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Main » Articles » Covetous Dragon

Covetous Dragon

Ant Tessitore
Posted on January 28, 2015
 Reddit

In this article, I am going to revisit telling a story through mixed media. Last time I tried this method, I asked if you would like to see more “mixed-media” story articles. The answer was a resounding yes, and so I am back at it again today. If you enjoy flavorful deck ideas and creative writing, this article is for you. If you are looking for a breakdown of the Standard metagame, or some other form of mechanical synergy breakdown mumbo-jumbo, I have some bad news . . . you might be a Melvin. I’m sorry.

Hooray, all the Melvins are gone! Welcome, my fellow Vorthoses. Today, I will share with you all the tale of a particularly greedy dragon named Auriferous.

The Tale of Auriferous the Greedy

Since his hatching day, Auriferous had always been enamored with gold. In his obsession, the dragon had amassed a hoard encompassing an entire system of caves hidden deep within the belly of a large mountain. Auriferous was ancient by even a dragon’s standards, his remaining days spent leisurely rolling among his piles of glittering gold. Auriferous would often lie on his back, wings unfurled and draped across piles of treasure, and reminisce about his younger days spent eating adventurers and stealing their gold . . . 

Auriferous shifted from side to side on his back, digging himself into the side of a massive mound of coins. “This is the life,” he thought as he stared up at the cavernous ceiling above him. He reached to his neck and lifted a locket hanging there up to one of his molten yellow eyes. “My first piece,” he said aloud to himself. “I can still remember how we met.”

Nethala could not wait to show her mother. She slowly descended the rocky mountain path approaching her city’s gates from the east, cautiously finding sure footing with each step. The cargo she carried in her haversack was unlike anything Nethala had encountered before—she could not risk breaking it. Closing in on the city limits, Nethala decided stop and have one final look at her loot before turning the treasure over to her mother. Nethala pulled the pack from her shoulder, unfastened its iron buckle, and peeled back the leather cover. She reached in and slowly removed a large, tan, oval speckled with flecks of purple and brown. “I wonder what’s inside,” she thought as she turned the large egg over in her hands. “Better hurry and get it to mother.” Nethala reached down and picked up her empty pack. As she was about to secure the egg back into her pouch, she felt a slight shudder. Astonished, Nethala stood along the side of the road with her mouth gaping, eyes fixated on the egg she held. As the last bits of broken shell fluttered to her feet, Nethala found herself to no longer be in the possession of a brilliantly colored egg, but to be holding a live, baby dragon.

Terrified, Nethala dropped the creature and ran to hide behind a nearby rock. She worked up enough courage to peek around the side, only to find the tiny creature cleaning bits of eggshell out of its wings. The dragon whelp looked up at Nethala and locked its molten yellow eyes with hers. Nethala quickly breathed in as she swung her head back around the side of the boulder. “You fool!” she thought. “You should have known better than to bring a strange egg home from the mines.” The dragon had made its way on top of the rock and was looking down at Nethala. It dropped from its perch and landed in the young girl’s lap. Nethala recoiled in fear, pressing her back against the stone as if she expected to slip inside and evade the dangerous creature.

For the second time in one day, Nethala found herself locking eyes with a dragon, or so she thought. The dragon, she realized, was fixated on the golden pendant hanging around her neck. The necklace bore the sigil of her house, and had been a thirteenth-yearday gift from her mother. She carefully reached behind her neck and undid the small clasp. The tiny dragon fixed its stare on the necklace as Nethala moved it from side to side. She watched as the creature began walking back and forth beneath the hanging treasure, brushing its scaled sides against the sigil’s golden surface.

“You like treasure,” Nethala said aloud. “Perhaps we can be friends after all.” She fastened the clasp and held the pendant out in front of the baby dragon with the chain open for the dragon to place its head through. “Would you like to wear it?” she sheepishly asked the creature. The dragon immediately sat upright and stretched out its neck, head down, ready to accept the girl’s offer. Nethala carefully placed the chain around the dragon's neck, allowing the pendant to freely drape across its tiny chest. “My mother gave that to me the day I became old enough to begin skyguard training.” Nethala explained, “You can keep it as a sign of our friendsh–”. The dragon reared back and unleashed a gout of dragonfire that melted Nethala, the rock she was sitting against, and the surrounding dirt into a puddle of molten stone and ash before flapping its wings and flying off toward the mountains east of the city.

Casual Duel Decks — Hatchling Auriferous vs. Nethala

Hatchling Auriferous ? Auriferous vs. Nethala Casual Duel Decks | Ant Tessitore

Nethala ? Auriferous vs. Nethala Casual Duel Decks | Ant Tessitore

“What a wonderful hatching,” Auriferous said to himself as he got up off his mound of coins. He slid down a large pile of golden goblets and plates he had pilfered from countess kingdoms until he came to an opening leading to an adjoining cave. Rows of books and tomes sat on shelves lining the cavern walls, their gilded pages facing outward proudly on display. Auriferous had eaten many mages and wizards over his centuries of life. His collection of magical tomes was a testament to his power, their golden pages casting an eerie yellow glow across the cavern. “I’m going to miss this place,” Auriferous said aloud. “If only the afterlife were here with you all, I could spend eternity among my precious collection.” Auriferous found himself thinking back to one particularly fierce encounter with a talented necromancer—the first creature to make him consider the possibility of death.

