The Vorthos Cast

We sit down with Alison Lührs, author of the Reality Fracture story and so much more, to talk about what it was like killing Jace Beleren, completing a journey long in the making, and kicking off a new journey with a person in progress. We also talk about shipping single moms, going on hikes, and who we think probably smiled through Jace's funeral. If you want to support the Vorthos Cast, you can!...

There's an entirely new multiverse in the Reality Fracture set, with so many flavor gems that we couldn't possibly talk about all of them! So we didn't. This week, we're talking about the cards we personally thought were fascinating and delightful, the cards that made us stop and say "Oh wow, how about that" while looking at the set. We're sharing our favorite bites of Reality Fracture with you, a...

The story of Reality Fracture, and thus the story of Jace Beleren, comes to an end in today's episode. We see the Theorist flex his omniscience as he attempts to overlay his echoverse over the multiverse, and we see as he fails. And then we all cry. A lot. If you want to support the Vorthos Cast, you can! Go to Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast and contribute as little as $1 a month to get access to our...

Jace shattered at the end of Tarkir Dragonstorm, and as he has become the Theorist he has continued to jettison the parts of himself that would stand in his way of restarting the multiverse. In episodes 7 and 8 of the Reality Fracture story, we see Jace's friends and comrades (and Garruk) scramble through his memories to find those pieces of himself in order to stop the Theorist from ending everyt...

The story of Reality Fracture, written by Alison Lührs, will go down in history as one of the greatest Magic stories of all time. While the story is posted in full at MTGStory.com, today we're discussing episodes 4, 5, and 6. Our multiverse's defenders arrive in the Echoverse to face off against the Theorist, Jace with no inhibitions, to stop his plan to overwrite all of existence. Things do not g...

The fate of the multiverse is at stake, but this time there is no megalomaniacal would-be Dragon God, abominable eldritch titans, or all-consuming biomechanical army threatening existence. It's one man and his desire to end all suffering. We're here with the story of Reality Fracture, the capstone to the last three years of Magic! This week we have the first three episodes of the story to talk abo...

We've done it! It's our final episode about Mystery Booster: Commander Edition! This week we're talking about all the legends we haven't talked about yet, telling you where some of these new characters come from. Did you know Maular is from Muraganda? Or that Massimo is a reference to the tarot? We're going to tell you all about it! If you're listening on Monday, August 31st, today is the release...

We return once again to Mystery Booster: Commander Edition for our second episode about the new legendary creatures of the set, and our third episode overall! This week we're tackling the new cards for previously existing characters—either from flavor text, card names, or art—and then start to talk about the brand new characters, such as Sahir, Visitor in Darkness, and Jabs, Mistress of Mockery! D...

Wow there's a lot to talk about here! Mystery Booster: Commander Edition has 51 new legendary creatures (50 if you don't count the Alchemy card!) and most of them are deep cuts to Magic's history. We talked about 9 planeswalkers last week, and this week we only get through 13 of the legendary creatures before running out of time! This is going to be a multi-part flavor gems, and right now we can't...

Mystery Booster: Commander Edition is a surprise Vorthos hit this year, as the convention-only booster set has 59 totally new cards in it, including nine planeswalkers! All of these new planeswalker cards are actually really wonderful lore deep cuts, from the very first named characters in all of Magic story to an unnamed fan favorite for almost a decade! We're talking through the nine planeswalke...

Wow! 400 episodes! That's a lot! And we're not even counting all the previews and special side episodes we've done! To thank you all for listening to so, so many hours of this podcast, we solicited questions from our listeners and answered them in this episode! All of us are here, including Jay, the host emeritus, and we're answering questions about our opinions on robots, which cursed ships we're...

Jace has created his own model multiverse, an echo of our own, where existential threats like Nicol Bolas, the Eldrazi, and Phyrexia never existed. In addition, he has gathered together the reflections of planeswalkers from the true multiverse whose histories have diverged in significant ways. These planeswalkers, known in our world as the Lorwyn Five, are key to Jace's plan to assert control of t...

