Vorthos just had the tenth anniversary of the formal term, and hitting a milestone always makes me pause and look backward. After seeing the Complete History of Magic Online, I felt Vorthos could use some perspective on our own winding road. I needed some outside perspectives to be right! I talked to a few key community members who either ran Vorthos sites or were entrenched in the community.

I was able to interview a few folks who are titans in the world of Vorthos culture:

• Moppi, Writer of Vorthosian Inquisition
• Barinellos, forum stalwart
• Galspanic, MTGS Alters admin
• Josh Krause, webmaster of OriginalMagicArt.com
• Trick Jarrett, former editor of Gathering Magic and now at Wizards
• Both members of the Snack Time with Mike and Ant podcast

I could’ve talked to folks for weeks, engaging in mini-interviews and spending hours tracking down folks I remember, talking flavor day in and day out before social media was invented. In time, we’ll track them down. Hold me to that.

After some discussions, finding resources, and trying to categorize things, I was astonished at the sheer amount of information that is out there for Vorthos. Keep me honest; I’ll try to archive our shared knowledge more often!

1990–1993

• 1992 — Magic is pitched to Wizards by Garfield himself. Unused art, called slush, becomes available. The Limited Edition Alpha card Cockatrice is one such example of an artwork being used.

1994–1999

2000–2004

• 2001 — In June, The Weatherlight saga ends with Apocalypse being released. The completed Legacy Weapon destroys Yawgmoth, and the Phyrexian invasion ends.
• 2002 — The Mana Drain forum is founded.
• 2003 — The Rebecca Guay controversy occurs. In a nutshell, communication was poorly conveyed that Guay would not be in the next set due to the upcoming set’s style, and she interpreted it to mean they did not want to use her. “Sadly, the new art director, Jeremy Cranford, thinks my work is too feminine for the vision he has for the game. I would love to continue with Magic, but it is not in my hands.” Messages were interpreted, and in interviews, you see that it wasn’t anything to do with personal choices. It just happened. An interview in 2008 shows a bit more regarding what happened after the storm had passed. (Relevant info is in the 0:55–2:10 area.)

  Many Vorthos fans became involved, and many, many angry letters were written to Wizards. An Unhinged card, Persecute Artist, lampoons the situation.

Persecute Artist by Rebecca Guay

• 2003 — In November, Battlegrounds, a game on the Xbox is released. It showed creatures who fought directly using the Unreal graphics engine. While it isn’t considered a bust, it has much to be desired.
• 2004 — The Mana Drain crashes. The bulk of the data on the site was wiped. Some still remains in the archives section. The site is then sold in 2005 to StarCityGames.
• 2004 — Wizards makes a conscious effort in early 2004 to submit a large submission of card artworks to Spectrum, an annual art book showcasing the “best” in submitted fantasy and science-fiction art. Their efforts paid off with eleven inclusions into Spectrum 11. This trend would continue with more submissions and more inclusions.

2005–2009

• 2005 — In August, Taste the Magic series by Matt Cavotta begins with Matt explaining all the areas of the card that are considered flavor, and thus, are Vorthos-aligned.
• 2005 — Ravnica block is released, showcasing ten guilds, combining two colors to form an identity players related to. Dual colors are still called by their guild names, such as Gruul, meaning R/G, as opposed to referring to them by the colors or “Mountain/Forest.” Tee shirts pop up with people wanting to be “their” guild.
• 2005 — Magic painted alterations pop up infrequently on the MTG Salvation boards.
• 2006 — In October, Brady Dommermuth, creative director, explains what the card set logos were created to represent.