A cauldron of molten-hot gold was bubbling over a bed of coals in the center of Levoc’s master chambers. The soulspark mage consulted a pile of ancient tomes as he twisted his decrepit fingers in complex passes through the purple vapors rising from the boiling metal. With each pass, echoes of power would emerge from the cauldron as if the liquid gold were actively protesting the infusion of the necromancer’s arcane magics. Levoc completed a particularly complex sign with his fingers, passing his left hand across his chest in the process. As his hand crossed his heart, Levoc pulled a mote of sickly green energy from within his body and dropped it into the boiling liquid.

An animated skeleton, its bones coated in a layer of solid gold, crept into the chamber through a set of large, oak doors on the far right side of the room. “Master,” the skeleton addressed Levoc, dropping to one knee and pointing its lavender glowing eye sockets to the floor. “We are under attack.”

“Have they breached the central courtyard?” Wheezed Levoc.

“It has” replied the skeleton, never breaking its gaze with the stone.

“It? You mean there is only one? Remind me again how you have yet to squash this pest?” The chandeliers above them trembled as a deafening roar emanated from below. “Find it and kill it—the ritual of undeath is almost complete and cannot be interrupted. Now go, now!”

The skeletal servant quickly disappeared back down the corridor from which it came, leaving Levoc to his cauldron and tomes. “I must hurry.” He said aloud to himself. The ancient necromancer continued his arcane ritual, relinquishing more motes of his soul into the boiling metal. Distant echoes of a raging battle could be heard somewhere in the castle below, yet Levoc was sure that whatever threat was invading his home, the monster would be no match for the undead creations he had tasked with destroying it. He waved his hands in one final flourish, the words ending the incantation ripening on the tip of his tongue.

With a loud thud, the floor jarred unexpectedly, causing Levoc to fumble his final words as he crashed in a heap to the floor. “What in the nine . . . ” he exclaimed, reaching for his staff. In an explosion of splintered wood and stone, an enormous dragon erupted through the floor, clawing its way up into Levoc’s chamber. The enormity of the creature permeated the room as it maneuvered its massive head to bring a molten yellow eye to bare in front of the prone necromancer.

“Greetings, mortal,” Auriferous rumbled like an active volcano. “I am here to relinquish you of the precious metal you so foolishly waste on such petty creations.” The dragon opened one of its scaled claws, dropping a fused ball of gold plated skeletons onto the floor.

Levoc could only laugh at the arrogant creature before him. “I will teach you the meaning of the word mortal, you presumptuous whelp.” Auriferous breathed deeply, ready to incinerate the insolent human. Levoc was quicker. The dying mage uttered a word of arcane power, slamming the head of his staff into the boiling cauldron. In an eruption of energy, Auriferous was enveloped in a shower of electrically-charged liquid gold. Rearing back from the immense pain, the dragon fell back through the floor, clawing at its smoldering face and neck.

Casual Duel Decks — Auriferous vs. Levoc, the Soulspark Mage

Auriferous ? Auriferous vs. Levoc, the Soulspark Mage | Ant Tessitore

Levoc ? Auriferous vs. Levoc, the Soulspark Mage | Ant Tessitore

Auriferous winced at the painful memory of that encounter. He reached up and scratched at a patch of scales beneath the frills on his left jaw line that had been fused together by the electrically-charged gold. He thought about his humiliation, clawing his way back up into the necromancer’s chambers in order to claim piles of golden tomes from the dead human. Auriferous made his way to a small wormwood bookshelf at the far end of the cavern. The shelves were lined with the gilded books he had collected from the suicidal necromancer’s ruined chambers, including the very book Levoc was referencing before the encounter. That particular tome had an unassuming cover composed of bound leather, but it was filled with sheets of solid gold. The grimoire was ancient beyond measure, containing forbidden secrets of undeath within its gleaming pages.

Auriferous could remember the first time he read through the spellbook, lying amongst his pilfered treasures while allowing his scales to recover from his battle with the death mage. As he pored over its contents, he had encountered a section covering a particularly dangerous form of magic—magic that would allow its caster to seal the essence of his or her own life force into any object. As long as that object remained intact, the caster would live forever as an immortal lich. The first time he read about such a disturbing practice, Auriferous had scoffed at the desperate ploys created by beings with such short life spans, but as Auriferous read over that same passage once more, he could not help but feel intrigued by the idea that an eternity lying among his treasure was a real possibility.

