~ creating the Journeyers in Magic card form!
As an idea sparked from fellow online author Timothy Robare, I decided to turn each of the 4 main characters in my epic fantasy saga Journeyers into custom Magic: The Gathering cards of my own making. Sometimes I post my favorite Magic cards haphazardly on my socials — and Timothy offered up the idea of turning characters from his books into MTG cards.
Great idea! Fun to brainstorm, doubles as yet another book marketing technique {us indie authors are always on the hunt for such things}.
Custom MTG card-crafting can be done for free using the duo of websites: mtgcardmaker.com & mtgcardsmith.com. I am sure there are other sites too.
Here are my card designs below for Apo, the human boy, Ouro, the snake spy, Rakar, the amnesiac monkey, and Isidi, bird bard & diplomat. The art is taken directly from the Journeyers: Book One cover ~ by Goran Gligović.
As an author, I find this concept of making your fantasy (or sci-fi or horror) characters into Magic: The Gathering cards a very instructive exercise. This is a great way of further exploring your characters’ ability and flavor.
The Magic color pie gives the game designers a clear yet expansive canvas on which to continuously craft new cards. Play the game enough and you start to feel the patterns of how cards work. The different colors are designed to not only fit gameplay mechanics but also flavor-wise with regard to the legendary characters and places within Magic’s multiversal setting.
Dylan’s quick and dirty breakdown of the color pie in MTG:
Red 🔥= Passion, speed
Green 🌳= Growth, balance
Blue 💧= Knowledge, control
White ☀️= Protection, order
Black 💀= Power, sacrifice
Thus, here are each of my amateur MTG designs on the 4 main journeyers:
Apo is Red🔥and Green🌳because of his impulsive yet explosive nature. Apo, our main human character within Journeyers, is like a force of nature all on his own — committed to his path and convicted with his actions. He has sprinted into the Spiral Forest in order to find his lost sister. Apo’s hasty nature gets him into and out of all sorts of trouble throughout the story. Apo, Boy Ranger is a simple yet effective card. He’s at home in an old fashioned aggro/ramp deck.
Ouro is a discerning snake spy that loves to lie in service of a greater mission. Blue💧and Black💀 fits them perfectly. They are a vital character to all the events of the story and are privy to most of the Spiral Forest’s most ardent action. Ouro is a character that is focused on seeking knowledge and preserving their own life and that of the forest’s primary allies. Ouro is not afraid to challenge any foe; their venom can fell many beasts of much greater size. Ouro, Rokon Lélek is a resilient creature with evasion and an incredibly pesky combat trick favoring the control player. (note: Rokon Lélek is Hungarian for “Kindred Spirit”)
Rakar is an incredibly strong-willed monkey monk. White☀️ and Red🔥 fit him because he is disciplined yet destructive. Trained (and tortured) into a martial artist without equal, Rakar’s mad past is something that has been lost to him. Over the course of the adventure, Rakar regains his mind and purpose in community with the journeyers. His physicality is unmatched and Rakar, Mad-Heart is a card that loves to wade into the red zone, stacking damage and counters 2x; he would do well in a Boros aggro strategy.
Isidi has flown down from Birdkind’s mysterious city in the sky, August. She is pure Blue🌊; Isidi is a figure that necessarily sees the bigger picture and is an eager stranger to all the beings and doings of the Spiral Forest. Isidi has come to make an alliance with the Spiral Empire, though her second duty is to gather as much valuable intel as she can on the various freaks under the trees. Isidi, August Spy is a card with much utility. Repeatable scry, draw, and bounce effects means that she provides value to control players while her 3/1 flyer body could find a home in mid-range strategies too.
There you have ’em, the Journeyers in MTG card form!
I encourage authors to do the same with their own character cards and share them! As far as I am concerned, I plan to make this a tradition with each of my novel releases. All part of the fun of making worlds and crafting unique characters.
Journeyers: Book One & Book Two are on sale now:
Book Pitch: Journeyers
Note: I am bundling both ebooks together on itch.io (indie creator storefront) with a 30% off discount incentive compared to the other ebook retailers.
Journeyers x MTG Visual Spoilers!
BONUS CARDS: Journeyers x *Settings* x MTG: Imgur Link
Thresholds of Transformation 