Personalized Magic Cards

After some fun in the chatbox, I'm opening up two threads for Elf Quest cards for a future game. In this thread, you can submit artwork or suggestions and I'll make a personalized or customized card from the artwork.

Guidelines: After a few get posted back up, it'll be easier to see what the artwork will fit into. Generally, artwork should be landscape orientation (or able to be cropped into landscape) around 600 pixels wide (or more, doesn't matter). The artwork should either be yours or able to be published. It is preferable that the artist is known and listed.

Post an image (or your avatar) with a description of what is going on with it (personality, event, whatever), and I'll make a card from it.

Then every few days I'll download the images and design cards from them, and re-post them.

Once we have enough cards I'll put together a playable game package and share it somewhere so it is playable for all members.

For those that are familiar with Magic the Gathering, the theme for these cards will be Unquested (in the vein of Unhinged and Unglued).

(I seem to have issues getting links to the images to work right, so for now the links I post will just be hypertext to my Photobucket where the image can be found.)

Here's a few cards we made up in the chatbox today...


(example of using a really low res image. I just used her sigpic)


(better resolution)

Those are wonderful Hammer.

G0lden wrote:

Those are wonderful Hammer.

Thank you! I know you saw it in the chatbox tonight, but here's yours again:


If you send me a higher res image of your avatar I'll update it.

Just so y'all know, I took the liberty of saving most member's current avatars to work with offline.  In the next few days or week I'll work on them and post them.  If you have something you'd rather have as 'your' card, post it here or in a PM. If you see your card show up and don't like it, or want it removed, PM me.  Comments, complaints, etc... post or PM me... Want to just PM someone... feel free... Wanna slap me? Get a plane ticket.

Anyway, I'm also going to be taking liberties with the images and what I interpret them to be. I may even repost the above, and I'll be reorganizing my photobucket so the above ones might disappear or get messed up. It was a rush job up to this point.

Anyway, when I make a card it'll just be... what it'll be to an extent. I do not intend anything negative nor will I try to imply anyone is 'better' than anyone else, I'm just playing with the images and key things that might spring to memory as it may be interpreted by the general game rules.  Some may be obsure as a profile name may not fit an image of a group of characters and such.  I'm also not limiting anyone to 'just one' card. If you have a request... well that's what this thread's for in the first place!

Here is the original. Don't know if much more can be done with it.

These are awesome TrollHammer!! Keep em' coming! *still laughing at Ginchan*

Funny cards. No idea what the symbols and the numbers and some terms mean, but...

Its a step in a project and a gift to those who might want it.  Concise information can be found at www.wizards.com or on wikipedia under "Magic the Gathering". As a match, hopefully something good will come of it down the road!

The main parts of a card are:

Mana cost symbols, top right. This is how much 'mana' is needed to cast the spell depicted on the card. Mana is used to limit how easily the card is played, how early in the game it can be played, and is the primary method for giving a card "color".

Card Name, top left: Fairly self explainitory.  The precise card name has some impact in the game, as you can usually only have 4 of a card with a name, and some effects can influence the game based on the name (as well as other text information of the card).

Card image center upper half: pretty much the least important part of the card as mechanics are concerned, but a visual reminder of the card and an aid to imagination for storytelling, as the game sort of unfolds as a story.

Card type, middle left: this area has types, super and sub types of the card. Organizational tool for some mechanics.

Rarity and set symbol, middle right: in this case a "send" symbol. The shape indicates the set the card belongs to, the color of it declares the rarity (if it were a printed card, rarer cards are printed less and show up in packages less. Doesnt mean much here).

Card abilities or attributes, center bottom half: this is the heart of the card in some cases and usually contains key dynamics of what the card can do in the game. This is like a mini rulebook for the card. This text can even rewrite the rules of the game. Generally, normal or bold script has influence in the game, and italicized fonts are descriptive, either "reminder text" to clarify the intent of a keyword or "flavor text" (toward the bottom) as a mini story or fictional quote to give more of a sense of what the card is representing.

On creature cards, in the lower right, is a box with two numbers seperated by a slash. This represents "power" and "toughness" to determine how a creature can handle things "physically".  For example, if Bearclaw was 3/2, and a bear was 2/2, they would defeat each other as both creature's power is greater than or equal to the other's toughness.  This number is a scaling number like "level" in dungeons and dragons, where an average human is roughly a 1/1, a warrior is a 2/2, and so on.  In Elf Quest most creatures are roughly in the 1/1 to 2/2 range with exception to preservers, who are depicted as extremely durable. I interpret this as either 0/10 or 1/10.

The info at the bottom of the card is printing information, including copyright, the card number within the set, the artist name for the image, another set indicator and so on.  In the case of "rare" cards there is a oval that, on a printed card from the main Magic company, is a holofoil indicator of rarity, as the company was having troubl with counterfitting.

For fun, or for a potential set for EQ fans, some or most of this may not matter.  As for "avatar" cards for gifts, it highly doesnt matter, just  having fun with things and playing with image and personality interpretations.  If I balance these attributes properly, the card will be playable in a normal game down the road.

