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Episode 156: What's in a Prophecy
383 Plays2 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Before we get to the episode we want to remind you of a GoFundMe to support one of the kindest and most hilarious creators whose son has new onset of seizures. These is also streams for them this weekend.
Alex talks with writer and friend Tim Niederriter about the story of the set Prophecy, the last set of the before the Invasion block which was the culmination of the Weatherlight story, the first major storyline in Magic which Prophecy didn't really seem to be a part of. Tim goes through the links for that set that actually do go back to Urza (who is the worst) and the and Alex talk about how this story shapes parts of both the Invasion story, and stories on Dominaria further into the future
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources including the fact that Hobbes is now a Brand Amabassador for Quiver
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Community Updates
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. This is HobbsQ. I'm not on the episode today. Today you're going to have an episode by Alex and our friend Tim Niederreiter. But before we got started, I just wanted to kind of give people an update. Well, actually two updates. So I'm going to talk in a second about kind of the event that we did for the National Abortion Federation. I have a little bit on that. But I also want to let people know that this weekend there is a stream going on for
00:00:57
Speaker
uh anomaly one uh so lee is a edh player that people may know from just amazing tick tock videos uh very kind just individual who has been so involved with the community their son has been experiencing um
00:01:15
Speaker
seizures and this is something that is new and is unknown kind of what the course of it's going to be and Lee and their son Day could really use support. There's a GoFundMe that has been started so if you follow kind of Hobbs or my Twitter this weekend we will be tweeting out more stuff. There's gonna be pods to watch as always there's gonna be things that are gonna be given away. This is a little different this is kind of just
00:01:41
Speaker
a direct support for one of the members of our community that could really use it, especially with kind of the state of health care and people having to take time off work
Future Podcast Plans and Special Episode
00:01:50
Speaker
and everything. So we just wanted to say that. And then two weekends ago, we did the event for the National Abortion Federation, where we did kind of a fundraiser. And in addition to that, we also did gameplay. And we also had a panel of people in magic who really wanted to talk about abortion and reproductive rights.
00:02:11
Speaker
That is actually gonna be available on YouTube and we will let everybody know when it is available in case you missed it. But we just wanted to say thank you for everybody that took part in that event, for everybody that came out, supported, played, everybody that donated, everybody that just was involved in any way, shape, or form.
00:02:28
Speaker
Through all of your generosity and help, we were able to raise over $6,000 for the National Abortion Federation, a group that really ensures that both providers and people who need abortions have access to them and help people to find that access if it's needed.
00:02:45
Speaker
That was also matched by a charitable foundation, giving us the ability to kind of raise over $12,000 in a two-day weekend. And like I said, the important thing on top of the money that is raised was just the community coming together as it does. And we just wanted to say thank you again. The Goblin Lore podcast is fortunate to be able to participate in these events, and we just want to continue to do that. And we also want to just let people know when those things happen.
00:03:12
Speaker
So like I said, I will not be on the episode today. I had a lot going on, but we have a lot coming over the next month or two. Alex and I have planned kind of just some fantastic episodes in our opinion. But for today, I want really excited to hear Alex and Tim talk about prophecy.
Guest Introduction: Tim Niederreiter
00:03:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. So today we have a special episode, like usual, but a weird special episode, but weird in a good way. I'm really looking forward to this. Unfortunately Hobbs is not able to make it today. They were doing some traveling and he's got a lot of stuff going on, including a charity event coming up.
00:03:54
Speaker
that will probably have happened by the time this aired, so I'm sure I won't. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time talking about it. He'll make sure it gets on blast and stuff, so.
00:04:03
Speaker
We'll make sure your people are aware of the details of that. But then, so just me and a friend who I will introduce in a second, but I'll get my introductions out of the way as awkwardly as possible. And I'm off to a great start on that. I am Alex Newman, found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he, him. And I've got my friend Tim back. He was on a quick short episode that the two of us recorded about fourth street, this convention we went to.
00:04:32
Speaker
but actually got Tim here for a honest to God goblin lore episode. Hey Tim, you want to introduce yourself and you know where you're on the internet if folks want to find you. Hi, yeah, I'm Tim Niederreiter and I'm on, you can find me at mentalsellerpublications.com. That's also called timnederreiter.com but my name's hard to spell so I have two sites, I actually have a few sites pointing to that URL. Anyway, but I'm an author, I'm a fantasy author mostly and I like
00:05:08
Speaker
My first set, my first cards, my earliest cards are from some very early sets, but my first set that I actually played, I think, was Urza Saga. That's pretty early. I was big into Urza Saga sort of by accident. That was a set. There was a very, very small local convention that I don't think exists anymore. It was up in St. Cloud for folks who were kind of Twin Cities locals.
00:05:26
Speaker
I've played Magic since I was like, I guess, seven?
00:05:33
Speaker
And I went there with my dad and some friends of his because we were all playing magic at the time and they had... There was a handful of vendors in there because it was D&D. There was a lot more tabletop stuff than magic. There was some magic. There were some board games they had. One year they set up some PlayStations and my brother and I entered a Soul Blade tournament which was fun.
00:05:56
Speaker
But there was one vendor, which was a local store that would show up there, and my brother and I basically bought them out of Urza Saga tournament packs for folks who weren't playing back then. Originally, the Magic Head 60 card seal decks was their starter
Magic: The Gathering Storytelling Evolution
00:06:17
Speaker
decks.
