a couple comments...

Given how much of a monster Ur-Drago is, might he deserve an Elemental Horror (rather than pure Elemental) typeline?

For Riven Turnbull, Rogue stands nicely between Advisor and Rebel, and positions him to pick up some interesting in-color tribal synergies while fitting his theme.

I agree that Sivitri Scarzam really wants a class type, and while Wizard is a nice one, I want to question if, based on what we know about her, there might not be a better call to give her something more indicative of her status as a dragon-rider (and wrangler?) like Knight or Scout, presuming there's not much evidence of magic.

That's actually a great idea. I support Elemental Horror

I could see this making sense, yeah.

Okay, so I hit Assassin's Blade for some more concrete info:

Lady Orca is called a "giantess" many times throughout the book, but also a "demon" (e.g. on p. 156, and she's called that by Tetsuo who probably knows what he's talking about), and also a "siege demon" (e.g. on p. 213). I also found the reference to her origin, which should make it pretty clear that she's indeed a demon and not an actual giantess: "She [Orca] had not been human for quite a long time, decades before Dark had found her and pressed her into service. Some of her original personality had survived the transformation from battle mage to siege demon, however.” (p. 215)

The symbol Dark uses to summon Lady Orca “was an ancient symbol, used by Madara’s brutal warlords in the wild days, long before the emperor” (p. 23), which tells us a little bit about Madara's earlier history.

Ragnar is indeed a healer, and he's shown healing someone on p. 158 for example. He invokes the name of “the nature goddess Gaea” several times while doing so, in case anyone cares. Also fom the category "in case anyone cares", Ragnar calls Kei Takahashi “another pseudo-Samite” on p. 157, so the Samites were known in that part of Dominaria at the time the novel takes place. (As everyone knows, the short story 'Inheritance' from Tapestries implies that the Samites were originally a people from Aerona known for their healing skills, cf. Tapestries, p. 53).

Kasimir is called “Kusho’s best warrior” on p. 156.

Marhault Elsdragon is introduced on pp. 123/124 (the rumours about the elf blood are mentioned on p. 124, but I’m pretty sure it’s outright confirmed to be true later in the trilogy).

Weren’t most of these characters old D&D personalities of the play test group? I ask because Maliki is a goddess from the elven pantheon of the Forgotten Realms. It is not unlikely that this character was an elf himself, though you can’t see the ears in the art to confirm, and that he was also briefly a Paladin, though maybe fallen, which is why he is on a quest to atone for some failing that cost him his paladin class levels, which was something paladin players and DMs loved to do during that early era of D&D.

They were, as far as we know. I'm only familiar with Mielikki, but I've only been playing D&D for about a year, and I only got into it originally to run a Dominaria campaign, so... But regardless of the D&D pantheon, the last argument I'd want the Dominaria worldguide folks to use for anything is "Yeah, but in D&D...". Dominia is its own separate universe with its own names, and it doesn't have gods the way D&D does (and Brady Dommermuth confirmed that). The "Nine Hells" in Magic refer to Phyrexia, and the City of Brass is on Rabiah, not the Elemental Plane of Fire. Besides, whatever the deal with those characters might have been in someone's D&D campaign isn't canon, it's not even in the same league as other kinds of unpublished "shadow canon". I think Pavel's card has zero elf vibes (although the part about the fallen paladin is more or less what I was getting at with the Knight type, so that fits either way), and I think trying to make this as unconnected to any D&D gods as possible is the right call.

(Sorry if I'm coming across as a bit touchy or pissed about that subject, but this whole new era of IP crossovers constantly and seriously makes me question my future with Magic. The fact that they're openly considering actually merging Dominia with the D&D multiverse means that at least the higher levels at Hasbro/Wizards have abandoned all pretense of creative integrity or of giving a **** about the game and its fans. The creative bankruptcy of Magic as a whole is official now, I guess all we can do is cling to the old stuff for as long as possible until the suits decide to shoot that down, too.)


Edit: In fairness, the current state of Magic makes endeavours like getting the creture types from Legends right or sets like Dominaria all the more valuable, so at least there is something left to cling to at all.

Oh yeah, I'm with you on mixing IPs and crossover-ness issues in flavor, but I was just pointing out that it was likely that the character that this card was modeled after was originally a Fallen Elf Paladin in D&D and that is why the card itself is a bit of a flavor mess. Since Magic has both elves and paladins, it would be more or less a nod to that if the card reflected those roots. However, since the art covers the ears, it is probably okay to keep this guy a human since there isn't any real way of knowing for sure unless you tracked down the original creator in that early group and asked him. And if you are doing that, then all this discussion is pretty moot.

