Betrayers of Kamigawa Player's Guide & the Kamigawa Map

I couldn't find a better scan of the cover than this one, which comes from this Ebay auction. And if you're wondering why I don't just buy a copy of the booklet and scan it myself... follow that link to check out the asking price. I think we can all agree that's too much money just to write a mini-article like this one!

This is going to be a short review. The lore in this booklet, scans of which can be found here, consists of a summary of the Outlaw novel, a few more character blurbs and part two of the Kamigawa glossary. What can I really say about that? It’s cool to showcase this information in the booklet, though I am always a bit annoyed when stuff like the backstory of Oyobi only shows up in sources as obscure as this. Other than that… well, I’ve got some continuity nitpicks? And to spice things up a little, I'll discus the Kamigawa map afterwards!

Betrayers of Kamigawa Online

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.

Heretic: Betrayers of Kamigawa

Writer - Scott McGough
Cover Art - Chris Moeller
First Printing - Januari 2005

Quick reminder: because the Kamigawa trilogy is a continuous story written by the same person I'm saving the actual review till the end of book three. This entry just contains the summary, trivia and continuity section!

SUMMARY
A few months have passed in our story. Michiko has returned to Eiganjo only to promptly be put under house arrest, and has been teaching herself kanji magic to get a message to Toshi to break her out. Lady Pearl-Ear gets exiled, and Konda, after O-Kagachi ate three of his mounted divisions last book, summons Yosei, the Morning Star to protect the castle. Meanwhile Toshi is relearning his magic following the power boost he got from the Myojin of Night's Reach. Crime lord Boss Uramon tries to recruit him to move against the soratami moving in on her territory. He refuses, and Uramon sends a bunch of thugs after him, including Kiku and Marrow-Gnawer.

What, this cute little guy?

Betrayers of Kamigawa Vignettes

Well, this needs no introduction. Just like last time, we get a bunch of vignettes on the Betrayers of Kamigawa minisite. Let’s take a look!

A Servant’s Mission, by Jay M. Salazar

Ink-Eyes is able to hear ghosts and kami, and from these voices from beyond she has received training to become the best ninja among the Nezumi. Muzan the Ogre took her in after she was cast out by her Nezumi kin and raised/trained her in the kind of horrifically abusive way we also saw with Hidetsugu and Kobo. He sends her to kill some Nezumi camped nearby to please his oni master Kuro. But at night she returns and kills Muzan instead. She then summons Kuro, who makes her his new servant, giving her new powers, including necromancy.

Champions of Kamigawa Player's Guide

Of course the top-down-ness of this set had to be sold in every way possible, so here we have the booklet that came with the Champions fatpack. Those usually contain just a quick introduction to the world or the story before moving on to talking about the coolest cards in the set and how the new mechanics work. Those introduction rarely have anything that isn’t also featured in online articles, so don’t expect me to review them for every single set going forward. But a few of them do contain interesting information, and the Kamigawa ones are certainly among that group. For those interested in checking them out, the lore related pages have been scanned and posted here.

Champions of Kamigawa Online

When we covered the Champions vignettes I linked to the Champions mini site, where you may have noticed a whole bunch of other links in addition to the short stories. Those links all go to various Feature Articles and Magic Arcanas on the main site. Not all of these are actually all that interesting from a lore perspective (Spiritual Combos just gives us some 2004 style Johnny tricks for example), but a decent number of them are. It’s a top-down set after all, you’ve got to showcase that! So let’s take a look on everything flavor and storyline related that WotC released online from the start of the Champion’s preview season to the start of that of Betrayers.  

Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa

Writer - Scott McGough
Cover Art - John Bolton
First Printing - September 2004

SUMMARY
We start with a prologue in which lady Pearl-Ear, a kitsune living at the royal court of Eiganjo delivers the daughter of daimyo Konda. When she goes to tell him, she finds him with general Takeno, headmaster Hisoka, soratami ambassador Meloku and a mysterious floating rock depicting a dragon curled in on itself, that he claims is a way to "secure the future".

We then skip to twenty years later, to a Kamigawa that has been ravaged by attacks from the spirit world. We follow the ochimusha Toshi, the titular outlaw, who uses kanji magic (as in, he draws kanji symbols to summon magical effects). He stumbles upon a bunch of soratami trying to make a deal with Marrow-Gnawer's gang of nezumi. He manages to escape, but the soratami follow him to his home to kill him. He escapes again, but sees the kanji for moon, iceberg, unstoppable and disaster or cataclysm appearing in some shadows and fallen bamboo. Wanting answers, he heads into the Sokenzan mountains to find Hidetsugu, an ogre shaman with whom he has made a blood pact called the Hyozan Reckoners. (Hyozan means iceberg. If you face one of them, you're also in trouble with those you can't see, get it?)