00:06:18
Speaker
with just completely randomized cards. And then they decided to go up to the tournament pack, which was 75. That was, I believe, the same number of rares, but it had more lands and more commons or something. It gave you a little more to work with. And then it was a few sets later. I think by that point, they had some pre-constructed decks, but within a few sets, they were just making pre-constructed decks. They didn't have randomized decks. You either bought random boosters or you bought a pre-constructed deck, and that was kind of what you did.
00:06:48
Speaker
So yeah, I remember buying a lot of ersa saga and really liking that set Yeah, my brother had an enchantment heavy pre-constructed deck from ersa saga So we were both we were probably both because my twin brother and I were probably really seven This was 1997 or 1998. So we were pretty young
00:07:07
Speaker
Anyway, but we'd been playing, we had actually gotten cards back in, was it Tempest? That was the earliest, actually, when we started playing, but we never really got into the game heavily until there was a saga.
00:07:19
Speaker
But that kind of leads us to what we were talking about today, actually. Because back then, there were blocks, right? There were three sets to a block, and there was one big set, that was there was a saga, and there were two lesser sets, two smaller sets, Ursa's legacy, and Ursa's destiny. And Ursa's destiny is where my story really begins, what I wanted to talk about today. It's kind of funny.
00:07:40
Speaker
Oh, wow. Okay, that's cool. See, I didn't realize that. So, as well, depending on the name, how this podcast is named, the listeners will know by this point, but the topic we wanted to talk about, and Tim and I were sitting at Ed Forestry, we're sitting at this convention. This is, if you missed our previous episode, this is a writing convention that happens in Minneapolis. So that's just where Tim and I met. And this year was actually held in person for the
00:08:05
Speaker
that first time in a couple of years. And so we were chatting about things to bring Tim on the show to talk about. And Tim, you mentioned something about prophecy and how the set prophecy relates to the Phyrexian invasion of Naminaria, the first time in the invasion block and all this stuff. And I knew none of this. I remember I was playing back then, I was really into the story of invasion. And I read a lot of the books, but I had no idea why prophecy
00:08:34
Speaker
What that had to do like that was the last set it was the last book before the invasion cycle and I had no idea why it was relevant so it's barely relevant actually to the invasion because because of events in the invasion where half the characters that we would meet would have met in prophecy or half that because prophecy is about a war between keld and jamura and It takes place mostly in jamura but the thing about
00:09:02
Speaker
Keld is very important during the invasion, but Jamura disappears at the beginning of the invasion storyline. It literally phases out because of Tefri. So it doesn't take part in the invasion battles and any of that stuff. However, it's interesting. Actually, I think that actually really the rut here is the weird timeline of how these sets were released and the storyline. Which makes sense. Sorry. Well, that's just a thing, kind of some set.
00:09:31
Speaker
Doing some set dressing for how the story was told back then if you weren't playing the the story It was still early fairly early years for the game. We were talking six seven eight years from from the beginning of the game to you know Now it's we're pushing 30. I don't think we're quite at 30 yet. No, we're past 30 getting there was 93 would be though. I think it was earlier than that actually wasn't it? Nineteen ninety-one
00:09:55
Speaker
Maybe I'm mistaken. Yeah, you know better than nineties. So really nice. So we're in that in that range now. So, you know
00:10:03
Speaker
those first few years, even the first eight years, it's still early for the game relative to where we're at now. By now, how Wizards tells the story has been much more figured out. You've got books sometimes, you've got the novellas sometimes, you've got the short fiction on the websites. They're much better at telling the story through the cards for the most part.
00:10:28
Speaker
There's some weird exceptions in the early days like Tempest that you mentioned. There's a couple of sets. And actually Saga. Saga and Destiny specifically. Especially Ursus Destiny. The Saga block tells a very long-form story in the cards.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, and so there were some sets there where they did some with that, but it was, let's call it hit or miss for the first half or so of the game's life. To these days, it's pretty consistent. How they tell the story with the cards is
Lore and Themes of Keldins and Prophecy
00:11:01
Speaker
pretty consistent and pretty
00:11:03
Speaker
better. I guess the way they're relating more story maybe better is the maybe it's a matter of taste. But exactly. So I don't want to I don't want to give a qualitative say that this is better or worse. But it's, I think there's more story being delivered more consistently with the cards now than they
00:11:22
Speaker
used to definitely with some of the sets i think it's still i don't think i wouldn't say it's hit and miss because they still do a lot with flavor text and card art in every set now and they're very consistently doing a lot with both those things however i would say the amount of story that gets relayed in something like throwing a bell drain is very small that's mostly a setting based uh set it's very very focused on this one on the plain bell drain and
00:11:48
Speaker
But then in a set like War of the Spark, it's almost all focused on this story. So they vary what they actually try to do with each set, which is cool. That's fair. No, that's fair. Maybe what I should say is not that it's consistently more, but that Wizards has a better handle on how to do it and when they want to do it.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yes, I agree with that. Yeah, putting all that aside. So going back to when we're talking about prophecy, when we're talking about apparently, there's a song block, which I didn't realize was also relevant to this. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I did, but that's neither here nor there. When we're going back to these sets, there was definitely still story, and there was… but it was…
00:12:29
Speaker
not told in the same ways. I think they weren't as good at integrating it into different ways and to telling it different manners. And so sometimes you'll get things like, I think what we're going to talk about where there are sets that have relevance and a whole lot of people who actually pay attention to story and flavor and stuff don't catch the relevance necessarily. Yes. Yes. It took me years to realize why it was so cool, why the relationship between specifically
00:12:56
Speaker
the novel bloodlines which is relates the story of ursa's destiny they can those that corresponds to that set that novel as the last of the ursa's block ursa's saga block oh and prophecies these two combine these two really do come together very nicely and they provide a lot of context for the invasion and specifically the events that follow aladdin ree who is you know one of the main one of the main characters in the invasion saga and
00:13:25
Speaker
His people, when they meet the Kelvins, it explains so much when you know what the Kelvins have been through already. Anyway. Okay, cool. So where's a good place to start with this?
