There’s a vorthosian treasure in the “Ask Brady” archives brought to our attention by @magicexpandedmultiverse. As his original post stated:

These are questions and answers from the Ask Brady thread on the original Wizards of the Coast forums (now only available via the Wayback Machine here). Brady Dommermuth was the Creative Director for Magic: the Gathering for a number of years, and he started the Ask Brady thread on the official forums in April of 2012, where he promised to answer what questions he could regarding the flavor and story of Magic. It ran until his position was eliminated in April of 2013, at which point Brady had left Wizards of the Coast and could no longer operate in any official capacity.



I decided to compile questions and answers related to Innistrad and its main characters in order to understand how the creative team regarded the plane back them.

It’s possible that some of his views remain valid despite his departure from Wizards, but as that’s not certain I‘d suggest you all to take these with a grain of salt.

Brady Dommermuth

Q: We know Ludevic is still out there, as are Olivia Voldaren and Edgar Markov. We know Gisa is imprisoned. What about Geralf? Is his absence from Avacyn Restored intended to indicate that he died?



A: No. At first they were just fun flavor-text PoV characters, and Jenna took a shine to them and wrote about them more (and would have written more still if given the chance!). They became more prominent only after the card sets had long been in the can. That’s a weird thing about Magic – fans expect story and character elements to be reflected in card form, and often it doesn’t work that cleanly on our end. It’s more organic than that.

Art by Karla Ortiz





Q: Has Sorin sired vampires on Innistrad?



A: Almost certainly but very few.



Art by Peter Mohrbacher







Q: Has he [Sorin] tried to continue his own personal lineage even after he made Avacyn?



A: No; he’s [Sorin] unconcerned with that



Q: Would there be vampires willing to back him [Sorin] if he needed their help?



A: Unlikely – they would be ostracized if they did.







Q: And finally, Sorin came to Innistrad to find Avacyn but had nothing to do with her release and has been nowhere to be seen. Will he have more involvement on Innistrad or is that it?



A: You’ve correctly identified that Liliana unwittingly solves Sorin’s main problem on Innistrad. Now that Avacyn has been reinstated, he can tend to his other obligations.







Q: Did Avacyn have a reason to have never tried the “soul combination” Spell on a Werewolf before Avacyn Restored?



A: There are some metaphysical subtleties about Avacyn’s existence that we didn’t publish/explore. She was created to keep the balance on Innistrad. Therefore the more dire things are for humanity, the more powerful she becomes. The cursemute wasn’t possible when the balance was intact. It’s also true that imprisonment in the Helvault likely altered her, but we haven’t gone into the details about that.



Art by Anthony Francisco





Q: [A]re Tibalt and Tamiyo going to have any storyline significance or are they our first placeholder Planeswalkers?



A: Cards and short videos require straightforward plots in order to come across to the average player. That means not every character can be integral or essential to the plot, because more characters means much more complexity. In terms of Planeswalkers, the Innistrad story is mainly about Liliana and secondarily about Garruk, with Sorin having a stake but minimal involvement. Tibalt and Tamiyo aren’t very involved in this particular plot, but they might be central to other plots.







Q: We got the distinct impression that villages were getting wiped every hour and all, in which respect I’d also like to mention a letter in one of the flavour articles that had a Cathar asking for aid after a formerly 700 people village had about a 100 living souls left. Where did all the holy armies of AVR come from?



A: They spread out from the safer areas of northern Gavony (Thraben and its surrounding villages) as well as from the isolated villages of Kessig (once they were relatively safe from the howlpacks)







Q: What’s the timeline between the major events in the ‘strad block? Sometimes it feels like days pass between them, sometimes it feels like half a year.



A: Depends on what you mean by “major events.” From Liliana’s arrival to the destruction of the Helvault, I’d say less than a few months.



Art by Karl Kopinski





Q: If vampires would not follow Sorin because they would be ostracised for supporting him, and he would not make many himself, how come the Sorin, Lord of Innistrad card has him creating vampire tokens?



A: Because mechanics need to be both more blunt and more elegant than story subtleties would demand. Also, Sorin’s ability doesn’t necessarily represent only siring, and certainly doesn’t work only on Innistrad.







Q: Hm, it seemed like you had a lot of the storyline for this block [Innistrad] planned out in great detail, but you also mentioned that Gisa and Geralf were late additions to the block’s story. How much of the storyline for the block had you planned out? And, sort of going off of that, how was that planning changed by the novel line getting cancelled?



