We take a relaxed stroll through the market of Ixalan and pull out some tasty flavor gems from the set that show off the new lore and genre tropes of the world.

Support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 a month gets you access to our Discord server and $3 a month gets you early access to the podcast as it's being recorded!

This week we had the absolute privilege of interviewing Valerie Valdes, author of the Lost Caverns of Ixalan story! This interview covers a wide range of topics, including how to approach writing a story with multiple points of view, honoring and respecting the histories of people whose stories you are telling, the insidious reaches of imperialism and colonialism, and fun magical girl TTRPGs.

You can read the Lost Caverns of Ixalan stories at magic.wizards.com/en/story.

Support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 a month gets you access to our Discord server and $3 a month gets you early access to the podcast as it's being recorded!

When Huatli asks her lover, Saheeli, to take her place in a clandestine plot to avoid another war, she finds herself in the middle of a tense negotiation between the most influential people on the surface of Ixalan. Will the former planeswalkers be pawns on the board, or will they be among the hands that move them?

Also, we discuss our thoughts on the story of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan as a whole, and how the new age of story is shaping up after its first two major releases.

You can read the Lost Caverns of Ixalan stories at magic.wizards.com/en/story.

Support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 a month gets you access to our Discord server and $3 a month gets you early access to the podcast as it's being recorded!

The factions from Ixalan's surface break through into the core and discover the Oltec people, but this also gives Vito and the vampires their chance to come face to face with their god, Aclazatz. While the vampires assault Chimil, the core of the plane, in the air, the Mycotyrant assaults from the ground. How will our heroes save the plane from eternal night and unending fungi?

You can read the Lost Caverns of Ixalan stories at magic.wizards.com/en/story.

Support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 a month gets you access to our Discord server and $3 a month gets you early access to the podcast as it's being recorded!

Move over grandpa! We're introducing our two free preview cards courtesy of Wizards of the Coast: Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar and Zoyowa Lava-Tongue!

Listen to learn all about these two cards from the Lost Caverns of Ixalan set!

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan stories are out, and we're starting our coverage with the first three episodes of the main story by Valerie Valdes! We've returned to the plane (and continent) of Ixalan as Quintorius Kand, recently sparked planeswalker and Lorehold student, is called in to help Huatli open a mysterious door that leads into the depths of the plane. Meanwhile, contingents of vampires from the Dusk Legion and pirates of the Brazen Coalition are also independently racing into the interior of this world on their own quests!

You can read the Lost Caverns of Ixalan stories at https://magic.wizards.com/en/story.

Support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 a month gets you access to our Discord server and $3 a month gets you early access to the podcast as it's being recorded!

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan story is available to read in its entirety! But if you're a bit lost and need a refresh of what Ixalan was like the last time we visited the plane, we're taking this week to give background information through the lens of the four major factions of the plane. Who are the Dusk Legion, the Sun Empire, the Brazen Coalition, and the mysterious River Heralds? And how do their movements and actions influence the surface of this plane?

This week, in lieu of supporting us on Patreon, we ask that our listeners donate to the Palestinian relief charity of their choice.

The Story Circle has turned its attention to the first fiction appearance of Ob Nixilis, the planeswalker turned demon turned demonic planeswalker, as he claws his way into the heart of Zendikar searching for a path back to power. Dreams of the Damned is the first of two stories by Nik Davidson that introduces us first to the present and then the past of a fan-favorite character. It's also the first of our Story Circle pieces to slot into a larger, set-spanning story arc. How is Ob's character developed in such a short piece, and how does this story's role as a part of a broader fiction color our reading of it?

This episode features a full reading of the story from about 9:30 to 18:47. This story was lost from the Wizards Magic website during a site migration, but it can be found on the Wayback Machine and through the MTGLore website here: https://mtglore.com/web-fiction/dreams-of-the-damned. Remember, preserving media is an integral part of appreciating media.

If you enjoy this episode, you can let us know on Twitter at Twitter.com/TheVorthosCast, or you can join our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast and share your thoughts on our patron-only Discord server.

We're going beyond time and space and into the world of Doctor Who with this special Beyond the Multiverse episode! Friend of the show and long-time Resident Doctor Who Expert on our Discord, Evan (@heavenlyevan on most social media) joined us today to give us a beginner-friendly guide to this 60-year-old British TV show. If you've never seen an episode of Doctor Who and want to know what's up with all these oddly dressed medical professionals with screwdrivers, this is the Beyond the Multiverse for you!

If you'd like to be a companion for our show, you can support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast, where $1 gives you access to our discord, a small amount of support that gets you into something much bigger on the inside, and you can even use that access to pester Evan with questions about the Doctors and all their companions! For $3 a month, you can listen to us as we record these episodes live.

If you want to hear Evan discuss one of his all-time favorite moments from Doctor Who, you can listen to their guest spot on The Moment podcast at https://www.themomentpod.com/1-04-but-you-still-have-to-choose.

The Story Circle meets once again to discuss one of Magic's heaviest stories, Cowardice of the Hero by Matt Knicl. This story from 2014 tackles incredibly heavy themes of family abuse and trauma, while serving as a preview article for a forgotten rare from a small, middle set of the Theros block. We ask: What does this story want to tell us? Would this story be published today?

This episode includes a full reading of the short story, from about 9:09 to 26:07. You can also read the full story on the Magic website at https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/cowardice-hero-2014-01-22. Unlike previous Story Circle texts, this story is still available where it was originally posted, but this may not always be the case. Preserving media is an integral part of appreciating media.

If you enjoy this episode, you can let us know on Twitter at Twitter.com/TheVorthosCast, or you can join our Patreon at Patreon.com/TheVorthosCast and share your thoughts on our patron-only Discord server.