MTG Salvation

As the first of my finished requests for the people at the Commander forum, we have a story on one of the most classical 5-color commanders: The Reaper King. I didn't find any previous backstory on it, which gave me considerably leeway to write it. However, I did follow one specific request by arrogantAxolotl that I will not tell you guys, so as to not spoil the plans he has for his deck. If you like my stories (or even if you hate them) share your thoughts, opinions and criticism. I know it is much easier to just read, have a personal reaction and move on with your life, but please share your reaction! Good or bad, I will answer it and it will incentivize me in writing more stories

Without further ado, I present to you...

Reaper King

Shadowmoor, before the events that led to Oona’s demise.

Mistmeadow, a kithkin duon.

Swiiish. Swiiish.

The scythe harvested the cereal following the angular motion of the kithkin’s arms. The feeble moonlight and foggy terrain didn’t keep a kithkin from getting his grain.

Swiiish. Swiiish.

The crops in the field fell to the left, mounting in piles that were to be collected by the next kithkin. That particular plantation stood outside the walls of the duon, which made the kithkins feel unease. Their shared empathic connection, the mindweft, trembled with feelings of anxiety and insecurity.

Swiiish. Swiiish.

The wheat was growing strong and tall, with few nettles and ragweeds plaguing the crop. Ulkin stayed ahead of the others kithkins, almost at the edge of the plantation. While he scythed, he imagined what he would do with the grain. All the breads and pies, and cookies and muffins, and cakes and crackers, and… lights?

Ulkin stopped his motion with the scythe at midway of its arc. He thought he had seen something glowing between the spikes of wheat, but couldn’t say for sure. At the limit of the wheat crops there were curled branches of dark-bark, leafless trees. Ulkin squinted his golden eyeballs and… there. He saw it again, for a brief moment. An eerie orange glow coming from amidst the forest. What could it be? A cinder? Maybe a fi-

Woooosh.

The kithkin fell on his back, scared from the thing that jumped from the grain over his head. He breathed the sigh of relief when he saw it was just a small scarecrow. The creature was all ragged and stitched, with metal rakes as hands and a weird arrangement of pieces of cloth and wooden sticks on its back that seemed to work as sails. Its head was made with a bag of sawdust, and red paint was used to represent the eyes. Whenever the scarecrow moved its head there was a disturbing sound of the sawdust shaking. Shoosh, shoosh. Its joints were rusted and corroded, and they made a high-pitched rasping sound when the creature jumped again. Crrrreeeeeeaaaakkkkk. It did so suddenly that it scared Ulkin again. Before the kithkin realized, the scarecrow had already vanished in the plantation one more time. Stupid creature.

When Ulkin could collect his thoughts again, he tried to search for the orange glow one more time, but it had disappeared completely. That send a shiver down his spine for a reason he couldn’t tell. The mindweft felt his fears and the others kithkins flinched. Ulkin rubbed a silver pin in his shirt with two of his fingers, an old superstition to protect him from harm.


All kithkins hastened their pace, afraid of what could be laying in wait for them outside Mistmeadow’s walls. Their scythes cut and the wheat fell, baskets collecting the precious kernel. Lindayla piled the grain in the basket tied to her waist, while all her pots with multiple powders shook along her movements. She was sweaty and tired, feeling uncomfortable and paranoid. As one of the duon’s hedge mages, she thought unwise to leave the walls without having a protective spell – that’s why she had brought her special crystal flask.

Inside the flask there was a dark blue powder that glistened on the dim moonlight. It was a very powerful brew made with the clipped nails of a shadow, the pulled hairs of an eggshell and the smashed elbows of a snake. It would keep away the spirits and the fae, the cinders and the ouphes, the pucas and the boggarts. From time to time, she picked up a little of the powder from inside the crystal flask and blew it into the wind, to ensure every kithkin was safe.

Lindayla was thinking well of her own wisdom, until a spikelet of wheat entered under her nail and cut her finger. Ouch. She sucked the blood out of the tip and cursed the plants. She started to rip a piece of her linen to bandage the wound when a click-clacking sound came from behind. She turned to see a skittering basket-shaped scarecrow moving in a feverish way. It had many pincer limbs and a core made of a rattan basket. The scarecrow was collecting the grain with its pincers and throwing inside the basket, but the rattan was rotten and torn at the bottom, which made the wheat fall back onto the ground. The creature didn’t realize that and just repeated its movements, in an endless, meaningless task. Its joints were cracking and clicking while it adjusted its many limbs, in an annoying mechanical sound. Lindayla felt sorry for the poor creature, and grabbed a small pot of clay which had a white, sparkling powder on the inside. She put a little on her hand and blew it in the direction of the basket-scarecrow, who slowly stopped moving altogether.