Auriferous walked back down the book-lined corridor into his central chamber. He stood gazing across mountains of golden riches—his riches, a treasure he had spent a lifetime to compile. “Who will watch over you all when I am no longer of this world?” He said into the cavern. “Who will roll among you, claiming you as their own? Who will credit themselves for my life's work?” The thought hung heavy in the cavern air. “Why should anyone have that chance? This hoard is fit only for one worthy of its magnitude.” Auriferous turned and walked back toward his shelves of gilded spellbooks. “I will ensure that fact.”

Quick and silent as a mouse scurrying between corners of a room, Sevali shifted from stalagmite to stalagmite along a cavern stretching down into the mountain’s heart. “Should be just around the next bend,” she thought as she rolled up a sheet of vellum and tucked it into a canister secured to her waist. The map had been tough to acquire, but if the local legends about an abandoned dragon’s hoard were true, the effort would be well worth it. Sevali crept along the cave wall, pressing her back against the stone as she descended down the last length of the rock corridor. She rounded a corner and came to a small archway coated in thick webs. “The first room should be just on the other side of this opening,” she thought, pulling a piece of flint and a small rag out of her pack. Soaking the rag in some lantern oil, Sevali rolled it into a tight ball. She struck the flint against one of her daggers, creating enough of a spark to light the tiny ball of fabric on fire. Sevali stuck the tip of her dagger into the little fireball at her feet, carried it over to the mass of sticky strands, and set them ablaze.

The webbing went up quickly, giving off faint crackling and popping sounds as tiny spiders fell to the ground in scorched husks. Standing in the doorway, Sevali marveled at the mountains of treasure before her, illuminated by the burning webs.As far as her eyes could see, there were piles and piles of gold coins, goblets, plates, furniture, weapons, and armor meticulously stacked throughout the chamber. Sevali lowered her pack to the ground and began moving piece after piece into her bag, deliberately calculating every movement as to not make a sound. She looked up suddenly, dagger in hand, as a pile of coins shifted from their perch and slid unceremoniously to the ground. Unable to determine if anything had caused the disturbance, Sevali cautiously went back to her task at hand. Unnerved by the phantom sound, she found himself constantly checking for unseen shadows lurking in the dark while simultaneously ensuring a dagger still hung at her hip.

Sevali’s hair stood on end as a second pile of coins slid down a mountain of gold and scattered across the cavern floor at her feet. Sevali scooped up her pack and turned to find the archway she came through was no longer there, a large pile of gold coins in its place. Another shift in the treasure behind her was all it took for Sevali to drop her spoils and begin frantically digging through the pile of coins that now barred her return to the surface. The treasure all around her began to undulate as if it were alive, sliding together in great piles only to crash in great heaps to the floor. Sevali feared that if she did not escape soon, she would be buried alive beneath a giant mound of the cursed metal. The glittering piles began to move toward the center of the chamber, arranging themselves on top of each other. Sevali began forcefully driving fist after fist into the mountain of gold standing between her and salvation, tossing piles of coins to either side as her broken fingernails lefttrails of blood on the stone floor.

“Who dares disturb my hoard!?” came a deep rumbling from over Sevali’s shoulder in a voice that could only be described as thousands of coins being dumped into a bottomless well.

Her escape sufficiently prohibited, Sevali pulled her dagger from its sheath and turned to face her death. A mass of animated treasure was forming in the center of the chamber, gold coins arranging themselves in a pattern of scales across its massive bulk. Glimmering shields connected to form its chest and underbelly as its teeth constructed themselves from an array of golden swords, axes, and spears. Sevali found herself staring down an enormous dragon composed entirely of treasure from the surrounding hoard, a dragon that was leering back at her with a pair of molten yellow eyes.

“You are not worthy, whelp.” It rumbled . . . 

Casual Duel Decks — Hoard-Lich Auriferous vs. Sevalia, the Thief

Hoard-Lich Auriferous ? Hoard-Lich Auriferous vs. Sevalia, the Thief | Ant Tessitore

Sevalia ? Hoard-Lich Auriferous vs. Sevalia, the Thief | Ant Tessitore

Vorthos Contest: Altered Flavor

I thought I would end this week with a contest for you guys. For the duel decks that go along with the story above, I created two altered cards. The first is an altered version of the Seventh Edition printing of Greed, depicting Auriferous lounging on his hoard of gold. The second is an altered Phylactery Lich, meant to showcase Auriferous after his transformation into a powerful Hoard-Lich Dragon, his body composed of the gold he cherished so deeply. For this contest, I wanted to do something involving my favorite part of a Magic card: the flavor text. On the Google form below, please choose between one of the two altered cards, and submit a line of flavor text for that card. It’s a flavor-text-writing contest. Yay!

The winner will receive a copy of his or her choice of one of the three duel decks featured above, along with a play set of one of the altered cards below.Good luck, and may the flavor be with you.

TAGS articles, dragons, story, duel decks, vorthos, decklist, flavor, creative, ant tessitore

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