A major part ofMagic: The Gathering’s appeal is its story, characters, and world-building. There may be other card games that are able to go toe-to-toe withMagicmechanically, but I have yet to play one with as deep and rich of a narrative.Magic’s story is one of the main reasons I’ve stuck with the game for so long, continuing to follow it even when I’m not interested in buying cards from a certain set.
As a major fan ofMagic’s story, I was excited to have a chance totalk to the game’s senior story lead, Roy Graham about some upcoming projects. We discussed the exciting newDark Horse comics collaboration, which will focus on stories from acrossMagic: The Gathering’s long history. Graham also gave some insight into the upcomingEdge of Eternitiesset, and howMagic: The Gatheringis approaching its first-ever science fantasy setting.
How Magic: The Gathering’s Dark Horse Comics Collaboration Happened
Dark Horse Will Be Filling Gaps In Magic: The Gathering’s Story
Collaboration has become a major aspect ofMagic: The Gatheringat this point, so I was curious to knowhow the game’s partnership with Dark Horse came about. Roy Graham explained that: “Dark Horse and magic were talking. We knew we wanted to do something together. The editor that we were working with was himself, like a pretty big magic fan, and specifically, a fan of the story.”
Discussing how theUntold Storiesproject specifically came about, Graham said: “[Wizards of the Coast] were talking about previous attempts at the comic, and what aspects of the lore we wanted to cover, and then this idea came about for like, what if these comics were all canon? And what if we used them to take a swing at these little gaps we have in Magic story history? The first and most natural one there was Theros Beyond Death. And it synced up with how we wanted to tell more Elspeth stories, because that’s obviously one of her defining stories.”
Graham also drew a distinction between this and previousMagic: The Gatheringcomic books: “I think it makes it easier for people to care about it, because, unlike the boom comics, which were great, with the Dark Horse Comics were saying, this is all true. You can emotionally invest in this. This is all canon.”
I asked Grahamif this was the same story originally planned forTheros Beyond Death, since there were story moments present on the cards from the set. He explained that: “We had a summary of what happened more or less canonically, and those were the sources of truth that we worked backwards from.” He also gave some insight into what original work still needed to be done for the comics.
“Luckily, Theros has a ton of visual design already done. It’s a really visually iconic plane, we didn’t have to like invent what the underworld looked like or who these characters were. The things that required invention on our part was the scene work itself, like what the characters are saying and what is happening moment to moment, but a lot of the broad strokes had already been handled, which was great. It meant we got to really focus on the voices of the characters and the drama of the particular moment.”
Telling Stories Magic Stories On The Edge Of Eternities
Edge Of Eternities Is A New Magic: The Gathering Setting
Edge of Eternitiestakes place in anew setting forMagic: The Gathering, butthat doesn’t mean it’s fully separated from other stories. For example, the planeswalker Tezzeret’s inclusion has been previewed. I asked Graham how they balanced new and old story elements, and he explained that: “it was really a question of like, where in Magic can we draw inspiration from, like the Kavu. The Edge of Eternities equivalent of the Kavu are very different; They’re a sapient species with big power armor and drills, but there’s still a lot of inspiration drawn from the original form.”
Graham went on to discuss the creative choices made when adapting the Kavu for this new setting. “The Kavu on in the Edge are a species that have inadvertently ruined their world by over-mining and digging too deeply, which is kind of a dark mirror of the Kavu from Dominaria where originally they are this environmental response to the very unnatural, toxic presence: the Phyrexians. So I think it’s a lot of stuff like that, like there’s a cat named Mirri in the first episode of the Edge of Eternities story.”
In reference to the Planeswalker’s Guide for the set, available onMagic’swebsite, Graham brought up a creature type many fans have been speculating about: “There’s a mention here and there of Eldrazi, which were always intended as this nod towards cosmic horror, even before we had a cosmic space for Magic. They were this alien, inscrutable thing out there in the spaces between worlds.” However, if they are part of a set, it is a very well-kept secret.
Discussing a question that he had been asked earlier in the convention, Graham also took an opportunity to clarify that fans shouldn’t worry aboutEdge of Eternitiesbeinga dreaded hat set. In other words,this set isn’t justMagicwith spacesuits, as Graham explains: “We knew we didn’t want to do that. Everyone working on Edge of Eternity loves Magic and loves Magic settings and figuring out how we could tell something new with a lot of those parts.”
I was curious to know where the set’s story came from. Graham said that it happened in tandem with The Edge’s creation: “The story was coming together around the same time as a lot of the world-building. Pretty early on, the team was interested in this conflict between the black hole worshipers and the solar knights… That was on paper, and we started building a story around that. And then a lot of the particulars about the gift economy that is in place in the world, and the particulars of space travel that I think of more as texture.”
Graham elaborated that the deeper world building felt natural forEdge of Eternitiessetting. “Fantasy is very retro, it looks backwards, it’s nostalgic. We wanted to push into stranger territory, to interpret some technical jargon and just lay down some very particular, nitty-gritty rules because that felt very appropriate for the genre.”
The Importance Of Telling Magic Stories For Everyone
MTG’s Latest Protagonist Is Non-Binary
Edge of Eternitiesnew protagonist, Sami, uses they/them pronouns, as does anotherMagic: The Gatheringcharacter: Niko.Niko was originally introduced inKaldheim, a set whose story articles are credited to both Graham and Jenna Helland. Noticing the trend, I asked Graham to speak on the importance of representation inMagic.He said that “It’s important that people see themselves when they play our game and read our stories. It’s always felt very natural to me.”
He went on to elaborate on the connection I’d made between Sami and Niko. “Sami and Niko are different ways of arriving at similar conversations.” As a fiction writer, Graham took the opportunity to make an analogy to the discussion we’d had about sci-fi and fantasy, comparing Niko’s story to one that’s more reflective. Meanwhile, he said Sami’s is more like a look towards the future.
Graham explained that “Nico’s story is very much about them having to leave the expectations around them. They were expected to be an athlete, they rejected that and rebelled against it. This is something fantasy is very good at, this metaphoric mirroring of a real world experience that a lot of non-binary people, I think, had.”
In contrast, Graham note that “Sami is coming at it from a different direction. I talked about it with [Seth Dickinson] pretty early. He was like, ‘for Sami, do they think about their gender? Do they talk about it with other people?’ This is set on the far edges of space in sort of nebulous future time, and humans are in contact with species of all different varieties. Of course there’s going to be a panoply of gender identities and expressions, and it just felt natural for the setting.”
Balancing Fiction Writing With Magic: The Gathering Design
Roy Graham Discusses The Difference Between His Fiction Writing And Working On Magic
BecauseGraham is a fiction writer- some of his work can be read inThe Night Bazaaranthology series - I asked what it was like creating stories that were part of a larger game. He said that he"has my own sense of what I think would be the best version of every Magic story, and the version that people get is quite often far from what I think of as the platonic ideal. But I think that’s okay."
Graham went on to explain: “What makes Magic’s story unique and really worth following and engaging with is the tight connection with its game, the way you can follow along with the story and see new versions of characters and moments that emotionally resonate with you. You can literally own them on a card. You can play them in a game, and that’s pretty unique to the property.”
Graham clarified thatMagic: The Gathering’s unique qualities are what make it special. “If someone said, ‘Roy, you do whatever you want with the story, just let us know when it’s done.’ It would be just another fantasy story or another sci-fi story. I think it wouldn’t be special in the way that it is. The things that make it difficult, and the compromises I have to make, and the collaboration I have to do with all these moving parts is ultimately what makes the story special and interesting. I don’t mind having to make creative compromises because of that.”