00:13:36
Speaker
Okay, so I don't know if you want to go... I don't think chronologically is necessarily the best way to start, but I do want to go back to Destiny and explain, because Kel'dan's were introduced back in, I think, Weatherlight, a very... a set before rarity symbols for head colors. It's that old. It's before Tempest. I want to say, was there a Kel'dan card in Alpha? Maraxis of Kel'd was the Warlord in Weatherlight who had...
00:13:59
Speaker
uh captured one of the characters that girard needs to free to to help lead him into the tempest storyline basically he wants to girard is the captain of the weather as the commander of the weather light and he wants to save the captain of the weather lights he say who's been captured by vorath that's the story of tempest and all those sets okay so yeah
00:14:18
Speaker
And he's like the hero of the franchise, right? At this time. Gerard is the hero. Absolutely. Yeah. Anyway. That's a good relation to Maxis. I can pick you to call my name. Mur-axis. Mur-axis. Thank you. M-U-R. Mur-axis. It's M-A-R, actually. Sorry.
00:14:34
Speaker
If anyone wants to spell that it was there was a card I think that had it but he was yes There was a I remember seeing that card because there there were keldon warlord was actually a card from alpha. So that was a name Just kind of and that's it like alpha didn't have story so much as it just had random Flavorful things was like keldon warlord. That sounds interesting and then later they're like, okay Well, if there's a keldon warlord what's killed and where's this person from? Yeah
00:15:04
Speaker
Though you'll also notice that Kel'dan Warlord, the art for the original Kel'dan Warlord, doesn't look anything like the Kel'dans as we know them now, which is actually important. I'm sorry, this is actually kind of funny. Glad you brought this up. But the fact is the Kel'dans have always been kind of gray-skinned humans that are big and strong. They're barbaric. They wage war against each other all the time. They wage war against other people all the time. They're the classic fantasy of barbarians culture. Kind of like the Klingons of magic at this time.
00:15:30
Speaker
To use the comparison to Star Trek. So the thing about the Kelton's and Maraxis was a mercenary So he was work and he was up to no good. I'm like Kelton's frequently are no good in the storylines They're frequently heels for a long time. They are the heels
00:15:46
Speaker
And in Prophecy, they're the heels. They're the bad guys. They do the bad stuff. They're up to no good. They're also by and large, especially early, they are mono-red, which especially early on, this is a thing that they definitely gotten better at with their storytelling and development, but early on, red and black were the colors of the villains.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so it really kind of fit that they're like, well, this is a nation of mono red. So that means these are going to be people who are doing the bad things. At the very least, they're chaotic neutral in D&D terms, but probably a lot of them were pretty evil. Yeah. But one of the key things that we can note is that Weatherlight takes place long after Urza saga, even though the set was published way before Urza saga.
00:16:34
Speaker
So anyway, and it's important because Ursa's creating the weather light, which is the flying ship that travels the planes for those who don't know.
00:16:43
Speaker
I guess most listeners to your podcast are going to know that, but because that's a very important part, central part of the lore a lot in a lot of these older storylines. Yeah. And then it's, it's absolutely good to, to lay that from that, that groundwork too, just to, I just want to say that the whole legacy, Ursa's legacy refers to the weather light and the other artifacts that were created to fight Phyrexia, the ultimate villain of the original series of the original, of the older sets. Ursa's legacy of machine people, you know, just awful, terrible place.
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, so his legacy refers to his rummage sales, I like to say. It was all the stuff that Urza tried to sell at his Sunday garage sale and couldn't, so then he put it in a box, stuck it on the weather light, and it became part of the legacy. Which is Gerard, and Gerard, the hero of the series, is the guy who kind of inherits this. He's part of the legacy.
00:17:36
Speaker
Anyway, that's not central to the core of the Keldins or the storyline, but it's central to the core of the storyline that Keldins relate to. However, the look of the Keldins is something I want to draw your attention to because Keldins appear in pretty much every era of magic at this point.
00:17:52
Speaker
and not every set, but definitely in every era. And in the post-invasion sets where we ever come back, you see that they're actually elves. They're elven keldins. They look like half elf, half kelvin, which makes sense because of Aladdin Marie, he's an elf. His people end up allying with the kelvins. Their descendants are half elf kelvin.
