Back when Matt Cavotta introduced the Magic Community to the Vorthos “psychographic profile”—and then later when Mark Rosewater weighed in with his take on it—I found myself amused by the concept, but I didn’t identify with it. I didn’t read Magic novels; I didn’t obsess about the artwork or flavor text on the Magic cards; and I didn’t really pay too much attention to the backstory. I was into Magic because I loved building decks and playing the cards, so I never really considered myself much of a Vorthos guy.
That is, until MJ Scott and Mike Linneman started writing their Vorthos columns on GatheringMagic.com… and I found myself smiling, laughing, and thinking about what they had to say long after I’d finished reading their latest columns that were never about building decks and playing the cards. I found MJ’s columns in particular so much fun, a joyous blend of pop culture, sex appeal, adult beverages, and social commentary all within the totally geeky yet cool Magic framework. Her fun and sexy The Art of the Gaze planted the seeds for me to write today’s column.
While what a card does is my primary concern as a deckbuilder and Magic player, I do often find myself enjoying the creative elements of certain cards as well, especially when they are enhanced by the mechanics of the card itself. The one piece of Magic artwork that I’ve purchased (only a print mind you, but artwork suitable for framing nonetheless) positively drips with things that appeal to my Vorthos side. The card? Elephant Ambush.
I wrote about it for SCG Daily – Getting Artsy back in 2006:
The artwork for Elephant Ambush has always struck me as hilariously funny without being overtly so. If you just look at the artwork out of context, it’s only an Elephant standing in the woods. No big deal. But add the card name and text and the artwork becomes brilliantly comedic.
2GG, Instant: Put a 3/3 green Elephant creature token into play.
An ambush… by an elephant.
I remember playing this card in draft after my opponent announced his attackers.
“AHA!” I’d cry, tapping my mana and casting the spell. “Didn’t see that Elephant hiding behind that tree, did you?”
And then I’d helplessly giggle at the artwork.
Imagine if you would the artwork as done by someone like Phil Foglio or other artists that inject their work with a humorous flair. You could have this skinny tree with this exaggeratedly huge elephant peeking out from behind it, and make it blatantly silly.
[Anthony] Waters played it straight. Just check out the picture: that elephant is serious about his ambush mission, and found the biggest tree he could to hide behind… but it’s just not big enough for an elephant to hide behind.
Yet, in game play, the ploy works (at least the first time) and that Elephant springs forth from outta nowhere, often indeed ambushing a hapless attacker and disrupting your opponent’s plans.
When I wrote that, I should have realized I had a pretty big hulking piece of Vorthos lurking inside my gut. I should have realized it when I made up a Dungeons and Dragons character based on a Magic card.
I came to Magic as a hard-core roleplaying gamer. D&D was my primary focus, but I also spent lots of time playing Vampire: The Masquerade, Rifts, and other RPGs. I loved that genre of gaming for its ability to tell a shared story, to play out our very own spin on The Lord of the Rings, with wizards and dwarves and evil monsters and hidden treasures, but with each player making up his own story as part of the whole.
So when Magic came along I was intrigued—it was packaged as a game with the flavor of D&D but portable and fast (compared to the volumes of books and paper and dice and hours it took to play D&D). Since I also enjoyed traditional card games and had even dabbled in collectible cards, Magic hooked me on multiple fronts, and I quickly became the game’s advocate with my RPG buddies. With cards like Shivan Dragon, Lich, Fireball, Thicket Basilisk, and Serra Angel that D&D fans could easily grok, it wasn’t hard to get all of them on board. We started playing a game or two of Magic before D&D sessions, but soon migrated to having nights devoted just to playing Magic, and for several years I daresay that we played a lot more Magic than we did D&D.
Eventually most of my old RPG buddies lost interest in Magic—life marches on, and finding time for gaming gets harder and harder. One thing everyone decided to make the time for however was getting together regularly for Dungeons & Dragons as a great excuse to get together, hang out, and stay in touch.
I’ve known our Dungeon Master Al for decades. I first met him in 3rd grade, and we bonded in middle school over comic books and D&D. Since we were the only ones we knew who played, we used to alternate between campaigns, where one of us would be the DM and the other would run multiple players. Later on as our group expanded, everyone settled into the more traditional “one character” role. One thing that was always heartbreaking is when one of the characters would die a horrible death at lower levels with no option for raising from the dead. We all took our roleplaying very seriously and had thus invested a lot of time, a lot of mental and emotional energy building this character into a living, breathing real person within all of our heads. Of course, being in the business of fighting vicious brutes and terrifying monsters—not to mention delving into seriously inhospitable environments—sometimes tragedy strikes, and it wouldn’t be thrilling if there wasn’t that danger involved. Sometimes we’d take a character death pretty hard, needing to take a week or two off just to go through the grieving process.
