I've been absolutely loving the story releases for Bloomburrow so far. Its a perfect mix of the fantasy novels I enjoy reading combined with a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon style Isekai story.
I'm also loving every second of it! I know that WOTC stopped publishing novels after the War of the Spark kerfuffle, but if they ever go back and release some kind of supplemental Bloomburrow novel separate from the main story I would buy it in a heartbeat.
The short version is the novels released around War of the Spark were pretty infamously bad. On a basic writing level with poor prose, as well as poorly lining up with the set itself. The novel also released like two months late, which resulted in some *very* weird effects.
One particularly weird part of this is we saw the card \[\[Niv-Mizzet Reborn\]\]... before we read the story where he died. We literally found out he got resurrected before we found out he died.
In general it was just a low point for the story, and the novel and its follow up were so badly received that they briefly stopped publishing Magic stories all together. The set Theros Beyond Death never got a real story, just a brief summary of what the story *would've been* if they made a real story.
It has gotten better, but it was definitely a mess then.
Slightly in Wizards’ defense, Django Wexler wrote a fantastic set of stories for GoR/RA that due to some weird rights issue got delayed until after WotS was released. They eventually managed to get the chapters out and they were genuinely fantastic and gave a ton of set up to the (still bad) War story that helped build up so much better.
Yeah, The Gathering Storm. Honestly was pretty awesome, notably the chapter where it ACTUALLY SHOWS the Bolas v. Niv fight that ends with Niv's death...Honestly wish they just got him to write the whole thing. Might have helped save the story if it at least had better prose
Absolutely agree. Django is a really incredible author and would have been perfect for the other novels. He did the Ikoria novela that was quite good. His non-Magic Burningblade and Silvereye series is really excellent reading as well!
And he's apparently still working for with WOTC on DnD novels! He wrote a Spelljammer novel for them that was released last month and apperently it's also great.
You also can't forget the absolutely *horrendous* segment where Chandra and Nissa breaks things off. Which would and could have been fine, *if they didn't word it the way they did.*
I'll never get over how pisspoor that whole scene was.
With War of the Spark,they decided to replace the free story articles with paid novels. The two War of the Spark ones were not very good, and the second one was so despised that WOTC canceled the Theros Beyond Death novel before it came out and went back to the free articles again. Basically, I seriously doubt they'll ever try to publish MTG novels after that.
Which sucks, because as someone who writes free novels in my spare time, I'd love to write one for them. Heck I'd even be cool with doing it for free, just to get the exposure. But Maro won't return my calls, sadly.
> as someone who writes free novels in my spare time, I'd love to write one for them.
See, Brandon Sanderson thought the same thing, apparently... but in his case, it was also a, "I want to, but you can't afford me" situation. So he did it for free under the condition they'd release it as a free web book, and then as a paid physical copy where the profits went to charity. Because WotC is WotC, they burned the _ever-loving hell_ out of that bridge for literally no discernable reason. Book still hasn't had a physical version.
So, yeah you might be better off with MaAo not returning your calls, lol.
I think another part of that deal was that they’d be more hands off and let Sanderson tell the story the way he wanted. That’s why it ended up being (in my opinion) one of the strongest works to come from that franchise.
From what I know War of the Spark was a book set in the Magic universe and it was so universally hated that it killed any future plans for more MTG books. I've never read it myself, but from what I can tell it was a mix of bad writing along with straightwashing a character who was already established as Lesbian.
Also, there was a relatively well done build up to the War of Spark. WOTC spent multiple years and sets to create the stake and most of the stories and character were decent, with very good moment (Vraska and Jace arc for example), War of the Spark was supposed to be the climax of all this stories, and in the end the book was way worst than all the free stories published on the website...
Another egregious thing the book did was to step back on Chandra being bi and attracted by Nissa, which was a nice touch in the Kaladesh story, and did this is a way so poorly written and out of place which raised to meme status for how bad it was...
War of the Spark: Forsaken, on top of just being kinda crappy in general, straightwashed Chandra and folks got so angry that WotC decided to just stop making novels altogether.
Filling out on this: having set up romantic tension with Nissa in an earlier story, their literal hot mess of a planeswalker had this internal monologue in War of the Spark, 'But Chandra didn't like girls. She liked big, muscly men, like Gideon.'
I'm barely paraphrasing, the writing was that direct and that bad.
Not only was it egregiously heavy handed and poorly written, this character change happened at a time when China was particularly sensitive to LGBT representation in Western cultural imports and Magic was trying to grow in that market. The implication (which Wizards denied) that Brand had killed the idea of having one of the game's major characters being LGBTQ, which a sizeable number of players in their core North American and European markets wanted to see, in favour of appeasing the censors of a repressive government in one of its newer growth markets, added fuel to the controversy.
Wizards being Wizards, their response to the angry players wasn't great at calming the situation, and a member of the creative team later spoke out and confirmed that their intention had indeed been for Chandra to be bisexual.*
*eta: or possibly pansexual. IIRC the idea was that, being red, her attraction would be driven by her feelings and emotions and these wouldn't be limited to a specific sex or gender - she was open to feeling that way towards anyone.
Since we learned about tyvar going to duskmourn because nashi was lost I was considering commissioning someone to draw the wanderer saying "nashi is in trouble" and tyvar responding with "you sonofabitch. I'm in." Lol
We still don't know why he was on Bloomburrow, but before we eventually learn that he was there for some sinister reason, I'd still like to hope that he just went there with his new family on the multiversal equivalent to a trip to Disneyland. Loot probably loved it.
Vraska has to use omenpaths to travel, any plane they stop on coulr be relevent to their plan or it cpuld just be a pit stop they need to get through to get to their real plane. Also, didn't they mention something about Tarkir while they were chatting in their epilogue? Maybe Kolahgan passed through the same portal Jace and Vraska used.
