Beginning

Beginning 

Nothing.

That's where I'm starting from. With nothing. It's not just my custom set, but also my blog itself. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have ideas for both of them, but staring at this blank page is a little daunting. There's so many ways to start something, it makes you wonder which one is the best. That's when you just have to sit your self down and start with one word.

One.

From there you can launch into your subject or topic with abandon. It doesn't matter what that first one was, or how weird and off topic it is (as made evident with how I started.) As long as you can write the second and third word, until it forms a sentence. And another sentence. Until those
sentences form a paragraph, which will eventually form a paper.

Voila!

Alchemy by Ron Spencer

Just like an alchemist, who transmutes lead to gold, I have transformed nothing to something. Now all I have to do is define that said something. Give it a name. A purpose. Maybe some decorative furnishings. Or not. Alchemy and house decorator seems to be conflicting.

My goal for this blog is to give me an incentive, per-se. I'm a major procrastinator, and if I don't have a reason to keep going, I might just give up and move on. By putting this out there, I hopefully will be more accountable. Having people to give me feedback (constructive criticism is always appreciated/) will make me more responsible. In theory.

I also have this great long term story line planned out in my head. I'm planning on being a writer, in some shape or form, and using this to show off my writing will be a great way for me to improve. It's in human nature to want to show off, and I to fall prey to this habit.

I'm not a very competitive magic player. I only started to go to FNM's because I lost my internal playgroup. I'm a casual player at heart, specifically big games of multiplayer. I love the game though, and what's always been interesting to me is the game design. As soon as I read Mark Rosewater's Making Magic articles, I became an avid reader. I couple years later I discovered Goblin Artisans, a blog for non-Wizard of the Coast Magic designers, and with it the idea of custom sets (O.K. I did think of it before, but this is when it became more feasible.)

So here I am. About to create a whole lot of somethings out of a big nothing. Like I said at the beginning, I have a lot of ideas, including different article series. These won't all be weekly, as I have other priority's, but most likely rotating weekly. Following will be a brief summary of the different series. Take note that the names might change.

Worldknit by Adam Paquette

Charting The Realms: This will be my story articles, introducing the stories of my custom sets. They will intersect, and even be heavily linked with each other. My hope is that they will be like a series of novels, read right after the other. Akin to Harry Potter, Narnia, and The Wheel Of Time.
One thing to note; I will be keeping this separate from Magics main story line. All of the characters will be mine, along with most of the plains. I believe this to be necessary, as I don't want to contradict any of R&D's plans or story's. Some people have gone with the alternate reality for there story's, and I believe this to be unnecessary. The multiverse is a big place, filled with more threats than just Eldrazi, Phyrexians, and Nicol Bolas.

Alchemist's Refuge By Dan Scott

Alchemist's Refuge: This will be were I actually go over what I'm doing for my current set. From exploratory design and goals, to set skeletons, to play-testing, to planeswalker generating, all the way to the finished product, this is were all the "magic"(Ah, puns) happens. As these will be custom, there's no set "done" date. I have all the time in the world to make things perfect, and may come back to improve on things. I still want to finish things though, and will make a great effort to complete them.

Working on both sets in a block at once might also be beneficial, and definitely something I will be exploring. One thing to make clear: I will be doing my best to design these as if they would be put into standard. As if this was a Wizards Of The Coast product. So no crazy real world sets or doing things just for the sake of doing them.



Forbidden Alchemy: Development might be my greatest weakness as a designer. Gaging power level and color abilities seems to always plague me. Or I'm just being over critical. Either way, to practice development, I'm going to take other people's sets and see if I can improve them. These can be custom sets, or even Wizards "failure" sets. Just like for my designs, I will be aiming to make these standard applicable.

Forbidden Alchemy By David Rapoza

From The Alchemy Table: I'm a Johnny at heart, always thinking about different deck ideas and card interactions. Since From The Lab has been discontinued on MTG, I have decided to start something similar here. This might be my least focused on article, as I'll be working heavily on the others, so this won't be a regular article.

There you have it! Some of my reasons and plans for this blog. Now that I look back on it now, it feels really good to accomplish and create something. All from "Nothing." My little piece of lead. Now I have to take four other pieces of lead and turn out some gold.

Ah, the life of an alchemist.