The place where all the Betrayers vignettes were collected, Meet the Betrayers, has no links other than the short stories and a single FAQ about the set, unlike the Champions mini site. Which is odd, as there still were plenty of lore related posts, and even more general Betrayers of Kamigawa related feature articles on the site. Let’s take a look on what might have been included.
Feature Articles
The Sting of Betrayal is the obligatory Rei Nakazawa article introducing us to the new set. It doesn’t tell us much though. It basically just mentions Hidetsugu, O-Kagachi and the war heating up, and then tells you to read the novels to find out more. There are some teases that sound interesting, like the possibility of dead mortals becoming Kami that are less tied to O-Kagachi, but that will never be followed up upon. Unless this is a reference to the ghostly samurai appearing at the end of Heretic?
A Flavorful View of Betrayers follows that up with a look at the flavor text of the set by Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar, who is fast becoming another staple of these reviews. What interests me most here is to see the art description of what would become Iaso, Englightened Bushi:
Art Desc.:
Color: Green
Location: Green forest location of artist's choice
Action: Show Yasahiro Kubota, a human warrior. Yasahiro was born a samurai and trained in kendo, but decided to turn away from bushido and Konda's court at age 16 and fled to the forest, where he seeks communion with the kami. He has since continued to train and has become the embodiment of an enlightened warrior. He wears no armor and fights with a magical katana of your design (preferably with a blade made of stone or gem).
Focus: Yasahiro Kubota, the samurai-turned-nature-warrior
Mood: I'll show you the true path. Either that or I'll kill you without breaking a sweat.
Whereas we last saw the Kodama’s of the North and South trees were originally “flavorless” legendary creatures until their flavor text was written, for Yashiro/Isao a whole story was thought up beforehand. This seems to be an example of what I talked about in the last online article, of WotC apparently creating a whole load of information that never gets used. While most of Isao’s art description ended up in the Betrayers of Kamigawa fatpack booklet, who knows how many more stuff was written up for other characters and then not published? The fact that Jay happened to share the art description here also raises another question: Do we consider the parts of it that didn’t explicitly get mentioned in the booklet canon? I would say no, as the different name here shows it clearly wasn’t a finished product, but this wiki has no problem not only reposting the whole description (only with the published name), but also all the pieces of unused flavor text for the card. Without attributing it to this article of course. That is a surefire way to get dubious material accepted as gospel.
Speaking of all that…
Worlds of Flavor starts out by telling us there is a whole load we probably don’t know about the worlds of the Magic Multiverse because it didn’t make it into the cards or novels! For example…
“that the Leonin of Mirrodin are a shamanistic culture, similar to early Native American religion? Did you know that they worship the five suns, especially the white one, and that when the black sun is ascendant, they keep a bonfire burning in Taj-Nar, to keep the light going until the white sun returns?”
Note that Rei Nakazawa just says that this is true, even though it was never published up to this point. That’s another way to build this shadow-continuity. No wonder fans take every even slightly storyline related scrap, like Isao’s art description, and declare it canon.
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| Wait, if leonin have a shamanistic culture, why are all their "caster" creatures clerics rather than shamans? Why hasn't there been a single Cat Shaman printed to this day? Ugh, time to start yelling about flavor fails I guess! |
Unfortunately the article then doesn’t become the treasure trove of behind the scenes information I had hoped it would be, instead doing a soft retread of the “how do we make settings” and “how do we write flavor texts” articles we’ve seen before. It’s got some behind the scenes stuff that is kinda interesting (like that the Brothers Yamazaki were at one point supposed to be triplets), but nothing else about the actual setting.
Truth in Fantasy gives some more details on the inspiration of various aspects of Kamigawa. It has short opening and closing paragraphs in which “you” approach a soratami to hear about the legends of Kamigawa, but I think even the “everything is canon!” people won’t say that bit counts.
Jukai was apparently inspired in part by Aokigahara, the forest at the base of mount Fuji that I only really heard about a few years ago with that Logan Paul disaster…
Although they only talk about art and naming, and no storyline stuff, I do feel The Big Deal About Little Pictures, and Say My Name are worth mentioning, as they are the first articles on the site by Matt Cavotta. We will be talking about his articles a whole lot more in upcoming reviews.
Magic Arcanas
- Part 2 of the Kamigawa Glossary yet again the descriptions don’t go further than the flavor texts though. Not even any first names given this time. Shame that we get less information, but on the other hand: hey, no contradictions this time!
- Terashi: Sun Kami just says Terashi is the Sun Kami and then shows the three cards that reference it. Kinda odd that such a prominent Kami never got a card… Commander Legends?
- A “Stentorian Roar” tells us Final Judgment shows us the moment when O-Kagachi destroyed the Eiganjo battalions Konda send after his daughter. I think it is pretty telling of the way the storyline was done those days that the one reference to the novels in the cards ended up in the next set, rather than the one corresponding to the novel. The sets came first, then the novels, and if they were lucky they could get referenced in a later set.
- Samurai Flavored Apparently Indebted Samurai was suggested to be changed to getting +1/+1 counters when Samurai entered the battlefield instead of when samurai died, but this wasn’t implemented due to the card already being concepted the other way around. Which sounds odd compared to stories of legendary creatures not getting stories until flavor text was being done, but perhaps there are rules to art commissions I don't know about.
- Origin of “Energy Objects” shows concept art by Ittoku which led to the creation of both the Myojin of Cleansing Fire and the concept of the energy objects in general.
Moving on from Kamigawa...
- Leveler art secret gives us a flashback to last block, as apparently Slobad is hidden in the art of Leveler. Hidden way too well for me, I can barely make him out even in the zoomed in version.
- Jedit Ojanen Comic and Jedit Ojanen Comic II mainly just remind people that the comic exists? It showcases some art from them, but then tells you to track down the comics if you want to know more. Bizarrely, it doesn't try to flog the Legends I novels (Johan, Jedit and Hazezon) which WotC themselves published to replace these comics in continuity! Well, let’s go scour through second hand bins in the local comic shops people! The arcana’s do know a good response meme-face when they see one though.
And finally finally, let’s end with another big bunch of art:
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