The lifeless basket-scarecrow had stop in an awkward angle, which made it look like a gross dead spider. Lindayla grimace, and she thought that it was time to blow some of her special dark blue power again. She reached for the crystal flask at her waist, but didn’t find it. The kithkin put her basket down and looked all around, in all her pots and jugs, and cups and mugs, but didn’t find the flask. That’s when she went to look at the scarecrow and found the container broken at its feet. The creature had picked up the crystal flask as if it was wheat and threw it into his hollow basket. The crystal was all broken and the blue powder quickly scattered away.

The kithkin’s feelings of discomfort and paranoia intensified. Her powder was gone. The protection of the harvest was compromised. She looked all around to see if the other kithkins were paying attention, and some turned to her due to her fears spreading in the mindweft. Lindayla looked to the woods around and thought she had seen something moving in the shadows. After the goosebumps passed, the kithkin tied a piece of red cloth around her finger, to keep her from harm.


All the harvest had been collected into the baskets. The kithkin, wanting nothing more than to go back inside their duon’s walls, quickly moved to leave the wheat at wooden carts stationed at the edge of the plantation. The carts were drawn by springjacks, who would leave them at the silo inside Mistmeadow. The fogginess seemed to have intensified since they started harvesting the grain, and it was hard finding the way back home without making a misstep or stumbling.

Dridith stayed behind along with a couple few kithkins. They were in charge of guiding the springjacks to the silo so the wheat could be stored. She stroked the fur of one of the springjacks, which produced a pleasant bleating sound in response. Dridith liked taking care of the springjacks, they were loyal, simple and brave, just like her kind – the kithkin. She proceeded to check if all sprinjacks had their carts properly tied, especially given how much they hopped around.

Almost all the springjacks had been checked when Dridith suddenly glanced at something standing at the middle of the harvested field. The heavy fog made it very blurry, and she could only distinguish a hazy silhouette. It was the size of a kithkin. She couldn’t understand why he was staying there alone, and she got worried. After giving the reins of the closest springjack to one of the other kithkins, she walked towards the silhouette. Dridith called and cried, yelled and howled for the kithkin to get back with her, saying it wasn’t safe outside the duon. There was no answer back. As she inched closer to the silent figure, she realized it was just a scarecrow. Its head, made with a tin can, was tilted due to a broken piece that held the neck together. The head wore a disturbing smile that had been carved into the tin can, without anything to represent the eyes. The rest of its body was made of hay bundled together around a single wooden stick. The creature didn’t have arms or legs, and the only movement it made was to try and rise its tilted head, that would fall again due to the broken neck piece. Dridith got angry with whatever kithkin had left that creepy thing back on the harvested field.

Trying to forget what seemed to be a prank, Dridith turned her back on the scarecrow to help with the springjacks. However, the fog had intensified even more, and she couldn’t recall exactly the direction from which she came. She tried to call for the other kithkins, but she could only feel their worries shared on the mindweft. She started to try moving back by guessing the direction. After a while she finally saw what appeared to be one of the kithkins, and ran to meet with him. Dridith stopped before almost bumping on the same scarecrow she had seen back at the middle of the field. It was still trying to move its tilted head back up, with the perpetual smile on its face. How was that possible? She was sure she had left the scarecrow behind, and that thing couldn’t even move. Were there two of it? No. Somehow, she knew it was the same scarecrow.

Dridith’s heart started to pound harder in her chest, and she felt as if her stomach was touched by gelid claws. She ran back from that maniac scarecrow’s smile and started screaming the names of the kithkins that were with her. In the midst of the fog, she thought she’d seen another silhouette, much bigger than a kithkin, moving in her direction. She ran to the other side almost tripping and falling until hearing the faint bleaks of the animals. Springjacks hopped high and low back to the duon, back to Mistemeadow. Dridith bit a sparrow’s bone she brought in a string around her neck, a superstition to thank for her good luck, and quickly found her way back to the wheat carts and Mistmeadow.


