11. A Little Bit Of Magic

For the last decade I have had two main hobbies, writing and Magic the Gathering. Both have been on and off over the years but I’ve lost countless hours to each. So I thought why not combine the two loves and see if there was any way to convey key characters from my time travel novel as Magic cards.

The first card had to be for my main protagonist, Matilda. Matilda is always on the move, trying to achieve the most during her time in the past so Vigilance seemed a no brainer. Her whole mission is about introducing technology to the past so searching for artifacts conveyed this purpose. And, coming from the future, it seemed appropriate that she would leave some knowledge of the future by allowing cards to be placed on the top of the deck.

The second card is for William, Matilda’s young sidekick. In the book he starts out immature and impulsive but as he spends time around others he grows and learns more about the world. The card is very similar to Fathom Mage, though this card being forced to draw a card could potentially be used against a player in very specific situations.

The third card is for the main antagonist, Bishop Godfrey. The bishop is a formidable presence, good at blocking things he doesn’t approve of though at the end of the day he is a frail old man, hence the 1/4 stats. People think twice about getting in his way (menace) and he has a tendency to wear people down by shouting at them, reflected by his -1/-1 counter ability. I love the idea of Godfrey slowly shouting an indestructible creature into oblivion.

Finally, no time travel novel would be possible without a Time Machine. The T-Mach represents the dire situation faced by my Chronomads. They will bid farewell to everyone they’ve ever known for a chance to change the future. I am in the process of editing the story which will make the overall mechanic make a lot more sense but it poses an interesting risk/reward dynamic.

Bring my characters to life using the language of Magic the Gathering was a super fun way to spend time stuck on a flight! I have created a bunch of other cards and hope to eventually have a set of 30 that show the different characters, locations and key events.

To learn more about the characters, check out the story (new chapters every week!) or consider pre-ordering a copy to get the whole book early.