Not at all--we just want to make it clear that we're not ignoring anyone, but instead we're just biding our time. A lot of good and pointed questions have been asked already and since it seemed rude to just leave them hanging, we wanted to explain our position.
We both believe that the more discussion there is, the better--we're just not going to join in until the Fat Pack is released. We'll be keeping track of what was asked and what got answered in the meantime (and we may look to you all to make sure we don't overlook anything once we do join the fray :D).
So please and by all means don't let our temporarily taciturn semi-silence squelch the conversation. If you have questions or opinions, get 'em off your chest whenever you feel the need and we'll be sure to catch up in a month or so (I think that's when the Fat Pack comes out). Except for those pesky contractual/NDA/spoilers from the end of the story kind of things, of course.;)
Just wanted to chime in here on behalf of Cory and myself: going to plead "no comment" on just about everything Morningtide-related until the Morningtide Fat Pack comes out. That gives a lot more people (esp. all those who are holding out for the FP) a chance to read it and then contribute to/participate in the discussion. Big, chunky cookies for each and every person who went out and bought a single copy hot off the presses, but for the greater good we're going to keep mum for the moment. And if you are one of those who did buy and read the book already, bear with us: we'll try to reward your interest whenever we can and as much as we can.
Once the Fat Pack is available we'll be able to revisit some of the excellent questions that have been raised so far. Mind you, even then we're still not going to give away any secrets from the post-Morningtide story, but we'll be willing and able to say a lot more about Morningtide itself.
On behalf of Scott and Cory, thanks for your patience in the meantime,
Hello again Mr. McG.
Is there any additional information about the leviathan planeswalker Bolas dueled?
Thank you.
The duel is only mentioned in Future Sight and that's all that's been printed so far. I can't give any real specific details about the duel itself because my notebooks are full of cool but contradictory notes that I jotted down while I was working on the books--but I can say it was conceived and presented as Dominaria's version of the ancient, epic battle stories you see in many earth-based mythologies (like the big throwdown between the Greek gods vs. the Titans or the Norse gods' Ragnorak). That led me to think about what sort of creature could go toe-to-toe with an Elder Dragon Legend planeswalker and co-punch a hole in the Multiverse (the answer, of course, is an Elder Leviathan Legend planeswalker), which in turn led me to jot down such things as "giant python-cobra vs. whale" "raw magic, no spells" and "leviathan=more brute power, bolas=deadlier, bolas wins"
Hi Scout i have acouple of questions for you mostly about the Kamigawa cycle. My first and most imporant question is Did Umezawa Go to ravinca? what plan did he go to it seemed like Rav to me, but my friends say otherwise.
A FS Question Is Radha still a PlanseWalker or did she loser he Spark entierly, and his Karn dead or just lost in time?
Thanks in advancded
The answers posted by our fellow posters are correct, but let me confirm: Toshi Umezawa want to Madara on Dominaria. He's never been to Ravnica in any of my books, but Ravnica does have a cameo in Future Sight (Leshrac and Bolas swing by during their duel).
Radha's spark is burned out, forever dormant, both from Jeska's actions in Future Sight and Radha's powerful connection to Keld--in other words, she's lost the ability to planeswalk, but that doesn't matter to her because she'd never leave Dominaria by choice (much less train herself and work hard to achieve the ability to leave).
It was Madara, not Madras. It's still kind of unclear where exactly Madara is, but I think it's probably somewhere on Jamuraa..
Okay, bear with me: the precise location of Madara and the nearby islands was never officially determined when I wrote Legends II--we mapped out the region but never placed the region itself on the larger map/globe. It was definitely meant to be off the coast of Southern Jamuraa, and I can tell you generally where I imagined it--it's to the east of the Bay of Pearls, past that southern point of land and north a bit, southeast from the southeast coast. I don't have a map image handy that shows the Bay of Pearls by name, so...using this map for reference...
See the big red circle in the middle? Go southeast across that landmass until you hit the point where the big landmass almost touches another big landmass further east. I would place Madara below the point where those two landmasses almost touch, about halfway down the coastline to the westernmost landmass. It's not the small island pictured on this map (I don't think Madara is large enough to show clearly on this map), but that's generally where I thought it sat.
I believe somewhere in this thread you said that your Keldon names come from Viking/Old Norse so that they have a rougher, more guttural sound to them. In the Dragons of Magic anthology, where did the name "Kavalex" come from? I believe Kavalex was a Covetous Dragon that had been killed by a blue dragon named Skouras?
---Rathi 'Walker
A lot of the Keldon names I used in those stories were derived from Viking/Old Norse style names, but not all. Some were derived from Gaelic/Celtic, some came from Apache, some from Ancient Greece, and some I just plain made up. Kavalex is one of the latter, I'm afraid: I toyed around with different sounds until I came up with something I liked.
Kavalex was meant to be a Covetous Dragon (not the one on the actual card, but definitely the same kind of dragon), though, so you are dead right about that. For the record, "Skouras" came from Greece and "Knarr" is definitely a Viking-style name.
At the end of Future Sight Teferi says something like "Suq'Ata and Femeref are now the main countries of the region", but according to the map MORT posted those countries where also phased out.
Juding from these two maps, the new coast should be where the desert used to begin:
This the map I referred to most heavily. I think I understand the question now, so let me take a whack at it: I placed the border of the phased area at just shy of the desert. Northeast Suq'Ata extends to the north and east of the desert (in the upper right corner of this map), so by my reckoning not all of Suq'Ata was taken away. Since Suq'Ata was always a player in the region, I reasoned that the small slice of Suq'Ata left over would be enough for Suq'Ata to rebuild/remain a player by the time TS begins. No Zhalfir =a bit of a power vacuum that the remains of Suq'Ata stepped in to fill, establishing itself as the dominant nation in this part of Jamurra. Ditto for Femeref on the south east corner of things, though I would say less of Femeref territory remained.
And to take a slightly different look at things, please remember/consider that Femeref and Suq'Ata's influence isn't limited to their national boundaries--there were and are Femeref and Suq'Atan people active all over NW Jamurra. It's not unreasonable (at least to me) that these expatriate/emmigrant societies would band together after the phasing and strive to reestablish some sort of national identity--which, from Teferi's remark, we can see that they did successfully.
Truly, I have no inside information to share. Jaya is mentioned in the Chandra web comic (in passing), but I literally don't know if there are any plans to explore this connection.
If you specifically meant what happened to Jaya right before the TS trilogy, since her absence was noted and mentioned by other characters in the trilogy), the specifics are still very much up in the air, and intentionally so. I left out any really specific details, mostly because I didn't think the trilogy was the right place to do Jaya's last story justice. I think it's worth a whole separate novel, actually, and that Jaya should be the main character of that novel. But for TS, I left out the details and the nice folks at WotC were fine with that. So now, since those specific details I plotted out but didn't use aren't in the book, so they're just ideas I had, not official Magic canon.
In other, glibber words for the sake of a short answer: I really don't know what happened to Jaya and I won't know until WotC either asks me (or someone else) to write it.
Just finished Lorwyn-You and Cory did a fine job. In particular, I really enjoyed the small scope of the conflict. It was quite refreshing after the impending apocalypse of the Time Spiral block. The new elves were a breath of fresh air...I'd like to see their mentality become the norm for Magic's elves, really.
Do you have any authors that have inspired your works in any way?
-Rathi 'Walker
Glad you liked Lorwyn, and thank you. Cory can speak for himself, but for me I've been inspired by a whole bunch of different authors. Quick list of the ones who have been inspiring me the longest (off the top of my head): Poe, Gaiman, Moore (Alan), Seuss (Dr.), Lee (Stan) and Lloyd Alexander
Also, I'd like to reiterate one question which was overshadowed by others some time back in the thread: Was the relationship between Teferi and Jhoira purely platonic, a relationship between long-time friends and collegues? Or was there something deeper, more passionate?
Cheers,
Viktor
Teferi and Jhoira have known each other for centuries, but they met as young adults. Honestly, I think their relationship has covered the whole gauntlet from platonic friends to academic partners to romance to brother/sister-style teasing and support.
