The Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle has created a unique set of cards for collectible tabletop and digital trading card game ‘Magic: The Gathering’.
The move comes after the 56-year-old’s band’s 17th studio album, ‘In League with Dragons’ was partly inspired by ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, and in 2019 John worked with the game’s creator, Wizards of the Coast, to premiere it.
The Mountain Goats’ set, available to buy now, saw John given full creative control to design 10 unique versions of the game’s Mountain card.
He was in control of their art and direction, but his biggest contribution was writing a prophecy that’s told through the set, warning of a day when darkness will fall upon the realm of Lorwyn.
One of the cards says: “Our days of idle pleasure winnow down; their sweetness doubles as their numbers dwindle.”
Another describes oracles catching a “rude glimmer” of the future.
John told NME: “Mountain Goats fans will very much recognise my voice in the prophecy.
“I have recurring characters, themes and stories that pass along in my songs for over 20 years.
“Somebody you haven’t heard of in 10 years will suddenly pop up in a song. That’s a me thing, trying to find continuity where none was evident.
“Inventing a character to have said something is very much in my fictive style. The fact I wound a prophecy across 10 cards, to give them an internal unity (and) draw them all together so they’re talking to each other, is a very me thing to do.”
He admitted he was reluctant to illustrate anything on the cards, adding: “I can’t draw anything at all.”
Instead, he hand-picked an artist for each card, saying: “I wanted some people who had been making cards for a long time.
“Even though I wasn’t playing in (the ‘M:TG’ ‘Alpha’ era), the incredible charm of the early cards are cool because you can get nostalgic for it whether you were there or not.
“You get to see the newness of a thing that feels a lot less planned. There’s a sort of naive take to their early art, so I wanted to get some names calling back to that.”
Before being given the chance to create the cards, John took a trip to the company’s Seattle headquarters, where he played a live set for ‘In League with Dragons’ and on the way out he was “loaded up” with ‘M:TG’ cards, making him an instant fan.
Wizards Of The Coast then asked the musician if he would like to create his own versions of ‘M:TG’ cards as part of the game’s ‘Secret Lair’ series, which feature unique artwork celebrate everything from ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Warhammer 40K’ to ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Transformers’.