Everything from the harvest was stored safely, and all kithkins were more relaxed now that the dangerous business of getting grain outside the duon was finished. Some of them, like Ulkin, Lindayla and Dridith were still disturbed from the more recent events, but the general mood shared in the mindweft was one of accomplishment. A task finished well despite all the odds stacked against them – that is how the paranoid Mistmeadow kithkins saw that harvesting day.

They allowed themselves to drink some ale in celebration, while also dancing and singing some songs. The harvest was over, the grain grew strong, now they would have time to wait before going outside their duon to plow the field for the next season. Most kithkin went to sleep with a belly full and a happy smile – a rare thing in Shadowmoor – and even Ulkin, Lindayla and Dridith became less worried at the end of the day. However, none of the three could get rid of the tingling sensation telling them something was wrong.

In the next day, the kithkins got up from their beds to start preparing their food with the grain they had collected. As soon as the first kithkin entered the silo, panic spread throughout all of the mindweft. The silo was completely empty. But, how could it be? It wasn’t right. The reaped cereal disappeared from sight. Someone must have stolen all the grain from the harvest, or so they thought. The Mistmeadow cenn was informed and decided to organize search parties in every house, sending small kithkin troops to knock on all the doors. They couldn’t stay without the wheat, serious measures needed to be taken. However, the parties were cancelled when a springjack shepherd came back from feeding his animals outside the duon. He had shared unsettling news with the watchguards at the gate: the plantation of wheat was still there at the field. It was as if the crop had never been cut.

The news spread through the duon like wildfire, causing great distress to the mindweft. A decision was taken: the kithkins would move out of the duon to harvest the crop once again.

Negative thoughts charged the mindweft. All the kithkins that went harvesting the next day brought double the number of talismans, charms and trinkets, some adopting weird superstitions like taking two steps with the right foot before taking one with the left, or eating raw eggs with larvae of fruit pests. Ulkin, however, was just worrying about finishing his chore to go back to Mistmeadow. His arms were hurting from the exercise the day before, but he endured the discomfort and started to quickly scythe away all the wheat spikes.

Ulkin didn’t understand how the plants were there, but he was making quick work of them. Soon he was standing alone in front of all the other kithkins, once again at the border of the plantation where the forest was. He wasn’t sure if he dared looking for the orange glow. Shivers went down his spine just from the thought of it, but he couldn’t resist taking a peek. Before he could do it though, the small scarecrow with rake hands and cloths in its back jumped from the grain. The kithkin almost fell on his back, startled by the same creature from the other day. That instilled him with rage, and Ulkin took a furious glance at the red-painted eyes looking back at him from the bag of sawdust. Shoosh, shoosh. The creature seemed to be about to jump back on the field again, but before it could do so, Ulkin moved its scythe on a downward motion that hit the scarecrow right in the middle of its head. The bag that it for a head got pierced, and the sawdust scattered to the ground. The rest of its body started to move in an uncoordinated, clunkier way, making strong rasping sounds. Ulkin slashed and wrecked, smashed and cracked until the scarecrow’s body stopped moving.

He was sweating and trembling, but the scarecrow had been put down. Maybe now he would have some peace. Ulkin went to rub his lucky pin, but realized it wasn’t there for him. He searched and searched for it without success, feeling more tired, frustrated and afraid. So disturbed he was by the loss of his pin that he didn’t notice the orange glow, brighter than before, coming from amidst the trees.

The feet of Lindayla felt sore, and she was breaking out in a cold sweat. The atmosphere of the plantation didn’t seem to have change at all – the dim moonlight, the fogginess, the oppressive sight of the dark forest trees. That’s what worried her. If things were a tad bit different, she might have felt a little safer. Her hands automatically moved to where her crystal flask with the special powder used to be, only to find nothing there. Making that unconscious movement only deepened her misery, and she sighed in self-pity. She was about to start collecting more plants into her basket, when she heard the same click-clacking sound from the day before. Amidst the uncut spikes of wheat, the basket-scarecrow appeared pinching the stalks of grain in its frenzied, cumbersome way. Lindayla stared wide-eyed at the small creature that repeated its useless chore of throwing spikes inside the hollow rattan basket that was its core. She took one step back. The kithkin knew that the scarecrow shouldn’t be moving anymore. The white powder she blew into it should have completely neutralized its animus.