Okay, fair enough. But even if the original creator of Pavel's D&D incarnation showed up and flat out told us the guy was supposed to be an Elf Paladin, that still wouldn't make it canon for Pavel's Magic incarnation. I guess learning about the original idea behind some of those characters might be mildly useful in some cases, but then again, I'm pretty sure the art on those old Legends cards wasn't commissioned with any regards to what the D&D characters were like, so even if Pavel's creator intended him to be a certain thing or look a certain way, the artist drawing the card art probably didn't know about any of that.

And I really don't want anything about that card to give the faceless WotC execs any possible entryways for random D&D stuff into Dominaria. "Surprise! That D&D goddess was around on Dominaria all along!" Yeah, I'm probably just really, really paranoid, but paranoia seems like a natural reaction to what's going on in Magic right now. They are about to cross so many lines that I'd never thought they would cross, and even Maro said many years ago they wouldn't cross them, and yet here we are...

Slightly more back on topic, it's kinda funny and weirdly intriguing that Legends not only has Pavel with his Latin inscription, but also Jacques le Vert and Ramirez DePietro with their French and Spanish names respectively. I'm not suggesting any of those languages actually exist on Dominaria, mind you, but maybe they have something like close equivalents on Dominaria that are also related in a similar way... Legends in general is just one of those sets that makes me want to find a place in the worldbuilding for all those weird things from the cards (well, not the things like Albert Einstein or the Theory of Relativity that are so close to the real world that they can't possibly be canon, but a looot of other things). It's no wonder that one set spawned two novel trilogies and several comics and filled entire regions of Dominaria...

I've started to dig through Johan to look for clues, but made a short detour to look at the comics. I'm not even sure he's really depicted as a Dwarf there to be honest. Yeah, he's a short, stocky guy with a beard, but I couldn't find a clear reference to him being a Dwarf in the comics, and considering the flavour text on the card calls him a "man", he might just be a little person. (Of course there's some fuzziness to the English word 'man', but it's easy to read it as 'member of the human race' rather than just 'adult male person' in the flavour text). I'll continue to dig through the books, but if there's nothing in there that clearly suggests he's a Dwarf, I'm leaning towards keeping the Human type. Plus, Dwarves on Dominaria are normally pretty firmly in , so making him a Dwarf without any clear evidence would kinda dilute that.

Regardless of his species, he should probably be a Mercenary instead of /in addition to Warrior.

Man, it's a rollercoaster with this Hunding guy, but I found something after all! He's called a dwarf in Johan, and the background info we're given about the Robaran Mercenaries suggests that they weren't actually mercenaries when Hunding was still around:

“The Robars had first banded as thieves led by the dwarf Hunding Gjornersen. After Hundling [sic] quit for reasons unknown, his lieutenant, Adira Strongheart, had taken command. Since thieves usually ended their lives ‘dancing on air’, Adira remolded the Robars into a motley mercenary army, then hired them out to the highest bidder.” (p. 80)

So I reckon something like Dwarf Warrior could fit.

Found it!

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1075-17 ... tml#return

Angus Mackenzie was Karakas's greatest defender. His policy of "peace through perseverence" inspired the people of this realm to unite and drive out the malign elements that were tearing them apart from within.

It's from that old calender ('365 Days in Dominia'), you can find scans of the whole thing here:

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1075-ra ... nuary.html

I'd like to say I was the brave archaeologist who unearthed it, but as usual, there was a Dutch expedition who discovered it before me. Another shout out to Squirle from Multiverse in Review for archiving that stuff! Turns out the two links I shared in my first post were pretty on track. And I'd say Angus being a Human Cleric seems perfectly in line with this.

Oh, and for the sake of completeness, here's what it says about Karakas:

Travelers stopping over in the legendary city of Karakas are often so captivated by its rich possibilities for adventure and treasure that they forget where they came from or where they were going.

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1113-17 ... tml#return

Ur-Drago is in there, too, but it doesn't really tell us anything new:

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1113-17 ... tml#return

Squirle already wrote an article about the calender blurbs of the legends from Legends that I linked to in my first post, though, so I'm not going to go through all of them now. I haven't looked at that calender for ages, I really have to resist the temptation to scour it for interesting tidbits right now... Perhaps one more thing about the City of Brass:

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1110-17 ... tml#return

This doesn't really line up with what we know about it (being populated by djinn and brass men), although given the sheer number of different Rabiahs, this could easily be true on at least one of them. Maybe even that one "dark" Rabiah that's rumoured to exist?

