Shadowmoor

 

Shadowmoor
Editor - Philips Athans & Susan J. Morris

Cover Art - Adam Rex

First Printing - April 2008

The Lorwyn/Shadowmoor story didn't have enough plot to fill its three novels, so we're lucky they didn't try to stretch it to four. Instead the remaining set in the double-block gets an anthology, with one 88 page novella by Scott McGough and Cory Herndon which tangentially features some of the characters from the main story, and 8 short stories like the ones we've been getting in previous anthologies.

In theory I think giving us a bunch of short stories for each plane is a good idea. It allows you to showcase more of the setting without having to force it into the main story. In practice though I find that I usually prefer the main, more "important" stories. If a story has no connection to larger continuity, and doesn't feature any characters from the game or the main story, it has to really damn good for me to care about it. But if previous anthologies are anything to go by many writers seem to go "let's just bang out an extended fight scene or a Twilight Zone-style twist story and be done with it" when asked to contribute to one of these, rather than crafting a short masterpiece. Will that pattern hold? Well, let's dive in and see!

Ode to Mistmeadow Jack, by Scott McGough & Cory Herndon

Maralen shows up at Mistmeadow to tell them Rosheen Meanderer has woken up and is on her way to meander all over the village. She tells them to team up with the Wilt-Leaf elves for safety, but Donal Alloway, cenn of Kinsbaile, also appears and feeds the kithkin some anti-elf paranoia, so they go with the plan of sending out one of their own to lead Rosheen away. The scout Jack Chierdagh volunteers.

The map Alloway provides him with turns out to be very out of date, so Jack gets lost and has to fight all the horrible monsters living in Shadowmoor. He also runs into Brigid who seems to like him. She goes off and makes a deal with Maralen to help him succeed, offering to work for her in exchange. It seems Maralen way already going to interfere anyway though. 

As Jack gets close to Rosheen, who was wandering after her escaped cloudgoat the whole time, the female members of the Vendillion Clique, loyal to Maralen, show up, as well as other fearies loyal to Oona. Both groups try to get Jack to steal Rosheen's prophetic scroll for them. He succeeds, Rosheen is diverted, and Maralen gets the scroll.

In the end Jack figures out Donal Alloway gave him a shoddy map on purpose, sabotaging the mission so many Mistmeadow kithkin would flee to Kinscaer,  increasing his own power, but Jack's return stops everyone from leaving.

This is all we get to see of the "main" cast in the anthology, but it is very skipable. All it adds to the larger plot is that it gives Maralen a macguffn to combine with another macguffin to steal the Destroyer powers next novel. Other than that there's actually very little happening in this story. Just the above, padded out with random encounters with scarecrows, treefolk, changelings mimics, merrow, cinders, or Jack's inner monologue about how he could at any moment be attacked by scarecrows, treefolk, mimics, merrow, cinders, etc ...wait. Didn't I just say the great thing about an anthology was that you can feature various aspects of a world without forcing them into a single story? Then why do we open on a story that's little more than a tour across all the tribes of Shadowmoor, giving each a little fight scene to showcase how they changed from Lorwyn? We're off to a bad start here. And why are we doing an anthology but still include a story with two writers? Scott McGough and Cory Herndon have done much better work for Magic on their own than together, so I would've rather seen them get one story each. Final verdict: a weird inclusion and not very good.

• At the start of the story Jack discovers a scarecrow he has build has come alive and grown in size. Later on his finds a whole horde of the things. But we don't get any explanation why they are being animated.
• Jack's love interest is Keely Welk, daughter of Cenn Molla Welk. She and Jack have barely talked in years, but on the evening before he leaves they suddenly fall in love. It's explained thusly:

"The community needed a hero, and a hero needed someone to return to. To an outsider with no understanding of kithkin ways, it might appear sudden or false, but that observer's opinion mattered little. All that mattered was Keely's fervent belief in the courage, heart and love of a kithkin she'd barely spoken to in ten years. She would would keep him strong, as strong as the spirit and will of the Mistmeadow kithkin who had called him to serve."

