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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,
Two ravens had perched upon our shoulder and whispered in our ear that Wizards of the Coast may be giving thought of creating a set, in the not too distant future, on a new Plane of Existence with a Norse mythology theme. There is little argument that Norse Mythology has been witnessing something of a surge in interest with production of movies, television shows and books illuminating characters from the Viking pantheon. We will admit that the History Channel series 'The Vikings' and the movies 'The 13th Warrior' (Antonio Banderas) and Marvel's 'Thor' (Chris Hemsworth) had stoked our interest enough to learn more about the myths.
Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology with the Theros gods
Although our distant Icelandic and Germanic relatives may have had great distaste for sitting through dull school lessons on this subject, we are most decidedly looking forward to a Norse mythology themed Magic: the Gathering set from Wizards. We are cognizant that there will be detractors in the MTG fan community that story characters may not hold true to the old Norse stories - we have two responses :
• 'based upon' themes must be offered a wide license to develop, and create their environment, without being bound by the details of the originator. Exampli gratis - Wōtan's eye sacrificed at the Mímisbrunnr well may be lost another way or not lost at all.
• Snorri Sturluson (1179 - 1241), when not drunk and soaking in his hot-tub at Reykholt, recorded the bulk of what we know about the myths in the Gylfaginning and we would not consider his sagas and poems to be a realistic / accurate witness. In a similar vein, the story of Beowulf was passed down through oral tradition prior to being finally recorded in manuscript, so an argument for a preciseness to detail is a non-starter.
Now - to the creation of a Norse Mythology themed Magic: the Gathering set -
It may be a very well traveled road as Wizards has already created some 23 'God' cards for Theros (Greek Mythology) and Amonkhet (Ancient Egyptian Mythology). The challenge is to select which figures, whether gods, heroes or beasts to employ and then which of Magic's five colours to have these painted.
Wotan-Denkmal, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover
Odin with pals Huginn, Muninn, Freki, and Geri
We will have a go using Odin, who may be associated with battle, death, knowledge / wisdom , and sorcery (among numerous other attributes) may be considered as having demonstrating almost all of the five colours of Magic: the Gathering. For this we would need to limit to perhaps one or two (White or Blue perhaps?). The two ravens which serve Odin Huginn (Mind) and Muninn (Memory) fly over Jörmungrund every day gathering information for Odin which they relay each evening, so having an 'Enter the Battlefield' effect of this 'god' creature two bird creature tokens seems natural. The two Wolves Freki (Greedy) and Geri (Ravenous) which are also associated with Odin may be presented in an associated sorcery which generates two 2/2 Wolf tokens, again, not too unreasonable. To apply static abilities and other details such as mana cost is quite beyond our skill, so we will just simply wait for Magic game developers to bring it all together.
The Norse mythology is deep, rich and able to supply numerous stories to adapt to a Magic: the Gathering set.
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