00:18:09
Speaker
That part I remember from from the invasion books. I don't I've read prophecy. I remember nothing from it, but I Mean if there's if there's important things, you know texture from invasion stuff to be honest, there's very little The thing about prophecies is to war of artifacts. It reminds me actually the old brothers war storyline
00:18:30
Speaker
because there's so many artifacts on both
Gatha's Experiments and Prophecy Implications
00:18:32
Speaker
sides. There are huge war machines on the side of the Gemarins, and a giant land battleships and stuff on the side of the Kelvins. So just get this across first, it is a cyber, it is a Magitek type setting at this point. And the Kelvins, even the Kelvins who are barbarians are waging war with advanced technology basically, which is interesting. And I'm not sure if I even understand fully why that's the case.
00:18:58
Speaker
But there's this element of how much the Keldins change between Ursa's destiny, in which a rogue Talarian wizard, Talaria being Ursa's school for wizards to help fight the Phyrexians, this rogue wizard named Gatha decides he wants to do his part to help protect from the Phyrexian invasion that everyone knows is coming, on Talaria anyway.
00:19:23
Speaker
And so he goes to Keld because he knows they're powerful warriors. He's heard about them. He goes to Keld. He does experiments on the Kelvins, trying to make them super soldiers, basically. And that's where it really starts tying together. In the novel Bloodlines, Gatha, his experiments are successful. He's able to create very powerful warriors who are also kind of dangerously scary and
00:19:47
Speaker
similar to more similar to Phyrexians than you might like, unlike the Metathran that Ursa created to be his vanguard against the Phyrexians. Which kind of makes sense because the Metathran troops that he creates are mono blue when they're represented in cards because this is a this by the way is part of the whole Ursa weirdness. There's a lot of there's a lot of he's he's kind of the worst and he's the worst but he's also
00:20:12
Speaker
There's a lot of there's just a like urs is a mono blue card for the most part like a lot of the time He said maybe when he's been depicted in card more recently blue white or very good point that he is Yeah, his the only card that he was represented in because they couldn't do planeswalkers back in the day They didn't come up with that was blind seer which is like him but not him like it was his disguise blue which is perfect fits his complete like moral and
00:20:39
Speaker
He's ambiguous at best ambiguous. There he goes. He has no, yeah, he's just going to do whatever it takes to win and his methods start to resemble that of the phyrexians by the end. That's not even the end. There's a classic flavor text from Ursus destiny, destiny, the card extruder, one of my favorites, which is toward the end, versus means began to resemble phyrexians ends. That is actually literally in the, in the
00:21:08
Speaker
Yeah, and so, no, but that, you think of that, the Metathran, that's so fascinating. Of course, the Keldins. And here's an entire tangent that I don't want a tangent too hard, but is something that I'm interested in. It sounds a little bit like, story-wise, this is...
00:21:27
Speaker
taking on the trope of like the, you know, like the Fremen, or these desert warriors, or not necessarily desert, it's usually desert mountain and ice. But it's exactly it's it's it's this, this sort of story trope of a group of people living in a harsh environment, that everyone else kind of discount says, ah, they're just kind of weird and maniacs.
00:21:53
Speaker
And then whenever they actually come into play, it's like, oh, this harsh environment carved them into a tool of destruction. And they and that's, you know, in Dune with the Fremen in and the Wheel of Time has their version. There's so many. There's so many versions of that. And I didn't realize that in a way that Keldan are kind of, oh, they have that in magic. And the Keldans are absolutely that's why I say they're like kind of like the Klingons. They're the guys you need on your side when you're going to face the ultimate enemy.
00:22:21
Speaker
Anyway, so the thing about the thing about that's interesting about gatha is even though he is he dies before the end of the bloodlines He's the phyrexians find out what he's doing and they go after him try to take over his research and kill him And or corrupt him he sacrifices himself to protect his experiments and Then we basically don't hear about them again for quite a while in story world time what happened is
00:22:44
Speaker
to those mutated super soldiers that he created. They're not even mutated. Think of them as genetically modified, because by the time prophecy rolls around, which is probably a few hundred years later in story world time. I forget, I don't know exactly, but it's at least a hundred years later.
Real-world Parallels in Magic's Narrative
00:22:59
Speaker
Because this storyline takes place after MacKettie masks, after Tempest, after all these books, and Gerard isn't even born in bloodlines. So we can assume it's been at least 50 years, and I assume more than that. Anyway.
00:23:14
Speaker
So by this point, and not to get too just super nerd here, but by this point, the Kalans invade Jomura, right? And they bring with them what seems to be advanced technology, but which also includes monsters. I mean, you may not, for those who don't remember the masks block, which includes masks, Marchetti masks, Nemesis and Prophecy,
00:23:39
Speaker
There was, the mechanic in masks was spell shapers, but that was a confusing, or that was a confusing creature type that was used for creatures that, for all sorts of creatures that could, you could discard a card and basically turn it into a specific spell, depending on your spell shaper. Well, there were legendary spell shapers in Prophecy, the Prophecy block. One of them, there was one of each color, and the black one, the one for black, the color black mana in magic, was Greel, Mindraker.
00:24:07
Speaker
Who's a Keldan? He's not read at all. He's a Keldan. And he is a character in the book. However, unlike some of these characters, however, and he, in fact, when they meet him in the book, he starts out as a baby. He's actually a baby at the start of prophecy. And the story doesn't take place over that long a time to span. He is one of these descendants of Gatha's super soldiers.
