The truth hides under infinite skies.

Welcome to San Xalco, settler.

A land of dusty plains, languid rivers, a high sun. A land of infinite potential. A land of untold secrets. Someone once ruled this plane—who, and how long ago, no one knows. Settlers have been trickling in for the past few decades to lay claim to what's left, setting up homesteads and carving out a new life. Gather round the campfires and enjoy a song and a tall tale. Everyone’s seen something, so they claim. Something out in the deserts, something lurking in the creek beds, something flickering in the sky. Just take everything with a grain of salt. And don't ask too many questions.

Aeons ago, San Xalco was a thriving plane with an intelligent civilisation, but scarcely a trace of this remains today. The infinite plains and deserts now stretch almost empty beyond the comprehension of the mortal mind. This boundless potential calls across the multiverse, plucking the troubled and the fearsome from their homes to wake refreshed under its bright sunshine. The plane settles itself with refugees, and these hardy settlers make up the boomtowns and frontier hamlets of San Xalco. The largest of these is Fort Charles, founded by Dominarian settlers centuries ago. The sheriffs of Fort Charles welcome all new arrivals, but are quick to warn them to be indoors by sundown.

Night time on San Xalco is unlike the bright and cloudless day. Under the boundless black sky, things walk in shadows that should only crawl. Lights flicker like stars before moving in unintelligible patterns. Above the crackle of log fires and the echoing chirp of crickets, hooting and howling pierces the stillness. There is something out there—many such somethings. No one ever seems to get a good look at the creatures that inhabit the night, at the upright apes that shamble in the treeline or the beasts with wings that should not be. And those who venture too far into the dark return—if they return at all—with missing memories and repressed fears, haunted by the mysteries of the night.

It is into this dichotomy of a world that the warrior planeswalker Orflaith Ó Nal has ventured. A wanderer whose chief drive is simply to add to her infamy and renown, she is drawn to the blank canvas San Xalco represents—its mysteries and its high noons in equal parts. Settling quickly into the routine of life in Fort Charles, she seeks to return to her home plane of Ulaith with stories of triumph and bravery. Instead, before long, her dreams are haunted with visions of bones and dead worlds. Something is calling her to the hot sands beyond civilisation. Something ancient, something malevolent, and something that has sought to enter the sanctuary world of San Xalco for centuries. If this intrusive presence cannot reach out its skeletal hand itself, it will drive Orflaith mad enough to act as its catspaw, digging in the desert at midnight without memory of having left her home. What buried secret is that that lies under the skies of San Xalco?

Skies Over San Xalco is a draftable premier set using Draft Boosters, containing 261 cards (15 mythic rares, 60 rares, 80 uncommons, 101 commons, and 5 basic lands).

Mechanics

The mechanics of Skies Over San Xalco include:

Homestead: Spells with Homestead can be cast for an alternate cost. Exile it from your hand for its Homestead cost, and on a later turn, cast it without paying its mana cost by tapping creatures you control with total power equal to or greater than its mana value. Leave your mana open to follow up your Homestead spells with one-two punch to control your destiny.

Folklore: Creatures with a Folklore ability have an additional spell effect that can be cast from the graveyard. With a creature in your graveyard with a Folklore ability, simply pay the mana cost and cast the Folklore spell as a sorcery, letting the tall tales and campfire songs of your creatures live on even after they die.

Strange: A new supertype, Strange does nothing by itself but denote a subset of creatures, artifacts, enchantments, instants and sorceries that represent the cryptids of San Xalco, the extraterrestrial lights in the sky, and the odd happenings of its long nights. Strange cards can be fetched from outside the game—or from your sideboard in constructed play—by Sighting tokens, which are created by your other spells and abilities. Control the ground with Sightings, and unveil what they really represent when the opportunity arises.