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Episode 174: Seanan McGuire takes on the Phyrexians
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! This week we welcome back Seanan McGuire to discuss her work on the main story line for All Will Be One. Spoiler alert - we discuss the contents of the story in detail. Go read it first! Also we gave her listener questions to tackle!
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Thanks
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to this week's episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. We once again have a very special guest. Before I get to that, I'd like to thank the Grinding Coffee Company for supporting the cast. They are a minority-owned LGBT-run coffee company that provides Hobbs with all of his caffeine to keep going through dealing with his kids and his job and everything. And they keep Hobbs in goblin mode.
Host and Guest Introductions
00:01:00
Speaker
I'm Taya, she, her, they, them. Um, I'm at Taya transcends on Twitter and we have Hobbs with us as usual. Hi all. Uh, yeah. Uh, Hobbs Q. I can be found on Twitter at Hobbs Q. My pronouns are he, him. I'm glad to be back recording. And we don't have Alex tonight, um, because we have a very special guest, um, speaker talking all about the
00:01:26
Speaker
The lovely, lovely Phyrexians. The things we don't like to discuss. Yeah. I'd like to welcome back Seanan McGuire, the author of the main story for All Will Be One. Welcome. Thank you for joining us again. Thank you for having me. And while I am sorry to miss Alex, I am also very glad for Alex's sake that we're missing Alex, because
00:01:55
Speaker
Yeah, he's very, he's very, very good at letting us know.
Alex's Absence and Mental Health
00:01:59
Speaker
This is something if you, if people are listening and I'm not aware at this point, you know, we've discussed this throughout that the fire accident storyline in particular, and the timeline with which it was kind of given being pretty open ended is just not something that Alex enjoys and hasn't for a very long time when it comes to magic. So we've done a couple of times where we've spoken with either writers or we've discussed different elements of the actual storyline.
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, the fire axing storyline and Alex has chosen to not be a part of that. And it actually happened to work that Alex couldn't record this week. So, Seanan, thank you for stepping in last minute too. Yeah, thank you for having me. Like big shout out to Alex as someone who works in multiple, multiple different franchises. There are so many people who will not take care of their own mental health in relation to a franchise that they feel invested in.
00:02:49
Speaker
They will know a storyline is going to do them harm and they'll show up anyway because they feel obligated. So like A plus Alex. Yeah, we're happy that he is doing what he needs to do for himself and that is central to our podcast really. Yay.
What Should Tyvar Do Next?
00:03:08
Speaker
So yeah, well, as always, we start with a question to get things going and
00:03:15
Speaker
Um, what I have for this week. And, um, and this is going to be true. I think it's some of the questions we have in a lot of them, you know, if there's anything that could be a problem with future. Let us know, we will skip it and move on. We don't want to cause any trouble. We can be funny, but the question for today is what should Tyvar do after the phyrexians are handled?
00:03:37
Speaker
He should go on a dumplings tour of the multiverse. Just him and Kaya hitting every food court anywhere in the multiverse. I want to see him try to deal with pierogies on Innistrad. And I am very sorry. I did at one point figure out which of the many bread around meat options would be present on Ravnica, but I cannot pronounce it. I just want to watch. It'll be hilarious. Now I want to know what the Ravnica one is. We did.
00:04:05
Speaker
In my D&D campaign, we did pierogies on Ravnica, but I'm sure there is something more authentic. Yeah, it's based on Czech cuisine on Ravnica, and there is a specific Czech... Please, if you are Czech, don't kill me for saying this, but there is a specific Czech pierogi equivalent, as it were, where it's not a pierogi, but it's in that same family of foods.
00:04:31
Speaker
Which is true of just about every cultural group you go to. You know, I want to see him chowing down on samosas on Kaladesh. Like, let's just go. It will be completely ridiculous and it will make every vorthos really happy while confusing all of the people who don't actually understand where the story is in these cards.
00:04:53
Speaker
I'm not I'm not I'm gonna I have four four four L drain. I think it needs to be sausage rolls. Oh, yeah, probably I probably just craving sausage rolls. So yeah, who isn't craving sausage rolls? Yeah, that is that is great. The I want to see him. It's so easy because I just love this plane so much, but I want to see him go to Kylum and partner up with
00:05:21
Speaker
Kaido or Kaya, either one would be great, either of our K planes walkers, and just dominate the arena. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think for the arena, we want to go with Kaido just because he and Tyvar- Yeah, Tyvar has the power set that it really fits that. And Tyvar and Kaido make just such a hilarious combat team. Like they are so diametrically opposed, but they fit together so well.
00:05:48
Speaker
So I also had Tyvar just basically taking a long vacation. And that's because, you know, I think with everything we talk about, we always see magic kind of like conflict and strife. So I would want to see him maybe hopping just around, maybe see I was going to go with food because food is usually where my my brain goes to. So to do something a little bit different, I would have him go just basically mentor goblin tribes across the multiverse.
Overview of Phyrexia Storyline
00:06:14
Speaker
just like try to adapt to see what goblins need from him and that's what I think I would like to say Taibardu. Okay. To see the differences like how would you approach the Tarkir like furry goblins versus the monkey goblins on Ixalan.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, man, it is too bad that, like, I don't think Lorwynn is ever going to be an option for visitation because watching you deal with the deer elves on Lorwynn is hilarious. Yes. What do you mean that the vast spreading rack of antlers is a sign of masculinity here? Yeah, that would be like he ends up on Lorwynn and he actually is just like, no, I'm going to go hang out with Wart Bogardante. You know, like she seems a lot nicer than you. Yeah, I need a hat.
00:06:59
Speaker
Tyvar and his giant hat of antlers. I'm so glad you got to write Tyvar. Oh, I am I am legit astonished that the second they announced the Planeswalker lineup for one
00:07:14
Speaker
Everyone who knows me did not go. Seanan wrote the main story. I immediately thought it and then I'm like, I don't know. I know you so I don't want to give it like I had any inside information when I didn't. I don't really feel like that was inside information. That was my outside information is what that was.
00:07:39
Speaker
But yeah, no, Tyvar is just a joy. He makes me so happy to write. When I'm trying to explain him to people, I say to picture Legolas as played by Brendan Fraser circa George of the Jungle. Oh, yes. Yes. I honestly do feel that that is a fairly good summation of the boy.