What I tried to show in the TS novels was, no matter what it was or had been before in the past, these days Teferi's the one who's still a bit more interested in getting back to the romantic side of things, but as far as Jhoira's concerned that ship has sailed and he's out of luck.
Hello Mr. McGough, I appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions.
Are there any plans to for stories that were only visited in the comics and other sources to be rewritten in novels? It's incredibly hard to find any of the comics, and I would absolutely enjoy reading about the Mirage Wars and such. If not, would you mind bringing this up at the next author meeting thing?
There are no plans to novelize the old comics...at least, none that I'm in on. Sad to say, I think it's a quite a long shot.
well i just wanted to stop by and say the first book i ever read from magic was "chainers torment". and i must say...you did a great job on it. if i remember correctly, i read it in a day. great book through and through. yeah it think thats it...no wait, all your other books are good too, but chainers was you very best IMO.
Thanks! I'll always have a sweet spot in my heart for Chainer's Torment because it was my first published novel. And because of Skellum. I'm still upset about Skellum...
Have you ever wondered how come you have such aptitude to create likeable black protagonists?
It also raised a few questions I'd love to ask of you, however.
First, could you please tell me what ochimusha means? I've gotten the general impression, but not the actual meaning...
I understand if you can't answer any of my other questions, but I have to ask them anyway:
1) Do you know what happened to Kiku after she abandoned Toshi in Minamo? Did she survive and perhaps even born his progeny?
2) How did the situation in Jukai work out after Kyodai was released and O-Kagachi defeated? Did the ghost army simply dissolve, leaving the snakes to fend for themselves? Or had the soratami invasion already ended by then? And did Kiku use her masters' curse to finish the rest of the moonfolk?
3) How come Hidetsugu became the All-Consuming himself? Did he barter with his oni or did he simply defeat it to take its place? And was he a proper demon in the end? Did he take on any followers of his own, a new o-bakemono to live on in shinka?
4) And what became of Konda? Did the vengeful spirit ever consider his dreadful punishment enough? Did she release him from his terrible state one day, or did he suffer for eternity? Can anyone but his tormentor ever find and release him?
5) Is O-Kagachi truly and utterly destroyed? How could the twins even harm him? I understood the great serpent stood for all that was Kamigawa, utsushiyo and kakuryio alike. How can a part of the whole consume the whole without being destroyed in the process as well? Did they claim his power as well as his role, or will the boundary and all it meant simply crumble without him to maintain it?
6) How fared Toshi on Dominaria? I understood he was presented with a keener sense of smell, maybe even ability so sense mana, in exchange for his sight. Was that kind of a revenge from his myojin, or really a parting gift to make his start easier? It did seem like a curse to me...
I also still have a question about Time spiral trilogy:
7) Was the relationship between Teferi and Jhoira purely platonic, a relationship between long-time friends and collegues? Or was there something deeper, more passionate? Was it even possible for the old-school 'walker to have a physical relationship with someone? And what would be the hypothetical result of a planeswalker experiencing utter and complete loss of self-control in an exctatic state?
Thank you very much for any time you spend answering our questions. And thank you even more for the time you spend writing. We're in your debt!
I'm off to Lorwyn, so bye
Viktor
Thanks for the compliments (which I snipped). I think I have had some success with black mana personalities because I think the more selfish characters have to be a bit more charming/witty, because otherwise they'd never get people to do wha they want (and everyone else would just keep hitting them all the time).
Or it could just be that I'm a scoundrel myself and so writing about scoundrels comes naturally.
Ochimusha means "fallen warrior" and I used it in the sense of "degraded" or "low" warrior to reflect Toshi's lack of proper social status. If Kamigawa were a western (and westerns have never been shy about borrowing from samurai culture before :)), Toshi would be called "gunslinger"
As for the numbered questions:
1. Yes. No comment. See above answer RE: "What happened to Jaya?"
2. The Ghost Army did dissolve when Konda fell. The soritami army keenly felt the loss of their mastermind Mochi, and the snakes of Jukai were able to fend them off after a long struggle.
3. He saw it was weakened and went after it. He overpowered it and, for lack of a more elegant term, he ate it. He took its vast power for himself and assumed the role of the new spirit-god of Chaos. What he did as that spirit-god is a tale for another day (and I hope I get to write it).
4. I prefer to leave it open ended, as it appears in the end of the book. I do think the answers to your questions are there in the text, however. (hint: Kyodai doesn't really seem like the forgiving type to me....)
5. The Sisters didn't so much destroy/kill/obliterate OK, they overthrew him and assumed his power (and yes, the parallels between this and what happened with Hidetsugu and the Oni of Chaos were intentional--by the time the story's done, the old ways are all pushed aside and the fundamental nature of things has begun to change). They were able to do this at all because Kyodai was a part of OK to start with, a very important part. It's hard to be literal about such abstract stuff, but I don't think it's a question of a smaller part consuming the larger whole, but more like one facet of OK's personality/power asserted itself and took over the whole entity.
6. He fared well enough to sire a line of Umezawas that lasted 400 years...:D I wouldn't say he was given a keener sense of smell in exchange for losing his sight, either--if Toshi has a "nose" for mana, it's a natural gift he was born with (like his facility with kanji spells).
Scott, I have a question for you regarding TS.
This cycle stated that in Zhalfir only the Zhalfir country and Tarluum mountains were phased out, not entire subcontinent (which was once ruled only by Zhalfirians).
Was the map seen below wrong from the very beginning of its creation, or maybe it was decided later that it will be better to have only these two lands removed, because Invasion cycle wasn't clear on that? Have you seen this map during your work on TS cycle?
I did use the map you cited (and several others) while working on the TS cycle, but I don't think I understand your question--the two red circles on the map represent where Shiv and Zhalfir were until Teferi phased them out. The "Jamurran" circle surrounds a lot of ocean and, at the very eastern edge of the circle, overlaps the coast of NW Jamurra--specifically Zhalfir and Femeref, which are on a peninsula all their own (bordered by a big desert to the east, which is mentioned at the end of Future Sight). Everything from the sea to the desert was phased out. What is the error/disconnect you're asking about w/respect to the Invasion era map?
@mort you know ive been wondering the same thing....cause the ice age books would be great as a anime, along with the brother war
I would like to add a thought to the anime part of the discussion--it may be super-obvious to mention Kamigawa, but I always thought that a very specific sub-plot of the Kamigawa trilogy would make a great one-shot anime movie: Kobo's Reckoning, starring Hidetsugu (guest-starring Toshi). We start from the moment Chiyo drops in on Hidetsugu, and then we follow the ogre as he recruits his yamabushi, slaughters everyone in the Minamo academy, watches his god get torn in half, then overthrows that god and takes its place as an embodiment/avatar of insatiable chaos.
was it your option to let Teferi live, kill Freyalise and Leshrac and imprint Windgrace on Urborg?! or was it WotC directive?!
what did you felt knowing that you had to "kill" a race of planeswalkers, and make place for the neo-walkers!? i loved venser, but i was a bit desapointed regarding the reaction of teferi and his new status of mortal.. he didn't seem concerned, nor frustrated..just.. "ok..live goes on".. you didn't want to explore the ramifications of his new status and conscience?!..or will there be a chance for that in the future?! (if you can answer that last one lol :P)
That first part is sort of tricky to answer because there was a significant amount of review/give-and-take between the authors and WotC. It was a collaborative team effort to be sure.
With that said, I do think the authors took the lead in laying down the particular fates of each of the characters listed above. We didn't do it in a vacuum by any means, but after we had discussed it thoroughly with the story team/WotC, everyone was ultimately on board and things played out as portrayed in Time Spiral/Planar Chaos/Future Sight--that is, Teferi was diminished, Freyalise died, Windgrace went missing but is not entirely gone, Leshrac died, etc.
For the second part of your post--though I was not at all shy about taking out individuals, I didn't think of what we were doing as "killing" all the omnipotent planeswalkers. I viewed it as an end of an era, much in the same way Apocalypse ended the Urza/Yawgmoth/Gerrard era. **Please note that this is just an example: I do appreciate how The Mending is a very different sort of fundamental change when compared to the natural progression of an epic adventure to its grand finale, like we had in Apocalypse).**
For a long time the novels had been about one large, multi-layered story arc with a large handful of recurring characters. When that story came to its end (and the Urza/Yawgmoth/Gerrard era ended with it), many of those characters (Barrin, Hanna, Eladamri) were gone and many of those that survived were changed...but they would have to pick up the pieces and go on anyway. Then things shifted to Otaria and a whole new thing started.
