Warhammer 40K, Lord of the Rings, and other IPs in Magic.

[Krishnath]

I guess as long as the art feels consistent with Magic I am fine. But I would not love art that is too cartoony or too realistic.

Unfortunately I suspect that the art will closely match the franchises it's advertising, so for anything live action I'd bet that we'll have more of this photo-realism of living actors - which I find very distracting on magic cards. The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that's what we're getting tbh.

Good thing then that LotR is a trilogy of books, and if you count the side books, there's also a duology (the Hobbit), and several one offs (Silmarilion, Book of Lost Stories, etc.)

[pokken]

:puke emoji:

lol but we HAVE a puke emoji.

I felt like it needed to be spelled out

[DirkGently]

Good thing then that LotR is a trilogy of books, and if you count the side books, there's also a duology (the Hobbit), and several one offs (Silmarilion, Book of Lost Stories, etc.)

If you think they're going to illustrate these based on the books (whatever that would even really mean) rather than the 2000s movies and the Amazon TV show, you're a very optimistic person. I'm afraid I can't share your optimism, though.

Wait, the hobbit is a duology?

[Wallycaine]

Good thing then that LotR is a trilogy of books, and if you count the side books, there's also a duology (the Hobbit), and several one offs (Silmarilion, Book of Lost Stories, etc.)

If you think they're going to illustrate these based on the books (whatever that would even really mean) rather than the 2000s movies and the Amazon TV show, you're a very optimistic person. I'm afraid I can't share your optimism, though.

Wait, the hobbit is a duology?

If I recall correctly, a lot of Tolkien's books were paired up when published. For example, Return of the King is books 5 and 6, with Two Towers being 3 and 4 and Fellowship being books 1 and 2. So yes, technically the Hobbit is a duology, in that it's a pair of books, but they're typically published together, and what you think of as "the Hobbit" is the combined two books.

[DirkGently]

If I recall correctly, a lot of Tolkien's books were paired up when published. For example, Return of the King is books 5 and 6, with Two Towers being 3 and 4 and Fellowship being books 1 and 2. So yes, technically the Hobbit is a duology, in that it's a pair of books, but they're typically published together, and what you think of as "the Hobbit" is the combined two books.

If that's true then wouldn't that make the LotR a hexalogy instead of a trilogy? If you're going to be technical for one then why not the other? (also are we saying that this didn't happen for any of the other stuff? I have no idea if it did, I'm just asking the question).

EDIT: looking at wikipedia I see it mentioned that LotR is technically a hexalogy, but nothing about the hobbit being a duology?

[Dragonlover]

I mean, the already existing Lord of the Rings card game is fully artwork with no screen grabs from the movies, and that would have benefitted from the increased market recognition of having Viggo Mortenson on the front, at least to start with.

I'm now wondering if the GW license for the LotR IP includes likenesses in all physical game media. That would explain it.

Dragonlover

[DirkGently]

There actually was a LotR CCG that used imagery from the movies. Looks like it died off in 2007. I remember having a few cards but never learned how to play it. I wonder if they kept the license for game usage? I really have no idea how these things work legally.

Could be that the licenses are owned separately - i.e. the Tolkien estate owns the rights for the books, New Line the movies, Amazon the show - so we might not really know which imagery will be used until the cards are released. I'd be psyched if it's just using generic art based on the books, but as I've said, I'm pessimistic. Love to be proven wrong.

Doesn't really change anything else about the long-term direction of the game, ofc. Though I suppose making deals with older cultural-consciousness stuff (like the books) bodes better than deals with current commercial properties (like the show). TWD being their first deal definitely makes me suspect that it'll be the latter, though.

[Krishnath]

Good thing then that LotR is a trilogy of books, and if you count the side books, there's also a duology (the Hobbit), and several one offs (Silmarilion, Book of Lost Stories, etc.)

If you think they're going to illustrate these based on the books (whatever that would even really mean) rather than the 2000s movies and the Amazon TV show, you're a very optimistic person. I'm afraid I can't share your optimism, though.

Wait, the hobbit is a duology?

Originally, yes, two shorter books, they were combined in later releases. But to be fair, I could be remembering it wrong.

[DirkGently]

Originally, yes, two shorter books, they were combined in later releases. But to be fair, I could be remembering it wrong.

Hmm, well the wikipedia article doesn't mention anything about it being split that I can see. But I feel you, it's hard to remember stuff from the 1930s. Oh, to be that young again. I still had my original hips back then.

[BounceBurnBuff]

So I've been wondering how an IP like LotR will be split in the colour pie? Its been a while since I've read the books, but I'm struggling to think of anything that sits solely in Blue, for example. There's surprisingly few widespread uses of Magic, more just feats that have "magical aspects" once you exclude the Wizards and some parts of the elves.

