had seen afore or since.
That spell put a curse on this whole plane. Slowly, on th'other side of the world, the land started to wither and die. Magic died. Finally, the people fool enough to stick around died. Y'ever seen quicksand? Well, imagine quicksand that don't suck your body under, it sucks your very soul. The land was thirsty for mana, and if you set foot on the thirsty land you'd get your life sucked right out of you. The sky overhead took on a look like a great diamond--weird reflections off in the distant blue.
People panicked, as a natural course. The curse spread like a lasso tightening round the neck of a wild Acridian, and afore you could say "Bury me at the crossroads" we was all crowded in this here city--Verkell, the only place left you could plant your feet and not have your soul sucked through your boots.
The waste... well, even before the waste reached Verkell, the rattlers had a name for it, but no one could quite say it, seeing as it was in their strange spittin' tongue. It sounded like an oath, though, and I warrant that's all the other races needed. They misspoke it often enough that everyone forgot what the rattlers called it, and the wasteland became The Jakkard.
The city rose up, and o'course a few made out good enough. Most of the foxes did ok, and some of us humans, too. Even some of the centaurs and minotaurs did ok. Most did pretty poorly, though. Three families living in a single room, rattlers and viashino getting into tussles over territory... it weren't no way to live, and though you didn't hear more'n whispers about it, there were rumors that people were turning to darker powers at the crossroads--the places where a couple a leylines come together, you know--for some measure of relief. Better not speak to loud about those folk, though.
Then one day, someone looked over the great walls o' the city, and I reckon it took more'n a few minutes to process what they saw there.
Grass, stranger. It was grass.
Course, the rattlers and viashino had known about the change for weeks, months, maybe even years. They'd been slowly sneaking out into the Jakkard and no one even noticed, because no one thought to ask why a rattler'd gone missing. When everyone else realized what was happening, though, it was pandemonium and jubilee all in one. The land was coming back to life, and we could get out of Verkell and make for freedom in the Jakkard.
But it weren't so easy. See, first off, the early settlers quickly found out where all the mana had gone. Just like the sky, it'd turned to crystal. Along the old leylines, they found whole beds of pure mana, frozen in the dead earth. When the news came back to the city, there was a second pandemonium. Suddenly the high and mighty had their power and riches challenged. A man could get rich in a lucky evening, then go back to being poor again at the gambling house the next day.
It was the Nogs who first put the crystals into their bullets. Their pistols started doing weird things--acting more like spells than guns. You'd shoot a Nog bullet and half the time a gout o' fire, or a stream of ice, or a wall o' roses'd come out th' other end of your formerly trusty six shooter. It was chaos.
Then there was the problem of the folks who were still living on the land.
Oh, I know what I said. The land was a soul-sucking waste, I said.
Have you ever seen a frog in the desert, though? Some frogs, they know when the rains are gonna be gone a while, and they hide themselves in the earth and wait for years and years till they sense its time to wake up again.
Well, that's what the dragons did.
When we started tearing up the leylines to build rails between the Jakkard and Verkell, the dragons woke up, along with a whole mess of other critters like 'em. They were none too happy about havin' their rest disturbed. And the viashino and rattlers that'd settled there were none too happy about the city comin' to pull them back in. Not to mention the Minotaur bandits looking to make a quick buck, and the Nogs selling off their weird weapons to whoever's got cash, and the wild floods and droughts of mana rolling over the land...
So, my advice to you is this, stranger:
Between bandits and rail barons, dragons and the damned, mana-crazed miners and desert mirages, there's a lot that can kill out out in the Jakkard, if'n your not careful.
Keep your gun close.
And be ready to draw.
Jakkard is a fan plane developed on the Wizards Community Forums by members of the Flavor and Storyline board. It is a Wild West-themed plane that combines the classic elements of Magic you know and love with the tropes and tales of Westerns.
Over the next few weeks (as I and other M:EMbers finish the artwork!) I'll be posting the rough draft of Jakkard's style guide.
The pieces used here are Jakkard Landscape by Digital Surrealist and Viashino and Jakkard Planeswalker Symbol concept art by me, Sam Keeper.
