New Details on New Capenna

 As we've been aware for some time, New Capenna as a setting is focused on five "shard" color trios. Indeed, we'll be getting "hideouts" that are the equivalent of Ikoria's Triomes. The five tribes are each an organized crime syndicate within the massive metropolis of New Capenna.

The urban nature of the setting (not to mention the multicolor factions) certainly draws some similarities with Ravnica, but the background on Capenna as a plane is very interesting, and also hints at the emphasis for future Magic stories.

First off, New Capenna and Old Capenna are not exactly separate locations. Capenna is the plane upon which the city of New Capenna stands. We're told that Old Capenna was what the plane was like prior to a catastrophic disaster. Fleeing the destruction and threat, the people of Capenna built the city in order to live in safety. It was during this time that the angels who safeguarded the plane made an alliance with the plane's demons - and by now, the angels are all gone, and the demons are in charge.

Each faction has what appears to be a former mortal (or vampire or dragon) who has become a demon and continues to rule their crime family.

But here's the interesting thing: it appears the big disaster that struck Capenna was none other than the Phyrexians - and not the new ones, but the old, Yawgmoth-era Phyrexians - and they're still out there, int he wilds.

Capenna was, previously, a classical fantasy world with knights and kingdoms. When they people were forced to hunker down together in New Capenna, their roles shifted. The knights-errant and paladins became the Brokers, essentially an army of lawyers. The nobility and historians became the Maestros, a league of assassins. The great wizards and sages became the Obscura, knowledge brokers and blackmailers, etc.

Another big reveal we've gotten is that Elspeth, the famed planeswalker, originated on this plane. She has tried to live up to a Bant-style ideal of nobility and valor, but she's forced to confront the fact that her home plane is now soaked through with corruption.

Just one set after Jin-Gitaxias showed up on Kamigawa, we now have Urabrask, the "actually pretty chill" Phyrexian Praetor from New Phyrexia on Capenna, who has come here to try to learn about the previous generation of Phyrexians. It also looks like we've got Vivien and Ob Nixilis, the latter of whom looks like he's trying to make a play as a mob boss.

I'm personally very excited to see Magic exploring post-medieval aesthetics and settings. New Capenna has magic-driven cars and firearms that shoot magical energy (and sometimes look like musical instruments - the old "tommy gun in a violin case" being made much more literal.

New Capenna runs on a resource known as Halo, which I'd assume was some final gift left behind by the angels of the plane, and so I now wonder if it's sort of the counter-agent to Phyrexian oil. (Given the subject matter of my current D&D campaign, I'm really curious to see what this place is like).