This week's episode is a two-parter! First up is our reaction to the news out of Amsterdam as the preview panel (the Amsterpanel) showed off more of Reality Fracture and introduced us to the three Magic sets for 2027, including a new plane, a mashup, and a brand new look at an old setting! Then we're diving into Izzy Wasserstein's story for the Global Fund for Women Secret Lair drop, "Spirits of t...

We're once again joined by the incredible Seanan McGuire to ask all about Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos! She tells us all about how the novel came to be, how it felt to write a full novel rather than a series of web fiction episodes, and why Segante has a single nipple piercing. We also spend a lot more time talking about cross-species fertility than you'd expect in a Magic the Gathering lore podcast...

It's comics week, again! This week we're talking about the first two issues of Dark Horse Comics' Untold Stories: Jace. Elspeth's story was untold yet familiar, being the story for the card set Theros: Beyond Death. But Jace's story is new to us, and even new to Jace himself, as the mind mage is delving into memories which had been locked away from even himself until now. These memories concern hi...

The Untold Stories comic series from Dark Horse finished their first four-issue run with Untold Stories: Elspeth this month! These comics tell untold stories from Magic's past—stories that didn't quite make it to the page before now. Elspeth's untold story is the story of Theros: Beyond Death, a set that released in a very inopportune time (early 2020) and had an unfortunate cancellation of the pl...

That's right! This week's the last week of our five part series book club for Omens of Chaos! We're talking about the climax of the novel, where all the pieces fall into place and the villain's grand scheme is revealed. While every episode of the book club has contained spoilers, this is the most spoilery of all spoiler episodes, so if you haven't finished the book, you should do that first! Then...

Omens of Chaos is heating up in this week's Book Club episode as Eula makes some questionable decisions about her own safety and Segante has to come to the rescue. We're starting with the third Interlude, which shows us how Segante has been adjusting to the student life on Arcavios, and then continuing through Eula's ill-advised trip to the Harrier's Wood, her subsequent attempted murder, and Sega...

Book Club continues with the second Interlude chapter, this time through the point of view of Alandra of Shandalar, through Chapter 17. The students open up about what's keeping them on Arcavios during the upcoming holiday break, then attend a fantastical masquerade, where Eula has a mysterious and unnerving encounter with an upperclassman who gives her either advice or a threat. Afterwards, a tri...

Our book club for Omens of Chaos continues this week with the first interlude, which gives us Jamira's point of view as well as the first concrete signs of a sinister Kasmina, through to Chapter 11! We see the exciting life of students, from laundry to study halls to office hours with a professor who is just a hoot. There's a lot of slices of life happening in this section, and we talk about how w...

This week begins our chapter-by-chapter breakdown of Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos, where we go through the novel and provide quick summaries of the events and discussions about the characters, plot, and fun lore drops we get along the way! Spoiler Alert! We will discuss everything that happens in these chapters, as well as how it connects to later events in the novel. If you haven't read the entire...

We're kicking off our month (and a half) of Omens of Chaos this week with a special guest, Kathleen De Vere of LoadingReadyRun! If you haven't read Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos by Seanan McGuire, you should do that now, because this episode is spoilers all the way down. We're talking about structure, plot, tone, themes, characterization, and all the ways this book succeeded (and some of the ways we...

First of all, the name is Loreley's responsibility. After the preview panel at MC Vegas, we thought now would be a good time to revisit the story of Jace Beleren since the events of Phyrexia: All Will be One. The last few years of story have all been leading to this moment, as Jace has worked covertly (and somewhat overtly) to enact his plan for planar engineering. What led him from hero to villai...

It's time for the flavor gems of Secrets of Strixhaven, a show where we look at all the most flavorful cards of the set and talk about art, callbacks, and lore you may have missed! This set is full of callbacks to the first time we were on Arcavios and new mini-stories hidden in the card art and mechanics! There's also Noxious Newt! If you'd like to support the show, you can find us on Patreon at...

This week we're joined by Wizard and author of the story for Secrets of Strixhaven, K Arsenault Rivera! She's contributed to the Magic Story since Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and has been a frequent guest of the podcast over the years since. We talk about writing the students of Strixhaven, as well as catching up with Chandra and Ajani after they've both been through so much. We had to do some very u...