Also, I must respectfully but firmly disagree that Teferi doesn't seem to be affected by losing his spark. I think his reaction certainly could have been larger, more pronounced, but as the author I chose to portray its effect on him in a different way.
The main component of Teferi's reaction is one of traumatic shock--he can barely speak coherently for the first part of Planar Chaos because he's still overwhelmed. Teferi intended to die at the end of Future Sight, remember. So imagine, if you will, someone concocting the most dramatic and heroic scenario that he can for his own death. He will selflessly sacrfice himself for the greater good, simultaneously saving the world and atoning for all his worst sins. Then he actually does live out this scenario and his life ends in a huge burst of glorious light.
And then he wakes up right back where he started, except now he's an amoeba instead of a human being. And someone says, "Nice try. Now get back to work."
So Teferi's mind is pretty much blown. And while he tries to cope with no longer being godlike, Teferi withdraws...and grapples with it for the rest of the trilogy. He interacts with people and planeswalkers with varying degrees of success because his personality has been shattered and he's putting it back together on the fly--and all the while he's still trying so very hard to do the right thing without screwing things up more.
So you are correct, I did not fully explore Teferi's newfound status or conscience...but only because Teferi himself is just starting to come to grips with that at the very end of Future Sight. We probably won't see a deep exploration of how Teferi sees himself/what Teferi has become in the post-Mending world until WotC decides to return to that character.
And as for that: I don't know of any plans to return to that character, but if they do, I would love the chance to write it, and to address some of the issues you mention.
Mr. McGough,
What went into the decision that Teferi would not remember his "meeting" with Karona?
Thank you.
A whole lot actually, but to the point: at the outset of planning the Time Spiral trilogy, members of the Magic Story Team and Magic's book editors and authors (including myself) sat down together and had a long discussion about where the Magic story had been, where we wanted it to go in Time Spiral, and where it would go after that. A great deal of what was discussed at that meeting was and still remains confidential, but part of the discussion involved how to treat Karona's visitations with representatives of the five colors as depicted in the previous Onslaught block's storyline.
In terms of the continuity canon, we agreed that the visitations with Teferi, and the others were not 100% reliable as presented, and not to be taken strictly at face value. The concensus was that we were not 100% bound by them.
As Time Spiral's author, it served my purposes in for there to have been no actual contact between Teferi and Karona. That also fit with what the story team's goals for the longer-term Magic storyline, so that's the way we went with it.
There's a bit in Time Spiral where Teferi says he doesn't remember the meeting with Karona...and if she does, it was in a dream she had. That's pretty much my take on it--the meet probably did happen, but only in Karona's head (which, given who Karona is, is as close to real as you can get without actually being real).
That said, could you legally say how soon after Legends II you started plotting out for the characters-did you jump right in, or did it just strike you after reading how much we liked Emperor Bolas? I read on a previous page that you had storylines mapped out for them.
Tetsuo Umezawa, if he was on Ravnica, what Guild could you see him in? He doesn't strike me as a Dimir or Rakdos, though that would be based on the colors of magic he used. Maybe Izzet, but he's a bit more reserved, and possibly there in the head, than most of the Izzet we've read about.
edit: do you prefer to be addressed as Scott or Mr. McGough?
I think I missed a reference in your first question--how soon after Legends II did I start plotting out which characters? If I'm reading it right: I began working on Kamigawa right after I finished Legends II, and one of the first things from the first story meetings we agreed on was that the protagonist Toshiro would be an ancestor of Tetsuo. so the Umezawa connection was there from the word go. As for Bolas, I had jotted down notes on his return and promised campaign against the Umezawa clan as part of my Legends II preparations. Time Spiral was not about Bolas vs. Umezawa, however, so we only saw glimpses and hints of what he was up to w/respect to his sworn oath of vengeance.
Later, when it came time to plot out where the Time Spiral trilogy would go, we assorted authors and editors tossed around quite a few planeswalker characters for consideration, and Bolas was the first one out of my mouth. Later, we found out that he was going to be a reprint in the set, so I took that as a sign (and yes, it's totally true that the initial inclusion of Bolas in the plot and the card set was a happy coincidence).
As for Tetsuo's guild if he were a Ravnica denizen, I'm going to have to punt this one back to the audience at large--what do you guys think? Tetsuo is blue/black/red, which throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the dual-color guild structure. He's got a strong ego/pride, he's uncompromising, slow to react from anger but terrible in his wrath when he does, he's fiercely loyal to and protective of his subordinates, he leads by example, and he's more inclined to try to improve things/the system from within rather than tearing it down from without (though as we saw, once he decides to tear things down he does so with a brutal effectiveness). To me that sounds more like an outsider like Kos than any of the established guilds. What's that sound like to you all?
And you can call me Scott, McGough, Mr. McGough, McG, or McGoo. We're all friends here.
How do you come up with names of legends and characters(i.e. pivlik)? For my sets, i have trouble coming up with names! Plz advise!
~ MagicProfessor28
I can't help you with Pivlik (he's not my character), but when I am asked to make up names I do have a few methods to get me started. Please note that for Legends II and Kamigawa, the vast majority of names were already in existence or specially created for the set and then handed off to me, so I had very little need to name those characters.
This is a tough question to answer (sort of like "How do you hit the bull's eye when throwing darts?" The answer is to throw the dart straight to the center of the target, and if you miss keep trying until you do hit it, and then keep practicing until you can hit it more often than not.). In other words, naming is an inexact science and it requires a lot of trial and error and a healthy dose of self-review.
I often start by looking at real world names that come from cultures that are similar to the fantasy culture in question--for example, the Keldons have a lot in common with Vikings, so I started by looking at lists of Old Norse/Scandinavian names. The ones I looked at and liked tended to be short, percussive, and have hard consonant sounds, and I adapted that into Keldon names like Knarr, Bullag, and Greht.
I'm interested in the thoughtweft, but whenever a Magic book uses a term like that I always get confused unless they explain it. I still don't understand what a 'warhost' *is*.
I'm quite happy to clear that one up for you. The Keldons are one of my favorite Magic things to write about (and when I was on the Story Team they were one of my favorite things to put on cards). I've written a lot about them (Myths of Magic, Dragons of Magic, Time Spiral trilogy) and while I may have never stated any of this so explicitly in the text, I've definitely hinted at it. Anyway, these are the rules I laid down for myself when writing about Keld:
A warhost is one Keldon warlord and at least ten subordinate Keldon warriors. It can be much larger, but the warlord's characteristic battle magic doesn't really kick in unless there's at least ten.
And for the record:
Keldon warlord=native-born Keldon who has undergone a specific ritual ordeal and magically bonded with the land and red mana of Keld itself
Battle magic=native Keldon magic, fire- and frenzy-based spells that create a loop of enhancement like so: the warlord magically enhances his soldiers so that they beome faster, stronger, more savage, with increased stamina and able to ignore crippling pain. They give back the same sort of boost to the warlord, and the spell feeds upon itself until the Keldons have slaughtered everything else on the battlefield or they themselves are wiped out. In card terms, this is meant to loosely reflect the +1/+1 bonuses Keldon Warlords bestow upon themselves and their followers.
I realize you may have just been making a point and not asking a specific question, but what the hey, I'll take just about any opportunity to talk about Keldons.:cool:
A Mary Sue/Gary Stu character is a character who is "too perfect", with no clear flaws. It's quite common in fan fiction, and it's often an idealised version of the author her/himself.
Thanks, Squirle.
Now that I know that, I can answer Rathi 'walker's original question Scott, when you're writing a story, do you consciously try to avoid creating a mary sue/gary stu. Or does avoiding creating such a character just come naturally to you?
I'm going to accept the implicit part of that question (that I haven't written any egregious MS/GS characters) as a compliment, for which I am grateful. I think I have largely avoided the annoyingly perfect/flawless character trap (more on that in a moment).
