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Shards of Alara tour: Bant
13 years ago
Paypal is ajc394[at]gmail.com
Anyone who's talked to me over AIM/Skype/mIRC/ect knows that I am shamelessly a huge fan of the card Game, Magic the Gathering. I can't help it, it's such a fun game. I love how fun the game is, I love the art on alot of the cards (ah Skyknight Legionnaire, how pretty your art is), and I love the flavor. So today, I figured I'd discuss one of my favorite sets from Magic: the Shards of Alara block.
Alara itself is a giant plane of existence that, long ago in an event known as The Sundering, was split into a total of five mini planes. Now those of you who play Magic know that there are five colors of magic (or mana, whichever you like). Interestingly, rather than having Each shard represent one of the five colors, Wizards of the Coast did something different and had each shard defined by THREE colors of Mana. Each shard had three colors, but completely lacked the other two. This mana deficiency in each Shard actually affected how life and society were formed, and all of them were Vastly different. I'll discuss them, starting with Bant:
BANT
Bant, the shard governed by Green, White, and Blue Mana. It's what would happen if you suddenly found Camelot in the savannah. Arthurian style knights, a perfect caste system of society, and little to no evil. The lack of Red and Black mana meant there was no Chaos, no evil ambition, so it was actually kind of a cool place to live. And somehow Bant's evolutionary system managed to give us the Leotau, which are lions WITH FUCKING HOOVES HOW DOES THAT WORK!? *ahem* Anyway. On Bant, Combat has become ritualized, and warfare is usually the army riding along with their champion and giving them Sigils as they go to combat the other army's champion. War pretty much became a gentleman's brawl for satisfaction. Hell, the armor of Bant soldiers and knights left their back unarmored, because who would be dishonorable enough to attack a champion with their back turned?
This Champion style of fighting is emphasized by the Exalted mechanic, which was Bant's Keyword for the set. Exalted had it so that whenever a creature attacked alone, it got +1/+1 power and toughness and additional effects until end of turn for each creature with exalted. Pretty cool, eh? My friend Vincent runs a mono white deck (singular color) that has Creatures with Exalted and boy is it powerful. Anyway, back to the Shard.
Bant was also the only shard to have Angels, who were pretty much the protectors and things that the Bantians worshiped. Like the three colors it had, Bant had Three races (excluding the angles for the moment): the Rhox, Rhino people, the Aven, bird people, and Humens. Mana wise, each of these races were colored to fit Bant when they had been in previous sets (Rhoxes were usually Green or White, the Aven blue or white, and Humans fit all three.)
The lack of red and black mana, as I mentioned before, also has shaped how magic works on Bant. You won't be seeing the killspells of Red Mana, and certainly not the necromantic/demonic magics of Black Mana. It's a world where protection magic is a matter of course, and the worst punishment is temporary banishment.
My personal opinion of Bant is this: while it is probably a wonderful place to live, the restrictingly rigid caste system is far too gripping for my liking. The lack of red mana also means the lack of freedom, which is what Red is all about. In my Next journal, however, I'll be talking about my personal favorite shard: Naya, the home of the Behemoths, the land of the titans, MAYAN CIVILIZATION WITH KAIJU!
(If you want more info, and possible better info at that, go check out the Savor the Flavor archive on Wizards.com, or type Savor the Flavor archive on Wizards.com and look around page 8.)
Alara itself is a giant plane of existence that, long ago in an event known as The Sundering, was split into a total of five mini planes. Now those of you who play Magic know that there are five colors of magic (or mana, whichever you like). Interestingly, rather than having Each shard represent one of the five colors, Wizards of the Coast did something different and had each shard defined by THREE colors of Mana. Each shard had three colors, but completely lacked the other two. This mana deficiency in each Shard actually affected how life and society were formed, and all of them were Vastly different. I'll discuss them, starting with Bant:
BANT
Bant, the shard governed by Green, White, and Blue Mana. It's what would happen if you suddenly found Camelot in the savannah. Arthurian style knights, a perfect caste system of society, and little to no evil. The lack of Red and Black mana meant there was no Chaos, no evil ambition, so it was actually kind of a cool place to live. And somehow Bant's evolutionary system managed to give us the Leotau, which are lions WITH FUCKING HOOVES HOW DOES THAT WORK!? *ahem* Anyway. On Bant, Combat has become ritualized, and warfare is usually the army riding along with their champion and giving them Sigils as they go to combat the other army's champion. War pretty much became a gentleman's brawl for satisfaction. Hell, the armor of Bant soldiers and knights left their back unarmored, because who would be dishonorable enough to attack a champion with their back turned?
This Champion style of fighting is emphasized by the Exalted mechanic, which was Bant's Keyword for the set. Exalted had it so that whenever a creature attacked alone, it got +1/+1 power and toughness and additional effects until end of turn for each creature with exalted. Pretty cool, eh? My friend Vincent runs a mono white deck (singular color) that has Creatures with Exalted and boy is it powerful. Anyway, back to the Shard.
Bant was also the only shard to have Angels, who were pretty much the protectors and things that the Bantians worshiped. Like the three colors it had, Bant had Three races (excluding the angles for the moment): the Rhox, Rhino people, the Aven, bird people, and Humens. Mana wise, each of these races were colored to fit Bant when they had been in previous sets (Rhoxes were usually Green or White, the Aven blue or white, and Humans fit all three.)
The lack of red and black mana, as I mentioned before, also has shaped how magic works on Bant. You won't be seeing the killspells of Red Mana, and certainly not the necromantic/demonic magics of Black Mana. It's a world where protection magic is a matter of course, and the worst punishment is temporary banishment.
My personal opinion of Bant is this: while it is probably a wonderful place to live, the restrictingly rigid caste system is far too gripping for my liking. The lack of red mana also means the lack of freedom, which is what Red is all about. In my Next journal, however, I'll be talking about my personal favorite shard: Naya, the home of the Behemoths, the land of the titans, MAYAN CIVILIZATION WITH KAIJU!
(If you want more info, and possible better info at that, go check out the Savor the Flavor archive on Wizards.com, or type Savor the Flavor archive on Wizards.com and look around page 8.)