• 2007 — The Time Spiral block ends with Future Sight, culminating in the Mending. The Mending was a storyline event that was a turning point of Planeswalkers. Prior to it, Planeswalkers were immortal, godlike wizards. Post-Mending, Planeswalkers became mortal and more relatable, and they therefore were powered down enough to be included in the game the following year in Lorwyn. To say that people interested in the storyline were furious is an understatement. It felt thrown together, as the Lorwyn five had nothing to do with Lorwyn, and their stories weren’t told well until Agents of Artifice and The Purifying Fire, which were both really well-written books on Planeswalkers.
• 2007 — The open letter on Phyrexia.com is posted and sent to Brady Dommermuth. From the letter, any post-Mending Planeswalker is colloquially called a “neo-walker” or “Brady-walker.” In the eight years since this happened, neowalker is still only said rarely.
• 2007 — In September, Matt Cavotta stops writing his Taste the Magic column. He’d be returning to Wizards soon in a more prominent role.
• 2007 — In MTG Salvation keeps seeing people post their own threads with their alteration works, and the late Richie Proffitt, admin known as PolarBearGod wanted folks to be able to find the works, so a new forum was made to keep things in the same place. This became the epicenter of all things alteration.
• 2008 — In June, Eventide is the final set with which a full Magic novel is included with the Fat Pack product. It is removed to boost sales of books and because marketing data showed that most players just traded or sold the book after receiving it.
• 2008 — Eric Klug, alterist, begins altering cards as a hobby.
• 2008 — In September, A Planeswalker’s Guide to Alara by Doug Beyer and Jenna Helland is released. This 5" × 8" book was a Shards of Alara style guide, in essence, with additional writing to explain the plane.
• 2009 — Duels of the Planeswalkers (DOTP) is released for tablets and for Steam. The game has cut scenes and storyline content and has new versions released each year subsequently. Kiora the Planeswalker is shown in the game and, due to popularity, eventually becomes a printed card.

2010—2014

• 2010 — Issar Roon, a series on GatheringMagic, begins in January, showcasing Magic history through a fictional historian’s perspective. Brendan Weiskotten, upon retiring from writing, is revealed to be the writer.
• 2010 — The Rise of the Eldrazi god reveal occurs. The Merfolk and Kor worshipped their Zendikar gods of Emeria, Ula, and Cosi. These gods were actually distant memories of Emrakul, Ulamog, and Kozilek. This reveal gag is used again in Battle for Zendikar block.
• 2010 — Matt Cavotta joins Wizards as Creative Director, largely in charge of visual aesthetics, such as packaging and brand consistency. You can learn more about what he does in an interview with Snack Time with Mike and Ant and Drive to Work with Mark Rosewater.
• 2011 — Vorthos writers begin to join the team at Gathering Magic. They have a “Vorthos Wednesday” with alterations, discussion of storylines, flavor, and art each week.
• 2011 — The Magic: The Gathering Tactics computer game is released. The game is similar to Battlegrounds, in which creatures summoned are seen and attack in 3D. The game is slow, takes a long time to do anything, and is not received well.
• 2011 — Magic’s final printed novel is released: Scars of Mirrodin: The Quest for Karn.
• 2011 — Liliana Vess’s novel is canceled. No cover art is made for the book. No transcript has ever been spoiled or leaked.
• 2011 — Eric Klug, alterist, begins altering cards as a profession. In June of the same year, taking fourteen hours, he alters his first Black Lotus.

• 2011 — Fifth state of design is revealed. Future proliferation of Vorthos efforts all relate to this.
• 2011 — IDW Publishing begins printing comic for Magic. The series features a new Planeswalker, Dack Fayden. It’s released early 2012.
• 2011 — The Alpha Project to find all the Limited Edition Alpha artworks begins.
• 2011 — In October, an alternate-reality game (ARG) started by “Josh Brauer,” actually Ryan Miller, was conducted before Innistrad came out to fill in the gap that not having a novel would create. It was generally well-received but hasn’t been done since. Many people couldn’t find the pieces linking together.
• 2011 — Christine Sprankle cosplays as Elspeth and brings Magic cosplay to the forefront as an aspect of Vorthos interaction with the game.

Image found at SheAttack.

• 2012 — The Mana Drain’s Art, Rarities, and Collectibles forum was founded in 2012. The “Magic Original Art” thread was originally in the General Community Discussion Forum, but as the thread grew more and more popular, admins discussed creating a separate sub-forum for this particular end of the hobby. Since 2012, it has existed as a hidden sub-forum on TMD that is viewable only by site members.
• 2012 — In March, Doug Beyer’s Savor the Flavor column series ends on DailyMTG. This was one of the early indicators that more staff were desperately needed.
• 2012 — Helvault at Avacyn Restored release events is launched. The storyline dealt with “opening the Helvault,” and players did so with certain actions unlocking it. Very valuable tokens and oversized cards were found in some game stores.
• 2012 — Spectrum Fantastic Art Live holds its first convention in Kansas City, hosting dozens of Magic artists.
• 2012 — In June, Uncharted Realms begins on DailyMTG with a story on Odric, Master Tactician by Jenna Helland. This marked a shift of a new normal for Vorthos storytelling.
• 2012 — In June, the Original Magic Art wiki begins as a site for collectors to share their original art “finds.” Josh Krause was motivated by seeing disparate pockets of collectors without a hub to coalesce and form a community around.
• 2012 — In October, Original Magic Art in its current form replaces functionality of the wiki. Krause created galleries where anyone can see art collector submitted images. Features come and go, but the galleries and marketplace are some of the more popular pages there.

