Hello there!
My name is Cole Kerrigan, co-creator of Lords & Legends and resident Lore Master - at least until Arnus says otherwise.
Origin and Theory
By the time I came onto the project, Jeff had already created the base cards and mechanics for all of the other factions except Mythra. Sure, there was still plenty of work to be done, but he had already established the A.G.I.C.A. in M.A.G.I.C.A., if you will. At the time, the “M” stood for Raw Magica - but that never really aligned, because it didn’t make much sense to me for the M in M.A.G.I.C.A. to also stand for “magica.”
Although we didn’t realize it yet, there was room for one more faction - and we now believe it’s our best design in terms of Lore and mechanics.
All of the factions in Lords & Legends are built around accessible archetypes. Red is fire and rage, violet is necromancy and the occult - all fairly straightforward concepts. This was intentional. We wanted players to easily find their voice when choosing and customizing decks, and that was something we both really cared about.
Because of my background as a Hollywood-trained writer (when Hollywood was actually cool), it was agreed that one of my roles would be expanding the lore of the factions and applying storytelling elements. Nothing too overbearing - but enough to turn these images into a fully fleshed-out intellectual property. Players would uncover canon through card text, graphic novels and lore videos. But even those were designed for them to create their own head canon too.
Finding Mythra
Mythra came about for two reasons: we wanted to differentiate ourselves from competitors and we felt the tingle of creative inspiration.
The last missing color on the wheel was yellow/gold. Naturally, those colors go hand-in-hand with money, so Jeff designed a banking-style gameplay mechanic. The concept was simple: you place counters on a Terrain card, exhaust the Terrain, then use those counters to generate additional resources to deploy more cards.
From there, I designed a faction accordingly.
How do you design a faction for anything? You start by being in touch with the creative vision of the project. I understood the spirit of the mission: create a meaningful grimdark science-fiction-fantasy that honors established formulas without being formulaic. That was never explicitly stated, but it was the underlying current of our partnership.
I also stepped back and asked questions:
What is L&L missing?
What do I want to see in L&L?
Which players are being underserved?
I tapped in and scrutinized every thought in order to find something that I believed would be a worthy contribution to the Lords & Legends universe. All of my questions pointed to ‘player interaction’.
The game really shines in four-player matches, so I wanted to create a faction that leaned into politicking and charisma. Psychology is a huge part of why this game works - so why not double down on it? I also realized there was no faction exploring hard sci-fi themes like galactic federations, multi-species alliances or large-scale economy. That felt like a serious miss, especially since Jeff and I are big fans of Star Trek and Stargate.
Combining interpersonal politics with space councils just felt right. Side note: If a theme keeps coming back to you during the creative process, it’s probably the right answer. For Mythra, that theme was player politics.
Gameplay Structure
The next question was: How do these guys actually play?
Because the faction is made up of many alien species, their military should be multidisciplinary - or as we called it internally, “land, air and sea.” What if each card type represented a color combination? And what if those combinations defined specific races?
This created an opportunity to isolate the kinds of aliens in the federation and the gameplay associated with them. As such, I both married and bifurcated the gameplay and aliens into 4 key parts - each a self-servicing and circular design. Which sounds confusing, but trust me it really isn’t.
Eureka! Let Us Create the Lethanor
The first race created was the Lethanor.
They were envisioned as a graceful, wise race - think Vulcans or high elves - but instead of calm stoicism, they’re highly emotional and viciously manipulative. Again, turning the trope on its head. Because they’re the “hero” race of the federation, I wanted them to share a phenotype with humans. I was worried that something ‘too alien’ would scare new players off.
Gameplay-wise, they leaned white, with an emphasis on an impressive navy - dope starfighters and rad carriers. At the time, Lords & Legends didn’t have a starfighter-focused race, so this was our opening. I planned on taking it.
Lore-wise, the Lethanor discovered Mythra, maximized its potential, and forced other races to refine Raw Magica into Mythra for use as a universal currency. Their financial intellect and naval dominance led to the creation of Mythradel - a massive space citadel and intergalactic hub of commerce and diplomacy. After all, where would these guys meet to argue about trade disputes!? Funny how our brains work.
Mythradel became one of my favorite concepts, as it allowed me to flesh out the politics of the Mythradel Triad. I envisioned a Senate and a Council. The Senate, composed of other races, could propose legislation, debate military intervention, petition the Council, request arbitration, and seek admission for new species.
But the seats aren’t equal. If your planets produce little to no Mythra, you’re toast.
Each species is assigned a Civic Tier based on Mythra contribution, strategic value, and council favor - remember, the Lethanor are vicious so this mattered. The Council consists of seven members: four Lethanor, two Bel-Jedari and one Zethari. They control the Senate through tribute reclassification, emergency mandates and governing authority.