To make sure I understand it, I'd like to offer my own example of that syndrome: Princess Ivy, that wretched child from Piers Anthony's Xanth novels--you know, the one whose magical power was to make everyone else just as shiny and perfect as little Miss Pollyanna Rose-Colored Glasses presumed they were. Any time danger reared its head, Ivy makes everything better just by thinking about how her companions can easily handle it...and so they can, because Ivy thinks they can. "Oh, no! A full-grown fire-breathing dragon is coming to eat me and my baby steam-breathing dragon sidekick! We have no chance...unless I just believe real hard that this baby steam dragon is actually stronger, smarter, faster, and hotter than the other guy. What's that? He is better, stronger, and faster after all? Hooray for us! The day is saved!"
Anyway, to the extent that I have been able to avoid this trap , I think I've done so through two bedrock foundations of my personality/approach to storytelling: A) perfect characters aren't interesting to me as a writer or a reader, so I naturally tend to avoid them; and B) I truly believe that no one's perfect...not in fiction or in life. In fact, I'm such a bad tempered, misanthropic cuss that even an idealized version of myself would come out as less than ideal. Example: Perfect Scott left his perfect castle one perfect morning to go enjoy some perfect breakfast...and found a neighbor had parked him in. So, he spent five minutes swearing at the neighbor's car for being in the way and kicking his own car for not being able to fly. Driven to near-psychosis by frustration and hunger, Perfect Scott chewed a big piece out of the neighbor's car tire and spit it at the blue bird of happiness overhead, knocking it out of the sky and sending it down to the waiting claws of a slavering, one-eyed feral cat hiding in the bushes.
Legends II Spoilers Coming Up.....
Now, I have read posts that accuse my protagonist in Legends II, Tetsuo Umezawa, of being too formidable/unstoppable/perfect in precisely the sense we're describing. I can see how one might feel that way, but I do disagree--Tetsuo does roll over all opposition (hey, he earned the title "Champion" for a reason--he's literally the best single combatant in the empire), especially in Book 3, where he kills his way up the chain of command all the way to the Emperor , but he does it through hard work, superior preparation, strategy, and tactics, and by relying on his formidable partners (Meha, Wasitora) to position him for the big win. I may have gotten too into the idea that Tetsuo wins out by using the same basic approach that a Magic player would use--that is, studying up on the potential opposition, preparing his own tools/weapons/etc. specifically for that opposition, and then being flexible enough in his execution so that he can adjust to any surprises and minimize any mistakes he makes along the way.
He also does so because he's driven by vengeance (for Kei) and his own pride (being in his view a better, more noble champion than the evil emperor deserves, thus tainting his own nobility) as much as for any altruistic reasons. I always intended for Tetsuo's overall motivation in part to be his need to redeem the family name--he's such an upstanding paragon at first because the black-magic-only Umezawas historically were notoriously selfish, destructive, and disruptive. Beyond that, I also think Tetsuo has definite flaws: he's aloof, he's stubborn, he takes himself and this honor stuff too seriously, and he has a cruel streak that would make his ancestor Toshi laugh out loud (such as when Tetsuo doesn't hesitate to kill hundreds of essentially blameless kentsu soldiers, either personally or by siccing Wasitora on them; and when he's methodically cutting Xira to pieces, one piece at a time, while relentlessly chasing her across a swamp). Tetsuo keeps himself under strict, rigid self-control until the end of book 2, and when he cuts loose he does so on the bad guys, for the most part --but he's still terrible to behold.
At the very least, I ask that you grant me Tetsuo does not equal Princess Ivy on the MS/GS scale.
I read it as more of a "cannot" than a "would not," which I think came from the word "potential." Losing the potential to 'walk is a bit different from deciding never to 'walk, though they amount to almost the same thing.
However, that's a much more satisfying answer than could be found elsewhere. Thanks a lot, Mr. McG!
You're very welcome.
I would add that I don't think it's a strict "would not" vs. "cannot" for Radha, but a combination of both...specifically, first one than the other. She would not planeswalk at first (no interest), and then more stuff happened (Jeska) so now she cannot--the ship has sailed, the window of opportunity closed, she made her decision and now she's stuck with it, etc. Kind of like a muscle she didn't exercise and now she can't lift a heavy weight with it.
Mr. McGough, I can with ease say that Chainer's Torment was my favorite book of all that I have read. The evolution of Chainer as he was influenced more and more by the Mirari was perfect. But I must know..how much of it was your own planning, and how much, if any was guided by outside sources, such as Design. Same goes for all your books, really. Completely your working, or helped here and there?
Chainer's Torment is a particular favorite of mine 'cause it was my first. Glad you like it too.:D
In general the set was intended to be black-heavy, so the overall theme of the novel is tragic and a bit on the dark side. At one point I was asked to switch some merfolk characters into cephalids because the world-builders had already laid down the idea that cephalids were dominant, but overall the cards didn't make a lot of demands on the story or the characters for me as an author. I took a lot of good visual cues from the art and the style guide, things like as the First's intimidating appearance.
The initial plotting of the whole trilogy involved a roomful of talented creative people--Rob King, Jess Lebow, Will and Daneen McDermott to name a few--and Chainer has a sort of extended cameo in Vance Moore's Odyssey, but the specifics of Chainer's story, the execution of it in Chainer's Torment, and Chainer's character itself were very much my own creations. Skellum, the different ranks and classses of dementia casters, the pseudo-family/yakuza style structure of the Cabal--all me, baby.:D
That's usually the way of things with the novels I've written--things always start from the initial cards, rules, and the world-building work that the Magic Team does, which begins long before they bring an author in to start on the actual plotting and writing of the novels. And there are always important card concerns and world-building elements that need to be included/heeded as the writing goes along. However, the characters, their motivations, and how everything turns out is largely up to the author--I would say at least 90% so (with a healthy dose of oversight from the aforementioned Magic team to make sure everything fits).
I'm going to ask about a subject all writers, fledlging and experienced dread...
the mary sue/gary stu characters.
Scott, when you're writing a story, do you consciously try to avoid creating a mary sue/gary stu. Or does avoiding creating such a character just come naturally to you?
Oh and does listening to music ever help while writing?
-Rathi 'Walker
Sorry, what is the mary sue/gary stu thing? I've spent a lot of time in writing classrooms and workshops and I have to say that's a new one to me.
And Cory J. will disagree, but I literally cannot listen to music and write at the same time--it's too distracting for me (I sometimes start typing the lyrics without meaning to). Instrumentals are only slightly better, as I find myself typing in rhythm to the music rather than the rhythm of the words.
I do listen to music while I edit what I've already written, however, sometimes quite loudly. Esp. big, bombastic classical stuff like Danse Macabre or Beethoven's Ninth. Or the Team America soundtrack.
At the "You Are a Planeswalker" part of the Planeswalker minisite, it says... But it also says, that nobody understands what "the spark" truly is, that what causes it is very unknown, and everything I've read agrees with that. To say she lost her potential to become a planeswalker seems unduly definite in such a murky area.
Is there any reason we know she lost that potential? How'd that come about? I don't remember that being in there, but I lent out the novels and can't look it up.
I'm not in a position to answer a lot of the larger planeswalker-related questions that have been flying around from "You are a Planeswalker," but I can definitely take a crack at this one.
The novels do not directly say it as succinctly as the article does, but the novels do support the certainty in the statement "Radha lost her potential to become a planeswalker." As an author I hope the answer is already there in the text (or at least in the subtext) without this here explanation...but since you've asked....
As the article states, Radha has the same kind of spark that Venser has, and she loses the potential to planeswalk. You can take that at face value: at the end of the story Radha no longer has the ability/option to cross planar barriers through her own individual effort/willpower/magic. I hasten to point out that Radha's spark is not gone, but it is never going to "work" as a means of going from one plane to another. Her situation is analogous to Glacian's--a character from The Thran who had the potential to become a godlike planeswalker but never actually ascended...and so he died as an ordinary (though exceptional) mortal.