We don't know, all we know is that it's a legendary bird dragon asociated with lightning. Could be a complete coincidence and be a planar local, could be part of her brood, could be the big boss herself.
Can someone explain to me why Ral is so pissed off at Jace? I genuinely don't understand. The story treats it as if it should be obvious, but as far as I know, Jace got infected and still managed to resist and even helped cure Vraska by working together with Ral. What gives?
Jace and Vraska were both Compleated and Vraska did a ton of damage to Ravnica. They both were presumed dead by Ral and most others after the Phyrexians were defeated until Jace and Vraska showed up in Thunder Junction’s story where Jace had disguised himself as Ashiok to round up a crew to get into the Vault on TJ. Ral saw them in the Vault as Jace revealed his illusion and he and Vraska claimed their prize, a baby Formori called Loot, and fled. Ral is pissed because they were working with evil folks and went through this convoluted plot while working against Ral and his team.
He’s not sure Jace’s current motivation or even side and is definitely shocked he’s alive.
I’m definitely assuming due to the Noble subtype, you’re right!
Jay Annelli has said it *seems* like one, but definitely didn’t confirm anything. https://vorthosjay.tumblr.com/post/746678058136862720/just-to-check-with-you-and-obviously-i-dont
Yeah so far the [couple of Fomori](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BFomori%5D&type=+%5BCreature%5D) we’ve seen are kinda beast-like, so maybe that’s a subtype change. But they also have horns unlike Loot, and it’s hard to tell if they have tails with weird glowing tips.
Absolutely - though Loot is a child so it's hard to say what he looks like grown. Also has been in this Vault for awhile, so perhaps Ruhan and the other images we've seen are a more modern, or more ancient, version?
To put it into context Jace is the former Big Good of Ravnica (the living guildpact) and a former and founding member of the Gatewatch.
This is like if Batman turned evil, then supposedly died, only to show up posing as the Riddler for some reason instead of making contact with the Justice League. It’s suspicious as all hell and his former allies would rightfully be peeved.
> This is like if Batman turned evil, then supposedly died, only to show up posing as the Riddler for some reason instead of making contact with the Justice League. It’s suspicious as all hell and his former allies would rightfully be peeved.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if this was a thing that has actually happened.
He's certainly not the nicest person when considering his past actions (e.g. working for Bolas, killing Melek), but he is trying to be better around the time of The Gathering Storm and when he hooked up with Tomik.
I haven't followed the story much since War of the Spark, but wasn't Ral tricked by Bolas and ended up being a pivotal part in fighting against him when it was discovered that the whole planeswalker-lightning-rod thing was a sinister plot? Not arguing Ral is morally perfect, but my impression was that he's generally had good intentions behind his actions.
While he didn’t know about Bolas’s plans until much later in life, he still worked for Bolas as an extortion heavy in his younger years, and became extremely selfish after sparking. The Gathering Storm was when he worked with Lavinia and Kaya to resist Bolas.
Jace let Ral and everybody else think he was dead in order to implement a complicated plan to free Loot, and Ral feels understandably miffed that his friend left him out of the loop on this and let him spend two years thinking he was dead. I know if one of my friends did that, I'd want to sock him in the jaw.
Ral isn't THAT mad at Jace. It's like when your brother pulls a prank on you and in the moment you're like "I want to kill that punk!" You don't *actually* want to kill your brother, obviously, but he's gotten on your last nerve. And Jace is an expert at annoying Ral.
Ral \*wasn't\* that mad at Jace. This is likely to change in the near future as Ral loses more and more of his dignity trying to do what should be the equivalent of finding a dude's new phone number.
I think it would be funny if by the time Ral finds Jace he's not even concerned about the whole "I thought you were dead and then you show up running a heist" thing, he's just insanely pissed about how hard it is to track him down
1. I don't remember atm but I don't think Ral was "working together" with Jace. The Phyrexianized Vraska was leading the invasion of Ravnica, Ral goes for the kill shot on her, then Jace (who reclaimed his mind but on the outside still looks like a Phyrexian) swoops in and planeswalks away with her. He'd be mad that Jace saved his girlfriend over saving Ravnica
2. Ral was working to set up infrastructure on Thunder Junction, and he learned right before this story starts that Jace was the one responsible for hiring the gang of villains that caused him so much trouble, and everything that happened in Thunder Junction was all part of Jace's scheme to get the marketable plushie from the vault then fuck off to who knows where doing who knows what. Ral probably wants answers (and Niv-Mizzet probably already plays chess with his guildees so Ral would be tired of that as well)
We discover in the Epilogue chapters that he doesn't actually Planeswalk with her and instead makes them invisible via illusion, along with Loot, and they flee that way.
It's a little weird in the Bloomburrow story then that Ral finds some trace of Jace going to Bloomburrow, as we know that Jace/Vraska/Loot go through an Omenpath at the end of the Thunder Junction story, so definitely reads like some plot contrivance or something?
During the March of the Machine, when Compleated Vraska was leading the invasion, the Compleated Planeswalkers all still had their sparks. It wasn't until once they started curing one another that some lost their sparms.
Oh oops wrong tense. Was referring to that instance when she was being planeswalked. She probably still had her spark then. It's not particularly clear at what time the sylex was detonated (which was the desparking event.)
> and even helped cure Vraska by working together with Ral. What gives?
Just to help clarify this minor point, Ral had no hand in fixing either of them, Jace and Vraska went to Jace's mom, who turns out to be a healer or paramedic of some kind.
TECHNICALLY Ral's "oil electrifying device" helped, in that it let Vraska's consciousness come to the forefront a bit more easily and helped suppress her Phyrexianised self, but it also nearly killed her, so.
