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A Review of "Art of Magic: The Gathering--Innistrad"

 

            “Art of Magic: The Gathering—Innistrad” by James Wyatt tells the story of Innistrad, a plane (world) in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. You may think that Magic is just some card game and this book won’t be very interesting. If you think this, then you are wrong. “Art of Magic: The Gathering” is an excellent book for anyone who likes the fantasy and horror genres, even if they don’t play Magic.

            Innistrad is a plane where humans are slain by vampires, slaughtered by werewolves, and haunted by the spirits of the dead. Ghoulcallers reanimate corpses to do their bidding, and skaberen stitch the limbs of dead humans into artificial lifeforms called skaabs. Humans depend greatly on Avacyn, an angel who was created to protect them from these horrors. Avacyn has an entire religion created around her. Her high church is in the city Thraban. Her angels and cathars slay vampires and werewolves and protect humans, and humans use Avacynian spells and wards to protect themselves. But, unfortunately for everyone on Innistrad, multiple times has a major turn of events caused Avacyn to be unable to protect the people of Innistrad.

            The first time this happened, the demon Griselbrand challenged Avacyn. They fought for multiple days. At the end of the fight, Avacyn tried to imprison Griselbrand in the Helvault, the silver monolith that Avacyn uses to imprison demons and other powerful creatures, but Griselbrand stabbed her with his claw and pulled her into the Helvault with him. This caused the protective wards to fail and led to the people of Innistrad being significantly more vulnerable to the evil creatures that Avacyn was supposed to protect them from.

            The second time this happened, something caused Avacyn and the other angels to go insane. They started killing the people they were supposed to protect. The members of the Lunarch Council were confused and frightened by Avacyn’s madness. Worse, some of the members were actually demon-worshipping cultists who were trying to weaken the church. These cultists helped frenzy the other members. Eventually, the members of the Lunarch Council were convinced that the sin of the people was the cause of Avacyn’s madness. They started an inquisition to root out the sinners. Inquisitors went from village to village carrying out bloody executions of people they thought were sinners. The church had essentially turned on the people. I will leave the cause of Avacyn’s madness and what happens next as a surprise to anyone who wants to read the book.

            As the name implies, “Art of Magic: The Gathering—Innistrad” has art in it. It has large and detailed pictures, which come from the pictures on existing Magic cards. These pictures are usually cover more than half of a page (the pages are almost the size of one square foot), and some even cover two full pages. They also have almost lifelike detail. They help the reader envision Innistrad as if they were on Innistrad, seeing it themselves. The art alone could be reason to take a look at “Art of Magic: The Gathering—Innistrad.”

            Anyways, I think “Art of Magic: The Gathering—Innistrad” is a great book. In addition to having a fairly interesting plot, it really developed Innistrad as a world. The book mostly describes its different aspects, such as Avacyn and her church, Innistrad’s provinces, and its monsters. I decided not to describe them in much detail, because it would be pointless to try to talk about them all in this blog post. If you want to learn more about them, I recommend you read the book.


Written by Samuel

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