Again, for the record it is never directly stated in the books that Radha's loses her potential to become a planeswalker as directly as it is stated in the article. What *is* stated/shown in the climactic moments of Time Spiral is that Radha consciously chooses to bind herself to the land of Keld, to become a Keldon Warlord. In fact, Radha's whole life up to her climactic duel with Greht in Time Spiral is actively, aggressively, and often violently focused on achieving a connection to the land of Keld. Everything she ever wanted and ever will want is in Keld.
So once she achieves this connection at the end of Time Spiral, that's it for the real possibility of her leaving this plane and going to others--she has completely committed to Keld, she's chosen the Keldon fork in the road, etc. There is no going back. She is too strongly bound to Keld/Dominaria to leave it without a massive physical/magical/spiritual effort on her part, plus the will/determination to do so--and Radha will never want to mount such an effort in the first place. Her entire identity is tied to Keld and she has no reason or inclination to leave it.
A character like Venser, on the other hand, is more inclined to explore the unknown, more likely to be drawn in to a mystery, and more motivated by pure intellectual curiosity. To put it bluntly, where Venser seeks outward, beyond the frontier, Radha seeks within herself and in the immediate world around her. Venser's view of things is wider, more universal; Radha's is local. In a very real and author-intended sense, Radha's grand vision of things is limited, as she is blindered by her obsession with being the best Keldon ever. By virtue of his choices and actions, Venser's planeswalking ability becomes active and he sets out to explore other worlds. By virtue of her choices and actions, Radha's planeswalking ability does not become active and she will always stay on Dominaria.
When Jeska commandeers Radha's dormant spark and uses both it Radha as tools/weapons against the time rifts, that traumatic impact further distances Radha from the possibility of undoing her connection to Keld/traveling to another plane.
So to sum it all up in one of my trademark message board analogies, Radha is analogous to a ballet-dancing child prodigy who could have gone all the way to the top of any dance troupe in Moscow/New York/Paris/wherever else they love ballet...but instead she chose to dedicate her strength, balance, and grace to becoming a kickboxing champion, or better still, a Ninja Warrior Kunoichi champion. After decades of training for and competing on the Ninja Warrior obstacle course, Radha's simply never going to be able to dance Swan Lake an earn a standing ovation like a top ballerina would. What's more, she'll hardly notice that fact, and when she does she won't care.
Come to think of it, perhaps you could write at least a short story or two about how Meha managed to gain the previous circles? Pretty please?
I'm sure WOTC wouldn't mind, if enough audience lobbied for it
Can you give a definite answer on whether Freyalise and Wingrace are truly and entirely gone as characters as well as planeswalkers? Was it your and WOTC's intention to being sucked by the rift to be the same as dying in it?
Thank you for your time,
Viktor
PS: And how goes your work on Lorwyn cycle?
I really don't have any control over where the future story line might go, but as these are some of my favorite characters to write, I say "lobby away."
RE: the final fate of Freyalise and Windgrace, again, I can't say what WotC has in mind for the future, but I can tell you my intent: Freyalise is indeed dead, due to the stresses of sealing the rift after all that time keeping Skyshroud alive in Keld (when it would have definitely perished otherwise). Beating the Urborg rift also took all Windgrace had to give, so I would say he's dead but that he left his mark on Urborg before he went, that his presence will always be felt there. In other words, they're both dead, but if I had to guess there's a much greater chance of Windgrace finding his way back. No such plans are afoot as far as I know, however.
Regarding the rifts and death, there was no hard and fast rule about a planeswalker overcoming/consuming/being consumed by a rift equals death. As we saw in the books, the outcome depended on the size/scope of the rift and the power/will power levels of the individual planeswalker. To use a crude, barely accurate analogy, it's a bit like a human soldier who throws himself on a live grenade to save the rest of his platoon: he might save all his buddies, some, or none; he might survive but he'll probably die; and no matter what he's literally going to lose a big piece of himself.
Scott, out of all your MTG works, in terms of charting out plot and characters, which was the most challenging: Legends II, Kamigawa, Chainer's Torment, or Time Spiral? (I think I hit them all)
Finally, if you joined one of Ravnica's guilds, which one and why?
The plotting question is a tough one. I reserve the right to change my mind later, but right now I'm going to go with Time Spiral. There was so much history and so many characters that we wanted to include, but could not in purely practical terms (each novel would have been twice as long and would not have been finished on time). There were a lot of demands to statisfy from the past, present and future of the game (and yes, I am aware of how nicely that statement lines up with the past/present/future theme of the card sets ;)), and in order to meet as many as possible in the novels we had to plan and plot for way more than actually wound up in the pages. It was hard to let go of so much hard work.
RE: my Ravnica guild of choice, I'd probably go with Radkos, but Cory J. Herndon himself has hinted that were he the Ravnica Sorting Hat, he would put me in the Gruul :D.
Not at all--we just want to make it clear that we're not ignoring anyone, but instead we're just biding our time. A lot of good and pointed questions have been asked already and since it seemed rude to just leave them hanging, we wanted to explain our position.
We both believe that the more discussion there is, the better--we're just not going to join in until the Fat Pack is released. We'll be keeping track of what was asked and what got answered in the meantime (and we may look to you all to make sure we don't overlook anything once we do join the fray :D).
So please and by all means don't let our temporarily taciturn semi-silence squelch the conversation. If you have questions or opinions, get 'em off your chest whenever you feel the need and we'll be sure to catch up in a month or so (I think that's when the Fat Pack comes out). Except for those pesky contractual/NDA/spoilers from the end of the story kind of things, of course.;)
Just wanted to chime in here on behalf of Cory and myself: going to plead "no comment" on just about everything Morningtide-related until the Morningtide Fat Pack comes out. That gives a lot more people (esp. all those who are holding out for the FP) a chance to read it and then contribute to/participate in the discussion. Big, chunky cookies for each and every person who went out and bought a single copy hot off the presses, but for the greater good we're going to keep mum for the moment. And if you are one of those who did buy and read the book already, bear with us: we'll try to reward your interest whenever we can and as much as we can.
Once the Fat Pack is available we'll be able to revisit some of the excellent questions that have been raised so far. Mind you, even then we're still not going to give away any secrets from the post-Morningtide story, but we'll be willing and able to say a lot more about Morningtide itself.
On behalf of Scott and Cory, thanks for your patience in the meantime,
On behalf of CJH and I, we're very glad you liked Lorwyn...but sorry, we have nothing to say on the subject of Maralen at this time.
The duel is only mentioned in Future Sight and that's all that's been printed so far. I can't give any real specific details about the duel itself because my notebooks are full of cool but contradictory notes that I jotted down while I was working on the books--but I can say it was conceived and presented as Dominaria's version of the ancient, epic battle stories you see in many earth-based mythologies (like the big throwdown between the Greek gods vs. the Titans or the Norse gods' Ragnorak). That led me to think about what sort of creature could go toe-to-toe with an Elder Dragon Legend planeswalker and co-punch a hole in the Multiverse (the answer, of course, is an Elder Leviathan Legend planeswalker), which in turn led me to jot down such things as "giant python-cobra vs. whale" "raw magic, no spells" and "leviathan=more brute power, bolas=deadlier, bolas wins"
The answers posted by our fellow posters are correct, but let me confirm: Toshi Umezawa want to Madara on Dominaria. He's never been to Ravnica in any of my books, but Ravnica does have a cameo in Future Sight (Leshrac and Bolas swing by during their duel).
Radha's spark is burned out, forever dormant, both from Jeska's actions in Future Sight and Radha's powerful connection to Keld--in other words, she's lost the ability to planeswalk, but that doesn't matter to her because she'd never leave Dominaria by choice (much less train herself and work hard to achieve the ability to leave).
Good question about Karn. Wish I had an answer...
Okay, bear with me: the precise location of Madara and the nearby islands was never officially determined when I wrote Legends II--we mapped out the region but never placed the region itself on the larger map/globe. It was definitely meant to be off the coast of Southern Jamuraa, and I can tell you generally where I imagined it--it's to the east of the Bay of Pearls, past that southern point of land and north a bit, southeast from the southeast coast. I don't have a map image handy that shows the Bay of Pearls by name, so...using this map for reference...