• which is... let's just say an interesting look into a semi-hivemind on a semi-fairytale world and not think of any real world implications that would make it immensely creepy.
• Brigid is initially working with Sygg, who is now a river pirate. They get Jack to fight and kill some merrow working for them who haven't been doing good work. Jack spares one of them, called Wryget, and then Brigid seemingly kills Sygg. In Eventide Wryget is working with Brigid and they eventually find a hurt-but-alive Sygg who they get to help in one of the failed attempts to stop Ashling.
• Jack and Keely also make cameos in Eventide, where Maralen suggests Brigid might have romantic feelings for Jack. Donal Alloway shows up as well but is quickly incinerated by Destroyer-Ashling.

He seemed nicer in the flavor text.

Five Brothers, by Ken Troop

There are these five kithkin brothers. One goes out into the wilderness and gets killed, and... well, you can already see where this is going, right? Every brother goes out to find the previous ones and dies, lured into the swamp by faeries or eaten by boggarts or whatever. With its five protectors dead, their village is then overrun by cinders and burned to the ground. The epilogue reveals this is all a tale told to kithkin children to teach them to never leave their home.

Ah. We're doing in-universe fables again. Remember how much I liked those in The Myths of Magic? At least this time we're getting a fable of the Shadowmoor kithkin, a society we get to see a bit more in this novel and the next, rather than the legends of unnamed assassins or random crabs, but I'm still not enthralled. It's mostly just unpleasantly bleak. The moment the first brother dies you know you're going to have to sit through at least three more deaths before there can be any sort of twist. And then the twist is... absent. It just ends with everybody dying.

Paths, by Denise R. Graham

The cinder Ascaeus hears of a river of burning stone in a cave, which he believes will rekindle his kind. He seeks it out, fighting a treefolk, fae and duergar on the way. When he finally finds it he causes a cave-in, leaving him trapped in the cave forever. He jumps into the river of burning stone, vowing to find a way out one day to bring its blessing to his fellow cinders.

So I get an anthology instead of the main story, yet I'm still reading about people traveling to someplace enigmatic which they hope can solve whatever is wrong with the world and getting into random monster battles on the way there? Well that's disappointing... The other big flaw of the story is that it's main plot is about undoing what went wrong with the world, which is something it can't deliver on since that story is already being told in the main trilogy! Where it has nothing to do with the magical river featured here, so I guess Ascaeus is just delusional?

I did like the idea introduced here that most cinder have forgotten what laughter is. That is appropriately bleak for their horrible extinguished existence. And it adds a bit of character to a species that only shows up as unrepentant murderers in the other stories. But the story just isn't very engaging.

Mark of the Raven, by Jess Lebow

The elf Joram is born with a raven-shaped birthmark, which is good because there is a prophecy about one with the Mark of the Raven "ending the twilight", but also without horns, which is bad because elves without horns get exiled. The elves decide to keep him until he's 14 to see which way he'll go, but in that time attacks by black poplar treefolk only increase, so they end up booting him out after all. Out in the wilderness Joram runs into a treefolk witch who tells him the elven safehold is simply in the way of two black poplar tribes and the attacks thus have nothing to do with him. She also gives him an artifact which causes him to grow horns. He brings it back home...only for it to kill all the other elves and destroy the village. The witch then shows up again and tells him the artifact is now his burden. Joram gets sick when he tries to run away from the artifact, the implication being he can only get rid of it by tricking someone else into taking it away.

Have I said "That was pointless and bleak" for any of these stories already? Because this is pretty pointless and bleak. It sets up some interesting stuff about elvish culture early on (apparently the dark side of their obsession with beauty has carried over from Lorwyn to Shadowmoor), but in the end it drops all that for a pretty bog standard "a monster is passing on a curse" story.

• As we'll see in the Lorwyn online coverage Lorwyn elves die pretty young. This story makes me wonder how old Shadowmoor elves get. We get the line "it was rumored that many of the wounds were so old that Mullenix himself did not even remember how he got them", but witnessing a birth seems to be rare and Joram is considered an adult at 14...
• Black poplar are described as the "worst kind" of treefolk. There was also an evil black poplar in the previous story. Apparently they're being hunted to extinction.