00:24:31
Speaker
That's my theory anyway. And that's where these sets really tie together because he is sucking the life. He's literally able to suck the life out of the other babies in the cribs around him. So he's an awful monster. He's just the worst. But he uses that power to grow up super fast and super mean. So he becomes an adult very quickly, at least of adult size. So he's basically a man child. We don't get a ton of character from him. The novel Prophecy isn't super well written.
00:24:55
Speaker
in my humble opinion. I mean, there was a lot of problems with it as a, as a novel. However, I find it fascinating that the Kelvins just kind of like, where did Greel come? Nobody even asks where Greel came from. Cause that set, that book wasn't that good. The set wasn't that much fun in my opinion.
00:25:10
Speaker
It's sort of famous for not being a great set. We have an invasion that happened, which was a really cool block. Also, one of the mechanics in prophecy was called... It was the Rhystic mechanic. The Rhystic mechanic, which was the card would do something. It was either slightly under-costed or slightly overpowered, but then your opponent could pay mana to counteract or reduce the effects of the card.
00:25:40
Speaker
and basically that just doesn't like especially in a competitive sense you don't ever give you give your opponent choices that's just not a great those aren't the best cards because then you're you're letting them choose the optimal path and you don't i don't know i'm not a huge competitive player but that's my understanding there and it also no i agree with that i agree with that and even in less competitive play
00:26:04
Speaker
It doesn't feel as good, some of those cards that can just not work. Like, I think one of theirs is a land that can tap for mana of any color, but then someone can pay mana so that it doesn't make mana or something. They're just not... There's not a lot that are fun to play with. There's a few, I mean, Rhystic Study, if you play command, there's a famous one. That's a fair card. Yeah, totally fair. I mean, that one is... That's a very good card, actually. It's very good. But if you're very used to that mechanic...
00:26:28
Speaker
Because there are still mechanics like that one where it's you giving your opponent a choice But it's to give you a benefit or not. Yes something to stop you from getting it so yeah, it's a good card because it's it's like a lot of these cards out there that
00:26:44
Speaker
Anyway, make your opponent consider their actions more carefully. Yes, and that one is unlike some of the other Rhystic stuff. It's not, I try to do a thing and then someone else can punish me for it, paying mana. This is almost the reverse where it's like, I get a bonus if other people don't do the thing.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yes. And so there's still a few cards. That's a well-designed version of that card. Yeah. And I'll say, you know, as a big casual player myself, there's a few cards I really liked in Prophecy because all of the wins were just eight and 10 mana spells that were huge effects that you can't play in competitive games, but as a big durdle, like I enjoyed playing those. So there was a few things that we played with Act 2. I'm looking at the legendary spell shapers from that set right now.
00:27:31
Speaker
Two of them I played in text. Which ones? It's one of the lion who has a wrath of God. And then Joel. Joel. Joel. Joel. Joel. Joel. The Empress of Beasts who animates all lands target player controls.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's three. Oh, right. That's which can be cool on your side or on the other. You can you can blow up someone's lands if you turn them all into creatures and then begin of the lion or something. If there's some left. Well, on there's because you're a target player, not all. So it's.
00:28:09
Speaker
I, there was a few cards, but I understand like for the most part, especially with the invasion block and invasion was the, was a gold set and multicolor sets are always big. It was one of the first, I mean, legends was the first, but really I think invasion was the second.
00:28:23
Speaker
I don't think they did a multi-color set. I think it was the second really big gold set, because there were other sets that had multi-colored cards, like Weatherlight and that block had some multi-colored cards in it, but they were very small. Same with Ice Age. It's a multi-colored card. Yeah, Ice Age had a few in the pocket. Very tiny. I don't think there was any set build around it again until Invasion happened again, and that was all three sets were multi-colored.
00:28:46
Speaker
So, yeah, you're right. Like for just from a card standpoint, that's that's a reason why I like. And even from a story standpoint, invasion very much overshadows prophecy, which is kind of a side thing. Good point. A dark side. It's a it's a dark side story right before the invasion happens. Yeah. I mean, and even the first two sets in the block that prophecy are in overshadowed it more because how they died. Yeah. How they tied into invasion.
00:29:14
Speaker
because they're about Gerard in Marchetti masks, they're about Gerard and his crew. And, or they're about Volrath and Crovax and all that. Yup, yup, yup, that's true, so. In Emesis. Yeah, so you kind of go through the industry shows up as well.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, you kind of had Mercadian about the heroes for our story, including, of course, Squee, one of the most important cards on that set. And, oh, it's Goblin Lore we got to represent. And then, you know, Nemesis was kind of like the villain story right before the invasion, too. I hadn't really thought of that duality. And then Prophecy was...
00:29:48
Speaker
I don't know. Something else, right? Something else. Prophecy is kind of the Wetworks story. It's kind of the the secret war story of the Masked Block, which I think is one of the reasons it's in the Masked Block and kind of makes sense there because it's the it's the it's the dirty war that's going on in Dominaria.