See the big red circle in the middle? Go southeast across that landmass until you hit the point where the big landmass almost touches another big landmass further east. I would place Madara below the point where those two landmasses almost touch, about halfway down the coastline to the westernmost landmass. It's not the small island pictured on this map (I don't think Madara is large enough to show clearly on this map), but that's generally where I thought it sat.
A lot of the Keldon names I used in those stories were derived from Viking/Old Norse style names, but not all. Some were derived from Gaelic/Celtic, some came from Apache, some from Ancient Greece, and some I just plain made up.
Kavalex was meant to be a Covetous Dragon (not the one on the actual card, but definitely the same kind of dragon), though, so you are dead right about that. For the record, "Skouras" came from Greece and "Knarr" is definitely a Viking-style name.
This the map I referred to most heavily. I think I understand the question now, so let me take a whack at it: I placed the border of the phased area at just shy of the desert. Northeast Suq'Ata extends to the north and east of the desert (in the upper right corner of this map), so by my reckoning not all of Suq'Ata was taken away. Since Suq'Ata was always a player in the region, I reasoned that the small slice of Suq'Ata left over would be enough for Suq'Ata to rebuild/remain a player by the time TS begins. No Zhalfir =a bit of a power vacuum that the remains of Suq'Ata stepped in to fill, establishing itself as the dominant nation in this part of Jamurra. Ditto for Femeref on the south east corner of things, though I would say less of Femeref territory remained.
And to take a slightly different look at things, please remember/consider that Femeref and Suq'Ata's influence isn't limited to their national boundaries--there were and are Femeref and Suq'Atan people active all over NW Jamurra. It's not unreasonable (at least to me) that these expatriate/emmigrant societies would band together after the phasing and strive to reestablish some sort of national identity--which, from Teferi's remark, we can see that they did successfully.
Truly, I have no inside information to share. Jaya is mentioned in the Chandra web comic (in passing), but I literally don't know if there are any plans to explore this connection.
If you specifically meant what happened to Jaya right before the TS trilogy, since her absence was noted and mentioned by other characters in the trilogy), the specifics are still very much up in the air, and intentionally so. I left out any really specific details, mostly because I didn't think the trilogy was the right place to do Jaya's last story justice. I think it's worth a whole separate novel, actually, and that Jaya should be the main character of that novel. But for TS, I left out the details and the nice folks at WotC were fine with that. So now, since those specific details I plotted out but didn't use aren't in the book, so they're just ideas I had, not official Magic canon.
In other, glibber words for the sake of a short answer: I really don't know what happened to Jaya and I won't know until WotC either asks me (or someone else) to write it.
Glad you liked Lorwyn, and thank you. Cory can speak for himself, but for me I've been inspired by a whole bunch of different authors. Quick list of the ones who have been inspiring me the longest (off the top of my head): Poe, Gaiman, Moore (Alan), Seuss (Dr.), Lee (Stan) and Lloyd Alexander
Teferi and Jhoira have known each other for centuries, but they met as young adults. Honestly, I think their relationship has covered the whole gauntlet from platonic friends to academic partners to romance to brother/sister-style teasing and support.
What I tried to show in the TS novels was, no matter what it was or had been before in the past, these days Teferi's the one who's still a bit more interested in getting back to the romantic side of things, but as far as Jhoira's concerned that ship has sailed and he's out of luck.
There are no plans to novelize the old comics...at least, none that I'm in on. Sad to say, I think it's a quite a long shot.
Thanks! I'll always have a sweet spot in my heart for Chainer's Torment because it was my first published novel. And because of Skellum. I'm still upset about Skellum...
Thanks for the compliments (which I snipped). I think I have had some success with black mana personalities because I think the more selfish characters have to be a bit more charming/witty, because otherwise they'd never get people to do wha they want (and everyone else would just keep hitting them all the time).
Or it could just be that I'm a scoundrel myself and so writing about scoundrels comes naturally.
Ochimusha means "fallen warrior" and I used it in the sense of "degraded" or "low" warrior to reflect Toshi's lack of proper social status. If Kamigawa were a western (and westerns have never been shy about borrowing from samurai culture before :)), Toshi would be called "gunslinger"
As for the numbered questions:
1. Yes. No comment. See above answer RE: "What happened to Jaya?"
2. The Ghost Army did dissolve when Konda fell. The soritami army keenly felt the loss of their mastermind Mochi, and the snakes of Jukai were able to fend them off after a long struggle.
3. He saw it was weakened and went after it. He overpowered it and, for lack of a more elegant term, he ate it. He took its vast power for himself and assumed the role of the new spirit-god of Chaos. What he did as that spirit-god is a tale for another day (and I hope I get to write it).
4. I prefer to leave it open ended, as it appears in the end of the book. I do think the answers to your questions are there in the text, however. (hint: Kyodai doesn't really seem like the forgiving type to me....)
5. The Sisters didn't so much destroy/kill/obliterate OK, they overthrew him and assumed his power (and yes, the parallels between this and what happened with Hidetsugu and the Oni of Chaos were intentional--by the time the story's done, the old ways are all pushed aside and the fundamental nature of things has begun to change). They were able to do this at all because Kyodai was a part of OK to start with, a very important part. It's hard to be literal about such abstract stuff, but I don't think it's a question of a smaller part consuming the larger whole, but more like one facet of OK's personality/power asserted itself and took over the whole entity.
6. He fared well enough to sire a line of Umezawas that lasted 400 years...:D I wouldn't say he was given a keener sense of smell in exchange for losing his sight, either--if Toshi has a "nose" for mana, it's a natural gift he was born with (like his facility with kanji spells).
7. I answered this higher up in this very post.
I did use the map you cited (and several others) while working on the TS cycle, but I don't think I understand your question--the two red circles on the map represent where Shiv and Zhalfir were until Teferi phased them out. The "Jamurran" circle surrounds a lot of ocean and, at the very eastern edge of the circle, overlaps the coast of NW Jamurra--specifically Zhalfir and Femeref, which are on a peninsula all their own (bordered by a big desert to the east, which is mentioned at the end of Future Sight). Everything from the sea to the desert was phased out. What is the error/disconnect you're asking about w/respect to the Invasion era map?
I would like to add a thought to the anime part of the discussion--it may be super-obvious to mention Kamigawa, but I always thought that a very specific sub-plot of the Kamigawa trilogy would make a great one-shot anime movie: Kobo's Reckoning, starring Hidetsugu (guest-starring Toshi). We start from the moment Chiyo drops in on Hidetsugu, and then we follow the ogre as he recruits his yamabushi, slaughters everyone in the Minamo academy, watches his god get torn in half, then overthrows that god and takes its place as an embodiment/avatar of insatiable chaos.
Man, that'd be sweet.:cool:
And as everyone knows, if it smells good, it reads even better. You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can judge it by its sweet, sweet aroma.
That first part is sort of tricky to answer because there was a significant amount of review/give-and-take between the authors and WotC. It was a collaborative team effort to be sure.
With that said, I do think the authors took the lead in laying down the particular fates of each of the characters listed above. We didn't do it in a vacuum by any means, but after we had discussed it thoroughly with the story team/WotC, everyone was ultimately on board and things played out as portrayed in Time Spiral/Planar Chaos/Future Sight--that is, Teferi was diminished, Freyalise died, Windgrace went missing but is not entirely gone, Leshrac died, etc.
For the second part of your post--though I was not at all shy about taking out individuals, I didn't think of what we were doing as "killing" all the omnipotent planeswalkers. I viewed it as an end of an era, much in the same way Apocalypse ended the Urza/Yawgmoth/Gerrard era. **Please note that this is just an example: I do appreciate how The Mending is a very different sort of fundamental change when compared to the natural progression of an epic adventure to its grand finale, like we had in Apocalypse).**
For a long time the novels had been about one large, multi-layered story arc with a large handful of recurring characters. When that story came to its end (and the Urza/Yawgmoth/Gerrard era ended with it), many of those characters (Barrin, Hanna, Eladamri) were gone and many of those that survived were changed...but they would have to pick up the pieces and go on anyway. Then things shifted to Otaria and a whole new thing started.
Also, I must respectfully but firmly disagree that Teferi doesn't seem to be affected by losing his spark. I think his reaction certainly could have been larger, more pronounced, but as the author I chose to portray its effect on him in a different way.