00:08:01
Speaker
You know, he is a braggart, he is very arrogant, but he's also incredibly good natured and he is just as happy if the glory he's bragging about is yours. Yeah. It makes him really happy. I do kind of wish that I had not been given the opportunity to write about him on Phyrexia as Phyrexia is hell. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
So the Phyrexia all will be one storyline pretty much picks up right where Brothers War left off with the strike team getting ready to head to new Phyrexia to find out what the hell's going on. And we never see how this particular strike team is chosen. I wish we did because I honestly don't understand it. How do you approve a strike team that consists of Kaito and the Wanderer, either of whom is useless if they see the other go down,
00:08:51
Speaker
Jace and Vraska, see again above. Tyvar, who is... I love Tyvar, he is my absolute favorite planeswalker, no question, but he is a purely physical fighter. His whole thing is, I am going to punch you until you stop, or transmutation, which when Tyvar was announced, we saw a lot of theories on Twitter of people going, Tyvar is going to transmute himself into a piece of
00:09:21
Speaker
former Mirrodin and complete immediately because he will have self infected. They basically predicted Luca's arc for Tivar. So he's either punching the glistening oil or he's just transforming into the glistening oil and either way he's got a problem. Kaya, who I swear was the brain cell for this strike team, nobody else got one because Kaya had taken them all and was hoarding them in a corner going, oh God, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
00:09:50
Speaker
Nissa. Kaya is just so precious though. I love Kaya. She really is. She's got the best attitude and she has become like the strategic thinker in a lot of the stories. She has. I mean, Kaya is wonderful. Everything about her is wonderful. And I do love that magic now has a black woman as one of their very central planeswalkers. Like that is, hey, we beat Overwatch there.
00:10:20
Speaker
And then you've got Nissa, who, you know, same song, different day. She's an animist. She talks to world souls. Do you really want her chatting with the Mirren world soul at this point? Does that end well? It did not end well. I like a bad idea. Yeah. Luca, who...
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah, that with cannon fodder staple to his forehead. And then Nahiri, who is one of my favorite planes walkers. I love my girl. But you don't put Nahiri on a team with Jace if you want that team to have any internal cohesion.
00:10:57
Speaker
The whole thing is going to basically be Nahiri and Jayce trying to stab each other. So I really wish we had gotten the sequence where we saw how they decided who this team was going to be. Because I'm just like, how? What made anyone at headquarters think this was a good idea? I do not know.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's like Luca is like, oh, this guy used to deal with he used to deal with beasts all the time and he led a special forces unit. So let's sign this guy up. Not he's worked with the bad guys the last two times he's showing up in story. Yeah, he's he's not. And I'm not going to say having been a bad guy should mean you don't get to go on the strike team because then we lose Nahiri and I think because he's a jerk.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You don't put Luca on your team if you want your team to get along, especially when you've already put Jace and Nahiri in the same box. This is not like putting two cats in a sack. This is like putting a cat in a pit bull that hates cats in a sack and then shaking it. It's not nice.
00:12:06
Speaker
I think this team is mostly summed up by people who agreed to work with Jace for whatever reason. That's the story is just everybody saying no. Anybody with actual brain cells are like, why would we do this?
00:12:25
Speaker
I do not think you have considered the ramifications of your suggestion. Yeah. Meanwhile, you've got Rowan in the corner jumping up and down, holding her hand in the air, going, ooh, ooh, field trip, and Will just yanking her down. As hard as he can, like, no, no. No field trip. Bad Rowan. Nope. But so you've got our strike team, and it is all assembled and ready to ride off to glory.
00:12:53
Speaker
And despite the fact that Ajani was there for chunks of the planning for the anti-phyrexian initiative, they just
00:13:01
Speaker
high the off to new Phyrexia on the expectation that Elish Norm will not be expecting them. She is, of course, expecting them and has set up a planar shield, which sort of knocks our entire strike team in all directions. So people are very separated and you have almost a scavenger hunt across the surface of new Phyrexia looking for your missing planeswalkers, which is not a fun scavenger hunt. Kaito nearly gets eaten by hypnotic sand.
00:13:30
Speaker
Nahiri gets into an almost recreational fight with some Phyrexian mooks. She's like going up against their 1-1 Phyrexian soldiers and she's playing with them like a cat with a mouse because hubris is her greatest flaw. And unfortunately for everyone gets scratched during this fight. And they continue onward. They're picking up their allies. They do locate Tyvar, which was super fun.
00:13:56
Speaker
Um, because Nahiri is immediately fond of Tyvar. He's wearing that Zendikarian hedron. Nahiri doesn't like anyone, but she likes Tyvar because he has good sense and access, good taste and accessories, which is not a thing people normally say about the boy.
00:14:11
Speaker
And they head onward to get down into the depths of Mirrodin, which is exactly where you do not want to be. Why would you want to go into the depths of Mirrodin? Because you are not thinking coherently because you are in a strike team on New Phyrexia. They head down, meet up with Malera, find Koth, eventually Jace, Kaia, and Elspeth show up. Nissa, Luca, and Vraska are all very much missing at this stage. Nahiri and Jace are not buddies. This shocks absolutely no one.
00:14:40
Speaker
Malira and Nahiri have a talk in which Malira reveals that she knows Nahiri is infected and tells her she can fix it. She can treat the infection, but it will take several days and it will take Nahiri out of the fight. And Nahiri looks at the environment, looks at the situation and asks, I think quite reasonably, can they do this without me?
00:15:02
Speaker
And upon determining that they can't, but she should have time, decides to go infected into the situation in New Phyrexia. So hang on just a second. Thomas, you are not being abused. You can stop singing the song of your people. The funny part about that is my real name is Thomas. And I was like, what did I do? I'm just sitting here listening. Thomas is a very casual boy. Just whoa.
00:15:32
Speaker
whoa whoa like dude you can stop it's okay he realizes that you're recounting this story and he can hear the pain in your voice of the striking he is he is not happy um they're all done with phyrexia all my cats are very over phyrexia at this point
00:15:52
Speaker
But they head down deeper into Phyrexia to kind of take the fight to Elish Norn, and when they get to the Drosspits, which is the black mana-aligned level of Phyrexia, Elspeth basically hands out Halo shooters because there is Necrogen in the air which can cause infection.