A: The fate of the novels was in Limbo during Innistrad’s development; we never created a plot detailed enough to support a novel-length story. I can’t figure out how to answer the first question briefly. A lot, but with fewer subplots than normal?







Q: So was there a point - plotwise - to even put him [Sorin] into the block?



A: No. As I’ve said, given cards’ plot capacity, not all PWs in a block can be relevant to the block’s main arc. Sorin is, from a story point of view, an interested bystander whose presence is justified by being native to the plane.







Q: Would it really add too much complexity to have him [Sorin] do something more?



A: I believe yes.







Q: I recall reading somewhere that Sorin’s creation of Avacyn was a once-in-a-lifetime thing that likely cost him something. I imagine there’s a non-disclosure policy of some kind, but I’m wondering what exactly it costs a planeswalker to make what is basically a demi-god.



A: Because metaphysics vary from plane to plane, the cost differs greatly in each instance. Sounds like a cop-out answer but it’s true.



Art by Jason Chan





Q: What’s [the meaning of the] expansion symbol for Dark Ascension?



A: Symbolically it’s the Innistrad symbol “turned inward,” in a way, which represents humanity hunkering down. The expansion symbol are not all literal and will be increasingly less so over time; the parameters for their creation are numerous and restrictive, and they’re a nonrenewable resource.







Q: Why were there so few Gryffs and Wolfir in AVR? Was there just not enough room for them to receive the prominence the style guide suggested they might?



A: This is a relatively new phenomenon we’ve encountered. The world guide attempts to anticipate cards’ needs, and when those predictions are off, we end up with things that have more prominence in the guide than on cards, or more prominence on cards than in the guide. This is a side effect, in a way, of publishing the world guides as Planeswalker’s Guides on the web; it’s possible that we need to edit/amend the world-guide content to more accurately reflect card-set contents before it’s seen by fans/players. In other words, we thought there might be more gryffs and wolfir among the Avacyn Restored cards than there ended up being, and so there’s more material for them in the world guide than the cards seem to call for.







Q: How willing would Avacyn be to fight alongside vampires against other threats? Would her first impulse be to slay whatever vamp came near her?



A: Avacyn would ally with vampires if it meant keeping Innistrad’s balance; that’s not “against the law” for her or anything.







Q: [W]hat kind of relationship exists between Sorin and Avacyn? Does she have any special protocol when it comes to him or does she just view him as another vampire?



A: Avacyn doesn’t regard Sorin in any special way, although he can command her in ways that work against her purpose if he needs to.







Q: Was Innistrad very different (and in which ways) when Avacyn was still present, compared to when Avacyn actually got back? And how many years approximately was she gone?



A: Gavony was quite different – more serene, more confident, and far safer. Kessig was much quieter, although its inhabitants have always been insular. Nephalia and Stensia were less different. Avacyn was gone for a little over a year.







Q: How is Avacyn as a leader of her church? Does she actively interact with the humans or the flights? Is she more along the lines of Serra (e.g. goes around the people she leads and interacts with them) or Razia (e.g. I inspire you, I smite elements that poses a threat to our way of living). The way you answer things about her, she seems to be like a robot that has “Human threatening EVIL = Exterminate” on automatic. The only semblance of interaction we were given of her was the tidbit about Gisela.



A: Avacyn interacts with the flights’ heralds and with the upper Avacynian clergy, but rarely with other angels or other humans. She is neither nurturing like Serra nor totalitarian like Radiant. Her personality lacks depth and nuance, as you’d expect of a vampire’s creation.







Q: How aware of her origins is Avacyn?



A: That’s not known.







Q: What’s the approximate timeline for these event in Innistrad: Avacyn imprisoned, Avacyn freed, the arrival of Sorin, Liliana and Garruk, the deaths of Mikaeus and Griselbrand, the wolfir being created and when INN, AVR and DAK beings and how long was Avacyn imprisoned?



A: A little over a year. Let’s say a little over an Innistrad year to give me a little elbow room.







Q: So each Innistrad race that races different by their colors, white spirit were protective spirits, blue where ghost, black zombie where classic zombies and the blue zombies where Frankenstein like. So what were the other difference between the rest of the races? vampires (black, red) Werewolves (green, red) Humans (green, white)?



A: Not each tribe on Innistrad cleaves neatly along color lines. I know Magic players are prone to compulsive pattern completion, but I try to design things with a little more nuance than that.