A note on "color" since a different discussion for the word is active: a card's 'color' is a personality indicator, in the colorwheel I discussed in another thread, in the form of White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green. For example, Red represents Emotion and Freedom. Blue represents Logic and Technology. And so on. It is not a race indicator or anything of that nature.  Mana symbols show alignment with a color, with more colored mana symbols indicating a higher alignment with that color, and more colorless symbols indicating less alignment.  For example, Bearclaw or Strongbow might be Green Green while Cutter and Skywise, able to think outside the box, are more likely colorless Green.  On personalized cards, if you feel the color I put on there doesnt fit, let me know and Ill change it.

Awesome fun, Hammer! Havn't I commented on this already ... *was so sleepy at late night* ... not sure. O.O

Sweet Ginchan! Characterized oh so well ^^

Winnie, the Editor ... hu? XD

THANKS, Hammer !

Embala wrote:

Awesome fun, Hammer! Havn't I commented on this already ... *was so sleepy at late night* ... not sure. O.O

Sweet Ginchan! Characterized oh so well ^^

Winnie, the Editor ... hu? XD

Good!

Yeah, I might have to recrop Winnie to include the plaque on her desk. It would make more sense then.

@PC: Good! I hope to get some feed back down the road from you on balance between cards when theres more to work with and playtest, if you feel like it.

G0lden: Ill get on that later today after some house work and car repairs. I have another 2-3 dozen in the works but a image swap is easy and that is plenty big enough to fit, thanks!

Ok... Tonight's progress is uploaded hastily. You can preview the current crop to make suggestions on and point out errors (understanding that they aren't done yet) here:

https://s1007.photobucket.com/user/Two-Edge-Hammer/library/Fresh%20UNQ

Enjoy, if they are pleasing.

Later, when they are 'done', I'll post each in their own posting.

G0lden, I updated your image, but I didn't repost it (it's LAAAATE).

That's okay Hammer.

WOW!! You've been busy!!

I'm so loving these! ^__^

*dies of laughter* oh gawd... you made the tattoo a card! Totally didn't see that coming!

* ... just silently wondering why I get to have such a controlling effect... I assumed I would get some detection + cutting-to-the-bone premonition + sharing combined effects ... (?) *

PCoquelin wrote:

* ... just silently wondering why I get to have such a controlling effect... I assumed I would get some detection + cutting-to-the-bone premonition + sharing combined effects ... (?) *

Gripped by..



...doubt, here.

I admit, a lot of the 'personal' cards will probably be too 'broken' to play, it's more of a personal interpretation of facets of a personality I have come to know.

In your case, both by your adoption of Suntop (Sunstream), and your motto (sharing makes the richer), this card's ability to allow elves to share abilities temporarily is what I interpreted this into.

As far as being a playable card, it may or may not be broken. There are many instances in the main game that have ability sharing abilities, as well as creatures (called Slivers) who's main purpose is to share abilities.  I guess, to a degree, Elves in EQ could be considered a form of slivers anyway, as they have the ability to lock-send and combine efforts.

There is an official card, called Hivestone, that is possibly more powerful than the ability on your card: Hivestone causes ALL creatures to become slivers, which cause all creatures to share the abilities of other Slivers (I had misinterpreted this until I looked it up. It's similar in concept but could have a lot of difference in gameplay, depending on what abilities Elves are allowed to have).  In your card's case, the X activation cost makes it somewhat less powerful, as it isn't a 'freebie' ability that could be activated all the time by leaving the card 'tapped': you have to have Mana to make it work (Mana is like magical energy or money, in that most spells or abilities require some of it to be used to perform an action. In this case, for every Elf you have in play (not counting those in your deck or in your hand, but counting those you have freed or taken control of from another player) you have to spend 1 mana of any color.)  If you spent your mana on something else and don't have enough, you can't use the ability (Too tired!).

So, true, it is a powerful card to some degree, but not an outrageous one.  Feel free to suggest changes, though, it's your card!

Oh, and as far as the 'blue' element, it's a little more subtle:
Blue is the representation of those things Water represents (change, flow, etc), as well as intellect, wisdom, technology.  As a person, you have an engineering background and have intellectually stimulating posts. Suntop/Sunstream is, in some degrees, an embodiment of Elfin intellegence: he can work mostly with things of the mind (which is blue), helping them to work together (which tends towards green, but this is mild). Via his mental ability, he became the first and only elf we know of to date to Recognize remotely. This resulted in his bond with the Wavedancers (though Brill), and his change to a mer-elf (albeit through aid), completing the circle into Blue (of water), and his Islandwalk ability (which works on several levels, to me).

I guess, I could add something about Artifacts to enhance the Engineering standpoint, but it's hard to mix that in without cluttering up the card and having it do too much.  I might just make another instance down the road for this one (several characters in the Magic world show up on multiple cards, especially for Planeswalkers, which Sunstream could be reinterpreted as). As to premonitions... Hmm... Maybe I'll add 'tap: Scry 1'. This isn't too cluttered and denotes the 'premonition' and 'sensing' ability... This should work!

Hope I didn't confuse it or bore you to death with over-explanation. I tried to make the card fit as well as I can figure out at the moment.  Thanks for asking about it!

Well, well... It does seem you have some good reasons for it, then..