• 2012 — Doug Beyer writes a three-part electronic book called The Secretist, taking place on Ravnica, featuring Jace Beleren. These novelettes took the place of a formal novel for Ravnica.
• 2012 — In December, Magic does a Which Way story on DailyMTG revolving around the “fateful hour” mechanic on Innistrad. It is another example of an immersive experience into flavorful elements that isn’t a novel.
• 2013 — In February, The Gathering, a crowd-sourced book comprised of art, ruminations, and more is funded. Thirty-seven of Magic’s earliest artists team up to make an art book and distribute profits to everyone. An unintended outcome was friendships rekindling, and some of the earliest artists became slightly more available to attend events.
• 2012 — In August, Colin Kawakami joins the creative team as their manager.
• 2013 — In March, Cardboard Crack begins making comics. Their second comic catapults them into the spotlight.

• 2013 — On April 19, Brady Dommermuth, senior creative designer, is laid off. Quinton Hoover, Alpha artist of MTG, passes away, and the original artwork to Dandan is stolen. This all occurs in a single day.
• 2013 — In May, the “legend rule” changes. “The new rule separates the field of play into your battlefield and your opponent's battlefield, and only checks those to make sure that there are not multiple copies of one legend with the same name or Planeswalker with the same type.” This allows for both players to play flavorful and legendary creatures without having the opponent “legend rule” them.
• 2013 — No Goblins Allowed is formed. This is the site with sub-forums dedicated just to the exploration of the creative elements of the game, and one of its primary goals is to preserve old information about the game that might end up lost for whatever reason. Many of the Wizards mothership forum users active in the flavorful boards all moved to this site.
• 2013 — Slivers return to Magic in the core set Magic 2014. Fans’ reaction to the “new-Sliver” look is lackluster at best. Jeremy Jarvis, art director, explains why they went with a change in an interview:

  “Now, given all of that, I would have preferred that they look somehow different than original Slivers. They are mechanically distinct and therefore should not be confusable on the table during play. Original Sliver morphology gags are pretty played out as well. We felt it during Time Spiral block, as we were just having to do weirder and weirder things with their very limited anatomy. "Maybe make this one's head into a tuning fork?" We needed to open up visual possibilities in the ways that they could physically adapt.”

• 2014 — In March, Mark Winters joins the creative team as an art director.
• 2014 — September, Magic: The Gathering: The Complete Collection of the IDW Magic comics is released as a hardcover compendium book. Originally, this product was supposed to have a promotional card attached according to retailers, but no card of any sort was ever included.

2015–Future

• 2015 — In February, Magic artist Cynthia Shepperd joins the creative team as an art director.
• 2015 — In April, Vorthos 2015 comes out on Gathering Magic. Ant Tessitore explains how Vorthos is actually five different aspects of flavor, each wearing a different mask.

Original Art of “Vorthos” by Sam Keiser

• 2015 — The Snack Time with Mike and Ant podcast begins. While it is not the first flavorful podcast, it’s the only one that focuses solely on things important to the Vorthos demographic that continues today. Creative team members of Wizards are frequent visitors to the podcast.
• 2015 — In June, My Favorite Flavor begins as a flavorful column on the Magic: The Gathering mothership web page. It’s written by a financial writer, Chas Andres.
• 2015 — San Diego Comic-Con announces their exclusive will be black, foil Planeswalkers and a hardcover book with the Uncharted Realms stories of the Planeswalker characters.
• 2015 — PAX Prime debuts a giant Eldrazi statue outside the convention center. The entire convention has panels and flavorful interactions with Wizards staff.

Image found via Wizards official Facebook page

• 2015 — Vorthos Week includes articles by Wizards writers on all things Vorthos. Mark Rosewater writes an article describing Vorthos a bit more. Matt Cavotta writes about Vorthos, like an adoring parent interviewing his son.
• 2015 — In August, Vorthos celebrates the tenth anniversary of Matt Cavotta naming the demographic name.
• 2016 — In January, The Art of Magic: The Gathering — Zendikar comes out. Pre-orders have begun already.

That’s a lot of flavor. See anything out of place or missing? Please let us know! I’m on Twitter every day and would love to hear from you!

-Mike