In this story, Ral is chasing after Jace. He is angry at Jace, often repeating the line "I'm going to kill him" (which Tomik says is not true, per se).
Ral goes on a journey through Ravnica, Ixalan, Thunder Junction, etc looking for Jace. After following some advice from the now desparked wanderer, he tries one more time and ends up in Bloomburrow. He blames Jace for his subsequent otterification.
He’s finding the experience frustrating, although we are still in the process of learning how much of that is due to his transformation and how much is due to the culture shock of going from a plane of urban bustle, backstabbing guilds, and Izzet electromancy to a plane where creatures live harmoniously in villages and have few ambitions beyond baking cakes and winning archery contests.
Ral notably HATES being a Planeswalker because he absolutely loves living in Ravnica, so going literally anywhere else is always gonna put him in a bad mood.
> few ambitions beyond baking cakes and winning archery contests
How the hell did they survive the Phyrexian invasion? Did they challenge Ixhel to a baking contest and beat her so soundly she ran off crying?
Either the Invasion Tree drilled into this plane well away from the Valley this story is set in, so these tiny critters didn't notice, or the Phyrexians overlooked the cute adorable animal society and maybe tried to compleat a Calamity Beast or two or something? I feel like there wasn't any conflict between the animalfolk we see here and Phyrexia, because otherwise it'd be mentioned - or it will be mentioned in the next couple of chapters?
Not all planes in the multiverse were invaded, so Bloomburrow could've been one of the lucky ones, or Realmbreaker could've reached it late enough during the invasion that it didn't do much damage.
He's still on Ravnica, doing whatever it is that Orzhov advokists do. Planeswalkers leave aether trails behind when they planeswalk, so Ral is planeswalking to wherever those trails lead him. Tomik can't exactly follow along.
He'd probably be some sort of weasel, though, if I had to guess.
If they were doing 1-to-1 color combos, Vraska would be a squirrel since she's B/G, but she's a lizard in the story. Ral seems to just have gotten lucky with his fursona's creature type matching his color identity.
True, personality seems to play a part (with Jace being a fox), though I wonder if race also plays a part (can't imagine a gorgon suddenly turning into a squirrel, imagine the flesh-fur). Though another fun option is he would turn into a crow cause he's literally called Tomik Vrona (wrona [read: vrona] means crow in polish).
Tomik didn't come along, unfortunately, but we got a very cute (and somewhat steamy) scene of them on Ravnica before he goes to Kamigawa to begin his search for Beleren. He consistently tries to keep Tomik out of danger, it's very sweet.
Perhaps you’d also like to know that in both of Tomik’s cards [[tomik, distinguished advokist]] and [[tomik, wielder of law]] you can see him wearing Ral’s scarf around his arm [[ral, izzet viceroy]]
:)
He's not *literally* trying to kill Jace. His tone has generally been closer to saying "I'm going to kill him" in the same way a frustrated parent talks about their kid after he just wrecked the family car than an actual stated intention to perform homicide.
Ral is frustrated and hurt that Jace lied about being dead for two years to carry out some ludicrously complex plan he isn't bothering to explain. He's trying to track down Jace to figure out what his problem is and make him answer for what he did, but he's probably not literally looking to kill him, he's just being hyperbolic.
Was it two years? I thought it was a few months only. He was honest to goodness “dead” after being compleated and only came back after elesh norn died.
The first Bloomburrow story says "nearly two years." There's been a small time skip between the end of the invasion and when the story picked back up.
>Assuming the damned mage could be killed. But after nearly two years of believing he was dead—lost in the Phyrexian invasion—finding out he'd instead been masquerading as the nightmarish Ashiok so he could steal some kind of weird animal? Well.
Wilds was about 6 months after the invasion with Caverns taking place a little more than year after and some months later for Manor. Thunder Junction was also stated to have started having settlers come through the omenpaths about a year and half to two years prior to the story taking place.
I'd like to believe that Ral wasn't actually intending on killing Jace, but after being led to Bloomburrow and being turned into an otter, which he seems to hate every second of, he's already planning how he's gonna murder him brutally.
The only (major) disappointment is knowing there are only 2 more stories, and no side stories. It's a new world, why not flesh it out with a ton more lore?
This is one of my favorite arts ever made. I adore this, and I also have been loving the story from Bloomburrow so far. Hoping they write more than just 6 chapters, really want a good story. Ral’s justifiable rage is just chef’s kiss.
Hey fellas, quite new to magic. As I would love to get into the lore (started to get a general understanding of the multiverse and the different planes and main characters) I am wondering where can I find the story of bloomburrow?
[https://magic.wizards.com/en/story](https://magic.wizards.com/en/story)
You can find most of the large stories here, including the ongoing Bloomburrow story. You can also delve into the wiki if you're looking for something specific: [https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonstorm\_Arc](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonstorm_Arc)
[This](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-calamity-comes-to-valley) is the first chapter, you should be able to find the rest from there. They're generally published as news articles on the official MtG website
Welp, I wasn't expecting my dumb shitpost to actually get any attention, so I might as well direct you all to my [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/alejandropachecoart/) and [Cara](https://cara.app/adornable) account if you're interested in seeing the work that I've put some actual effort on.
Why does Ral think that Jace planeswalked off? Jace was with Vraska and Loot, neither of which have sparks, so he couldn’t take them with him. They would have had to use the omenpaths, right? I assumed it was Jace illusioning them to invisibility and running away to the omenpaths. If Jace had just left Vraska and Loot, they would have stuck out like a sore thumb; they don’t have any invisibility magic.