The main component of Teferi's reaction is one of traumatic shock--he can barely speak coherently for the first part of Planar Chaos because he's still overwhelmed. Teferi intended to die at the end of Future Sight, remember. So imagine, if you will, someone concocting the most dramatic and heroic scenario that he can for his own death. He will selflessly sacrfice himself for the greater good, simultaneously saving the world and atoning for all his worst sins. Then he actually does live out this scenario and his life ends in a huge burst of glorious light.
And then he wakes up right back where he started, except now he's an amoeba instead of a human being. And someone says, "Nice try. Now get back to work."
So Teferi's mind is pretty much blown.
So you are correct, I did not fully explore Teferi's newfound status or conscience...but only because Teferi himself is just starting to come to grips with that at the very end of Future Sight. We probably won't see a deep exploration of how Teferi sees himself/what Teferi has become in the post-Mending world until WotC decides to return to that character.
And as for that: I don't know of any plans to return to that character, but if they do, I would love the chance to write it, and to address some of the issues you mention.
Thanks, and sorry if I went on too long,
A whole lot actually,
In terms of the continuity canon, we agreed that the visitations with Teferi, and the others were not 100% reliable as presented, and not to be taken strictly at face value. The concensus was that we were not 100% bound by them.
As Time Spiral's author, it served my purposes in for there to have been no actual contact between Teferi and Karona. That also fit with what the story team's goals for the longer-term Magic storyline, so that's the way we went with it.
There's a bit in Time Spiral where Teferi says he doesn't remember the meeting with Karona...and if she does, it was in a dream she had. That's pretty much my take on it--the meet probably did happen, but only in Karona's head (which, given who Karona is, is as close to real as you can get without actually being real).
I think I missed a reference in your first question--how soon after Legends II did I start plotting out which characters? If I'm reading it right: I began working on Kamigawa right after I finished Legends II, and one of the first things from the first story meetings we agreed on was that the protagonist Toshiro would be an ancestor of Tetsuo. so the Umezawa connection was there from the word go. As for Bolas, I had jotted down notes on his return and promised campaign against the Umezawa clan as part of my Legends II preparations. Time Spiral was not about Bolas vs. Umezawa, however, so we only saw glimpses and hints of what he was up to w/respect to his sworn oath of vengeance.
Later, when it came time to plot out where the Time Spiral trilogy would go, we assorted authors and editors tossed around quite a few planeswalker characters for consideration, and Bolas was the first one out of my mouth. Later, we found out that he was going to be a reprint in the set, so I took that as a sign (and yes, it's totally true that the initial inclusion of Bolas in the plot and the card set was a happy coincidence).
As for Tetsuo's guild if he were a Ravnica denizen, I'm going to have to punt this one back to the audience at large--what do you guys think? Tetsuo is blue/black/red, which throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the dual-color guild structure. He's got a strong ego/pride, he's uncompromising, slow to react from anger but terrible in his wrath when he does, he's fiercely loyal to and protective of his subordinates, he leads by example, and he's more inclined to try to improve things/the system from within rather than tearing it down from without (though as we saw, once he decides to tear things down he does so with a brutal effectiveness). To me that sounds more like an outsider like Kos than any of the established guilds. What's that sound like to you all?
And you can call me Scott, McGough, Mr. McGough, McG, or McGoo. We're all friends here.
I can't help you with Pivlik (he's not my character), but when I am asked to make up names I do have a few methods to get me started. Please note that for Legends II and Kamigawa, the vast majority of names were already in existence or specially created for the set and then handed off to me, so I had very little need to name those characters.
This is a tough question to answer (sort of like "How do you hit the bull's eye when throwing darts?" The answer is to throw the dart straight to the center of the target, and if you miss keep trying until you do hit it, and then keep practicing until you can hit it more often than not.). In other words, naming is an inexact science and it requires a lot of trial and error and a healthy dose of self-review.
I often start by looking at real world names that come from cultures that are similar to the fantasy culture in question--for example, the Keldons have a lot in common with Vikings, so I started by looking at lists of Old Norse/Scandinavian names. The ones I looked at and liked tended to be short, percussive, and have hard consonant sounds, and I adapted that into Keldon names like Knarr, Bullag, and Greht.
Hope that at least helps get you started,
I'm quite happy to clear that one up for you. The Keldons are one of my favorite Magic things to write about (and when I was on the Story Team they were one of my favorite things to put on cards). I've written a lot about them (Myths of Magic, Dragons of Magic, Time Spiral trilogy) and while I may have never stated any of this so explicitly in the text, I've definitely hinted at it. Anyway, these are the rules I laid down for myself when writing about Keld:
A warhost is one Keldon warlord and at least ten subordinate Keldon warriors. It can be much larger, but the warlord's characteristic battle magic doesn't really kick in unless there's at least ten.
And for the record:
Keldon warlord=native-born Keldon who has undergone a specific ritual ordeal and magically bonded with the land and red mana of Keld itself
Battle magic=native Keldon magic, fire- and frenzy-based spells that create a loop of enhancement like so: the warlord magically enhances his soldiers so that they beome faster, stronger, more savage, with increased stamina and able to ignore crippling pain. They give back the same sort of boost to the warlord, and the spell feeds upon itself until the Keldons have slaughtered everything else on the battlefield or they themselves are wiped out. In card terms, this is meant to loosely reflect the +1/+1 bonuses Keldon Warlords bestow upon themselves and their followers.
I realize you may have just been making a point and not asking a specific question, but what the hey, I'll take just about any opportunity to talk about Keldons.:cool:
Thanks, Squirle.
Now that I know that, I can answer Rathi 'walker's original question Scott, when you're writing a story, do you consciously try to avoid creating a mary sue/gary stu. Or does avoiding creating such a character just come naturally to you?
I'm going to accept the implicit part of that question (that I haven't written any egregious MS/GS characters) as a compliment, for which I am grateful. I think I have largely avoided the annoyingly perfect/flawless character trap (more on that in a moment).
To make sure I understand it, I'd like to offer my own example of that syndrome: Princess Ivy, that wretched child from Piers Anthony's Xanth novels--you know, the one whose magical power was to make everyone else just as shiny and perfect as little Miss Pollyanna Rose-Colored Glasses presumed they were. Any time danger reared its head, Ivy makes everything better just by thinking about how her companions can easily handle it...and so they can, because Ivy thinks they can. "Oh, no! A full-grown fire-breathing dragon is coming to eat me and my baby steam-breathing dragon sidekick! We have no chance...unless I just believe real hard that this baby steam dragon is actually stronger, smarter, faster, and hotter than the other guy. What's that? He is better, stronger, and faster after all? Hooray for us! The day is saved!"
Anyway, to the extent that I have been able to avoid this trap , I think I've done so through two bedrock foundations of my personality/approach to storytelling: A) perfect characters aren't interesting to me as a writer or a reader, so I naturally tend to avoid them; and B) I truly believe that no one's perfect...not in fiction or in life. In fact, I'm such a bad tempered, misanthropic cuss that even an idealized version of myself would come out as less than ideal.
Legends II Spoilers Coming Up.....
Now, I have read posts that accuse my protagonist in Legends II, Tetsuo Umezawa, of being too formidable/unstoppable/perfect in precisely the sense we're describing. I can see how one might feel that way, but I do disagree--Tetsuo does roll over all opposition (hey, he earned the title "Champion" for a reason--he's literally the best single combatant in the empire), especially in Book 3, where he kills his way up the chain of command all the way to the Emperor , but he does it through hard work, superior preparation, strategy, and tactics, and by relying on his formidable partners (Meha, Wasitora) to position him for the big win. I may have gotten too into the idea that Tetsuo wins out by using the same basic approach that a Magic player would use--that is, studying up on the potential opposition, preparing his own tools/weapons/etc. specifically for that opposition, and then being flexible enough in his execution so that he can adjust to any surprises and minimize any mistakes he makes along the way.