00:16:12
Speaker
And as soon as Jace drinks his halo, he reestablishes his telepathic connection with Vraska, which is bad because Vraska is under attack, alone, and already infected, at risk of dying. So they'd high off to find Vraska, by which I mean
00:16:29
Speaker
Jace runs off like a lovesick puppy determined to locate Vraska, and everyone else follows because what the hell else you gonna do? And importantly, Jace is carrying the Sylex that they're supposed to detonate at the end of this little adventure. That is correct. They are on New Phyrexia, not just for a field trip, but because they're gonna set off the new filigree Sylex that Sahili made at the end of the Brothers War story to destroy the cloned version of the Kaldheim World Tree.
00:16:56
Speaker
that is at the center of the plane. Which is, by the way, the best way that you retroactively explain why Tyvar is there. He found out that they had cloned the world tree and basically went, that is my culture's most important religious artifact. That is what matters more than anything else.
Major Story Events and Cliffhanger
00:17:12
Speaker
Screw you. I'm going to New Phyrexia.
00:17:15
Speaker
I love how he continually corrects Jace on it when Jace is just talking about it like it's a tree or something. Jace keeps referring to the Phyrexian version of the world tree as a world tree and Tyvar is just getting angrier and angrier because it is a huge cultural and religious artifact that Jace is just casually talking about like it's botany.
00:17:37
Speaker
because Jace doesn't really care that much. He is here to do a job. He is not here to respect anyone else's cultural artifacts. So they go off to find Vraska. They intercede with the bad guys that are attacking Vraska. Vraska tells Jace to leave. She is already infected.
00:17:56
Speaker
Nahiri, very kindly, and this is a strong role in the zombie story, offers to kill Vraska so that she can die before her mind goes. You can die still knowing who you are. Jace does not take this well, orders everyone else to leave, and then stays with Vraska
00:18:14
Speaker
And in a very sort of Emma Frost in the X-Men moment, takes her on a last perfect date through Ravnica. Basically uses his telepathy to take Vraska to their best moments and to wander through the streets of Ravnica. Let's go to every museum we didn't get to visit together. Let's drink coffee at all the little places that we didn't get to go to. And let's actually be together.
00:18:42
Speaker
And this is very sweet and it's very touching. And they're not my ship, but it was still extremely moving to right. And then Vraska stabs him because she has all- Yeah, I don't like Jace, but that was definitely a teary eye moment reading that. You did a really good job with that segment. Thank you.
00:19:01
Speaker
And I felt it was, in some ways, it was a nice return to Jason Post Ixalan or right around Ixalan. So we did a toxic masculinity episode where our two people we talked about were Jason Luca. And we talked about kind of the issues with.
00:19:16
Speaker
you know, Ixalan Jace versus then what ended up getting back on Ravnica and the stuff after that. So it was kind of nice to pull that back together with Vraska. Like, I mean, I appreciated it. Just because I would first see us move away from Jace as the historical Jace.
00:19:33
Speaker
Like I said, they're not my ship, which doesn't mean I don't love them, just that that is not one that I spend a lot of time thinking about. So we actually did get comments and reference from the writer of the Ixalan arc to make sure that we address that relationship in a way that would be satisfying for people for whom that is the relationship in magic that matters.
00:19:55
Speaker
You know, we didn't want anyone to leave a fairly brutal sequence feeling like we had cheated them out of the chance to say goodbye to each other. And I feel like we did that pretty well. But Rasca stabs him because she is given over to Phyrexia, at which point Nahiri basically says, nope. This is not what we're doing anymore. And pulls up more lethal. She does the equivalent of tapping all your mana at once.
00:20:23
Speaker
knowing that it's going to leave you open to your opposition and cleaves a giant chunk of planar shell. So she just cuts a freaking hole in the drawspits and drops it all the way down to the fair basilica where Elish Norn is. This is terrifying. I saw a magic TikToker. They made a very charming TikTok talking about how their favorite thing in story is how everyone else just acknowledges that Nahiri is terrifying.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Kaido is constantly just thinking if she could just kick her ass at any time. Because Kaido is a baby planeswalker, and Nahiri, for all that she doesn't have a huge amount of planeswalking experience, what with everything, is millennia old. She has had so much time to learn how to be the scariest lethal answer in the multiverse.
00:21:13
Speaker
And unlike Liliana, who knows that she's one of the best necromancers around, Nahiri doesn't waste time wandering around thinking, oh, I'm cool. She just kicks your teeth in. It's great.
00:21:24
Speaker
drops the Dros pits into the fair basilica, everybody marches onward to go visit Elish Norn because this is a great idea. What they're actually doing is marching onward to detonate the Sylex. But as they are walking some stuff that Melira said earlier about, can you promise me this isn't going to take out Mirrodin? You know, we're still here. This is our home. Really kind of starts to sink in because the strike team went to New Phyrexia thinking there was nothing there. They thought that they were going to a world
00:21:55
Speaker
with functionally no survivors, that people who said there was still a mirin resistance were really diluting themselves to a certain degree. Oh, there is no hope. Phyrexia is there. And now they're seeing that mirin was just like their homes. And there are still people there. There are still people fighting.
00:22:14
Speaker
And as they head on and get down to the seed core through some truly impressive transmutation magic on Tyvar's part, thank you Tyvar. Without many to get himself infected. So, you know, did that well. Did not get infected. Kaido had to clean him off a few times, which was Kaido's biggest contribution in this whole endeavor.
00:22:36
Speaker
It kind of was. I mean, he used his environment in fun ways, but he also kept Tyvar, who was their biggest physical damage dealer, from getting infected. And you don't want an infected Tyvar. One of my favorite things about him is that with his power set, he is the scariest of the physical walkers, because when he transmutes someone, his magic suppresses theirs.
00:23:03
Speaker
So if he can get close enough to Nahiri to transmute her, she loses her lethal Nancy until he lets go. And I don't think we have another Walker currently standing who can kick Tyvar's ass if they don't have their magic. But they head down and as they are approaching the tree.
