I can’t confirm it, but I’m starting to get the distinct impression that someone at Wizards of the Coast has a vendetta against my wallet in particular. First came the announcement of Magic: The Gathering’s ill-fated Monster Hunter x Secret Lair drop, a limited edition set that preyed directly on my weaknesses as a MonHun sicko and cool lizard art enthusiast but was mercifully taken back to the drawing board after its arbitrary card pairings left the internet unimpressed.
After today’s announcement, however, my suspicions that I’m dead center in WotC’s sights are hard to overlook. Because Wizards of the Coast just announced that Dwarf Fortress is coming to Magic: The Gathering.
The DF x MTG collab comes as part of Secret Lair’s Back to School superdrop, a cluster of limited edition crossover sets “featuring friendship, fantasy, doodles, drama, and reading material with a nonzero chance of magical side effects.” Other sets include My Little Pony, Strixhaven reimagined as an anime high school AU, and a quartet of creatures drawn in notebook sketch style.
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Those other drops have lovely art of their own, but the Dwarf Fortress set is taking its own tack by bringing MTG its first ASCII card art. Its five cards’ illustrations feature the text glyph art style of classic Dwarf Fortress, their mountainhome hallways, dwarves, and dangers rendered with all the timeless beauty offered by IBM Code Page 437.
To the uninitiated, the illustrations might be difficult to parse. But as someone who first started playing classic Dwarf Fortress half my lifetime ago, these are images that vibrate with mythic potency: In one, a trapped dwarf suffers the predations of a vampiric Ñ. In another, a capital D unleashes its ruinous dragonfire on a troop of fortress defenders.
My favorite might be the set’s take on Communal Brewing, showing the beating heart of every fortress: the dining hall where the ☺s of the mountainfolk eat, drink, and mingle in dwarven camaraderie.
While there’s no shortage of Dwarf Fortress scenarios that could easily be represented with a traditional MTG illustration, I think the ASCII art was an excellent choice: It’s a striking look, it’s a fun homage to Dwarf Fortress history, and—I suspect—it’ll look sick on a physical card. Hypothetically. Not that I’m going to give WotC the satisfaction.
If you’d like to test that hypothesis yourself, the Secret Lair x Dwarf Fortress: Create New World set will be available to order on April 27 at the Secret Lair site. In the meantime, I’ll be imagining how cool a Qud set would look, too.
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