He also does so because he's driven by vengeance (for Kei) and his own pride (being in his view a better, more noble champion than the evil emperor deserves, thus tainting his own nobility) as much as for any altruistic reasons. I always intended for Tetsuo's overall motivation in part to be his need to redeem the family name--he's such an upstanding paragon at first because the black-magic-only Umezawas historically were notoriously selfish, destructive, and disruptive. Beyond that, I also think Tetsuo has definite flaws: he's aloof, he's stubborn, he takes himself and this honor stuff too seriously, and he has a cruel streak that would make his ancestor Toshi laugh out loud (such as when Tetsuo doesn't hesitate to kill hundreds of essentially blameless kentsu soldiers, either personally or by siccing Wasitora on them; and when he's methodically cutting Xira to pieces, one piece at a time, while relentlessly chasing her across a swamp). Tetsuo keeps himself under strict, rigid self-control until the end of book 2, and when he cuts loose he does so on the bad guys, for the most part --but he's still terrible to behold.
At the very least, I ask that you grant me Tetsuo does not equal Princess Ivy on the MS/GS scale.
You're very welcome.
I would add that I don't think it's a strict "would not" vs. "cannot" for Radha, but a combination of both...specifically, first one than the other. She would not planeswalk at first (no interest), and then more stuff happened (Jeska) so now she cannot--the ship has sailed, the window of opportunity closed, she made her decision and now she's stuck with it, etc. Kind of like a muscle she didn't exercise and now she can't lift a heavy weight with it.
Chainer's Torment is a particular favorite of mine 'cause it was my first. Glad you like it too.:D
In general the set was intended to be black-heavy, so the overall theme of the novel is tragic and a bit on the dark side. At one point I was asked to switch some merfolk characters into cephalids because the world-builders had already laid down the idea that cephalids were dominant, but overall the cards didn't make a lot of demands on the story or the characters for me as an author. I took a lot of good visual cues from the art and the style guide, things like as the First's intimidating appearance.
The initial plotting of the whole trilogy involved a roomful of talented creative people--Rob King, Jess Lebow, Will and Daneen McDermott to name a few--and Chainer has a sort of extended cameo in Vance Moore's Odyssey, but the specifics of Chainer's story, the execution of it in Chainer's Torment, and Chainer's character itself were very much my own creations. Skellum, the different ranks and classses of dementia casters, the pseudo-family/yakuza style structure of the Cabal--all me, baby.:D
That's usually the way of things with the novels I've written--things always start from the initial cards, rules, and the world-building work that the Magic Team does, which begins long before they bring an author in to start on the actual plotting and writing of the novels. And there are always important card concerns and world-building elements that need to be included/heeded as the writing goes along. However, the characters, their motivations, and how everything turns out is largely up to the author--I would say at least 90% so (with a healthy dose of oversight from the aforementioned Magic team to make sure everything fits).
Sorry, what is the mary sue/gary stu thing? I've spent a lot of time in writing classrooms and workshops and I have to say that's a new one to me.
And Cory J. will disagree, but I literally cannot listen to music and write at the same time--it's too distracting for me (I sometimes start typing the lyrics without meaning to). Instrumentals are only slightly better, as I find myself typing in rhythm to the music rather than the rhythm of the words.
I do listen to music while I edit what I've already written, however, sometimes quite loudly. Esp. big, bombastic classical stuff like Danse Macabre or Beethoven's Ninth. Or the Team America soundtrack.
I'm not in a position to answer a lot of the larger planeswalker-related questions that have been flying around from "You are a Planeswalker," but I can definitely take a crack at this one.
The novels do not directly say it as succinctly as the article does, but the novels do support the certainty in the statement "Radha lost her potential to become a planeswalker." As an author I hope the answer is already there in the text (or at least in the subtext) without this here explanation...but since you've asked....
As the article states, Radha has the same kind of spark that Venser has, and she loses the potential to planeswalk. You can take that at face value: at the end of the story Radha no longer has the ability/option to cross planar barriers through her own individual effort/willpower/magic. I hasten to point out that Radha's spark is not gone, but it is never going to "work" as a means of going from one plane to another. Her situation is analogous to Glacian's--a character from The Thran who had the potential to become a godlike planeswalker but never actually ascended...and so he died as an ordinary (though exceptional) mortal.
Again, for the record it is never directly stated in the books that Radha's loses her potential to become a planeswalker as directly as it is stated in the article. What *is* stated/shown in the climactic moments of Time Spiral is that Radha consciously chooses to bind herself to the land of Keld, to become a Keldon Warlord. In fact, Radha's whole life up to her climactic duel with Greht in Time Spiral is actively, aggressively, and often violently focused on achieving a connection to the land of Keld. Everything she ever wanted and ever will want is in Keld.
So once she achieves this connection at the end of Time Spiral, that's it for the real possibility of her leaving this plane and going to others--she has completely committed to Keld, she's chosen the Keldon fork in the road, etc. There is no going back. She is too strongly bound to Keld/Dominaria to leave it without a massive physical/magical/spiritual effort on her part, plus the will/determination to do so--and Radha will never want to mount such an effort in the first place. Her entire identity is tied to Keld and she has no reason or inclination to leave it.
A character like Venser, on the other hand, is more inclined to explore the unknown, more likely to be drawn in to a mystery, and more motivated by pure intellectual curiosity. To put it bluntly, where Venser seeks outward, beyond the frontier, Radha seeks within herself and in the immediate world around her. Venser's view of things is wider, more universal; Radha's is local. In a very real and author-intended sense, Radha's grand vision of things is limited, as she is blindered by her obsession with being the best Keldon ever. By virtue of his choices and actions, Venser's planeswalking ability becomes active and he sets out to explore other worlds. By virtue of her choices and actions, Radha's planeswalking ability does not become active and she will always stay on Dominaria.
When Jeska commandeers Radha's dormant spark and uses both it Radha as tools/weapons against the time rifts, that traumatic impact further distances Radha from the possibility of undoing her connection to Keld/traveling to another plane.
So to sum it all up in one of my trademark message board analogies, Radha is analogous to a ballet-dancing child prodigy who could have gone all the way to the top of any dance troupe in Moscow/New York/Paris/wherever else they love ballet...but instead she chose to dedicate her strength, balance, and grace to becoming a kickboxing champion, or better still, a Ninja Warrior Kunoichi champion. After decades of training for and competing on the Ninja Warrior obstacle course, Radha's simply never going to be able to dance Swan Lake an earn a standing ovation like a top ballerina would. What's more, she'll hardly notice that fact, and when she does she won't care.
Does that help?
I really don't have any control over where the future story line might go, but as these are some of my favorite characters to write, I say "lobby away."
RE: the final fate of Freyalise and Windgrace, again, I can't say what WotC has in mind for the future, but I can tell you my intent: Freyalise is indeed dead, due to the stresses of sealing the rift after all that time keeping Skyshroud alive in Keld (when it would have definitely perished otherwise). Beating the Urborg rift also took all Windgrace had to give, so I would say he's dead but that he left his mark on Urborg before he went, that his presence will always be felt there. In other words, they're both dead, but if I had to guess there's a much greater chance of Windgrace finding his way back. No such plans are afoot as far as I know, however.
Regarding the rifts and death, there was no hard and fast rule about a planeswalker overcoming/consuming/being consumed by a rift equals death. As we saw in the books, the outcome depended on the size/scope of the rift and the power/will power levels of the individual planeswalker. To use a crude, barely accurate analogy, it's a bit like a human soldier who throws himself on a live grenade to save the rest of his platoon: he might save all his buddies, some, or none; he might survive but he'll probably die; and no matter what he's literally going to lose a big piece of himself.
The plotting question is a tough one. I reserve the right to change my mind later, but right now I'm going to go with Time Spiral. There was so much history and so many characters that we wanted to include, but could not in purely practical terms (each novel would have been twice as long and would not have been finished on time). There were a lot of demands to statisfy from the past, present and future of the game (and yes, I am aware of how nicely that statement lines up with the past/present/future theme of the card sets ;)), and in order to meet as many as possible in the novels we had to plan and plot for way more than actually wound up in the pages. It was hard to let go of so much hard work.
RE: my Ravnica guild of choice, I'd probably go with Radkos, but Cory J. Herndon himself has hinted that were he the Ravnica Sorting Hat, he would put me in the Gruul :D.