When the basket-scarecrow with its many pincer limbs started to approach her, she panicked and fell on her bottom. Almost as a reflex movement, she grabbed her clay pot and blew a handful of white powder into the creature. So much powder was wasted that the scarecrow stopped moving almost immediately. The kithkin breathed heavily and cleaned the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She then remembered her protective superstition – Lindayla went to tie a lucky knot, but couldn’t find her piece of cloth. That was the last drop for the hedge mage, and she left the plantation early before completing the whole of her task. Had she stayed a little more, she would have seen – coming from between the branches of the dark curled trees – long timber fingers stretching their way to the plantation.

Despite other kithkins leaving as early as Lindayla, enough of them stayed to collect all the wheat and throw it at the springjack carts. The gentle creatures were a little less gentle now that they were forced to work as beasts of burden twice in a row without any rest. Dridith was talking to them in her soft, reassuring voice, while distributing carrots. She saw the same fogginess that seemed to have covered her vision for all of the last day, and decided to step up the pace.

Guiding a long line of springjacks along their way, Dridith tried not to focus on the plantation. Everything would be fine if they just got this crop inside the silo this time, she thought. However, before they could even leave the plantation field, the line of springjacks stopped and started bleaking louder and louder. Dridith, who was closer to the first animals, moved to see what was blocking their way. Stuck in the middle of the road was a scarecrow with a tin-canned head carved in a perpetual smile, whose only movement was to try and lift upwards his tilted head. The kithkin went pale, staring at the creature that was just a wooden stick with bundles of hay. It wasn’t supposed to move. The springjacks too were uncomfortable with the creature that seemed to be looking at all of them, despite having no eyes. The other kithkins started to ask what was wrong, and so she decided to make the springjacks go around the scarecrow with a tin-canned head. Guiding the animals with carrots she managed to make them all go around it, leaving behind the foggy-ridden field.

When the last springjack and kithkin had left, she realized the scarecrow with a tin-canned head wasn’t there anymore. Despite her best judgement, she looked at the field as if searching for it. That’s when she saw an intense orange glow coming from the fog, and squinted her eyes to see it better. Soon there came the cracking sound of old wood and a big silhouette appeared outlined against the field, moving in a creepy-crawly, herky-jerky way towards her. The glow seemed to come from atop the silhouette’s head, but she didn’t stay long to get more details. The kithkin ran back to Mistmeadow barely stopping to catch her breath. She looked back only once to noticed that, whatever that was, it wasn’t planning on following her. Dridith went to bit her lucky bone, but it fell from her on its own.

The kithkins stood all together to see the carts arriving, bringing the crop to Mistmeadow. The doors of the silo were locked tight and to watch over it was a duon’s knight. There were no parties and celebration that day, the kithkins were all exhausted to harvest the grain twice in a row. All they wanted was to sleep well and forget about what happened. The mindweft was agitated, and while some kithkins had dreamless sleeps, others had nightmares of being chased by animated pieces of metal and wood who stared at them with red-painted eyes and laughed with tin-canned smiles.


All the crop had vanished from the silo the next day. The knight that stood guard was sure that no one entered, and there were no signs of someone messing with the lock. The cenn of Mistmeadow sent a small number of guards outside the duon’s walls to confirm everyone’s suspicion. As soon as the guards reached the plantation they saw the spikes of wheat shuffling in the wind amidst the fog. Not a single plant appeared to have been cut. The news was too disturbing, and the elder kithkins of the village thought there was trickery going on. The hedge mages all organized and started to blame every other race for what was happening – the faeries were high on the list, but even the merrows were to be blamed, despite there being no body of water close to the plantation. The cenn, afraid that famine would spread throughout Mistmeadow, sent all the willing kithkins to go and harvest the grain once again, escorted by knights and hedge mages.

Many of the kithkins – including Lindayla – refused to step foot outside the walls, knowing that nothing good would happen by going there a third time. Ulkin and Dridith decided they would help again, both trying their best to hide their feelings of fear from the mindweft. Everyone moved to the outside and started collecting the grain, when they noticed an unusual high number of scarecrows wandering in the field. Ulkin started to cry that it was their fault, and hit them with the shaft of his scythe. He thought he’d seen the rake-handed scarecrow that he just destroyed the day before jump away from him. Dridith felt that the creatures were trying to encircle her, with their rattling and clattering, rumbling and tumbling. The few springjacks that had come started to hop away in fear, compelling the knights and hedge mages to destroy all scarecrows. The knights drew their shiny swords, hedge mages prepared their magic words – the weapons cut the wood, tin and hay, and powders scared the scarecrows away.