00:30:08
Speaker
that shows nobody cares about the invasion already over there. Most people don't even notice it's happening. They don't know what's going to happen. That's a fair point. Which is going to show how vulnerable they are. But granted, that is not necessarily a good concept for an actual novel because it doesn't go anywhere. But it is a very interesting concept, again, in the grand scope of the storyline. OK. All right. So we tangented pretty hard. But there you go. I think you were telling us something.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, I was talking about, I was talking about Greel, right? Because Greel Mindraker, he's one of the legendary spell shapers in prophecy, is a Kelvin. And again, he's born and grows up all in the course of the prophecy storyline, which is kind of wild. He also dies at the end, but not minder spoiler there. He is a bad guy. He's like, but he's not like the ultimate villain either. He's just a weird monster that the Kelvins introduced into the battle during the final few chapters of the book.
00:31:02
Speaker
But the thing is, the main Kelvin force in that story is exiled about halfway through the book. They are sent away from Kelvin because they lose this duel. And they have nowhere to go but go back to Gemura and continue fighting this war.
00:31:19
Speaker
Which originally everyone was behind them in kelvin now they don't have any support Because back home people, you know, you know, too typically brutal Barbarian fashion decided now what we're done with this you and you're and we're done with you guys, too You're going away And so griel and latula and a bunch of these other characters that not had important characters honestly are sent back to jamora They fight the final battle they lose
00:31:42
Speaker
But it's an interesting element there because even though Griel's troops are destroyed, Griel and his, and Elizabeth and all their people are basically destroyed at the end. Oh, typically by Majeed of the Lion and his army.
00:31:55
Speaker
But I think, well, well-chosen effect they got for him, making a rabid god there. Oh, yeah. But just because they lose and they're wiped out doesn't change the fact that the taint of Gatha is still kind of, I would expect that's still alive in health. Because that, I didn't get the impression as a religious reader of these books, I'd read them all up to this point, as a kid. I read them all when they were coming out, basically.
00:32:24
Speaker
I even though even when I didn't like them, right? I the last one I read was actually playing chip I never I never read apocalypse because I was beginning pretty annoyed at that point I was getting older too but the thing about the thing about these This storyline is that it directly it does directly comment comment commentate Sorry, not only on kind of global politics on in our own world but on the fact that there is no
00:32:54
Speaker
There is no sense of what people are going to... I think this is actually maybe the most profound part about prophecy is that no matter who you are, you don't care about the big world issues in this sense as a nation. No matter what nation it is, they're like, no, I just want to survive. I just want to keep my people alive. Or I just want to conquer this land and take these people as my slaves like the Kelvins were doing in the beginning of prophecy.
00:33:20
Speaker
And I find that it's an incredibly disturbing story, but it's too much like real politics in some ways to be fun. Let me put it that way. Yeah. It's very bleak. That they're so concerned about this stuff that they're not paying attention to the much larger. Any materialism is all that matters. And it reminds me of the allegory for, I guess, I don't want to get too political here, but the allegory for climate change in the Game of Thrones in that series.
00:33:50
Speaker
And in A Game of Thrones, it's not that the world's heating up, it's that nobody cares that the undead are gonna eat everybody or whatever, turn everybody into them. And a prophecy, of course, the overwhelming threat of the Phyrexians is going unnoticed by everybody on the planet.
00:34:05
Speaker
The difference being that most of them don't know it's coming. It's been, Ursa's kept that secret. It's not like the Phyrexians are advertising their invasion. So it's slightly different as far as storylines go. But it is this kind of like- There's some, some analysis, some resonance. Yeah, exactly, there's resonance. And at this point, Gerard knows, Gerard has found out that the Phyrexians are planning to invade Dominaria. He's just trying to get back there in time.
00:34:33
Speaker
to protect his home world, basically. So I'm playing. Yeah, I think that was, wasn't that one of the big, the big reveal at the end of Markadian Mass, that there was an invasion fleet there? At Tempest. At Tempest. You know, in Masks they reveal that the fleet is being kept in Mercadia. There's a large Phyrexian fleet there. But in, but the card, there's a card that actually depicts the plan to invade.
00:34:57
Speaker
Dominaria in the stronghold I believe that that and the flavor text is like oh, this is Dominaria cuz George and George looking at you can see we'll give this big planet basically sphere that is Dominaria in the car. Okay little a little a Little bit episode Star Wars episode two where there's the yeah out of the the Death Star blue. It looks a lot like that Yes, it's foreshadowing. It's in very large foreshadow. Yeah, okay and
00:35:25
Speaker
And the thing is, because Saga actually takes place just after Tempest in real time, in our world, because you'll notice the first set for the first set to have colored mana symbols, or colored rarity symbols, right, was Exodus, which is the last set of the Wrath Cycle. Well, then the next set was there was a Saga.
00:35:47
Speaker
And so that's the flashback portion of the storyline. So I kind of think that this is actually more coherent. I guess this is really what it boils down to. This story is actually more coherent than people say. And even than I thought at the time, because just because it's out of order doesn't mean it's less coherent. In fact, going back in time, basically, and showing us all the things that Urza did to lead up to Gerard's heroic storyline,
00:36:13
Speaker
is pretty fascinating, and also it tells us who Gerard really is. He's the heir of the legacy. He's the guy who's been tasked with defeating Phyrexia.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and some of that flashback stuff really shows you about Urza too, and it shows you his desperation even sometimes, you know, maybe hundreds of years before the actual thing. And some of it is, I guess, a big part too for him is he doesn't know when it's going to happen. He just knows that it's going to happen.
00:36:47
Speaker
And so he's just desperately running from plan to plan, trying to find something that will work, getting more and more extreme kind of as he goes. Maybe not exactly plan to plan, but I think as a curve, he probably is getting more extreme as he gets closer.