00:23:21
Speaker
They are intercepted by infected Ajani and infected Tybalt, who made the mistake of thinking that Voren Klex was really going to remove that nasty little seed he planted during cow time. Oops. So Tybar, Elspeth, oh God, I keep forgetting Elspeth, I'm sorry. Tybar and Elspeth- It's fine. She doesn't actually like, she does things, she fights, but she doesn't actually do that much up until the denouement.
00:23:50
Speaker
Like that is the trouble with having this large of a group cast is you'll have these periods where half your cast is just walking. And that's an issue with the X-Men too. That is not a comment on those characters or how much I love those characters or anything like that. But Tyvar and Elspeth stop to fight Ajani and Tybalt. And Ajani tries to convince Elspeth that Phyrexia is the answer. This does not go well.
00:24:18
Speaker
Tybalt tries to convince Tyvar that he should put a shirt on. This also does not go well. And Tyvar kills the crap out of Tybalt, which is worth it. With his own tail. With his own tail, yes. Because this is a massive media franchise, it is always possible that y'all will see Tybalt again. I am not saying he is dead for good. You can put that on a tombstone.
00:24:43
Speaker
But when I killed him, I asked my editor, can I kill him? And my editor said, sure. And then I said, no, I mean really dead. I mean ex-parrot.
00:24:52
Speaker
And my editor said, you do whatever. So as far as I'm concerned, Tybalt is dead. So Tyvar kills him. And you will be missed by nobody. Yeah, pretty much. Tyvar kills him, Elspeth knocks out Ajani. They hurry to meet back up with the rest of the group. Meanwhile, the fake world tree, Realm Breaker, has connected across the multiverse. So they have already failed. At this point, if they detonate the Sylex, the shockwaves will travel through the tree
00:25:20
Speaker
to any plane that Realm Breaker is touching and they have no way of knowing which planes those are.
00:25:26
Speaker
It will also probably echo through the blind eternities, which could very easily kill any planeswalker in transit. And that almost always includes the wanderer, who is Kaito's childhood friend, is really his, without making any actual statements about either character's sexuality, because I don't know, his heterosexual life partner. They're not dating, they're never going to date, but she is the most important person in his world. He's not going to blow up a tree that could kill him.
00:25:55
Speaker
Um, so Kaya and Kaito kind of start going, um, maybe no, the tree is, is connected. We, we really know let's not do that. Uh, we're not blowing up the Sylex, but Jace starts to blow up the Sylex anyway, because Jace knows best. Uh, Kaya and Jace kind of play keep away with the Sylex for a little while because that works.
00:26:16
Speaker
And then Elspeth jumps in, stabs Jace through the chest with Luxor, grabs the Sylex and yeets it and herself into the blind Eternities just as it's blowing up. So the last we see of Elspeth and the new Sylex is literally a flash of light and they are gone. Jace is now dead and gets back up to join Elish Norn and her horrifying army that has just shown up to join the party because they were invited. They were not invited. We didn't want them here.
Reading the Full Story: Importance and Insights
00:26:44
Speaker
And the one story literally ends with our surviving planeswalkers with Tivar, Kaya, and Kaito, which is what we're down to, backed up against a wall while Elish Norn with Nahiri, Jace, Nissa, and although I don't think I mentioned him because I didn't know he had been completed, one presumes Luca, and her army of Phyrexian jerks just kind of coming at him. And that's where we're leaving you till March of the Machine.
00:27:12
Speaker
And Tamio too, right? And the side story goes and, you know, as soon as he gets the Phyrexia, the first thing he does is melds, mind melds with a Phyrexian beast. So of course that goes exactly as expected. Which was amazing. Like, I was so perfect because it was just, yeah, I also, I got it.
00:27:33
Speaker
I have to say in the comic that you retweeted yesterday for Martina Montarsi that shows the last like three lines from the planes walkers was fantastic because it's like Ella snorn is just like why don't you why don't you join me and they're just like nope I'm good go to hell. Tyvar goes no because Tyvar only makes flowery speeches if you're worth it. Kaito basically hits you know I'm good
00:27:59
Speaker
You're not perfecting me. And Kaya tells her to go to hell, which I don't remember what the swearing rating on this podcast is. It's fine. Basically, I mean, I think if you say anything, it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. But we all know that if Magic Story were not written to PG-13, go to hell is not what Kaya would actually be saying. Yeah. She is saying something much more vigorous.
00:28:28
Speaker
So yep, our baby walkers are alone with basically all of the big terror walkers on the other side. That is one of the few sequences where I had to keep going, are you sure? Yeah, no, we want another 30 dreadnoughts. Like, are you sure? Do you want them alive for March of the Machine? Do you want them alive? So, and that is the one story, which I am so glad is finally out in the world.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for the wonderful summary. I mean, we probably should have said spoiler alert first. I guess Hobbs will have to put that in the show. Yeah, I was planning on it being in there. It was in the notes for us. Yeah. So we put it for ourselves to remember. Yeah. So yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell what happens in the one story. Please go read it so we get Seanan back for more story in the future.
Writing Challenges in Phyrexia Storyline
00:29:25
Speaker
You know, we had a few things to talk about. Then we had some listener questions to bring up, um, you know, before, just real quick, before we shift, I want to say go read the other stories too, because we will get you get slow bad, uh, slow bats in it. Um, and we are, uh, we still don't know where I want to be. Yeah. Uh, I want slow bad Glyssa Bosch reunion. That's actually the way that I want to see mirrored in be, uh,
00:29:51
Speaker
Like Saved would be my ideal world, but Slow Bad is at least there, Gliss is there. We also had another story that was written by Reinhardt Suarez, who has been on the show, but another person who's been on here for a long time, from actually the very first time he was on here, he hadn't actually written Magic Story yet. So it's just really cool to get to see him back and Shawna now getting to see you move from the comic to the actual
00:30:16
Speaker
quote unquote main storyline. It's been just fantastic and I'm excited to see what comes more too. Thank you. I mean, technically I started on the cards because the first things I did were the side stories for Midnight Hunt. But but yeah, no. And Reinhardt is lovely. All of the side stories are lovely. Magic Story is killing it right now.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. I'm so excited to see how they wrap this up over the next set and a half. And then we get to move on to something that was kind of our talk last week is we get a, we get a palate cleanser, um, after the next set and a half. Um, so last time you were on, you told us that you weren't really find a forexian. We already briefly touched on that before. How did you take those personal feelings into account when writing these stories?