I also wanted the Lethanor to be weak in a meaningful way. Power is more interesting when it’s fragile. So I wrote lore establishing that they suffer from a reproduction crisis - for unknown reasons, they can’t produce offspring and must rely on another race for help.
Jeff loved the idea of cloning their greatest warrior to maintain power, which evolved into the constant cloning of Elandryl - a tough sword-wielding chick who kills. Without ground forces, the Lethanor couldn’t hold control. So Elandryl was a two-birds, one-stone type of solution.
These worldbuilding rules for the Lethanor allowed me to branch out and create a functional and compelling story sandbox to leverage something emotional and interesting for the other races.
The Zethari
Next came the Zethari.
Early designs leaned toward John Carter-style aliens or the Oblivion-inspired cowls, complete with ceremonial daggers and unsettling silhouettes. Because the Lethanor shared a human phenotype, I figured it was time to do the exact opposite. The Zethari should be foreign - like, uncomfortably alien.
Lore-wise, I figured it would be cool if the Lethanor maintained power through sabotage. What if they favored a race that did their dirty work? Thus, the Zethari became political assassins, resource disruptors and agents of chaos.
Their gameplay leaned gold and violet. Jeff had the killer idea of making them primarily Command cards, meaning they’re never truly permanent. They exist in the shadows. I loved that. Even their Starships exist mainly to ruin plans. I suspect that we’ll honor the core idea of keeping them Command cards in future sets.
Of course, their end-design was totally different from the initial sketches. This is typical with any design process. Jeff went with a fully robotic menace but maintained the foreign theme. So it all worked out in the end. Frankly, I like these guys more than my ideas. There will be more aliens in the Lords & Legends universe, don’t worry.
The Bel-Jedari
Because we were making a grimdark science-fiction fantasy, “cute” was a dangerous word. We were frankly tired of Disney-style cute monetization. Still, some form of softness had to exist. Like the Zethari, the Bel-Jedari should bring something different and interesting to the table.
The Bel-Jedari evolved a lot. Initially they managed Mythra trade, then served as envoys and finally landed as scientific explorers and engineers. They maintain Mythradel and provide the cloning technology the Lethanor depend on. Maybe they do some of the other stuff too.
Gameplay-wise, they brought blue mechanics like Void and card manipulation, bridging sci-fi and fantasy through advanced Starships. This felt right because before, it was really only Chaos that brought magical spell stuff. These guys did both.
In terms of design, I wanted them to be furry, bug-eyed and technical. Perhaps they had an overpopulation problem and ate everything. So their invaluable technological minds came at a great cost to the Mythradel Triad. Jeff settled on these handsome stout creatures. Just looking at Gorf and Jorf, you can really see that there’s a whimsical spirit embedded in these guys - so the sentiment of cute made it in.
Rakkhan! Hear Me!
As a storyteller, I’d argue that the Rakkhan and the Lethanor are the two most important races of the Mythra color because they represent the top and bottom of the Mythradel pyramid. They are the central conflict of the federation concept - mirrors of one another.
Eagle-eyed players will see that their names are phonetic opposites as well: Lethanor is euphonic and velvet-sounding while Rakkhan is harsh and cacophonous.
The objective was to create an underdog antithesis of the Lethanor. Because Lethanor dealt with space and grace, the Rakkhan would deal with frontlines and anger. Hence, the brutish and battle-hardened Rakkhan - they are a red faction with enforcers who policed and waged war in the name of the federation.
But making them badass and angry wasn’t enough, they needed a cultural edge that allowed them to be more interesting. So we peppered their card text with layered language and insights. While they deserve a seat in the council, they’re seen as a low-tier civilization and their planet produces no Magica to contribute to the Triad. This would explain their lack of technological advances.
Initial designs took me towards giant hard-shell buff aliens. I sketched out some stuff and looked to the Halo Brutes and Mass Effect Krogans as inspiration. But it wasn’t sticking. I remember that we were also on a tight timeline for this, so I didn’t get to create a fully fleshed out presentation. Jeff really took over the physical design of these guys and turned them into cyborg elves with crude guns and knives. Pretty freaking awesome.
I created Drotha as a symbolic leader for the Rakkhan - a real Che Guevara type of revolutionary who hates the Lethanor. I had this idea that he would be the first into the fray of battle and other Rakkhan would be inspired - this led to us creating an awesome card with Defiant and re-energizing fellow Rakkhan. He’s probably one of my all-time favorites in this project.
Again, eagle-eyed viewers will see that his cost is opposite of Ambassador Illadyr and heavy on the Raw Magica to reinforce his disdain for the federation. Thank Jeff’s design sense for that one.
Conclusion
This was a long post - but I know when I am obsessed with creative, I reread every behind-the-scenes blog out there. Get inspired, Lords. Go play some card games and I’ll see you on the next one.
Ck