Some years back Al came upon the idea of a “character tree” where each player rolled up several characters, all loosely affiliated, and for each adventure you’d select one of your characters to go along. Over time you’d rotate characters in and out depending on the needs of the missions. It was a great idea and made it so much easier to take when one character dies since you still had a couple other ones to step in and carry on while you rolled up a new character. With eight guys in our playgroup, each having a character tree gave us a really wide variety of characters and personalities. A few even tried their hand at female characters.
Some years back, Al had us all add another character to our character tree, and I was trying to figure out what to roll up. At the time I had a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue, so I thought that a combat-oriented fighting character would be a nice change of pace. Since none of my characters were women, and since there were still very few women characters in the group, I thought it would be fun to roll up a female fighter.
Almost immediately Radha, Heir to Keld sprung to mind.
I remember seeing that artwork and being impressed by the picture. Everything about her screamed “badass,” and I decided that was exactly the sort of character I wanted to roll up. But rather than go and read up on the character of Radha, Heir to Keld, I decided instead to just focus on the art, and focus on the card, to see what story I could glean just from that and build my character from there.
What does the card Radha, Heir to Keld tell me?
She’s a legendary Elf Warrior; she comes out fast and is an efficient beatdown creature. Since she’s red and green I’d think she fights more from talent and passion rather than study and discipline, which sounds like a barbarian to me.
She can tap to add mana to your mana pool for casting spells, so she’s also a wielder of magic. But when she’s attacking, she provides even more mana so that suggests to me her interest is in combat magic. A barbarian/wizard doesn’t really fit very well, so I chose instead a barbarian/sorcerer, using magic spells to enhance her combat prowess.
“Run home, cur. I’ve already taken your master’s head. Don’t make me thrash you with it.”
The flavor text conveys a cocky self-assurance that is obviously backed up by her skills but shows that she’s not a total slave to blood lust.
I looked closer at Jim Murray’s artwork for Radha, Heir to Keld:
Yep, that look on her face, her pose, also conveys that same cockiness. She’s lean and mean but not bulky, so going with the “fast and efficient beatdown creature” from her mana cost and stats, I decide that her focus will be more on Dexterity than brute Strength. It’s also nice that Elves get a bonus to Dex.
There’s also something more in the artwork, her look, her pose. If you ignore the blood and gore, there’s a raw sexuality about Radha there too. You don’t imagine after a battle she’s going to change into a demure frilly dress after she cleans up. That cocky self-assurance isn’t just something she brings out for the battlefield; it’s who she is and how she lives life on and off the battlefield. I decided that she would also have a very high Charisma (which would also enhance her power as a Sorcerer) and that sex to her was a part of life, as natural as breathing, and no way was she going to be subservient to any man.
Hm, roleplaying that was going to be a challenge!
Now that Radha had made the jump from Magic card into my D&D imagination, it was time to hash out her backstory. Our DM encourages us to write something up and send it to him for each character so that he has storyline hooks he can work into the campaign. One of my characters is a human cleric of an elf-god, a rather unusual thing to say the least, and he’d asked me for some backstory on that. What I’d cooked up was that the elf-king (who was also a cleric) named Alahoon had a fondness for humans and had been open to taking my character (a human orphan raised by elves) in as an acolyte. I wrote out the reason for his openness thusly:
When Alahoon was an infant, his family was ambushed by bandits as they were traveling home from foreign lands. Alahoon’s father was an elf ambassador traveling with his wife and child, and everyone in the party but Alahoon and his little sister were killed by the attack. Alahoon was knocked from his mother’s hands as she was killed and his head struck the ground, knocking the child out and likely sparing his life as he was left for dead. A nearby band of barbarians came across the carnage and rescued the elf children, bringing them back to the tribe’s camp. There they were raised by a kindly human barbarian woman who had recently lost her baby to illness…
Alahoon eventually returned to the elves and later met my cleric character. I decided that Alahoon’s sister was the perfect place to drop Radha into the backstory and wrote this up for Al when I made up her character:
RADHA’S STORY
When Alahoon left the barbarians, Radha eagerly stepped into the role as exotic insider/outsider, throwing herself wholeheartedly into barbarian culture and being a magnet for attention; everyone wanted to be her friend and follow her lead. As she matured, her personal charm and charisma was supplemented by her breathtaking elven beauty, and she was fiercely courted by the barbarian lads. Radha enjoyed their attentions and had many sexual flings but her spirit was too fierce and independent to settle down; she found raiding and hunting to be preferable to establishing a hearth and raising rug-rats.
