Disney Lorcana Narrative Designers Nick Webb and Jenna Giuffrida On Crafting The Reign Of Jafar

Considering Jafar is doomed to be second best, it’s fitting that he is the villain of second year-long story arc, which ends with this month’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Reign of Jafar expansion. Jafar’s plan to reconstruct the Hexwell Crown and become the sultan of Lorcana began back in last August’s Shimmering Skies and concludes in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Illumineer’s Quest: Palace Heist,ও Reign of Jafar’s co-op adventure that🌼 sends players into the belly of the beast to steal back the crown and end Jafar's terrible reign.

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I had a chance to speak with narrative designe🙈rs Nick Webb and Jenna Giuffrida, two of the architects who helped shape Jafar’s villainous arc over the last four sets, about the ins and outs of building L𝓡orcana’s narrative, writing long-term stories for a TCG, and some of the secrets left to uncover in Reign of Jafar and Palace Heist.

The Hexwell Crown Saga: Disney Lorcana’s First Two Years

According to Webb, who served as Reign of Jafar’s narrative lead, it was important to introduce players to the world of Lorcana at the right pace. “For the first few sets of Disney Lorcana, our main focus was essentially, ‘This is Lorcana!’” Webb explains. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The First Chapter, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rise of the Floodborn, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Into the Inklands, focused mainly on world-building to allow players to learn about the world a🍨nd mechanics before introducing deeper story threads.

There were hints of something deeper in those early sets, though, which Webb 🍸says were “peppered in”, ꦓsetting the stage for the story to come. Webb points to the seaweed in The First Chapter and the crime scene investigation flavor text in Rise of the Floodborn as two examples.

Withꦫ the release of Ursula’s Return in May 2024, the Hexwell Crown’s story fully came into focus. A power-hungry Ursula glimmer seized the Hexwell Crown - a dangerous artifact once safely stored in the Great Illuminary - and has used it to enthral other glimmers and transform her domain, making the air itself as thick as water. In Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble, the Hexwell Crown was broken in half, with o♍ne piece returning to the Great Illuminary, and the other falling into the hands of Agrabah’s grand vizier.

One thing that♒ both Webb and Giuffrida emphasize is꧑ the non-linear nature of TCG storytelling. Players discover the story by opening packs of random cards, which means each person will have their own unique experience of each set and the story being told. “Every card needs to make sense to the players without that card’s place in the narrative being clearly spelled out,” Giuffrida explains. “We typically tackle this by choosing a strong, easily understood theme for a set and then building a modular story around it.” Each card needs to stand on its own, which makes storytelling a tricky but exciting challenge for the narrative team. Webb says, “The delight comes when a player puts two cards next to each other and realizes, 'Hey! These cards tell a story!”

Building Jafar’s Fortress In Reign Of Jafar

Over the four sets that comprise Disn✅ey Lorcana’s second year, we’ve seen a bigger focus on progressive storytelling from set to set. Shimmering Skies’ setting was a party celebrating the defeat of Ursula, but in the background, the recovered half of the Hexwell Crown was being stolen from the Great Illuminary. In Azurite Sea, the Illumineer’s headed off on a swashbu🎐ckling adventure to find Archazia, a great and powerful Illumineer who, in Archazia’s Island, would prepare us for the battle to come. It all led to Reign of Jafar, which sees Jafar take over Archazia’s Island and declare himself the Sultan of Lorcana.

Webb says the team approached the second year of Lorcana in a similar way to the first - by seeding story details here and there throughout each set. “We see🧔 Jafar stealing the half of the crown stored safely in the Great Illum✅inary,” he explains. “We see little owl footprints coming away from the impression the other half of the crown left in the sand on a beach, we see Jafar himself sneak into Archazia’s home and steal that piece of the crown (in his own little mini-heist!) and reassemble it in Archazia’s magical forge.” Players who don’t pick up on these details won’t feel lost playing each of Lorcana’s sets, but those with a keen eye for detail will be rewarded with plenty of story details to discover.

Reign of Jafar features a number of important items 🐲besides the Hexwell Crown. Throughout the set you’ll see objects like the red magic stone, a giant key, and glowing scrolls. Webb says some of these objects are part of Reign of Jafar’s story, while others are hints of their own stories that the writers might return to laterܫ. Could the glowing scrolls in Reign of Jafar relate to the floating pages in Whispers in the Well?

One of the easier throughlines to spot in Jafar’s four-set arc is his relationship with Basil, a glimmer of The Great Mouse Detective’s hero who Jafar has hypnotized into helping him track🐼 down bot✃h halves of the crown. Webb says Basil is a personal favorite of his and many of the other team members at Ravensburger. Just as Jafar hypnotized the Sultan and had his minions like Iago and the palace guards do his bidding in Aladdin, the narrative team knew Jafar would need some help finding the crown in the wide world of Lorcana. Basil was chosen as someone who would “notice the little details and pull the clues together,” Webb says. “Stay tuned in the story of Reign of Jafar though, for the conclusion of this Basil glimmer’s arc,” Webb teases. “He still has a part to play yet!”

The Final Showdown In Palace Heist

disney lorcana reign of jafar illumineer's quest next to jafar on a throne.

Year Two culminates in this year’s Illumineer’s Quest: Palace Heist. Jafar has taken over Archazia’s Island and transformed it into a trap-filled fortress - a twisted reimagining of obstacle course-filled training grounds Archazia previously used to teach Illumineers. Unlike last year’s Deep Trouble, which had us facing off against Ursula for control of the crown, Palace Heist is a game of keep away with Jafar. After seeing Jafar twice plan his own crown heist, the narrative team realized the best way to conclജude his arc was to have the illumineers perform a heist of their own.

Mechanically, Palace Heist is still a lore race, but this time, the Illumineers will be competing against the villain for control of the crown. If either side has control of the crown at the start of their turn, they will earn bonus lore that will help them reach their victory goal faster. Webb says it was important that Palace Heist feel different from Deep Trouble even if it was mechanically similar. “We brainstormed many different tropes and ways to tell this story, and we thought, what genre is all about getting a valuable object away from the bad guy?” he says. “We needed a way to get that crown away from Jafarꦫ, and doing a heist caper made perfect sense.” Narrative, design, and art teams all collaborated to make Palace Heist feel “heist-y”, Webb says. You’ll see the crown passed back and forth between glimmers and Jafar’s illusions across many of 💎Reign of Jafar’s cards, and in Palace Heist, this set’s story takes center stage.

We’ve now had two year-long adventures which culminated in a villainous glimmer ste🅰aling the Hexwell Crown and using it to take over Lorcana, but don’t expect every story arc to be so similar. Acco🌠rding to Giuffrida, there’s much more to discover in the world of Disney Lorcana. “Since we did announce Whispers in the Well, I’ll say that a great way to keep things fresh is for the team to keep moving the metaphorical camera around the realm of Lorcana,” she says. “Who knows what else is out there and what stories may be taking place? While we won’t always do four set arcs or yearlong story lines, we’re always going to craft the stories that are best for the game and our fans.”