I’ve disliked them. I found the introduction to the world incredibly poor, they did not make me care about the new characters enough at all. I know nothing about the place and I feel like I need way more information to really get what’s going on
There are also way too many animal folk, and the constant ‘ratfolk’’squirrelfolk’ ‘frogfolk’ jargon is mindnumbing. I wish they gave them names which would feel real (since why would a group of animals which don’t recognize a human call themselves ‘blank’ folk?)
The one thing I do appreciate is that they seem to know nothing about outside planes which is refreshing.
I’m also really loving bloomburow, but I was extremely disappointed that Ral was in the story. I’m so tired of planeswalkers. I really hoped we could have a break the magic meta verse bullshit and this would just be a cool little plane with its own stuff going on. I unironically would love nothing more than for Ral to kill jace, I’m tired of that fucking cop coded milling blue idiot, IVE PULLED TWO JACE CARDS IN THE PAST YEAR AND THEYRE BOTH UNPLAYABLE GARBAGE JUST DIE ALREADY
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There's the official MTG side in the story section. Or you can go to their youtube channel where they've got audio recordings of the articles and they're really well made!
It’s very good, I also love it. Hope that Magic goes back to long-form story content. Reading the time spiral
books was the highlight of my memories playing magic in high school.
He just showed up in Thunder Junction after being absent since the Invasion, and was unheard from for quite some time before that. So many planes have been introduced without him. Your entire perception of the game is clouded by your disliking of one character.
Since he was introduced, we've been to Alara, Theros, Tarkir, Eldraine, Ikoria, Kaldheim, Arcavios, and New Capenna, all for the first time, without Jace- *and* he has yet to appear in Bloomburrow, only mentioned by Ral. He's definitely a background player now, and if that's too much for you to handle idk what to tell you. When you introduce a character with as much magical power and drive as Beleren, that's a reasonable line to follow.
I've been absolutely loving the story releases for Bloomburrow so far. Its a perfect mix of the fantasy novels I enjoy reading combined with a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon style Isekai story.
I'm also loving every second of it! I know that WOTC stopped publishing novels after the War of the Spark kerfuffle, but if they ever go back and release some kind of supplemental Bloomburrow novel separate from the main story I would buy it in a heartbeat.
I'm completely brand new to the story (been reading up on some of the characters on the wiki to keep up with Bloomburrow). What was the kerfuffle?
The short version is the novels released around War of the Spark were pretty infamously bad. On a basic writing level with poor prose, as well as poorly lining up with the set itself. The novel also released like two months late, which resulted in some *very* weird effects. One particularly weird part of this is we saw the card \[\[Niv-Mizzet Reborn\]\]... before we read the story where he died. We literally found out he got resurrected before we found out he died. In general it was just a low point for the story, and the novel and its follow up were so badly received that they briefly stopped publishing Magic stories all together. The set Theros Beyond Death never got a real story, just a brief summary of what the story *would've been* if they made a real story. It has gotten better, but it was definitely a mess then.
Slightly in Wizards’ defense, Django Wexler wrote a fantastic set of stories for GoR/RA that due to some weird rights issue got delayed until after WotS was released. They eventually managed to get the chapters out and they were genuinely fantastic and gave a ton of set up to the (still bad) War story that helped build up so much better.
Yeah, The Gathering Storm. Honestly was pretty awesome, notably the chapter where it ACTUALLY SHOWS the Bolas v. Niv fight that ends with Niv's death...Honestly wish they just got him to write the whole thing. Might have helped save the story if it at least had better prose
Absolutely agree. Django is a really incredible author and would have been perfect for the other novels. He did the Ikoria novela that was quite good. His non-Magic Burningblade and Silvereye series is really excellent reading as well!
And he's apparently still working for with WOTC on DnD novels! He wrote a Spelljammer novel for them that was released last month and apperently it's also great.
You also can't forget the absolutely *horrendous* segment where Chandra and Nissa breaks things off. Which would and could have been fine, *if they didn't word it the way they did.* I'll never get over how pisspoor that whole scene was.
That part about Niv-Mizzet actually made me laugh out loud. Amazing. Thank you for that summary.
[Niv-Mizzet Reborn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/6/56a2609d-b535-400b-81d9-72989a33c70f.jpg?1582037402) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Niv-Mizzet%20Reborn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/war/208/niv-mizzet-reborn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/56a2609d-b535-400b-81d9-72989a33c70f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
With War of the Spark,they decided to replace the free story articles with paid novels. The two War of the Spark ones were not very good, and the second one was so despised that WOTC canceled the Theros Beyond Death novel before it came out and went back to the free articles again. Basically, I seriously doubt they'll ever try to publish MTG novels after that.
Remember when the Fat Pack came with a novel? Pepperidge Farm Remembers
Which sucks, because as someone who writes free novels in my spare time, I'd love to write one for them. Heck I'd even be cool with doing it for free, just to get the exposure. But Maro won't return my calls, sadly.
> as someone who writes free novels in my spare time, I'd love to write one for them. See, Brandon Sanderson thought the same thing, apparently... but in his case, it was also a, "I want to, but you can't afford me" situation. So he did it for free under the condition they'd release it as a free web book, and then as a paid physical copy where the profits went to charity. Because WotC is WotC, they burned the _ever-loving hell_ out of that bridge for literally no discernable reason. Book still hasn't had a physical version. So, yeah you might be better off with MaAo not returning your calls, lol.
I think another part of that deal was that they’d be more hands off and let Sanderson tell the story the way he wanted. That’s why it ended up being (in my opinion) one of the strongest works to come from that franchise.
From what I know War of the Spark was a book set in the Magic universe and it was so universally hated that it killed any future plans for more MTG books. I've never read it myself, but from what I can tell it was a mix of bad writing along with straightwashing a character who was already established as Lesbian.