Her time with the barbarians came to a close when she had a drunken fling with a comely young barbarian who happened to have already committed to the chieftain’s daughter. When the woman caught Radha and her intended, naked and intertwined, the ensuing fight between the women was brutal and fierce. Radha very nearly killed her and was brought before her father the chieftain for judgment. Radha was told she needed to give up her rough ways and find a mate, but she refused, choosing exile and adventure instead.
She eventually made her way to the elven lands, where she briefly stayed with her brother before realizing that she simply did not fit in with the people of her birth. Alahoon recommended that her wanderlust might be sated by seeking out the Defenders of the Realm adventurer’s guild and gave her a letter of reference to the guild.
When it came to choosing spells for Radha, I tried to keep her strong personality strong in my mind. While she would focus on enhancing her prowess in battle with magic, she would occasionally supplement her repertoire with other sorts of spells. I picked Arcane Mark as one of her cantrip spells, with the idea that she’d inscribe her rune on her lovers’ chests after a night of passion (which once led to some trouble when the DM decided that the farm boy Radha had bedded one night was a little dimwitted and extremely superstitious). Charm Person for when fighting or her own considerable natural charms couldn’t solve the problem. Eagle’s Splendor to enhance those considerable natural charms (boosting Charisma). Since she gets to run 10′ faster as a barbarian, taking the movement-doubling Expeditious Retreat seemed like an even better idea. Polymorph Self is a great utility spell that also allowed Radha to transform herself into a Fire Giant—not only a great form for inflicting even more damage in combat, but also handy for seducing Fire Giants.
Of the combat enhancing spells she’s picked Mage Armor and Shield to protect her from getting hit (particularly helpful since barbarians can’t wear heavy armor), Bull Strength to improve her Strength and Endurance to improve her Constitution, and she’s got True Strike for emergencies when fighting something particularly hard to hit. I’m really looking forward to when she gets high enough level to be able to pick Tenser’s Transformation, a spell that transforms the arcane spellcaster into a formidable fighting machine—add that to her already solid barbarian fighting skills, and she should be a beast on the battlefield.
I’ve played Radha long enough to have built her up into a formidable character, a welcome addition to just about any adventuring team. But for me, I’ve enjoyed roleplaying her more than anything. The challenge of me, a middle-aged, working-class ,overweight, and somewhat shy male trying to realistically portray what a lusty young female elf badass does day in and day out has been so much fun, particularly in the reactions to her by my friends and fellow players.
Recently we were prepping for an adventure that would take us far away from our home into a civil war-torn strange land dominated by these cat-people humanoids. We were interviewing one of their generals who had had a change of heart, defected from his homeland and come to our people to beg for our aid in stopping the bloodshed. He had been an evil being all his life, but now was trying to do what was right, in effect “becoming good,” but it was a struggle for him. In game terms, our DM Al described it as “if you cast Detect Evil on him, sometimes he’d radiate evil, sometimes he wouldn’t.” After our group interviewed him about the situation there, everyone left… but I decided Radha stayed behind for a few minutes to talk to the general. Al had described him as a “Sean Connery cat-person,” older, gray-haired, but with a magnetic and very masculine personality. I told Al that once everyone left, Radha flirted with him a bit, and I asked him, “so when he looks at Radha, does he radiate evil?” Al laughed at me and said Radha could tell by the look in his eye that he was indeed radiating evil.
Later on we were talking with an elf woman refugee, whose people lived in the woods near the war-torn lands. Radha asked her about her people and how to find them, and then she started asking for the names of the leaders, who our group should ask for if we found them. Then Radha asked if any of the leaders were particularly good-looking. The woman looked baffled at the question. “Our people are a handsome race.” “Yeah, but are any of them super-hot?” Radha asked. “I don’t understand what you mean?” “Come on, you know what I mean. Out there on the road, the stresses of fighting and adventuring, us girls have needs too right?” The elf woman, who was much more demure and conservative than Radha, fled the room.