00:31:03
Speaker
I mean, any licensed IP work, you have to be prepared to put your personal feelings aside to a certain degree, because you don't get to pick. You really don't get to say, oh, I want to do X, but not Y. So when they asked me if I would do the main story for Phyrexia, you're not going to say no, not if you can do it half justice. And I kind of feel like it was a good thing that they had someone on the Phyrexia story that is not a big fan of Phyrexia.
00:31:33
Speaker
because I have noticed a tendency in myself as well of writers when given something we actually like. We like to wallow. We want to just roll around in the thing we love and really enjoy it. And we were able to get some good emotional beats and character work out of the Phyrexia story without it just becoming goo and ooze and gears everywhere.
00:31:57
Speaker
And I'm not certain that that would have happened if we had had a really, really pro-Phyrexia author, which is not to say anything bad about pro-Phyrexia authors, just that their focus would have been different. How much, if any, collaboration was there with the side story authors, considering how none? I've had literally no idea who the side stories were about until they started dropping.
00:32:24
Speaker
I did know there was a side story about what happened to Nissa because I had asked enough times that they finally were just like, okay, no, Seanan, it's handled. It's okay. You don't need to worry that we are dropping this on players and readers with no explanation.
00:32:39
Speaker
But we really are very, very cone of silenced in story. I know who wrote Mom, but I don't think I'm supposed to know. I only know because we had to discuss where I left the characters. Mom didn't know who wrote one until I contacted them to be like, hey, this is where I'm leaving people.
00:33:06
Speaker
You know, we don't have those conversations and we're trying to have them as much as we can because we do think it's important for consistent character work that you have a handoff kind of.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, I know that this was an interesting thing. I spoke with Dan Sheehan after he did the Squee story, and it was that interesting piece about like, OK, well, these are the things you can and can't do. But beyond that, he's like, I have these full ideas of where Squee's going to go. I had to like say basically where I left Squee. But he's like, but I have no control. I have these thoughts. I have storylines of where I could see Squee and yet they could be completely taken in a different direction. I just will not necessarily know.
00:33:46
Speaker
And I thought about that when kind of where you had to leave basically this open-ended storyline with so many of our planeswalkers. So many of our planeswalkers and you know, people going, oh, I'm so glad you got to write Tyvar and I got to write Nahiri in the main story. Yeah. Yay. And look where I had to leave her. Yeah.
00:34:09
Speaker
And she came off as a real badass in this story too. She did. That was actually interesting. I had somebody ask me how I could present her so heroically when she had done such horrible things. And I'm like, well, we keep presenting Soren heroically, we keep presenting
00:34:28
Speaker
Azor heroically, we present all of these dudes heroically when they've done horrible things. I am not forgiving the things Nahiri has done. But doing horrible things doesn't mean you're not capable of acts of heroism. And given that after she has her act of heroism, Kaito straight up says I hope she's dead. I really felt like there was some acknowledgement that maybe she's not the ultimate good guy. Yeah.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah. And they had a good reason to kind of had a very good reason to worry about her coming back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Were you given the list of planeswalkers to complete? And did you get to choose how they were completed? Or was that part of your story beats that you were given?
00:35:13
Speaker
That was part of my story beats. The only character outcome that I got to choose, sorry Tybalt fans, was Tybalt. His original place in the outline was not
00:35:27
Speaker
strong it was not detailed enough because he has such a minor presence for there really to be a strong where we leave him one way or the other but generally because the card set is done before we start writing the story and they've already done the balancing and the development and you know I saw a piece of concept art from 2017 yeah darken earlier
00:35:51
Speaker
Dark... was it the Darken concept art of a Johnny and Jace? Yeah, Darken's art. Yeah, it's clear that the concept for this set was around years ago. They don't want somebody killing off Jace three sets earlier because they feel like it when they already know that Phyrexia is gonna hinge on him. So, much like writing for the X-Men, you just don't get to make those choices, even though you want to. Yeah, well...
00:36:21
Speaker
Oh, I was just going to say, um, it was good that Phyrexia took at least one loss and being Tybalt just put a smile on my face.
Comparing Phyrexians and Zombies
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a pity loss. It's like Domry Raid getting killed. I mean, it's like, who cared? I mean, Tybalt cared. It was revenge for Kaldhaan. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. Because it was Tybalt, I will say Tybalt's a big kill.
00:36:46
Speaker
Okay, we'll get to you. One question I kind of had, you know, before we got on you and Tay and I were just talking and we were talking a little bit about what it is about Phyrexia that makes it a little bit more difficult for you, you know, kind of just the zombie story aspect of it. And, you know, I was curious if you might be able to say kind of a little bit more of what we were talking about with, you know, the classic zombie trope being very different than what the Phyrexians have become.
00:37:12
Speaker
So I also write horror under the name Meera Grant. I wrote the Newsflesh series, which was an extremely popular zombie series and spent a lot of time studying zombie media and what makes it popular and what makes it enduring. And a lot of that is it's not about the zombies.
00:37:30
Speaker
It's really never about the zombies unless it's a Left 4 Dead game. It's about the humans moving around the zombies. It's about the characters that are not just zombies. Phyrexia is so all-consuming at this point that it becomes about the zombies, and that is not super interesting.
00:37:50
Speaker
You know, we were we had a draft last week and I was playing against one of the other people in our draft pot and he's someone I really like. He's very sweet. But he was generating like twenty one one goblin tokens that turn and then just hitting me with this infinite wave of goblins.
00:38:06
Speaker
And they didn't have faces. They weren't characters. They weren't interesting to die to. So that bothered me more than the, I think, seven times Taya handed me my own ass, where at least I was going down to things. Zombies are not- Juggerknot specifically.
00:38:37
Speaker
We got a legendary juggernaut way to go levelers just hanging around
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, just so many. But zombies are not inherently interesting by themselves. And Phyrexia, because it takes the zombies to being the whole point, is just not fun for me. Also, it kind of has that Japanese horror movie aspect where you don't have to earn it. You don't have to do anything. You just have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:39:07
Speaker
One of the early Resident Evil novels, Resident Evil, Caliban Cove. You've got a scientist who, everything about this scientist talks about how brilliant she is and how she was really instrumental in developing the T-virus and she's going to save her team. And she touches a blood stain in a lab. And then she rubs her eye.