Like, I could see Gandalf being a flip-creature with Izzet one side and White on the other for a Jeskai identity (He's more about order in his White form, more about tricks and spontaneous adventure in Grey). Likewise, Saruman slides pretty easily into Esper, the swap of Red for Black being a loss of his love of the humans he was sent to protect, replaced with a desire for power.

But yeah, overall I'm unsure what in the mythos of LotR and The Hobbit fits strictly Blue, and I'll assume we likely don't get anything from the less fleshed-out tales with this being an IP crossover,

[Krishnath]

So I've been wondering how an IP like LotR will be split in the colour pie? Its been a while since I've read the books, but I'm struggling to think of anything that sits solely in Blue, for example. There's surprisingly few widespread uses of Magic, more just feats that have "magical aspects" once you exclude the Wizards and some parts of the elves.

Like, I could see Gandalf being a flip-creature with Izzet one side and White on the other for a Jeskai identity (He's more about order in his White form, more about tricks and spontaneous adventure in Grey). Likewise, Saruman slides pretty easily into Esper, the swap of Red for Black being a loss of his love of the humans he was sent to protect, replaced with a desire for power.

But yeah, overall I'm unsure what in the mythos of LotR and The Hobbit fits strictly Blue, and I'll assume we likely don't get anything from the less fleshed-out tales with this being an IP crossover,

Well, if you only use the main trilogy, there are very few blue things, but two things that come to mind is the thing in the pool outside of the Mines of Moria and the Elf Lord who has the third Elven ring (being a ship builder and sailor). There's also Tom Bombadil's Wife, who is a water nymph. The Palantir's could arguably be blue as well.

Once you include the other books, it gets a lot easier. There are plenty of examples of blue-aligned things in those books, the Nümenorians are at least partially blue, being a nation of sailors and all, and several of the Maiar and Valar would probably be blue aligned as well.

The other things in the books are much easier to categorize, the hobbits and elves are primarily green for example. The dwarves are pretty evenly split between red and white, Ungoliath would be black, and so on.

Kinda difficult to pin down the Silmarillions themselves though, but since one ended up deep in the earth, one in the sea, and one on the brow the single most badass mortal in all of Tolkien's mythology: Eärendil the Mariner, fated to forever sail the skies. One could argue that they would be green, white, and blue aligned. Or possibly all five colors.

[Dunharrow]

I guess as long as the art feels consistent with Magic I am fine. But I would not love art that is too cartoony or too realistic.

Unfortunately I suspect that the art will closely match the franchises it's advertising, so for anything live action I'd bet that we'll have more of this photo-realism of living actors - which I find very distracting on magic cards. The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that's what we're getting tbh.

I hope they base Lord of the Rings cards on Alan Lee art.
If they have to base on a movie, maybe the Bakshi movie lol

[Dunharrow]

Good thing then that LotR is a trilogy of books, and if you count the side books, there's also a duology (the Hobbit), and several one offs (Silmarilion, Book of Lost Stories, etc.)

If you think they're going to illustrate these based on the books (whatever that would even really mean) rather than the 2000s movies and the Amazon TV show, you're a very optimistic person. I'm afraid I can't share your optimism, though.

Wait, the hobbit is a duology?

Originally, yes, two shorter books, they were combined in later releases. But to be fair, I could be remembering it wrong.

I believe The Hobbit was always a single book. It follows Bilbo the whole time.
The Lord of the Rings is a single book really. It was split into 3 because publishers didn't think people would want to read 1000 pages. Tolkien split each of the parts into 2 books because the plot followed two groups in Two Towers and Return of the King. If Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Merry and Pippin are Plot A, and Sam and Frodo are Plot B, he didn't want to write the story as ABABABABAB. He divided it AAAAAA BBBBBB. If written today I do not think it would be a hexology. It would just be one book, with the chapters coming in chronological order.

But since the Hobbit only ever follows Bilbo and is considerably shorter, I do not believe it was ever a duology.

Though I should mention that there are two versions of the Hobbit. Tolkien rewrote a large part of the chapter Riddles in the Dark (where Bilbo gets the ring and meets Gollum) to make it match The Lord of the Rings better. He retconned the original story into the version of events Bilbo originally told everyone to hide the manner in which he obtained the ring. So once Bilbo came clean about the true version of events at the Council of Elrond, he decided to come clean about it in his Red Book and fix the chapter.