When all scarecrows were finished and gone, the kithkins felt they had won. All the grain was collected once more with a greater peace of mind. The kithkins were feeling as if the problem had been solved and got ready to get back to their duon, that until a sound came creeping from the forest. It was a cracking sound of old wood, followed by the sight of long timber fingers stretching their way from among the tree branches. The kithkins stood paralyzed when long wooden arms tied together by strings of wattle pushed rotten tree husks aside. The arms were followed by a slender, hunchbacked trunk made of a stuffed wooden frame. Spikes projected from the trunk, where kithkin skulls tied by knots made a clattering sound as the creature moved. Its legs were similar to the roots of a tree, and they moved much like spider limbs, somehow balancing the rest of the gigantic body. Projecting ahead of the trunk, the creature’s head was an enormous rotten pumpkin that left pieces of itself behind as it shook along the rest of the body. Scarier than all of that, an eerie orange glow was coming from inside the putrid holes of the pumpkin head. The glow seemed to intensify and diminish depending on how the creature moved its neck, as if an indication that it was looking at something. That was the biggest scarecrow any kithkin had ever seen, and many of them swallowed hard seeing its claw-like hands move towards the other fallen scarecrows, collecting their pieces together.

The springjack herd fled in hysteria, while many of the kithkins in the field followed their lead. The mindweft was in shambles, but some of the bravest knights and hedge mages of Mistmeadow managed to stay in their places. They looked at each other as if to get reassurance that they could do this. Lifting their swords and unfastening the lids of their pots, they all charged at the big scarecrow with its orange glowing head.


Despite the panic from the day before, the kithkins had manage to bring most of the crop back with them. The knights and hedge mages that stayed behind didn’t return, but the cenn had tranquilized the duon by assuring that no kithkin would starve that season. The wheat had been kept in a locked magically-protected heavily-guarded warehouse, and they were sure it stayed there all night. However, when they went there that day to check it, the grain was gone. From all the kithkins of the duon, only Mistmeadow’s hero agreed to go out and visit the plantation once again.

When he got there, the kithkin froze. All the wheat was in the field, waiting to be harvested one more time. At the middle of the field a gigantic pumpkin-head scarecrow was standing, his arms stretched wide in the fog. The creature moved its head towards the hero, that glowed in an intense orange light. The kithkin hero realized at that moment that there was something else at the scarecrow’s back. He saw projecting wooden spikes with the heads of the missing kithkins tied to them. The kithkin heads dripped with fresh blood, while the scarecrow’s body stood still, its head glowing in the twilight.


The feeble moonlight and foggy terrain
Didn’t keep a kithkin from getting his grain
Their scythes cut and the wheat fell
Baskets collecting the precious kernel
Springjacks hopped high and low
Back to the duon, back to Mistmeadow
But, how could it be? It wasn’t right,
The reaped cereal disappeared from sight
Ulkin went to rub his lucky pin,
But realized it wasn’t there for him
Lindayla went to tie a lucky knot,
But couldn’t find her piece of cloth
Dridith went to bit her lucky bone,
But it fell from her on its own
The knights drew their shiny swords
Hedge mages prepared their magic words
The weapons cut the wood, tin and hay
And powders scared the scarecrows away
But at the end all kithkins fled
From the scarecrow with a pumpkin head
And its tale we've learned to sing
That was the story of the Reaper King

- Kithkin lullaby song

The End

cool story and interesting way to end with a song. I dont particularly care about reaper king but want to give feedback because i think this is a really cool project you are working on. cant wait to see the next one.

Quote from robot »

cool story and interesting way to end with a song. I dont particularly care about reaper king but want to give feedback because i think this is a really cool project you are working on. cant wait to see the next one.

Thank you for the support man, it means a lot

Keep following the stories that I'm sure a commander you like will show up (or ask for one yourself).

I also liked the story, however I am curious on what the specific request was now. I'm definitely looking forward to more stories and will be following along the thread you started in the Commander forum. Keep up the great work!

Quote from goldnight"s blade »

I also liked the story, however I am curious on what the specific request was now. I'm definitely looking forward to more stories and will be following along the thread you started in the Commander forum. Keep up the great work!

Thank you very much for your support man!