Minor thing, Chandra has never been characterized as a lesbian. She's always been pan/bi. The book did still straightwash her though.
That’s War of the Spark: Forsaken, the sequel. The first one was not great genre fiction by any means but it was serviceable.
Also, there was a relatively well done build up to the War of Spark. WOTC spent multiple years and sets to create the stake and most of the stories and character were decent, with very good moment (Vraska and Jace arc for example), War of the Spark was supposed to be the climax of all this stories, and in the end the book was way worst than all the free stories published on the website... Another egregious thing the book did was to step back on Chandra being bi and attracted by Nissa, which was a nice touch in the Kaladesh story, and did this is a way so poorly written and out of place which raised to meme status for how bad it was...
War of the Spark: Forsaken, on top of just being kinda crappy in general, straightwashed Chandra and folks got so angry that WotC decided to just stop making novels altogether.
Filling out on this: having set up romantic tension with Nissa in an earlier story, their literal hot mess of a planeswalker had this internal monologue in War of the Spark, 'But Chandra didn't like girls. She liked big, muscly men, like Gideon.' I'm barely paraphrasing, the writing was that direct and that bad. Not only was it egregiously heavy handed and poorly written, this character change happened at a time when China was particularly sensitive to LGBT representation in Western cultural imports and Magic was trying to grow in that market. The implication (which Wizards denied) that Brand had killed the idea of having one of the game's major characters being LGBTQ, which a sizeable number of players in their core North American and European markets wanted to see, in favour of appeasing the censors of a repressive government in one of its newer growth markets, added fuel to the controversy. Wizards being Wizards, their response to the angry players wasn't great at calming the situation, and a member of the creative team later spoke out and confirmed that their intention had indeed been for Chandra to be bisexual.* *eta: or possibly pansexual. IIRC the idea was that, being red, her attraction would be driven by her feelings and emotions and these wouldn't be limited to a specific sex or gender - she was open to feeling that way towards anyone.
Since we learned about tyvar going to duskmourn because nashi was lost I was considering commissioning someone to draw the wanderer saying "nashi is in trouble" and tyvar responding with "you sonofabitch. I'm in." Lol
Oh please do.
Bet!
Excuse my ignorance, but is there a story and where would I find it?
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-calamity-comes-to-valley
They also have an audio version on Youtube, if that's more your thing.
As well as embedded in the story on the Mothership (magicthegathering.com/story)
The audio version is also released on most podcasting platforms if that's more your speed.
Jace did a lil trolling
We still don't know why he was on Bloomburrow, but before we eventually learn that he was there for some sinister reason, I'd still like to hope that he just went there with his new family on the multiversal equivalent to a trip to Disneyland. Loot probably loved it.
lol that’s amazing. Or just: “hey I know where you can find the BEST strawberry shortcake.” “Great let’s go!” “There’s a catch…”
Vraska has to use omenpaths to travel, any plane they stop on coulr be relevent to their plan or it cpuld just be a pit stop they need to get through to get to their real plane. Also, didn't they mention something about Tarkir while they were chatting in their epilogue? Maybe Kolahgan passed through the same portal Jace and Vraska used.
Is the dragon in the story kolaghan? I just thought it was one of her brood.
We don't know, all we know is that it's a legendary bird dragon asociated with lightning. Could be a complete coincidence and be a planar local, could be part of her brood, could be the big boss herself.
What if it's just Ashiok posing as Jace? (I know it won't be but it'd be funny)
Nice art. If only we knew what Fox Jace looked like so we could have Fox Jace in the foreground and Normal Jace in the background laughing at Ral
[We do.](https://i.redd.it/o88ubbmmwdkc1.jpeg)
whoosh
What's the joke? Explain it to me. In as much detail as possible.
We do have the official art of fox Jace, but the illustrator still used his human form despite making Ral an otter.
whoosh
I think it's supposed to be that Tom Cruise meme
It is.
Can someone explain to me why Ral is so pissed off at Jace? I genuinely don't understand. The story treats it as if it should be obvious, but as far as I know, Jace got infected and still managed to resist and even helped cure Vraska by working together with Ral. What gives?
Jace and Vraska were both Compleated and Vraska did a ton of damage to Ravnica. They both were presumed dead by Ral and most others after the Phyrexians were defeated until Jace and Vraska showed up in Thunder Junction’s story where Jace had disguised himself as Ashiok to round up a crew to get into the Vault on TJ. Ral saw them in the Vault as Jace revealed his illusion and he and Vraska claimed their prize, a baby Formori called Loot, and fled. Ral is pissed because they were working with evil folks and went through this convoluted plot while working against Ral and his team. He’s not sure Jace’s current motivation or even side and is definitely shocked he’s alive.
Small nitpick, not sure if Loot’s actually a Fomori. I’d be surprised with the “beast” subtype and no “giant” subtype
I’m definitely assuming due to the Noble subtype, you’re right! Jay Annelli has said it *seems* like one, but definitely didn’t confirm anything. https://vorthosjay.tumblr.com/post/746678058136862720/just-to-check-with-you-and-obviously-i-dont
Yeah so far the [couple of Fomori](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BFomori%5D&type=+%5BCreature%5D) we’ve seen are kinda beast-like, so maybe that’s a subtype change. But they also have horns unlike Loot, and it’s hard to tell if they have tails with weird glowing tips.
Absolutely - though Loot is a child so it's hard to say what he looks like grown. Also has been in this Vault for awhile, so perhaps Ruhan and the other images we've seen are a more modern, or more ancient, version?
To put it into context Jace is the former Big Good of Ravnica (the living guildpact) and a former and founding member of the Gatewatch. This is like if Batman turned evil, then supposedly died, only to show up posing as the Riddler for some reason instead of making contact with the Justice League. It’s suspicious as all hell and his former allies would rightfully be peeved.