Meme's Tale, by Will McDermott

This story jumps between various perspectives constantly, so it's an odd one to summarize. 

Meme is a boggart girl who has to flee home when her fellow boggarts suddenly turn on her. On her flight she discovers she's actually an elf. We don't learn the details of why the boggarts suddenly turned on Meme, but it seems she was under a glamour that made her look boggartish that somehow failed. In the end a fellow elf saves her from pursuing goblins, but doesn't take her in. Not fitting in either world, Meme goes out into the wilderness on her own.

Okay, this one may sound bleak and pointless, and yes, there is a gratuitous fight scene with a random evil cinder in there as well, but I actually like this one! Meme herself is an interesting character, tragic but likeable, the reveal of her true species is done well, and the story has an interesting set up, switching between Meme running and other goblins researching what has gone on. I'm just sad it's a one-off story and nothing more. If we ever return to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, more Meme please Wizards!

• The goblins that suddenly turn on Meme, and kill her mother, belong to "her" tribe. The goblins that then pursue her are from another tribe which is ruled by Auntie Geg, a psychic who drains the minds of other goblins to be stimulated by their experiences. Shadowmoor goblins actually have Raidmothers rather than Aunties, and Geg sounds a bit like an evil Sensation Gorger, so maybe he was somehow less impacted by the Great Aurora than others? He's an interesting villain who is still out there at the end of the story, so... if we ever return to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, more Autie Geg please Wizards!
• Meme's "mom" is called Dina, and thus joins Malfegor, Jeksa & Barrin among the ranks of the "very minor characters with the same name as much more prominent character in the canon" club.

Pawn of the Banshee, by Doug Beyer

The boggart Yasgo's friends are killed by a banshee. He goes after it for revenge and teams up with the elf Valya to do so. When they confront the spirit though it reveals Yasgo has been dead all along. He's a ghost and unknowingly a pawn of the banshee who brought Valya (a "being who might challenge the tide of darkness of this world") to her. Valya manages to kill the banshee though, and Yasgo fades away.

The whole ordeal was actually caused by a faerie wizard who tried to remove Shadowmoor's excess darkness/evil, killing Yasgo and attracting the banshee. That faerie is killed on Oona's orders before he can succeed.

Doug Beyer must've liked Matt Cavotta's "How Many Eyes?" story, since this has a pretty similar set-up: two alternating stories, one of them featuring a wizard talking to their apprentice about experimentations that end up impacting the other strand of the story. It's done pretty well though. Yasgo and Valya are neat characters, and the story introduces some pretty interesting ideas, especially with the wizard slowly discovering the double nature of the plane, and Oona killing him for it. Some points deducted though for including another pointless fight scene with a giant and a bunch of boggarts to fill some pages. Apparently you can't take two steps on this plane without something trying to kill you!

Expedition, by Matt Cavotta

A young kithkin wants to go out and fight baddies, so his father and his friends tell him stories to make him scared of going outside of the village. While on guard duty he sees something in the water which, due to all the scary tales making him paranoid, he mistakes for a kraken. His fear spreads through the thoughtweft, causing a panic and leading to the kithkin deciding to build a fourth wall around the village. The reader then learns the shadow in the water was just a school of fish.

Oddly, the other stories in this anthology rather work against this one. The joke of the kithkin being way too paranoid falls flat when every other story here confirms that Shadowmoor is a horrible place where something is always out to kill you. You're better off running away once too many than to disregard a possible thread! It also just goes on for too long. We don't need 19 pages of people telling an overexcited child he should be more fearful before something actually happens.

• The kid mistakes the school of fish for the Isleback Spawn after one of the elders tells him a story about how he lost an eye when the rest of his party was eaten by that monster.

Sootstoke, by John Delaney

A mad old sootstoke convinces a younger cinder that the fire that all of their kind seek is inside wood. The younger cinder goes to a forest, fights treefolk, sets some aflame, thinks he's found the holy Fire, but is then killed by the treefolk anyway. In the epilogue the mad old guy collects the remnants of the younger while cackling about fire returning "not long now".

Did we really need two stories about cinders going to some far off place to seek fire, ending in a vague mention of it returning at some point in the future? No. No we really didn't. Especially not since this one is barely more than a bunch of fight scenes between the younger cinder and the treefolk strung together.