The next request in line is Ghoulcaller Gisa! It will be a great one! When it is done I will link the story in the commander forum.

Felt it easier to post on the individual articles, Ashiok.

This was a HIGHLY enjoyable read. I felt the scenery was well-described yet sparce enough that although I had an image in my head, I could easily let the mind wander with the action around the field. The descriptions of the scarecrows was brilliant, evoking a macabre sense of normality and hostility among them, and the ending in both content and limerick was well done. Only thing I might alter is when on the 3rd day the Reaper King appeared, maybe another paragraph or so of buildup before most everyone fled would help? Just give the King a little more gravitas to his arrival, but that could also just be a personal thing of enjoying a reveal. It was a great story and reveal.

Overall, a fantastic story and read. Looking forward to all of the requests yet to come!

Quote from a7xjoker33 »

Felt it easier to post on the individual articles, Ashiok.

This was a HIGHLY enjoyable read. I felt the scenery was well-described yet sparce enough that although I had an image in my head, I could easily let the mind wander with the action around the field. The descriptions of the scarecrows was brilliant, evoking a macabre sense of normality and hostility among them, and the ending in both content and limerick was well done. Only thing I might alter is when on the 3rd day the Reaper King appeared, maybe another paragraph or so of buildup before most everyone fled would help? Just give the King a little more gravitas to his arrival, but that could also just be a personal thing of enjoying a reveal. It was a great story and reveal.

Overall, a fantastic story and read. Looking forward to all of the requests yet to come!

Thank you very much for your feedback man!

And yes, I suppose I could have developed more on the Reaper King arrival. This type of 'horror-revelation' story usually works like that - you give hints as to what is to come and the actual resolution and facing of the horror is quite fast. However, it didn't need to be that fast, heh. I'm very glad you enjoyed it in any case

It's me again.

This was another cool story. Among the legendary creatures from Shadowmoor, the Reaper King always had an air of mystery around him (or it?), because unlike almost all other characters, like Ashling, Rhys and Rosheen, he doesn't appear in the actual block novels. In fact, it was more or less by coincidence that his card got made and stayed in the set in the first place (as explained in this article), so he's one of those "random legends", but even then he just oozes flavor. It was great getting to read a story about him, especially since we probably won't ever get a proper return to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. (Incidentally, while that's a pretty harsh truth Kamigawa and/or Lorwyn/Shadowmoor fans like me have to face, it really opens up space for personal writing, since you don't have to worry about your story or characters being compromised by an eventual continuing canon story. So how about a Kamigawa story? )

I liked how you ended the story in particular. You could interpret the song in the end to mean that what was told in the story didn't actually happen (that would explain why all the grain was gone for apparently no reason, although admittely magic exists in Shadowmoor) - or at least didn't happen exactly how it was told. It just adds to the mystery and the uneasy feeling, because you can't say for sure whether the Reaper King really exists or not (we as readers know that he has a card, so the former is more likely of course, but it's different for the in-universe Kithkin).
You also managed to accurately catch the feel of the setting, just like in the Doran story. Words like "herky-jerky" made the scarecrows feel creepy without losing the storybook vibe of the plane. There were a few lines where I thought you were struggling with the tone a bit, but overall the execution was very good.

I also kept trying to find magic card equivalents for the characters you described - the description of the rake-hand scarecrow reminded me of Pili-Pala and the one with the rotten basket as its core of Scrapbasket.

And two nitpicks:
- A fortified Kithkin town in Shadowmoor is called doun, not duon (see the Shadowmoor printing of Mystic Gate, for example).
- The plural of Kithkin is Kithkin, not Kithkins (see the flavor text of Apothecary Initiate).

Thanks for the feedback man! I sure can write something about Kamigawa,but I got some story requests in line and it is going to take a while to write all of them, heh.

Part of the reason for the grain to disappear and reappear is due to a specific request of the person who asked me to write this story. He wanted Reaper King to be somehwat similar to Mr. Bones, a character from a meme related to Roller Coaster Tycoon, the game (I had to look up to understand it). Yeah, I think it is actually a bit easier to set the tone in Shadowmoor than it is in Lorwyn. And you're right about the scarecrows heh, they were based in those cars that you mentioned.

Man, did I write this wrong? heh,I'm gonna have to check it and fix it later. About kitkin: makes sense the plural is just the same word. I'm not sure I will change that because it makes it easier to understand for the reader, but thanks for pointing it out!