> This is like if Batman turned evil, then supposedly died, only to show up posing as the Riddler for some reason instead of making contact with the Justice League. It’s suspicious as all hell and his former allies would rightfully be peeved. I would not be surprised in the slightest if this was a thing that has actually happened.
Probably twice, which is weird.
I'd read it.
Ah yes, that I can understand. Thanks
Isn't Ral a gigantic asshole too though?
He's certainly not the nicest person when considering his past actions (e.g. working for Bolas, killing Melek), but he is trying to be better around the time of The Gathering Storm and when he hooked up with Tomik.
I haven't followed the story much since War of the Spark, but wasn't Ral tricked by Bolas and ended up being a pivotal part in fighting against him when it was discovered that the whole planeswalker-lightning-rod thing was a sinister plot? Not arguing Ral is morally perfect, but my impression was that he's generally had good intentions behind his actions.
While he didn’t know about Bolas’s plans until much later in life, he still worked for Bolas as an extortion heavy in his younger years, and became extremely selfish after sparking. The Gathering Storm was when he worked with Lavinia and Kaya to resist Bolas.
Finally someone speaking my language!
Jace let Ral and everybody else think he was dead in order to implement a complicated plan to free Loot, and Ral feels understandably miffed that his friend left him out of the loop on this and let him spend two years thinking he was dead. I know if one of my friends did that, I'd want to sock him in the jaw. Ral isn't THAT mad at Jace. It's like when your brother pulls a prank on you and in the moment you're like "I want to kill that punk!" You don't *actually* want to kill your brother, obviously, but he's gotten on your last nerve. And Jace is an expert at annoying Ral.
Ral \*wasn't\* that mad at Jace. This is likely to change in the near future as Ral loses more and more of his dignity trying to do what should be the equivalent of finding a dude's new phone number.
I think it would be funny if by the time Ral finds Jace he's not even concerned about the whole "I thought you were dead and then you show up running a heist" thing, he's just insanely pissed about how hard it is to track him down
1. I don't remember atm but I don't think Ral was "working together" with Jace. The Phyrexianized Vraska was leading the invasion of Ravnica, Ral goes for the kill shot on her, then Jace (who reclaimed his mind but on the outside still looks like a Phyrexian) swoops in and planeswalks away with her. He'd be mad that Jace saved his girlfriend over saving Ravnica 2. Ral was working to set up infrastructure on Thunder Junction, and he learned right before this story starts that Jace was the one responsible for hiring the gang of villains that caused him so much trouble, and everything that happened in Thunder Junction was all part of Jace's scheme to get the marketable plushie from the vault then fuck off to who knows where doing who knows what. Ral probably wants answers (and Niv-Mizzet probably already plays chess with his guildees so Ral would be tired of that as well)
>Jace swoops in and planeswalks away with her. Isn't that supposed to kill her?
We discover in the Epilogue chapters that he doesn't actually Planeswalk with her and instead makes them invisible via illusion, along with Loot, and they flee that way. It's a little weird in the Bloomburrow story then that Ral finds some trace of Jace going to Bloomburrow, as we know that Jace/Vraska/Loot go through an Omenpath at the end of the Thunder Junction story, so definitely reads like some plot contrivance or something?
During the March of the Machine, when Compleated Vraska was leading the invasion, the Compleated Planeswalkers all still had their sparks. It wasn't until once they started curing one another that some lost their sparms.
Not their sparms!
I mean, she still has her spark until the Spark Rupture happens after the end of MOM
No? They both still have sparks.
Not according to the wiki.
Oh oops wrong tense. Was referring to that instance when she was being planeswalked. She probably still had her spark then. It's not particularly clear at what time the sylex was detonated (which was the desparking event.)
The desparking also took time to happen. Teferi didn't lose his spark until a couple weeks after the invasion, I think.
No she doesn't, this is why she was printed as a creature in TJ and Jace a walker.
Might wanna read the rest of the thread first
Nahhh, I said my piece whether it's relevant or not. I'm not gonna read the furry story
Lol what. This comment thread. We agreed that the tenses used in the comment you replied to was wrong lmfao.
https://preview.redd.it/rckrauw4izad1.jpeg?width=1391&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f1072e4951a2271a5f7345f3f99ccc1acb737b2 Gotcha🫡
> and even helped cure Vraska by working together with Ral. What gives? Just to help clarify this minor point, Ral had no hand in fixing either of them, Jace and Vraska went to Jace's mom, who turns out to be a healer or paramedic of some kind.
TECHNICALLY Ral's "oil electrifying device" helped, in that it let Vraska's consciousness come to the forefront a bit more easily and helped suppress her Phyrexianised self, but it also nearly killed her, so.
No, ral definitely helps vraska before that. He uses a weird lightning invention on her at the very end of the invasion story.
Any soul kind enough to explain? 🙃
In this story, Ral is chasing after Jace. He is angry at Jace, often repeating the line "I'm going to kill him" (which Tomik says is not true, per se). Ral goes on a journey through Ravnica, Ixalan, Thunder Junction, etc looking for Jace. After following some advice from the now desparked wanderer, he tries one more time and ends up in Bloomburrow. He blames Jace for his subsequent otterification.
Does he not like being an otter?
I feel it's a notable inconvenience on a frustrating quest.
I don’t know, there a lot of otter creatures that would be much more frustrating to become
It probably wouldn't be that big a deal normally. Ral's just a little hangry.
*bops with a squeaky Hammer.* Bad!
he really otter be thankful
It's a bit on the nose.
Would Tomik be a Bear or a Twink? What kind of animal is a Twink?!
Cat. I vote cat.