The Cloudbreaker, by Jenna Helland

An elven safehold is on the verge of collapse due to merrow & boggart attacks and disease. Eily, who claims to be a seer but actually just interprets the ramblings of Callum, a giant who lives nearby, tells the leader of the village, Ehrou, about the "cloudbreaker", a stone holding "the Ally" who will destroy all their enemies if the stone is broken in their greatest hour of need. The thing is with the merrow, but Ehrou is afraid it might turn out to be false, so instead he has his troops fight a local kithkin village instead, so at least people will remain hope of one day finding the cloudbreaker, rather than be disillusioned.

Eventually Eily tells Cavan, Ehrou's second in command, about the real location of the cloudbreaker, and when the story gets out Ehrou is forced to lead the elves against the merrow. They poison the merrow waters and take a stone from their village, despite Callum showing up to try and stop them. Then Cavan kills Ehrou for not revealing the true location of the stone earlier. Dark treefok, "scath" (whatever those are) and spriggans attack the village, but Callum refuses to call the Ally, saying the elves have become tarnished and don't deserve to be saved. Finally he kills Eily, who he was in love with, so no other elves will go to the lengths they did to get the cloudbreaker.

Well, kudo's at least for not doing the "the elves summon the Ally but it's an evil elemental and kills all of them" ending I initially feared. It's a different kind of depressing! The story we get here is more interesting than most the previous ones, with the elves proving not as perfect as they present themselves in both small ways (Ehrou cheating on his wife with Eily, Eily falsely claiming to be a seer) and large ones (the massacre of kithkin and merrow), but at this point I've just gotten a bit bored by all the death and darkness. If I ever reread this book again I should try starting with this one. I'll probably look more favorable on it as a story on its own rather than the 8th iteration of "Shadowmoor is a horrible place".

• This story mentions spriggans, bogles and selkies, although the latter two don't show up, and the spriggans aren't described in any way, it just says they are attacking. I'm actually surprised how little this book features the creatures unique to Shadowmoor. It's just these few mentions and the duergar showing up in Paths.

I'm assuming that if they had broken open the cloudbreaker this thing would've showed up. And eaten them all.

Final Thoughts

All in all, a disappointing book. Of the 9 stories I liked about 2.5 of them, and the misses included the extra long opening one. It's not just the quality of the individual stories though, I also think the anthology as a whole is not a great advertisement for Shadowmoor. I started by saying a short stories collection would be a good way of showcasing more of the setting, but all these stories are incredibly similar! All of them are about Shadowmoor being a horrible place where everyone is out to kill you. All of them focus entirely on the tribes we saw in Lorwyn, meaning a whole lot of random fights with cankerous treefolks and nihilistic cinders. And the few stories that want to do more all hint at the dichotomy between the two versions of the plane, without actually being able to say anything about it or even give meaningful hints, as all that is being saved for the main story.

Why isn't there a story about the Reaper King and the scarecrows? About any of the Demigod of Revenge-cycle? Where are the noggles, hags, selkies and hobgoblins? Sure, those didn't make it into the cards until Eventide but with the lead-in times and worldbuilding guidebooks they should've been thought up at this point, right? Judging by from these stories it seems Shadowmoor is an incredibly shallow plane that has nothing going for it beyond being a dark mirror of Lorwyn.

On a completely different note: this book is a big changing of the guard moment. On the one hand we have the last time old hands like Will McDermott and Jess Lebow write for Magic, and since we've already covered Eventide, it's also the last feature of Scott McGough and Cory Herndon on this blog. On the other hand these are the first MTG writing credits, aside from some online articles, for Doug Beyer, Jenna Helland and Ken Troop who we'll all be seeing more of in the future. Matt Cavotta is right there on the hinge, instrumental in making the shift to the planeswalker era that is coming up, but already out of the door at this point.

There is no quality difference between old and new guard, my two favorite stories were written by Will McDermott and Doug Beyer, but it is interesting to see all these people in a single anthology, right before the original WotC line of Magic books ends and a new approach to novels is about to be launched.