00:39:31
Speaker
And then she zombifies because mucus membranes.
Tyvar's Unique Character
00:39:35
Speaker
And that at least was a character making a bad choice, but that is what bothers me about Phyrexia. You touch the wall, you get some glistening oil on your fingertips. You don't even have to rub your eye. It's absorbed through the skin. And that's not fun. That is PvE on a level that if one of my game masters tried to throw at me, I would get up and leave the table.
00:39:57
Speaker
I mean, this actually hits a little bit at the crux of what I think Alex has kind of talked about. Right. And I mean, it's the I mean, a big part of it to him is that he doesn't like really like the mind control piece, but it is just kind of the the unknown nature. Right. There's no decision making. There was no falter or playing correctly. You can still just get infected. Infected versus completed. I mean, we were talking about this a little bit before, too. You know, that's the shift in old phyrexians to kind of
00:40:27
Speaker
glistening oil always takes me to like the X-Files personally, but, you know, with that kind of like infection way versus like a mechanical, you know, body modification way. Well, you're not... The olfrexians just largely killed everybody. They used their plague spreaders to just kill everybody and spread killing plague, and then they only completed the people who were worth completing.
00:40:54
Speaker
So that is actually still the case. Glistening oil spreads the infection and it does start the process of rewriting your brain. You know, it gets in there and it starts moving neural pathways around and it makes you think you're phyrexian. You are not complete until you have been to the surgical bay and they have sliced and spliced. You start growing tentacles and stuff already. You do. You start growing the fleshy stuff, which is pretty gross.
00:41:22
Speaker
but you're still not complete. Yes, you're not complete, but you do you do start actually being fractionized where the old plague just killed you unless you were actually completed. We already talked a bit on Jason and Frasca's last date, so I don't think we need to cover that much more other than to say thank you for that was a beautiful character moment for them. And I like the background that you actually reached out to the origin of that story. Is Tyvar the best boy or the bestest boy?
00:41:51
Speaker
Tyvar is the bestest boy. He is the guy who shows up at your local game store, he comes in second in the regional championship, and he tells everyone how awesome you are for beating him. He doesn't sulk about it. The ultimate hype man, right? I loved how Tybalt just had to make fun of him for having no doubt because Tybalt's magic was totally useless against him.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, that is like the fact that Tybalt's magic is completely useless against Tyvar was one of my favorite things to carry over from Kaldheim. Just that like, I am...
00:42:29
Speaker
I am too cool for you, son. I am too cool. And the best thing about Tyvar, honestly, is that he has he had the potential to be Luca. He had the potential to be the most insufferable, horrible character. Like he is a braggart that is canonically part of who he is. He likes to do awesome, cool shit, just so people will say that's Tyvar. He did an awesome, cool thing. You know, he's not a hero for the hero as heroism. He's a hero for the bragging rights.
00:42:59
Speaker
And that is the hold my beer planeswalker. He kind of is the hold my beer planeswalker, but that could have gone so wrong so easily. And instead magic somehow stumbled into the purest himbo, you know, ever. He is wonderful. And I am so glad that he got this very central role in New Phyrexia, even as I wish that it hadn't been
00:43:23
Speaker
new Phyrexia, I am worried for my boy. I have no control over what happens in March of the Machine and no information about what happens in March of the Machine and I am worried for my boy. I was just gonna say this is one of those things that is about the handing off of the story, right? Like the person reached out to you so you know that they at least wanted to know where you ended up but you now had to take a character that you love. I reached out to them. Okay, fair. I was just like, okay, I found out that you're after me in the lineup.
Listener Questions
00:43:50
Speaker
Probably shouldn't have been able to find that out, but I did find that out and I'm not saying who told me Um, so I need to know that you are going to be kind and respectful to tyvar. I don't know I have no idea but I need to know I have no recourse. I have no way to go from here and I have literally nothing I can do other than look at you menacingly but tya can tell you I am very good at looking at people menacingly and
00:44:17
Speaker
All right, so we have some listener questions that were submitted either on our Twitter or our Discord. And in respect for your time, we want to go through these fairly quick. So I'm going to skip through. Sorry, we won't be able to ask everybody's questions. We've hit a bunch of them. I'll just start us off with Bill Wilber, or Rob, one of our great person who just said, which planeswalker would like cheese the most?
00:44:44
Speaker
Oh, would like cheese the most. I believe the food not like cheesy movies. Oh, no, no, I figured or both. Oh, I see my brain. My automatic instinct is honestly to say nahiri just because if you look at the core empire and what they're kind of modeled after cheese was probably a major culinary innovation when she was a kid.
00:45:09
Speaker
Like cheese was this awesome new thing that we figured out how to make. And now she just, she's like one of those people going, have you read Shakespeare on the original Klingon? Anytime she goes to a new plane, she wants to know which core artisan taught them how to make cheese.
00:45:24
Speaker
Kaito probably thinks cheese is just fantastic. There are so many kinds, but he's also probably lactose intolerant. So that is not fun. He just not likes him. Kaya almost certainly loves cheese. I'm going to say there's a lot of love for cheese in Kaya and a lot of love for cheese in the Kenrith twins because they're coming from that kind of Germanic
00:45:47
Speaker
cultural background. So they just want cheese on everything. They have put cheese on things that were never meant to know the touch of cheese. There are people who will not eat with them anymore, not after the vanilla ice cream incident.
00:46:02
Speaker
I'm also going to say that I believe at this point, Nicol Bolas is literally a cheesemonger because what else is he going to be really doing in the meditation realm? Okay, so I have this really upsetting realization the other day. You do realize that Jace has been the one bringing DoorDash to freaking Nicol Bolas.
00:46:26
Speaker
No, there's no way. It's fine. It's fine. They cannot. Of all planeswalkers, there's one they cannot complete. I'm just telling it. I'm not concerned about him completing Nickelball. I'm concerned about Nickelball is getting hungry and busting out of the meditation realm. I don't see a problem with this.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, Hobbs is our local bolus apologist. I literally have fanfic including art in my daughter's room of both Grenzo, the dungeon warden, basically finding a way into the meditation realm with keys out. So I have a bolus and Grenzo done in the style of Calvin and Hobbs by our friend Tappito Claus.