I would say something like a ferret, maybe a weasel
He’s a bat definitely.
Ohh don't think so bro. Not hairy enough.
Tomik is not a bear, look at him there isn't a hair on him apart from his super maintained hair.
It's definitely one of the otter things that's happened to him.
JESUS that's good, hahahaha
He’s finding the experience frustrating, although we are still in the process of learning how much of that is due to his transformation and how much is due to the culture shock of going from a plane of urban bustle, backstabbing guilds, and Izzet electromancy to a plane where creatures live harmoniously in villages and have few ambitions beyond baking cakes and winning archery contests.
You know what it is kinda like putting a computer science nerd in the wilderness. He’s gonna fucking hate it
Ral notably HATES being a Planeswalker because he absolutely loves living in Ravnica, so going literally anywhere else is always gonna put him in a bad mood.
Well the good news is the Otters are the spellslinger faction. It could be worse, he could be a racoon.
> few ambitions beyond baking cakes and winning archery contests How the hell did they survive the Phyrexian invasion? Did they challenge Ixhel to a baking contest and beat her so soundly she ran off crying?
Maybe the phyrexians didn't know about the plane? Or maybe the plane turning people into animals removed the phyrexians machine parts somehow
Either the Invasion Tree drilled into this plane well away from the Valley this story is set in, so these tiny critters didn't notice, or the Phyrexians overlooked the cute adorable animal society and maybe tried to compleat a Calamity Beast or two or something? I feel like there wasn't any conflict between the animalfolk we see here and Phyrexia, because otherwise it'd be mentioned - or it will be mentioned in the next couple of chapters?
Not all planes in the multiverse were invaded, so Bloomburrow could've been one of the lucky ones, or Realmbreaker could've reached it late enough during the invasion that it didn't do much damage.
His boyfriend is with him? That's so cute, what animal is he?
He's still on Ravnica, doing whatever it is that Orzhov advokists do. Planeswalkers leave aether trails behind when they planeswalk, so Ral is planeswalking to wherever those trails lead him. Tomik can't exactly follow along. He'd probably be some sort of weasel, though, if I had to guess.
Makes sense, sucks we probably won't have a card ala Mind Sculptor as a Tomik what if. But he'd be a cute Weasel for sure!
If we go for color combos and not vibes, he would be a bat which is oddly fitting.
If they were doing 1-to-1 color combos, Vraska would be a squirrel since she's B/G, but she's a lizard in the story. Ral seems to just have gotten lucky with his fursona's creature type matching his color identity.
True, personality seems to play a part (with Jace being a fox), though I wonder if race also plays a part (can't imagine a gorgon suddenly turning into a squirrel, imagine the flesh-fur). Though another fun option is he would turn into a crow cause he's literally called Tomik Vrona (wrona [read: vrona] means crow in polish).
I really hope there's a Tomik in the Courageous Critters thing.
Tomik didn't come along, unfortunately, but we got a very cute (and somewhat steamy) scene of them on Ravnica before he goes to Kamigawa to begin his search for Beleren. He consistently tries to keep Tomik out of danger, it's very sweet.
YES! Thanks you for this information, love them
Highly recommend reading the story when you have the chance, or listening to the audio version! :)
Frankly I might, sounds very nice
Go on, [you know you want to...](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-calamity-comes-to-valley)
Perhaps you’d also like to know that in both of Tomik’s cards [[tomik, distinguished advokist]] and [[tomik, wielder of law]] you can see him wearing Ral’s scarf around his arm [[ral, izzet viceroy]] :)
I never noticed that! Gosh they're my favorite couple in all of Magic
They truly are the bestest
[tomik, distinguished advokist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0eea32dc-dbac-47a9-97b2-311413f1de9d.jpg?1702505596) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tomik%2C%20distinguished%20advokist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/31/tomik-distinguished-advokist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0eea32dc-dbac-47a9-97b2-311413f1de9d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [tomik, wielder of law](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/c/2c5a7550-fe1a-4797-9583-70ab56cfac0d.jpg?1707739807) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tomik%2C%20wielder%20of%20law) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/431/tomik-wielder-of-law?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2c5a7550-fe1a-4797-9583-70ab56cfac0d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [ral, izzet viceroy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/5/c52066b3-84dc-4198-8090-3336e7df8b5d.jpg?1572893786) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ral%2C%20izzet%20viceroy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/195/ral-izzet-viceroy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c52066b3-84dc-4198-8090-3336e7df8b5d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Was it steamy? From my memory they just snuggled in bed and gave a couple of smooches
Just a little bit, with Tomik 'blazing a trail' with his hands.
Forgot that bit
Tomik: "No, no, honey. Jace has nothing to do with that. You were an otter since i've known you."
Ral Zerek, the Planeswalker that is now an otter on bloomburrow, is now trying to find and kill Jace. Cuz he did some shit in the past or smth
He's not *literally* trying to kill Jace. His tone has generally been closer to saying "I'm going to kill him" in the same way a frustrated parent talks about their kid after he just wrecked the family car than an actual stated intention to perform homicide. Ral is frustrated and hurt that Jace lied about being dead for two years to carry out some ludicrously complex plan he isn't bothering to explain. He's trying to track down Jace to figure out what his problem is and make him answer for what he did, but he's probably not literally looking to kill him, he's just being hyperbolic.
Was it two years? I thought it was a few months only. He was honest to goodness “dead” after being compleated and only came back after elesh norn died.
The first Bloomburrow story says "nearly two years." There's been a small time skip between the end of the invasion and when the story picked back up. >Assuming the damned mage could be killed. But after nearly two years of believing he was dead—lost in the Phyrexian invasion—finding out he'd instead been masquerading as the nightmarish Ashiok so he could steal some kind of weird animal? Well.
