Hey, all! If you’ll indulge my nerd hobby for a moment, I’ve got something cool to share with you. As you may know, I wrote a little story called Children of the Nameless last year—something of a gift to the community and a way of being involved in Magic the Gathering, which has been a big part of my life over the last 25 years.

Well, Wizards decided to offer me a couple of preview cards for their upcoming set, and I thought I’d show them off here. (I’ll also post them to reddit, so if you want to talk about them, head over to r/magicTCG.)

First, the cards themselves.

When I got these a month or so ago I was quite interested, because the planeswalker is very unlike any I’d ever seen before. However, it turns out all of the planeswalkers in this set (and there are a lot of them) are doing interesting things, so I encourage you to have a look at the other spoilers and the story implications they imply. (The trailer for the new set is, hands down, the best Wizards has ever done.) Once you’re already up to date on what’s going on, we can have a little chat about my man Davriel.

Back? All right, the question that arises here is pretty obvious: How in the multiverse did Davriel let himself get caught up in the mess happening on Ravnica. Well, the events of the story I wrote kind of blew his cover—and, just as feared—soon after, he got several visits from extra-planar entities looking for planeswalkers to recruit for their cause. He also got a very cryptic message that I’ll, perhaps, get into some time in the future.

Suffice it to say that in the end, he decided to show up and do his best to encourage everyone that he was useless. He figured that way, next time everyone decided to go murder one another, they’d neglect to invite him. Unfortunately, he arrived, and everything has basically gone to hell. (And, having been there before, he’s not a fan.)

We can therefore summarize Davriel’s opinion on events with the following list:

1. OH BOTHER.
2. Zombies. Why is it always zombies? Aren’t there any evil, power-hungry overlords out there with good taste in minions?
3. He wonders what the Ravnican insurance policies look like. It would be curious to have a look at the fine print, and see how likely the local actuaries rated “Extra-planar invasion by megalomaniacal dragons.”
4. Said megalomaniacal dragon really needs to be more careful with his rampaging, as he quite nearly destroyed Davriel’s favorite local noodle shop with his latest destructive tirade.
5. Did anyone get the name of that Demon in the loin cloth? You know, the fellow with the glowing face and a mouth that looks like it can toast its own bread while consuming it? Because Davriel currently has a hole in his staff and is offering very competitive rates on his soul.

Now, if you’ll excuse him, he’s going to go see if Cruel Celebrant’s party has any snacks not infused with the blood of the innocent. (It really tastes far worse than everyone claims, and he’s convinced they just like to look trendy by consuming it.)