00:47:12
Speaker
And I also have Squee and Bolas where basically Squee has the cardboard box that says time machine like Calvin does. And he has his little toy and Bolas is sitting behind and it's kind of like he's basically broken Bolas out of the meditation realm and Bolas is trying to figure out all of his secrets but can't kill him. So this was before he lost his immortality. And so basically like he just keeps killing Squee and Squee keeps going back and Squee just thinks it's the greatest thing in the world and Bolas is really annoyed.
00:47:39
Speaker
But I mean I have fan art in my room of me having a set meet me taking a selfie with Ty bar and the hearing I Got it done right after I finished the one story and Delightful because Ty bar is just like yes, please photograph me and the hearing is like oh my god make it stop
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. Brian Sullivan asked, and we already talked a bit that you have no idea what's going to go on in marching machines, but he was asking whether the the marching machines finale involves Elspeth going super saiyan. So I don't know, I genuinely don't know, even if I did know it would be not only worth my job, but worth a lawsuit to tell you.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, he said the NDA knows it won't be answered but just the idea or the vision visual of Elspeth going Super Saiyan was
00:48:39
Speaker
especially with that last picture of her. Yeah, it is fairly delightful. But as a footnote on how seriously they take the NDAs, I had just signed up to do story for them at all. We hadn't really gotten very far. They didn't know me yet. They didn't trust me. You know, they're just figuring my stuff out. And our friend Wing comes over to my house to drop some stuff off.
00:49:01
Speaker
So she comes in and she looks at my dining room table. Now I have not said a fucking word. Looks at my dining room table and goes with no intervention from me. Why are your magic cards out? You don't play magic anymore. Oh, they hired you. Wait, no, Eldraine was last year. They hired Mira. We're going back to Phyrexia.
00:49:21
Speaker
I had a panic attack on the spot and had to call my editor to make sure this didn't constitute an NDA breach. Like, I take my NDAs very seriously. And if you've ever had question about that, look at the fact that I just sat on having written for Tyvar for a year.
Storytelling Constraints and Future Models
00:49:39
Speaker
And people were still surprised. Oh.
00:49:45
Speaker
So, Will Jordan asked if there was anyone you would have preferred to give a different outcome if it was solely up to you?
00:49:54
Speaker
If it was solely up to me for all that it was really wonderful to get to have that heroic moment, I would have found a way to not complete Nahiri simply because I, like many other people that have no information, just my own hopes, really do hope that they're going to find a way to reverse completion on at least some of the planeswalkers, hopefully including my girl.
00:50:17
Speaker
And magic fans are already so unforgiving of bad acts committed by female planeswalkers, which is not, oh, we have to forgive her for everything. She's an innocent puppy woo. It's just that we forgive the guys so much more easily than we forgive the girls. And I am genuinely concerned that whatever acts Nahiri commits while she is under the control of Eilish Norn
00:50:43
Speaker
are going to be taken as proof that she is irredeemable and lock her into a villain role forever. So because I do want to see a true redemption arc for Nahiri someday, I would have found someone other than her to complete.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, I would not have minded seeing her story continue more too, but I'm hoping at least some get uncompleted as much as we need. We need stakes and we need finality to some of this. I want my Tamio back. I need story mom. Yeah, that's what I was going with too. I need Tamio back. I ranted about this on our last show, so we're good. I don't need to go back there again.
00:51:20
Speaker
We do need stakes. We do need consequences. But when the brood get the X-Men, you don't need to lose them all. You just need to lose Stretchy McKee, who joined the team three issues ago. Yeah. I mean, I'm fine with more Cyclops. Yeah. So that is what I would have changed. Proteus Factor asked how you felt about the pacing. There's been a lot of talk in the community about the pacing for the stories feeling really rushed.
00:51:47
Speaker
It is really rushed. I mean, one of the things that is very interesting to try to discuss without sounding like you're blaming anyone or pointing any fingers because I am 100% not and I'm wording this as carefully as I can because I never want to get in trouble, is that magic story, if you look at it is the thing
00:52:06
Speaker
that is genuinely given to us for free. There are no charges. There are no hidden costs. Hasbro is, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are just giving this to us because they know that we care about the story and they don't want us to get mad.
00:52:21
Speaker
And what that means is that you are getting the lore with no barriers between you and it, no gatekeeping, none of that, but they are not getting compensated for the lore. Now, for all that magic story is free, making magic story is not free. They pay the writers and despite my begging, they will not pay the writers in magic cards, no matter how much we ask.
00:52:46
Speaker
I did actually try to convince them that they could just pay me in cards. The Wizards of the Coast accountants were not as down with that idea as I was. They do have to pay us. They are legally required to do so. And then after they pay us, they pay the editors internally and the sensitivity editors who make sure that we don't completely fuck things up. And my God, they have some good sensitivity editors.
00:53:09
Speaker
And everyone else, the copy editors that make things not suck, like there's a whole team that brings magic story to you. So at the end of the day, it costs quite a bit of money.
00:53:22
Speaker
I really wanted more space. I feel like I had to tell 50, 60,000 words worth of story in 25,000 words. There are entire sequences that I would have included if I had been allowed to, if I had had the time for it. But because it is this completely free thing that they don't have to give us, there just isn't more space than we got. So I feel like the pacing was very, very rushed, but I don't feel like that was actually my fault, given what they wanted to accomplish.
00:53:52
Speaker
And I feel like if we want it to be more than that, if we want to have the space to really stop and breathe, we're going to have to find a sweet spot between the current model, which is completely free for everyone, and the old novel model where you did have to pay and people had to kind of invest. What I've been proposing and hoping we'll catch on is that we do Magic Story exactly as we're doing it right now.
00:54:21
Speaker
You know, so you're getting that free lore and it's all of the things that actually happen in the set and there is no barrier. And then afterward, we're allowed to go back in and expand it to the link that needs to be as a for sale novel or novella. That would be all for that. I know a lot of us would be all for that. The main objection I've heard is people going, oh, I can already see the angry blog posts about how now they're trying to charge us for what we've already gotten.
00:54:48
Speaker
And that's fine, but my proposal would be that we keep the actual lore, like the stuff that really matters completely free. And it's just the character work that is kind of extraneous to the pacing and things like, you know, Nahiri lived in the core empire for centuries. And the core empire is really very ancient Holy Roman, which means she knows how certain court politics work.