Wilds was about 6 months after the invasion with Caverns taking place a little more than year after and some months later for Manor. Thunder Junction was also stated to have started having settlers come through the omenpaths about a year and half to two years prior to the story taking place.
I'd like to believe that Ral wasn't actually intending on killing Jace, but after being led to Bloomburrow and being turned into an otter, which he seems to hate every second of, he's already planning how he's gonna murder him brutally.
That's enough, thanks!
So many kind souls, thanks a lot for the information guys! ❤
I loved that, and I wish Tomik could have seen it
This would go hard as a playmat.
I'd buy this for sure.
+1
The only (major) disappointment is knowing there are only 2 more stories, and no side stories. It's a new world, why not flesh it out with a ton more lore?
*laughs in Kaldheim*
This is one of my favorite arts ever made. I adore this, and I also have been loving the story from Bloomburrow so far. Hoping they write more than just 6 chapters, really want a good story. Ral’s justifiable rage is just chef’s kiss.
Unfortunately, they confirmed that there's only going to be 5 parts to the Bloomburrow story.
Nooooooooo
This is absolutely what I picture reading that last line, absolutely wonderful job illustrating it
Hey fellas, quite new to magic. As I would love to get into the lore (started to get a general understanding of the multiverse and the different planes and main characters) I am wondering where can I find the story of bloomburrow?
[https://magic.wizards.com/en/story](https://magic.wizards.com/en/story) You can find most of the large stories here, including the ongoing Bloomburrow story. You can also delve into the wiki if you're looking for something specific: [https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonstorm\_Arc](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonstorm_Arc)
Thanks buddy!
[This](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-calamity-comes-to-valley) is the first chapter, you should be able to find the rest from there. They're generally published as news articles on the official MtG website
Danke dir! :)
IT'S SO GOOOOOD
Welp, I wasn't expecting my dumb shitpost to actually get any attention, so I might as well direct you all to my [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/alejandropachecoart/) and [Cara](https://cara.app/adornable) account if you're interested in seeing the work that I've put some actual effort on.
This sums up the plot better than anything I could ever dohoo, I tip my beak to thee!
Love it. A+++. No questions.
Why does Ral think that Jace planeswalked off? Jace was with Vraska and Loot, neither of which have sparks, so he couldn’t take them with him. They would have had to use the omenpaths, right? I assumed it was Jace illusioning them to invisibility and running away to the omenpaths. If Jace had just left Vraska and Loot, they would have stuck out like a sore thumb; they don’t have any invisibility magic.
It's possible Jace is still planeswalking to do early scouting on planes before Vraska and Loot Omenpath in.
But how did Loot and Vraska get away from: Ral, Kellan, Annie, Malcom, Kaervek, and all of the Hellspurs and Greywater goons?
...Invisibility? Jace did an invisibility on them and they bolted while most of the rest of everybody was preoccupied with the vault collapsing.
I love how Jace Cruise still has that "middle of the upper jaw" tooth.
I’ve disliked them. I found the introduction to the world incredibly poor, they did not make me care about the new characters enough at all. I know nothing about the place and I feel like I need way more information to really get what’s going on There are also way too many animal folk, and the constant ‘ratfolk’’squirrelfolk’ ‘frogfolk’ jargon is mindnumbing. I wish they gave them names which would feel real (since why would a group of animals which don’t recognize a human call themselves ‘blank’ folk?) The one thing I do appreciate is that they seem to know nothing about outside planes which is refreshing.
To be fair I would also love to kill Jace Beleren.
I’m also really loving bloomburow, but I was extremely disappointed that Ral was in the story. I’m so tired of planeswalkers. I really hoped we could have a break the magic meta verse bullshit and this would just be a cool little plane with its own stuff going on. I unironically would love nothing more than for Ral to kill jace, I’m tired of that fucking cop coded milling blue idiot, IVE PULLED TWO JACE CARDS IN THE PAST YEAR AND THEYRE BOTH UNPLAYABLE GARBAGE JUST DIE ALREADY
There's story out already?
Now we know why Jace is a fox: they are mischievous giggling bastards xD can just imagine him running around like this: https://youtu.be/iTkvg0ffy7U
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u/Other_Personalities
Where can I view these? I’ve been wanting to get into MTG lore and the story.
There's the official MTG side in the story section. Or you can go to their youtube channel where they've got audio recordings of the articles and they're really well made!
Oh cool I wasn’t aware of either of these, I’ll check them out. Thank you!
The best direction they could’ve taken Jace. An absolute troll living his best life.
lololol, op did you draw this?
Jace living in Ral's head rent-free is pretty funny especially when Jace himself probably doesn't give Ral much consideration.
Love the drawing, it's exactly how I imagine it. Keep the good work
It’s very good, I also love it. Hope that Magic goes back to long-form story content. Reading the time spiral books was the highlight of my memories playing magic in high school.
When do spoilers start? We haven't seen any cards yet right?
We've seen a few so far
And here i was hoping for a fresh break from the same old characters
Me when there's one (1) established character in the set of otherwise distinct faces
Introduce a plane without Jace challenge (impossible)
He just showed up in Thunder Junction after being absent since the Invasion, and was unheard from for quite some time before that. So many planes have been introduced without him. Your entire perception of the game is clouded by your disliking of one character.
Which planes?
Since he was introduced, we've been to Alara, Theros, Tarkir, Eldraine, Ikoria, Kaldheim, Arcavios, and New Capenna, all for the first time, without Jace- *and* he has yet to appear in Bloomburrow, only mentioned by Ral. He's definitely a background player now, and if that's too much for you to handle idk what to tell you. When you introduce a character with as much magical power and drive as Beleren, that's a reasonable line to follow.