神河当時 - 霊都の虐殺

昨日の記事の続きです。

They All Fall Down

The last story element I’ll bring up that ended up shaping a lot of flavor text was the Reito Massacre. Here, I thought, was where the mortal world really faced the reality of the power against them. I envisioned a human army assembled against a horde of kami and getting utterly destroyed. After Reito, I decided, the mortals would realize that they could never beat the spirit world in conventional warfare. Instead, they scrambled desperately for survival by seeking things like a) tomes for ancient secrets at the Minamo School, b) lost, ancient weapons in the Takenuma Swamp, c) Kumano, whose magic seemed particularly effective against the kami, and on and on. All of these ideas show up somewhere in Champions flavor text, but the specific importance of Reito is reflected in these cards:

Destroyed in one of the first battles of the Kami War, the town of Reito still grieved. [Ghostly Prison]

“I can hear the shamans chanting in the hills. They say their magic will protect us from the kami, that our gold has bought our safety. But no one sleeps soundly tonight.” —Scroll fragment from the ruins of Reito [Kami of Fire’s Roar]

“The Reito Massacre was a testament to the kami’s unstoppable power. The human defenders might as well have been moths battling a forest fire.” —Great Battles of Kamigawa [Rend Flesh]

“For a moment, Reito’s defenders regrouped. Then wailing kami reappeared to send them scattering like flocks of frightened birds.” —Great Battles of Kamigawa [Kami of the Waning Moon]

“When the rampaging kami at Reito had crushed the opposing militia, swarms of minor kami swept over the battlefield to consume all that remained.” —Great Battles of Kamigawa [Befoul]

In fact, I decided that Reito was so significant that it deserved its own kami. So when I was confronted with writing for a Horobi, Death’s Wail, I submitted this flavor text:

"From the ashes of Reito rose a new kami. And thereafter at every battle came Horobi, Death’s Wail."
—The History of Kamigawa

Hmmm... it just occurred to me that I contributed a bunch of blood references and the Kami War’s biggest massacre to Kamigawa’s world-building. Things at home and work are fine, really. Maybe I better lay off the caffeine and late-night horror flicks, though.

So that’s a glimpse at Champions of Kamigawa from a card names and flavor text standpoint. I’ve been holding my breath since working on the set several months ago because when we were done I realized how different this set was from Magic’s other expansions. You can only imagine my anticipation to unleash a world based on Japanese mythos upon you all. My hope is that you have as much fun experiencing a setting filled with samurai, otherworldly kami, strange races, and epic battles as we did creating it. For me, Champions of Kamigawa was my first real opportunity to do some world-building in Magic. Let’s hope there are plenty more in the future.

Enjoy your new theme decks,

-j

引用元
LAND OF TEN-THOUSAND LEGENDS Posted in Feature on October 4, 2004
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/land-ten-thousand-legends-2004-10-04

著者が担当したフレイバーテキストの中で、何度も登場するのが、霊都(Reito)における虐殺です。

これをキッカケとして、定命の住民たちは神への対抗手段を求めます。水面院の巻物・武沼の武器・熊野の魔法などです。

著者は、霊都それそのものが、神となるに相応しいと考えました。そこで生まれたのが《死者の嘆き、崩老卑/Horobi, Death’s Wail》のフレイバーテキストです。つまり、霊都の虐殺の後に新しく誕生した神が崩老卑という設定です。




追記
webアーカイブに、日本語訳の記事があるのを発見しました。

一万の伝説の地 ――神河物語の名前とフレイバーの幕裏
https://web.archive.org/web/20041217002944/http://www.hobbyjapan.co.jp/magic/articles/files/20041013_01.html