Oh, and Ethan, have you considered making Morej a place in Terisiare? Because that article just reminded me that "Skeletons of Morej" are mentioned in one of the Ice Age comics, and Melissa Benson confirmed that that was the playtest name for Kjeldoran Dead:

https://www.bigar.com/articles/2020/03/ ... enson.html

Oh, and it's also mentioned on the calender blurb for Kjeldoran Warrior:

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/1115-17 ... tml#return

I guess being a playtest name that somehow made it into a comic of questionable canonicity and an old calender doesn't necessarily make it canon, but if you're looking for another ruined city somewhere in Terisiare, you might as well salvage that one.

I found some official info about this guy completely by accident while looking through some of the Time Spiral material from the other thread:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2006-11-13

The blurb for Tivadar of Thorn has this little snippet about Rasputin: "The Knights of Thorn thrived as Dominaria's Ice Age approached, and received help from the wizard Rasputin Dreamweaver." So, yes, in a not-so-shocking twist that surprises exactly no-one, the bearded man with the staff is indeed a wizard

The blurb also says that Tivadar founded the Knights of Thorn, which I could swear contradicts The Gathering Dark somehow, but the part about Rasputin might as well be true. Between this guy and Uncle Istvan, it seems that Dark Age Terisiare had quite a few bearded men with Russian names running around...

Wow! I had no idea that those scans were up on Magic Librarities! That's a LOT better than scrolling through Gavin Verhey's Twitter feed.

Morej is an interesting reference that slipped by me. I already have some incredibly obscure things on the Terisiare map; why not one more?

My recollection (and it's been quite a few years since I read The Gathering Dark) is that young Tividar was from Thorn, but didn't mention the Knights of Thorn.

If I'd know about that Rasputin Dreamweaver thing, I might have incorporated him into my Tormod bio! Oh well. I'll save him for when we do a Vervamon the Elder card, I guess!

That's the spirit!

In fact, that would allow you guys to actually print a card called 'Skeletons of Morej' somewhere down the line. Maybe some Argivian archaeologists are digging up the ruins of Morej when some of those old bones start to stir and attack them... That would be one hell of an easter egg.

Well, that Tormod bio was awesome enough as it was! But for what it's worth, Vervamon is actually the one character from The Dark that arguably makes the most sense to connect to Tormod, being interested in tombs, burial rites, the undead etc. I'll just quote what I wrote about it in the thread about the Commander Legends blurbs:
Just a few suggestions *shrug* The Rasputin connection is certainly possible too, and I'd be happy to see that guy referenced somewhere. You're really good at writing those blurbs and making stuff up about old characters, I'm sure you can come up with something either way. And I'd LOVE to get a Vervamon card, so, fingers crossed!

True, but I had an epiphany earlier when I thought about it some more, and then I checked 'A Monstrous Duty' in Distant Planes, and there it was:

"'Revenge? How?' Against King Rogan, who wanted to be like Lacjsi and the Knights of Thorn, going off to fight goblins and win glory? The king who found out he wasn't Lacjsi and his soldiers weren't knights, and that goblins of the Flarg were always ready for battle?" (Distant Planes, pp. 141-142)

Now, this story takes place in that twelve-year timespan during which Lord Ith is imprisoned, and the Knights of Thorn are already around, and apparently their leader is someone called Lacjsi (don't you just love it when authors roll their head across the keyboard to come up with names?). Jodah meets Tivadar in The Gathering Dark (pp. 78-82), and it is as you say: Tivadar is from Thorn, but doesn't mention the Knights of Thorn. (Thorn is implied to be in the north btw, which lines up perfectly with Distant Planes and the proximity of the short story to the Flarg mountains). Considering that the scene with Tivadar has to take place towards the very end of Ith's imprisonment because Jodah is going to free him later in the novel, I'd say there isn't enough time for Tivadar (who is said to be no older than 13, tops, which is pretty young even in Dominarian years) to found the Knights of Thorn and make them the big name they're implied to be in Distant Planes. That and the fact that Tivadar isn't mentioned in the short story would imply to me that he probably was Lacjsi's successor, but not the actual founder of the organisation.

I checked Multiverse in Review, and while he doesn't seem to mention the snag about the Knights of Thorn, he always has some clever things to say about the placement of all those stories on the timeline:

http://multiverseinreview.blogspot.com/ ... lanes.html

http://multiverseinreview.blogspot.com/ ... -dark.html

Of course, your mileage may vary. It's a bit odd that Tivadar talks about how it's a shame that the human cities are fighting each other when goblins are the real threat and goblin raids are getting worse in The Gathering Dark (cf. p. 81). But then again, he's referring to the cities specifically, and the Knights of Thorn probably aren't associated with those. The fact that the raids are getting worse could actually be explained by saing that the goblins have been roused by the knights, or even with the actions of King Rogan from the short story. At least that would be my way of reconciling everything without invoking 'The Revision' to just throw out the older info.