If all of this sounds nuts it is because Tolkien was crazy and maintained that he wanted Lord of the Rings to feel like a lost work of literature that he found and translated. There is even an appendice in Lord of the Rings that explains how he translated The Red Book from the original Westron into English.

[Wallycaine]

So, just a thought on art style... it's worth remembering that Lord of the Rings is going to be a full set. Which means a lot of cards. Which means they're almost certainly not going to all be a singular art style, any more than modern sets are. If anything, I'd expect it to have a modern magic art style overall, with probably some influence from the 2003 movies (because lets be real if you're coming up with visual design for Lord of the Rings, there's worse places to start), but not the photo style from the Walking Dead. Taking it a step further, I wouldn't be surprised if the Showcase art style/frame was based on something like Tolkien's book drawings, to allow them to mix it up. So in short: I doubt we'll see a huge difference in Lord of the Rings art style for most magic cards, and I think the showcases are more likely to be throwbacks than photorealistic.

[caulkwrangler]

I guess as long as the art feels consistent with Magic I am fine. But I would not love art that is too cartoony or too realistic.

Unfortunately I suspect that the art will closely match the franchises it's advertising, so for anything live action I'd bet that we'll have more of this photo-realism of living actors - which I find very distracting on magic cards. The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that's what we're getting tbh.

I hope they base Lord of the Rings cards on Alan Lee art.
If they have to base on a movie, maybe the Bakshi movie lol

I love the Bakshi movie, but I think something in the Rankin/Bass vein would translate better.

[Dunharrow]

So I've been wondering how an IP like LotR will be split in the colour pie? Its been a while since I've read the books, but I'm struggling to think of anything that sits solely in Blue, for example. There's surprisingly few widespread uses of Magic, more just feats that have "magical aspects" once you exclude the Wizards and some parts of the elves.

Like, I could see Gandalf being a flip-creature with Izzet one side and White on the other for a Jeskai identity (He's more about order in his White form, more about tricks and spontaneous adventure in Grey). Likewise, Saruman slides pretty easily into Esper, the swap of Red for Black being a loss of his love of the humans he was sent to protect, replaced with a desire for power.

But yeah, overall I'm unsure what in the mythos of LotR and The Hobbit fits strictly Blue, and I'll assume we likely don't get anything from the less fleshed-out tales with this being an IP crossover,

I have trouble thinking of monoblue cards, but there are a few Ux characters. Frodo is white with a splash of blue (he is the most learned of the hobbits and knows elvish). Gandalf is pretty close to mono blue. His role is to lead the War of the Ring by sharing his wisdom. though there is definitely a bit of Green and a bit of White in him, but to balance the set I would make him blue.
Elrond I think is UW and Saruman UB.
Galadriel's motives are very BG but she has a bit of blue in her as far as the Mirror of Galadriel goes. I suppose that could be a blue artifact.
Faramir, the 'wizard's pupil' is very UW.
Smaug definitely felt very Grixis to me.
Celebrimbor (creator of the rings) was definitely a mono-blue artificer.
The Watcher in the Water (outside of Moria) and Cirdan the shipwright are good options for mono-blue (previously mentioned in another post).
For commons and uncommons, I would look to the Rivendell Elves as mono-blue, then maybe some of the warriors from Dol Amroth (which is by the sea).

I don't think they will include the Valar, but Ulmo would definitely be blue.

You are right though - color balancing Lord of the Rings is tough. It is such a good vs evil story that basically everyone can be justified as black or white. Since Tolkien loved nature, there is also a lot of green (hobbits, elves, ents, trolls, Beorn, Tom Bombadil, Aragorn and the other northern rangers.... Blue and red are a lot more sparse.

[BounceBurnBuff]

It feels like there's a lot of white, not because of Good vs Evil, but there are a lot of static characters and societies in LotR. The dwarves have an way of things and don't care much for change, same can be said for many of the elven kingdoms. Strictly speaking Sauron's desire to rule over the kingdoms is more W/B than mono Black, even so far as using extortion and diplomacy at many points throughout his plan. You could even argue Esper in so much as he is pretty much the most magical being at the time in the series, and a known deceiver of form.

I can see the Rivendell Elves being Azorius for sure, but they're too bogged down in the status quo and their pre-determined path to be mono blue for my tastes. If we're doing the movie angle, Arwen does suit mono blue if she isn't sliding into Izzet for her rebellious side.

[Dunharrow]

It feels like there's a lot of white, not because of Good vs Evil, but there are a lot of static characters and societies in LotR. The dwarves have an way of things and don't care much for change, same can be said for many of the elven kingdoms. Strictly speaking Sauron's desire to rule over the kingdoms is more W/B than mono Black, even so far as using extortion and diplomacy at many points throughout his plan. You could even argue Esper in so much as he is pretty much the most magical being at the time in the series, and a known deceiver of form.

