Lore

The Lore behind Dimensional Rift is especially WIP and completely subject to change.

Races & The World

The world of Valtora is the setting for Dimensional Rift, a relatively small portion of 4 known lands surrounded by wilderness, the ocean, and the unknown. Each is controlled by 4 distinct humanoid races.

Men of Altaria

The men are industrious, city-dwelling and urban; an ambitious people of strength, order and religion, adepts of divine-based magic granted by their one god, Galadon.

They inhabit many cities and towns sprawling the central and north fields of Valtora, and form a kingdom called Altaria. It is surrounded by the lands of the other races below, except for north, where their dominion extends until the ocean. While human ships might dwell in the rivers and coasts on their land for trade and commerce, few venture deep into the ocean, and none that has dared to go far has returned.

Human cards access the extra-deck mostly by paying mana to bring out powerful allies, angels and other servants of their god. Their Main Deck have a few additional Vehicles that can help unlock the full potential of their units, that mix the clergy and the military.

Their main mechanics are: Pray, Blessed.

Fey

The fey are small, forest-dweller, gnome-like people of small, slim, multi-colored bodies that transform into animals and beasts, adepts of nature-based magic.

They inhabit the forests down south, and exactly how deep into the forest they venture is unknown, but there is definitely a limit, as the deeper you go the denser and more dangerous it becomes.

The Fey cards mostly access the extra deck by the Transform/Transformed keyword, but they still have a few more powerful bosses and monument that are summoned via regular Rift Summoning. On the Main Deck, they have access to a variety of Scrolls that double down as powerful effects or sources of Hidden Knowledge.

Their main mechanics are: Transform / Transformed, Prone.

Telur

The telur are half-hobbit/half-dwarf-like people of the hills, of short stature, stout, and with very large hands, very dexterous, and proud of their advanced engineering and magical contraptions.

They inhabit the hills to the west, until before they start to become dunes and end in a deadly desert where none can survive.

The Telur have Creature Token creation cards and use the extra deck by sacrificing a combination of artifacts and creatures. They are less likely to generate or consume mana (though that ability can be amended to their deck through strategic Draft choices). Their Main Deck is filled with the powerful Artifacts concocted by their engineers, that can be fully unlocked by leveraging their creatures with Operate and Maneuver.

Their unique actions are: Operate, Maneuver. Their main mechanics include: Conduit, Re-target, Manalock.

Wynn

The Wynn are purple, soft skinned elf-like people, taller and slimmer than humans, that live on the mountain-tops & tunnels, adepts of elemental magic of primal power that comes with an unsettling cost.

They inhabit the mountains and peaks to the east, at least until they become too cold and winter-y.

The Wynn use the extra deck mostly by Soulrifting. Their artifacts are primal scrolls and magical equipments. They have mechanisms to facilitate the generation and collection of Souls to help fill their deranged magic.

Their main mechanics include: Shadowwalker, Reap, and Sealed.

World Features

Soulrifting

A powerful type of magic, that instead of mana, rends the souls of the recently deceased to power otherworldly magical effects. It's practice is understandably considered a taboo by several people, especially producing Dimensional Rifts, and is often done on the margins of society, or in secret. However, compared to mana-based magic,its powers are much more potent, and can include imbuing mundane artifacts with incredible effects, effortlessly erecting vast monuments, summoning allies to intra-dimensional Rifts or, infamously, opening Dimensional Rifts.

Dimensional Rifts

Through the power of Soulrifting, experienced casters can (intentionally or not) open portals to an otherworldly dimension filled with both powerful beings, chaos and manifestations. They can provide the caster with immense power, but at a steep cost. There is some belief that the recent underground proliferation of experiments involving Rift opening (and Soulrifting in general) has weakened the fabric of reality, making the accidental Rifts to be more common. While the later is definitely demonstrable, it is unclear what if that is a reason, or the only reason. These portals are where extra deck summoning comes from. When conducting the Rift Summoning event, the player is actually opening a Rift.

Constructs and Wanderers

On all 4 lands, enigmatic ruins of an extremely powerful, impossibly ancient civilization can rarely be found, some still inhabited by their ancient defense system: constructs, put together by powerful ancient magic. Unlike the Telur engineering, which is based on scientific principles, these non-sentient creatures are powered by magic itself. Possibly put together using Soulrifting, but the art is long lost to time.

If you manages to pass by the powerful but manageable defense constructs, deep within the ruins one might find a Wanderer. They are basically the remnants of the people of this ancient civilization, that having achieved immortality, and having all their needs fully satisfied by the endless powerful magic and machinery they built into their bodies, have after millennia thus lost the will to live or do anything, but are unable to die or be harmed in any way by the environment or others. So they are left to wander aimlessly until the end of times. Anyone that dares to interact with them triggers their automatic protection systems and find a swift end to their own (non-immortal) existence.

The Malady

A plague-like disease that swept through all 4 lands some ages ago, causing much death and pain. Little is known of its causes or why it ended, other than the terrible memories still enshrined on the population and the ever-present fear of its return. It caused an apparently random member or part of the body (of varying size and shape) of an infected person to characteristically rot, and eventually explode into a black, slimy goo, leading to either death or amputations. After the “explosion”, had the creature survive, it would be immune from future infections. While all the mechanisms of its spread are unknown, it was clearly contagious, specially through this black goo, but it seemed that even people who had absolutely no contact whatsoever could still contract it. In fact, it seemed that direct contagion was the less effective of its transmission vectors, specially as the people of all the lands start to adopt more and more aggressive quarantine measures, to little avail. Renowned mages and scholars of the time spent their lives investigating the Malady, trying to understand its causes, with little-to-no success. It eventually disappear as suddenly as it had appeared, after a few decades of suffering.

Wars

While currently at a (possibly unstable) peace, subsets of the kingdoms have thought with each other over several different wars through the ages, in particular the Humans. In a few instances, all 4 factions have been involved in a few Great Wars.