00:37:04
Speaker
Definitely, but he also actually kind of gets comfortable and this is another because by the time destiny versus destiny rolls around He's creating the the the he's creating the the legacy. He's created all that's the legacy It's all in process and destiny is like now I need an army now We need to make the metathrand now we need to make these machines and weapons and find allies and stuff and they sense Talarian Wizards to Jamura during prophecy and
00:37:31
Speaker
So I guess that's the other interesting parallel because obviously the gatha, a thalarian wizard, goes to keld in bloodlines and he helps them become more powerful. And what are the rain and barren and those people in the thalarian expedition to Jamuridu? They try to help them become stronger and protect them.
00:37:52
Speaker
So it's an interesting like seesaw effect of like, it's like, okay, we gave weapons to the Kelvins by mistake. Now we've got to give weapons to the Jamurans to protect themselves from the Kelvins. Oh, because eventually the Forexians are going to show up and we're going to want to recruit the Jamurans to fight them. Exactly. And of course, that blows up in Urge's face. Wind to Fairy just phases out. Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, which that's the whole thing I remember I remember that I like reading those books and it's like that, you know, not quite thinking, you know, not especially as a young teenage, you know, who me at the time was like, well, he's just, you know, running away and not trying to face and then
00:38:32
Speaker
But then, God, who was it at one point in the books, maybe it was Baron, noticed that a large Phyrexian invasion force just ends up drowning because they thought there was going to be an island somewhere and then it wasn't there. And it's like, you know, maybe his plan wasn't the worst. And now, of course, in the current story on Dominaria we're dealing with.
00:38:53
Speaker
some of Teferi's regret for that, because part of his kingdom, or part of his home, the kingdom that was his home, is still phased out. He hasn't been able to bring it back yet. So there's some more to that whole thing, and even some modern Romans. I mean, just to let all the listeners know about the time travel as we're recording this, we're just beginning to get the earliest previews for Dominaria United, so we don't know all of what that story is going to hold yet. But
00:39:23
Speaker
And say from the previous Dominaria set, where Teferi shows up, that was a big part of his storyline was concerned about this and looking for maybe something left behind by Urza that would help him bring his home back into phase. That's how he got his spark too, wasn't it? He found- He got his spark during the bloodlines, actually.
Thematic Messages in Magic's Lore
00:39:49
Speaker
Well, no, again, because he used up his spark during the time spiral block. Oh, okay. So you got a new spark. Yeah, he used his old walker spark during time spiral. And that brought some of the kingdoms back. Because he phased out, I want to say it was three places, Shiv,
00:40:13
Speaker
I didn't face out Shiv. Shiv's a very important part of the image. I'm totally blank and then I want to say there were three I may be wrong and then it was like one was his home that he just did because this is my home and then there were two others that said yeah we'll join you on your plan and then he was able to bring like the other two home I think. I think I want to say and I may be wrong because it's been a while since I read Time Spiral but I want to say he had to make a choice about which ones to bring back
00:40:38
Speaker
And he chose to bring back the others because he's like, they weren't really part of this. They kind of just, I kind of take got them to take along later. Yeah. So they shouldn't have paid the consequences of this. But I it's been a while. I don't know exactly that because I haven't caught up on the storyline. This is getting us a little, this is getting us a little far afield from from the storyline you came on to talk about.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, but I want to also tell you, I want to mention, though, that why is the set called prophecy, right? Oh, yeah. Why is prophecy called prophecy? There's no prophecy in the story that I remember. No, no, I don't think there's any words. No, no, there's nothing about prophecy in the cards. There's no foretell mechanic or anything like that. But you know what? The set's called prophecy. I actually think it's kind of it's a callback and it's a literary reference for one thing, because, you know, the prophecy is in the original biblical revelation meaning of the word.
00:41:33
Speaker
Um, I don't think I could elucidate it. Okay. Well, what, uh, just, just to say a revelation or a prophecy in the biblical sense, this is where the, the root of the word. I think in basically implies that this is a, it's about understanding. It's something is being revealed. It's not about telling the future. So a prophecy might refer to the future or it might refer to the past.
00:42:01
Speaker
It's a discovery that something has been prophesied more than it is something that is a prophecy of something that will come. Does that make sense? I think so. The set prophecy doesn't refer to the future, it refers to the past. That's what the title is referring to a prophecy being fulfilled in the set rather than a prophecy being made in the set. And what is the fulfillment of the prophecy? Now that's the real question.
00:42:28
Speaker
And I posit that it is actually the gat of thought that the Kelvins were going to need to be stronger. And they do get stronger in prophecy because, and they get stronger and they kick Phyrexian's butt eventually. They kick a lot of Phyrexian ass in the invasion.
00:42:43
Speaker
which admittedly is a little weird when you consider they're so nasty in prophecy. Hey, those are the bad tellers, right? Well, there's also a whole thing of the now there's actually something for us all to unify around because there was a big part of invasion in general, but I want to say it was more apocalypse. And this also kind of fits in the cards too. But there was a lot of story bits in apocalypse,
00:43:08
Speaker
where it was kind of like, everyone's being pushed from all sides. And so you just have, you have things like you mentioned earlier with, I don't know if I'm pronouncing, was it Elodomri? You were pronouncing it down. Elodomri, yeah. That's what I said. I don't know. So like him and his elves from Wrath. So they were on the plane of Wrath, which was an artificial plane constructed by Phyrexia.