I’ve purposely avoided reading into the story of Radha, Heir to Keld, preferring instead to let my Radha evolve through my roleplaying her over the past couple of years, but now that I’ve developed her distinct personality it would be fun to read up on her. Matt Cavotta wrote about her in Who’s That Girl? and from what I understand she’s in at least one Magic novel. Anyone familiar with her character in the book? I’d love to hear what she’s like in the comments below!
For those of you who are fellow D&D nerds and are curious, I’ve got Radha’s character stats recorded at the bottom of the page…
Reflecting back on creating D&D character Radha, barbarian sorceress from Magic card Radha, Heir to Keld, and reading MJ and Mike’s fun columns has me reconsidering the role Vorthos plays in my enjoyment of Magic. I’ve come to the realization that, for me, Magic isn’t about finding the best cards to taking my opponent from 20 to zero life faster than he can do the same to me. Magic is about the stories that get told while playing the game. It’s about Dungrove Elder growing stronger and scarier the more Forests are around. It’s about Moorland Haunt raising the spirits of the dead to fight for you. It’s about Mirran Crusader assuming his Angelic Destiny and taking to the skies to fight for the side of righteousness. It’s about Stromkirk Noble growing in power for every drop of blood the Vampire takes from you. It’s about me attacking with Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and imagining his mouth stretching impossibly wide to gobble down my opponent’s Primeval Titan. And it’s also about the fun, impossible or nonsensical things that can sometimes happen in Magic, where a Bird of Paradise picks up a magical Sword of Feast and Famine and flies over armies to smite your opponent down.
And it’s not just stories being told with the cards, but the stories that get told around the cards. The bad beat stories, the adventures of a Magic road trip, the people you meet that you never would have otherwise if it weren’t for this cool ass game we play, the good Samaritan who finds a deck box full of rares and mythics and turns it in to the TO who hunts down the grateful owner. Magic is all that and more, and I’m so grateful I took the plunge all those years ago and bought that Unlimited Starter deck to see what the fuss was all about.
Thanks for going on a Vorthos detour with me. That’s it for this week!
Take care,
Bennie
starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com
Make sure to follow my Twitter feed (@blairwitchgreen). I check it often so feel free to send me feedback, ideas, and random thoughts. I’ve also created a Facebook page where I’ll be posting up deck ideas and will happily discuss Magic, life, or anything else you want to talk about!
I’ve started a blog, it’s not Magic-related but you may find it fun to read and comment on. I update at least once a week so check on it often and let me know what you think! I recently revamped my blog header with a perfect drawing from the awesome MJ Scott, check it out!
New to Commander?
If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:
- Commander Primer Part 1 (Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
- Commander Primer Part 2 (Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
- Commander Primer Part 3 (Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):
- Ghave, Guru of Spores (Melira Combo)
- Damia, Sage of Stone (Ice Cauldron shenanigans)
- Glissa, the Traitor (undying artifacts!)
Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus:
- Glissa Sunseeker (death to artifacts!)
- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer (replacing Brion Stoutarm in Mo’ Myrs)
- Thelon of Havenwood (Campfire Spores)
- Melira, Sylvok Outcast (combo killa)
- Konda, Lord of Eiganjo (The Indestructibles)
- Vorosh, the Hunter (proliferaTION)
- Progenitus (Fist of Suns and Bringers)
- Savra, Queen of the Golgari (Demons)
- Uril, the Miststalker (my “more competitive” deck)
**We’re playing Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, and here’s my character:
RADHA 9th level Barbarian/10th level sorcerer
Chaotic Good
Hit Points: 207
Armor Class: 26
Strength 16
Dexterity 20 (24 with magical gloves)
Constitution 18
Intelligence 13
Wisdom 10
Charisma 19
FEATS: Expertise, Improved Disarm, Extra Spell (1st), Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Initiative, Run
SKILLS (of note): Jump 18, Intimidate 17, Knowledge Arcana 14, Tumble 15
+3 Greatsword, 3 attacks +20/+15/+10
+3 Longbow, 3 attacks +24/+19/+14
+4 Drow Spidersilk Cloak (+4 to Armor class, Damage Reduction 4/-, +4 bonus to saves vs poison)
+1 Ring of Protection
+4 Gloves of Dexterity
Wand of Fireballs
Heward’s Handy Haversack