Q: Avacyn was mortally wounded before she went into the Helvault, but when she came out she was perfectly healthy. How did that happen?



A: Magic.







Q: Since Innistrad vampires are alive, how do they age?



A: They’re quasi-alive; we purposely wanted ambiguity there. They age at a glacial pace, much more slowly than the average elf, for example.







Q: If some random demon had been mortally wounded and fell in the Helvault, would it have healed?



A: Yes.







Q: Since Innistrad vampires are alive and aging, does that mean they can die of old age?



A: We haven’t established that. Probably not, though.







Q: [E]veryone I’ve spoken to (admittedly anecdotal data) has liked her card and were annoyed because she [Tamiyo] didn’t have a larger role. So it seems like what people don’t like isn’t the character so much as how little she has to do with anything.



A: There’s tension between the need for around ten Planeswalker cards per year and having all of them be integral and/or critical to a plot. Too many characters can dilute and even ruin a story – especially a story that must be straightforward enough to be told via short videos and cards. I believe trying to force Tibalt and Tamiyo to have been directly involved in the mystery of Avacyn’s disappearance would have felt, well, forced.



Art by Eric Deschamps





Q: Did Sorin create Sigarda, Gisela, and Bruna in addition to Avacyn? If not, and if the creation of her lieutenants was up to Avacyn, how did she go about creating them?



A: No, each other angel either existed before Avacyn or came about after. Sorin chose to make an angel because of their preexisting status as beacons of hope of protection on Innistrad.







Q: [D]id Sorin just up and leave once the Helvault shattered or was there any interaction between him and his creation? Edgar Markov wasn’t even aware his grandson was on the plane, was he?



A: We haven’t established that.







Q: [D]id [Sorin] stick around long enough to see the imbalance Avacyn was causing by making the werewolves into wolfir with the Cursemute? Did he he even say 'wassup?’ to her? Also, what’s with the 'lands beyond the great seas’ in Innistrad?



A: We haven’t established any of that. As I’ve said previously, we need to create lots more plot threads and leads than we could ever tie up neatly in bows, to allow for revisitations of places and characters, etc.







Q: Sorin created a bunch of enchantments in order for the humans to use and have actual power behind it, and that ended up taking a life of its own, would Avacyn be an Enchantment Creature?



A: “Enchantment” when used in “in-world” prose just means any magic that lingers. Sorin might have cast some enchantments that underpin Avacyn’s existence and Innistrad’s balanced state, but it doesn’t follow that Avacyn herself would be one of them.







Q: What is the story reason behind Sorin to gain White in his last Planeswalker Card?



A: Duty, obligation, and a desire to restore balance to his world using arcane “laws” (embodied by Avacyn).







Q: Why was Sorin raised by his grandfather? What happened to his parents?



A: That hasn’t been established.







Q: The four families of the Innistradi vampires all have a common origin with the Markovs, so how did they end up coming into being?



A: I don’t understand the question. The other (surviving) vampire bloodlines don’t have a common origin with the Markovs; they all began with separate and distinct progenitors.







Q: Additionally, Olivia Voldaren seems to be the defacto leader of the majority of the vampires. What relationship does she have with Edgar markov?



A: Olivia is the matriarch of the Voldaren bloodline and has no interest whatsoever in leading other vampires.



Art by Eric Deschamps





Q: And lastly, there were multiple families that didn’t pan out (It was either 13 or 16, cannot remember) on Innistrad, did you guys come up with names for them too or not? Mostly my own curiousity here.



A: The names of the bloodlines that didn’t survive haven’t been established.







Q: In clarification to my question, basically, we know Edgar created vampirism on Innistrad. So… how did the other families happen? Did Edgar share his secrets or did the various others work them out on their own? Or were they victims of the Markovs that decided to make their own lineage?



A: The origins of the other bloodlines *is* known, mostly (I wrote it myself), but the opportunity to detail that out never arose in Innistrad – it was trumped by the importance of current events on the plane. It’s possible that would be explored further if we revisit Innistrad.







Q: I know that Angels do not have reproductive organs, because they are made of magic. Avacyn Restored brought in cards that can change creatures into Angels. So the question is, are those newly transformed angels losing their ability to reproduce?



A: These sorts of posts are vaguely creepy to me, I must admit. Angels can’t reproduce at all and have never been able to (except in cases of extraordinarily powerful magic, etc.).



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