I can see the Rivendell Elves being Azorius for sure, but they're too bogged down in the status quo and their pre-determined path to be mono blue for my tastes. If we're doing the movie angle, Arwen does suit mono blue if she isn't sliding into Izzet for her rebellious side.

I really don't see anything white about Sauron. To me he is very UB. Manipulative, only cares for power and control. He may pretend to be Annatar (Lord of Gifts). Ooh maybe we can get a Sauron-themed Gifts Ungiven! The diplomacy that he uses is rooted in corrupting the individuals he is talking to.

To me, Rivendell is very blue for these reasons:
1. They are barely invested in the War of the Ring, and really only focus on their own enlightenment
2. Going to Valinor by sea is itself a form of 'rising to a higher plane of existence' and driven by a pursuit of knowledge and perfection. They are called the undying lands which is the perfect place for Elves.

I did make a mistake though - the dwarves, especially in The Hobbit, are very red.

I think that is what we will see at common:
W: humans of Rohan and Gondor
U: elves of Rivendell and seafaring humans
B: Uruks serving Saruman or Sauron
R: Dwarves and mountain goblins
G: Hobbits and elves of Lorien/Mirkwood.. and Ents if they are at common

Obviously, there can be exceptions - such a U humans in Minas Tirith who study history, W Dwarves and Hobbits, Black and green spiders, Green and Red Trolls, black mountain goblins, etc.

[onering]

Laketown is a merchant civilization and pretty blue. Cirdan would be blue. The Noldor generally are rather blue, they had an affinity for progress and craft, preferring grand cities and creating intricate artifacts to the simple woodland life that appealed to most elves, and valued knowledge and learning highly, and trusted in their own cunning (Feanor is Mardu as hell though). The Teleri of Tol Eressea are pretty blue, what with living on an island and loving the sea. Gondor has some blue to it, as do Umbar and Saruman (again, he is all about technological progress as a means to improving the world, misguided in his application of it though he may be). The elves of Mirkwood strike me as rather blue green, with their reliance on illusion and trickery providing the blue.

[Krishnath]

It feels like there's a lot of white, not because of Good vs Evil, but there are a lot of static characters and societies in LotR. The dwarves have an way of things and don't care much for change, same can be said for many of the elven kingdoms. Strictly speaking Sauron's desire to rule over the kingdoms is more W/B than mono Black, even so far as using extortion and diplomacy at many points throughout his plan. You could even argue Esper in so much as he is pretty much the most magical being at the time in the series, and a known deceiver of form.

I can see the Rivendell Elves being Azorius for sure, but they're too bogged down in the status quo and their pre-determined path to be mono blue for my tastes. If we're doing the movie angle, Arwen does suit mono blue if she isn't sliding into Izzet for her rebellious side.

Predeterminism is green, not white. So I would argue that the Elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien are at least partially green.

Going to Valinor by sea is itself a form of 'rising to a higher plane of existence' and driven by a pursuit of knowledge and perfection. They are called the undying lands which is the perfect place for Elves.

Very fitting that they are from Valinor originally then.

The oldest of the Elves, including a teenaged Galadriel, chased after Melchior to the rest of middle earth after he stole the Silmarillions.

[DirkGently]

...after he stole the Silmarillions.

I thought they were just called the silmarils, and the silmarillion was something like "the saga of the silmarils". I might be misremembering that though, I never could get through that book.

I feel like there's a decent chance the silmarillion is a literal saga.

[toctheyounger]

I spent my honeymoon in New Zealand dragging my wife from Gollum's fishing hole to the valley where Isengard was located.

Ayyy, samesies. But I'm from NZ, so it probably cost us less - we were strapped for cash, but we're also both LotR nerds so it suited us perfectly. To the point where on of our tour guides invited us into his Middle Earth society and the rest of the tourists spent like half the day getting not a word in past us

Honestly, I care less about this than I thought I would. Partially because WotC has shat the bed pretty well on their own lore in recent sets anyway (lookin at you War of the Spark), and partially because it's just not that critical.

Addressing some of the stuff I've seen come up in this thread:

- WotC are already out to make money, whenever they sell you cards, whatever is on the face of them. It literally doesn't matter what the IP is, they're a business first and foremost.

- Is this selling out? Well, maybe, but at the very least we've seen tropes for years, so they've been edging towards it for a while. Do I care? Well, I love Middle Earth (I'm listening to the Silmarillion audiobook while I jam some work out rn) so not really, I'm kind of in.

