Words of Brady

More word of Brady.

Q-With Venser's dead body still on Mirrodin / New Phyrexia, is there any chance we could see a Phyrexianized version of Venser in the future, possibly as the next "Father of Machines" (since Karn clearly has abandoned that post)?

A-I'm not a fan of raising dead characters, especially those whose deaths were meant to be meaningful, heroic, or otherwise significant. That said, I've learned never to say never, and yes, Venser's remains are on New Phyrexia. Knowing Phyrexians, though, they, uh, unceremoniously disassembled those remains shortly after his death.


Q-In clarification to my question, basically, we know Edgar created vampirism on Innistrad.So... how did the other families happen? Did Edgar share his secrets or did the various others work them out on their own? Or were they victims of the Markovs that decided to make their own lineage? what the hell is Archon of the Triumvirate riding?

A-The origins of the other bloodlines *is* known, mostly (I wrote it myself), but the opportunity to detail that out never arose in Innistrad -- it was trumped by the importance of current events on the plane. It's possible that would be explored further if we revisit Innistrad.

A-Archon of the Triumvirate is riding a ... thingy. A winged creature native to Ravnica. (It hasn't been given a name or "ecology" yet.) IIRC Aleksi Briclot cooked it up as an early-in-the-process, nontraditional sphinx idea, and we repurposed it.


Q-Is Gaea real

A-Won't confirm or deny, our work speaks for itself.


Q-What makes a legendary creature a good candidate for ascension?

A-Good question. I don't really think about it in those terms. Planebound legendary creatures need to embody the plane they come from in some way, or at least add a notable tile to its mosaic, so to speak. Planeswalker characters are iconoclasts and travelers, so their ethos and values need to give them a strong, defining set of starting traits and a reason to travel the Multiverse.

Q-What happened to the Raven Man? Was he dropped?
Dr Jest?

A-I can't reveal future story plans, but I can say we don't ever intend to just "drop" a storyline. It's all a matter of the limitations of how far out we can plan, combined with whether the needs of a given product can accommodate the story plans (if they can't -- if story seems shoehorned in -- we prefer to hold off and deploy that story later). I liked the Dr. Jest thing in Test of Metal, but he is difficult to communicate in card and visual media (what he is, how he works, etc.). So we backgrounded Dr. Jest for the purposes of getting Tezzeret to Mirrodin.


Q-How big are the Ravnican districts?

A-They vary wildly in size.


Q-Are the Azorius runes codified?

A-Nope, gibberish


Q-Was one of the reasons Merfolk were not incorporated into Ravnica the first time around because they had fins instead of legs, and now that you've made that transition in them to have legs and be able to walk on land, they could be included in Ravnica's long list of creature types?

A-More or less yes re: merfolk. We didn't feel vedalken could serve the needs of all races with blue mana in their identities, and we wanted even more racial diversity for our "metropolis plane."


Q-Aside from building worlds on our own and just posting them to forums, what is a good way to keep practicing and demonstrating the kind of creative chops you look for in your staff? What is a good public venue for someone interested in the Creative Team? Is there a process by which someone can apply to contribute flavor text and names?

A-(1) Running your own tabletop roleplaying game campaign is damn good practice. Reading mythology, folklore, fantasy, and science fiction, as well as seeing films and watching shows within those subjects/genres is good, too. (2) I don't know. Maybe there isn't one? Not sure. (3) Send us an email with your interest and a relevant writing sample. You can respond to any Creative Team column or feature, for example.



Q-Is there a threshold for how many walker characters you or creative or R&D will allow?

A-There's a clear tension between keeping the roster small for storytelling and "iconic" reasons and expanding it for novelty and excitement reasons. At last count the number was over 25 (including characters you haven't seen yet). I do my best to strike a balance, and I favor fewer new characters than most.

Q-Mark Rosewater recently suggested on his blog that Liliana is meant to be Middle Eastern. Can you attest to this?

A-Character likenesses shift from illustrator to illustrator; the only way to avoid that is to work in a studio model with very strict stylesheets, etc. We like our diversity of look-feel, though, and we don't want to mash everything into one look, which is what would be required to get a given character to look identical in each representation of them. So instead we have to be willing to allow the representations to vary a bit. Then one illustrator riffs off another's work, and that movement can form trend lines. Liliana has gotten ever so slightly darker skinned than where we started with her, but (a) that wasn't intentional, and (b) I would hardly characterize her as a Latina or Middle Eastern woman.