00:43:31
Speaker
which in the second set slash second phase of the invasion actually overlaid on to Dominaria. This is how Phyrexia brought just huge armies into play immediately. Well, not immediately. They had an early phase. Not to mention the coolest location ever created in Magic the Gathering. Oh my god. The Stronghold from Wrathcycle. Stronghold, yeah. Appears in Urborg. Yep. Active volcano castle in it.
00:43:55
Speaker
Exactly. So you have all these things where, so then all of a sudden, the forest that these elves are a part of is in the Keldin Wastes. And so then in the mountains. And so that's where, like you said, like in the current Dan Damen area, there's these half, you know, these elven and Keldin sort of ancestors.
00:44:16
Speaker
Now you have these elves and these half-elves, Kildens, in a current day, whose ancestors were this entirely separate force of Kildens in their home and this force of elves who were in their home when it laid over. And then the two of them are kind of like looking around, all these Phyrexians around, they're like, you and these barbarians fighting Phyrexians? Yeah, you and these elves fighting them? Yeah, all right. And then we just joined forces and start fighting Phyrexians together because they're like,
00:44:43
Speaker
I don't know you. These are all bad guys. We don't have a history of getting along, but you're not phyrexians and you're fighting them. That makes you our friend. That's it. That's all it took. And maybe that's, I mean, honestly, if you want to take a hopeful message for prophecy, it's that kind of thing. It's like, okay, so the set prophecy is the dark period of division, and then the invasion will bring everyone together.
00:45:10
Speaker
But prophecy itself, I think, is the fulfillment of not Ursa's saga or Ursa's legacy, but of Gatha's legacy, because it shows that the Keladins have become incredibly powerful. They're powerful enough to go and feed people, even though they're a weird mountain culture that lives in this little, relatively small part of the world. And so they're very strong. It's so strong that they can even destroy this army they've created just because they no longer want what it's doing.
00:45:41
Speaker
Anyway, I I don't know maybe I wasn't coherent enough, but I think this is a very interesting set and it speaks a lot to Honestly geopolitics, which is maybe not the most interesting factor in the world and it doesn't pertain as closely to the psychological angle you usually take on storylines in magic, but it it really fascinates me
00:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's an interesting thing. Like I said, I didn't know all this stuff about, you know, the Keldins being part of one of Urza's sort of disciple, you know, one of the people trained by Urza. I don't know, disciple is the right term, but, you know, someone, a former, a former trainee of his, a former student of his, maybe is a better term.
00:46:24
Speaker
and how that sort of all ties into things and then like you say eventually then leads into them actually standing against the phyrexians like this this guy envisioned even if it sounds like some he took after ursa maybe in some of his questionable methods as well absolutely but i'll one last thing i want to point out about the kelvins is the carter changes
00:46:44
Speaker
Most of the Kelvins, as depicted in the earlier sets, look a lot skinnier, honestly. Like, Kelvin Vandals is a great card art. Yeah, there's a bunch of these guys, they look pretty jacked, but they're not like hulking freaks, like Maraxis is depicted as. I mean, like, these guys, like, Kelvin just kind of default looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Invasion storyline.
00:47:06
Speaker
At least a man, male Keldins look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, female Keldins have a little more variety. But these guys are these classic super barbarians by the time the invasion rolls around. And they're not, frankly, in Ursus Destiny where Keldin Vandals is the card printed. Because the Keldins got modified and it passed down through their whole culture, their whole society is completely different. And I love the vast transformation of their culture that takes place over all these sets. It's so fascinating.
00:47:37
Speaker
Even though, again, they're off in the heel, even though we don't actually get to know a ton about what's going on there, even though there are short stories and stuff like the Fist of Kel, I believe is the name of this one short story, that's quite good. It's in one of those collections from way back. I forget which one, sorry. Which is just basically a description of how their government works and how each warlord has their fist. It's just like their five best fighters who kind of serve as their hand. Anyway.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's a, it's a cool, it's a culture, it's a fantasy culture that really illuminates through a history that seems well composed in hindsight, which is very surprising given how disparate these story elements are.
Conclusion and Community Impact
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, I think that might bring us to an end here. I'm going to close this with something that I realized I forgot to do at the top. I just want to give a shout out to the Granted Coffee Company. They're a minority-run LGBTQ-owned and run coffee company that supports gamers and they've been supporting us for a while.
00:48:44
Speaker
I say every time that Hobbs isn't here, I tend to forget because I'm not a big coffee person. I don't drink coffee, so I don't do their products myself, but I know Hobbs does. He absolutely loves them. And I can say, at least for myself, that I love the organization and all the support they give us and all the good stuff that they put out in the community. So if you are a person who enjoys coffee, please check them out. And that's our show for today.
00:49:09
Speaker
You can find both of the hosts on Twitter. Hobbs can be found at Hobbs Q and Alex can be found at Mel underscore. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to goblin lore pod on Twitter, or email us at goblin lore podcast at gmail.com.
00:49:27
Speaker
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00:49:41
Speaker
The music for today's show was by Vindergotten, who can be found at vindergotten at badcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve raffle on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing 4thos content. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmpg or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.