00:55:15
Speaker
If I were all we'll be one was her opportunity to get the baby walkers alone and start explaining to them how she's not the villain of the story. She's been framed wrong and start building her own redemption arc if she wants one. And that would have been a great thing to do that actually fit with the story and the characters that we just genuinely had no time for.
Writing for Main Story vs. Comics
00:55:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. They also asked one more thing. They asked a lot of things, but there's one more else I want to ask on this because I thought it was pretty good. Was there anything you were particularly proud of, an Easter egg, a fun line and a dialogue, something that just sticks out in your mind as being like a highlight of the stories to you?
00:55:56
Speaker
Besides just killing Tybalt, like we'll just get that one. But really, for me, the highlights of the story are Nahiri getting to go out in a blaze of glory because they did tell me that she was that that was going to happen. Like I knew she was going down with the dross pits, but there was no dictate of it has to be a glorious heroic sacrifice. So I was very proud of that.
00:56:19
Speaker
I really appreciated Jason Nebraska's date. Like I said, they're not my couple, but I want to respect everyone's couples. So being able to really take time and dig in and make that something that was clearly respected. I felt so good about that.
00:56:37
Speaker
Tybalt and Tyvar, not the killing part, but the whole, like, I'm gonna taunt you now. Oh, Prince of Fools, oh, she might've been worthy of you, but your brother would just have taken her, ha ha, I'm gonna assume all of these insecurities. Tyvar's just like, lol. Nahiri making the stone sphere in the Mirren camp as a demonstration of the amount of power and control she's got was just great. But also Kaito going, I hope she's dead,
00:57:09
Speaker
you know, I was very blunt and I liked that about him.
00:57:16
Speaker
Our friend Wing again picked up on something I had done, which is that at least my version of Taivar, and I hope they will continue with this, uses quotation marks in speech the same way that they are used in Japanese and Chinese epic poetry. And it's part of him framing himself as this great hero, framing his life as a saga, is that he's gonna do this little affectation of speech that says, oh, this is already an adventure.
00:57:44
Speaker
Great, we've got just a couple more. We have a few. Lays on through. All right. Queer Vigil asked, how was the experience of writing both the Nahiri comic and the Boom multiverse and the story? I wrote the story long before I got to write the Nahiri comic, and having written the story just really reinforced my desire to do the Nahiri comic.
00:58:10
Speaker
Because the Boom comics are their own continuity, they are not really connected to the card games at this point. And I wanted to know that there was a version of Nahiri somewhere who had started the process of healing, who had started the process of moving toward something better. Because I already knew that the card game Nahiri didn't get that.
Episode Conclusion and Gratitude
00:58:32
Speaker
Um, so that was, that was really hard, but really good. Um, honestly, the weirdest part was that the comic Nahiri is mostly Nahiri before the Hillivolt, before she broke. Like that is really like thousands of years of solitude is really the thing that kind of gave her an attitude problem. Gosh, I wonder why. And, uh, so Nahiri in the comic, you see her playing.
00:58:58
Speaker
You see her having fun with being a planeswalker, and that is not something that modern Nahiri, I think, even really has the capacity for anymore. So that was very, very different. Cops, you got anything else you want to add? Well, I just wanted to thank you, Seanan, for your time. And, you know, we've not had you on kind of getting to talk about the story. You're getting to see this.
00:59:19
Speaker
difference with Nahiri comic versus not is actually something that's very interesting to me with comics not technically being canon. So to see just that difference was really cool for me. I just am glad that you've been on and I would I still have many topics I would love to discuss with you, but I think that that's
00:59:36
Speaker
literally complete other episodes fully because you're just such an easy person to talk to and I just want to thank you for the you know the thought that you've given to these characters that yeah I think across we know that there are fans of everybody and so making sure that you're
00:59:54
Speaker
you know, taking the, what did J and Ellie call him? Jace is 11, basically, you know, this like ragtag weird group that we still don't know how they came together and giving endings for people or at least what can be considered endings as we know it's like a comic book, things can always change. Like, so there are characters that I personally am not a fan of, but if I'm writing for them, I will do my best to respect the people that are fans of them always. So.
01:00:22
Speaker
But thank you for having me. I'm always happy to come back. And Taya literally knows where I live, so I'm not that hard to find. Thanks so much. And congratulations on winning the auction for the Tybark painting. Thank you. I wanted to bring that up, and I was kind of like, well, it was public. Like, I saw her name on it. But, you know, because it's art. People get weird.
01:00:44
Speaker
I just won the actual original art for the Tyvar Jubilant Brawler card, which I am so happy about. I'm so excited for you. I was frantic. It's the only piece of original art that has actually been created with Tyvar. Both of his cards from Kaldheim were digital.
01:01:05
Speaker
And the card where he is beating the living crap out of Tybalt is also digital And I just really like traditional media what's even better in this specific case is that Grace Fong who was my story lead on Phyrexia is Coming to stay with me in a couple of weeks because we're going to go to a pre-release for the set Which will be a lot of fun. I think I'm terrible at drafting. So I'm really looking forward to doing it in a public setting and
01:01:36
Speaker
She is just over the moon that she's going to get to see Victor's brushwork up close. Because she's never seen the originals. And she's the hardest too. So I'm making everybody happy today. But yeah, no, Tyvar is coming home, and I'm so happy about that. We both got to own a planeswalker from this set. Yes, because you got cough. I got cough, yeah. But you did? Yeah. I missed this.
01:02:04
Speaker
I got I won the auction for cough and he's currently at the framers and I'm looking for y'all. I feel like my game is so down right now. Well, sadly, I know that none of the completed walkers were actually done in traditional media, which is probably good because I don't even want to think about what Nahiri would cost.
01:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm very excited though. I mean, it's funny that we, I think you briefly mentioned they met up with Koth, but then we didn't mention him again throughout the entire story arc. I mean, he is there. He's punching things alongside Tyra and trying to keep them from dying horrifically as they just bumble around New Phyrexia, you know, like tourists.
01:02:52
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
01:03:14
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gob's Hugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link from our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at stevereffel on Twitter. Gob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:03:42
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.