- Power creep: Are these cards going to be busted? Probably not, but if they are, how is that different to Oko, Thief of Crowns, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Omnath, Locus of Creation, Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, more or less any Simic mythic in the last 2 years, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Eldraine brawl commanders, need I go on? To paraphrase The Two Towers film, you seek to avoid war, yet war is already upon you. They're not going to be any worse than what we get from R&D today with the game's inherent lore. In fact, the last couple of releases (Commander Legends and to some degree Kaldheim) have been a little more restrained in design. So there's a pretty good chance these will be relatively balanced if R&D is aiming the way they appear to be aiming. The point is it really doesn't matter what the IP is, when you've had more bannings in the last year over multiple formats than the previous five years combined, what's it to ya? Sure, there's a chance some of these cards push out your ol' faithfuls in terms of being strictly better, but that's part of exploring different design space anyway, and that's inevitable with a game that constantly introduces new parts and mechanics.

- LotR art design - I'm down for Bakshi, so long as the Gondorians are wearing pants. A case could be made for Rankin/Bass, but honestly I kind of just hope they take the lore and allow some really great artists to make it exquisite. I'd like to see what Rebecca Guay could do with it, Chris Rahn I like too, everyone has their faves. If they have to go thematic with representation from previous franchises, Allan Lee would be nice (without going for actual movie footage; his concept art is top notch).

Honestly as a fan of one of these IPs my biggest hope (knowing that it's inevitable and they're going to do it anyway) is that they do the franchise I love (and the other that I know nothing about) justice in their representations. For Middle Earth it's going to really depend how far down the rabbit hole they go. I hope they go all the way, because getting an Ungoliant, Melkor/Morgoth, Feanor, Hurin, Balrogs, a Witch-King (I've always looked at Kulrath Knight and thought of WKoA) and so forth would be awesome. Beren and Luthien as partners would be wicked cool. A TDFC Smeagol/Gollum would be perfect - hell, you could do the same with the ring itself - beautiful on its own, once equipped it transforms or something. I doubt they will go all in on every piece of lore considering how deep Tolkien went, but so long as the representation is good I'm ok with it. In a way, I'd be less happy with skins. Like Sol Ring - sure, it looks the same as the one ring, but it's not a very good representation of what the ring actually is or does.

I'm a little sad that vorthos decks are going to be less imagination-driven moving forward; there's going to be less motivation to say 'this Llanowar Elves is Haldir' rather than just running a Haldir card, but that doesn't mean it isn't still possible to do that. If you want your deck to stay true to your representations and your flavour, run what you like, you've already sacrificed competition for theme anyway.

I guess my two cents boils down to 'I'm happy to just see what happens here'. Do I want to end up playing, years from now, a Double Whopper with cheese commander deck against your Chicken Nuggies and a large Coke? Hell no, but slippery slope arguments are not a great way to view the world or to extrapolate. My ethics lecturer used to tell us slippery slope debates always end up with Nazis, so just don't use them. Same goes here - there's no genuine evidence that this is a horrible thing, it could be great. There's a chance it could herald the sky falling, but I have a feeling that isn't going to be the case.

[Krishnath]

...after he stole the Silmarillions.

I thought they were just called the silmarils, and the silmarillion was something like "the saga of the silmarils". I might be misremembering that though, I never could get through that book.

I feel like there's a decent chance the silmarillion is a literal saga.

They are indeed called the silmarils, it's just been a few years since I read the book last. >.<

[caulkwrangler]

...after he stole the Silmarillions.

I thought they were just called the silmarils, and the silmarillion was something like "the saga of the silmarils". I might be misremembering that though, I never could get through that book.

I feel like there's a decent chance the silmarillion is a literal saga.

...after he stole the Silmarillions.

I thought they were just called the silmarils, and the silmarillion was something like "the saga of the silmarils". I might be misremembering that though, I never could get through that book.

I feel like there's a decent chance the silmarillion is a literal saga.

They are indeed called the silmarils, it's just been a few years since I read the book last. >.<

Yeah, the full title is Quenta Silmarillion. Each individual gem is a Silmaril (which itself means something like "bright jewel"), and collectively (in Quenya) they are Silmarilli. 'Silmarillion' is the result of appending a suffix so the word literally means "Of the Silmarils", and 'quenta' is the word for story as a recollection. So, A History of the Lights wouldn't be an inappropriate translation considering how the gems (and entire content of the myth) are tied to the illumination of the world, past and future.

[onering]

My ethics lecturer used to tell us slippery slope debates always end up with Nazis, so just don't use them.

On the other hand, Commander: Indiana Jones is distinctly possible, so the slippery slope ending up at Nazis isn't actually absurd here.