Tenochtitlan King - Hecatomb

"Funny hats are essential to world destruction."

With all the hype last year surrounding the Mayans and their calendar, people have been overlooking another ancient Meso-American civilization: the Aztecs. Hecatomb had several sub-themes based around ancient civilizations, primarily the Aztecs, with the Ancient Egyptians appearing in the next set. Which leads us to this guy.

First, what is Tenochtitlan? From the world's most edited database (Wikipedia), I found the answer. Tenochtitlan was once the capital of the Aztec Empire. It was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, giving the Aztecs the engineering challenge of building stable buildings and foundations on less than stable terrain. And they pulled it off. The city's name is most often translated as coming from the words tetl (rock) and nochtli (prickly pear).

Tenochtitlan unfortunately also bore witness to the beginning of the end of the civilization that built it. You see, there was a jerk named Cortez. This is my own personal bias, as I view most of the Spanish conquistadors as jerks considering how they blatantly ignored and mistreated other civilizations. The Spanish arrived at Tenochtitlan, meeting the current ruler Moctezuma. Moctezuma welcomed the visitors, not necessarily just out of kindness but also for religious and political motives. Cortez and his crew showed up right around the time of an Aztec prophecy predicting the coming of some god or something akin to Jesus. Whether or not Moctezuma personally believed it, he was definitely away his subjects and some of his enemies probably believed it, and so he wasn't letting the opportunity go to waste. The Spanish repaid this kindness by destroying their entire civilization. This is a drastically shortened cliff notes version of history (aka I probably got most of it wrong), and I recommend you read the story yourself.

Continuing to show that Wizards did their research, the flavor text mentions the people of Tlaxcala and Azcapotzalco. Both are these are real places that exist in present day Mexico and that existed during the time of the Aztecs. Why they chose these names and places is another issue. Regardless of their original thinking, I think this guy being the king of Tenochtitlan works really well in the apocalyptic setting. Tenochtitlan set the stage for the destruction of the Aztecs, and now its setting it for the destruction of the world. There's also a kind of poetic justice in a destroyed city coming back to wreak havoc.

Ability wise, this guy is a lord. The term comes from Magic the Gathering, and refers to creatures that grant bonuses to creatures of the same type as it. In this case, the card is an Aztecal that gives +2 strength to other Aztecal. The flavor of the guy also works for a lord theme. He is an Aztecal king, and therefore he commands and has influence over the Aztecal.

Great Cthulhu, Highest of the Great Old Ones - Hecatomb

THIS IS HALLOWEEN!!!

Cthulhu dresses up as the giant squid from Jules Verne.

I mentioned this in my Moloch post, but here is the genuine article. Cthulhu is a monstrous alien/deity who first appeared in H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu". Since then, the character has cemented the genre of cosmic horror fiction and has become deeply engrained in our popular culture. What is it about Cthulhu that makes him so popular? I'm not certain. If I had to guess, it's because the character is so strange and so different. He is practically a god, but instead of being an idealized human who swears his ways are beyond our understanding, he isn't idealized or human at all, and his ways and himself are beyond our understanding. Cthulhu represents something so utterly terrifying that we can't fully comprehend what it is, and because of that we fear it.

Let's look at the card. The art is something I have been bloody waiting for. Most of the art so far has been one color scheme, causing everything to blend together. Here, Cthulhu's slimy green body is sharply contrasted by the orange background, making him stand out very prominently. The art is a slightly different interpretation of the usual image, the full octopus head on a massive body, and instead seems stretched out to be more fluid and squid-like. I am perfectly fine with this, I have no idea how the traditionalists feel though.

The effects play well with the flavor in my opinion. The come-into-play effect causes your opponents to discard their hands, the sudden presence of this eldritchian abomination causing them to lose focus and go mad from the revelation. In the ongoing ability, if a player wants to attack you, they first must pay tribute to Cthulhu. Only when he is appeased will he let them pass.

Happy Halloween! 

Horseman of Conquest - Hecatomb

"I'm still waiting for a call for Darksiders III."

So, here's an issue I've been sidestepping. Most games have some sort of goal behind them. In Monopoly it's to acquire all property. Magic the Gathering is two wizards trying to reduce the other's life to 0. What is the goal of this game? To reap 20 souls so you can destroy the world. What. Ignoring the fact that destroying the planet you're standing on is an idiotic move, the game casts its players as villain protagonists. This was another innovation of the game, a world where you cast the players as villains instead of the hero, but the game also was trying to build some sort of story, and this didn't help. In Magic the Gathering, you have the freedom to switch worlds and build characters. Here though, the game makes it very clear this is set on Earth. The planet most of the protagonists are trying to destroy. How do you makes us care about them? We don't want them to succeed, not just because they're evil but because once the Earth is destroyed, that's the end of the story. The final expansion tried to rectify this with the introduction of the aliens, presenting the possibility that there are other worlds out there for them to destroy, and providing a way to survive the destruction of this one. That said, the story was still kind of grounded. It's hard to build up a world when your characters are intent on destroying it.

Well, enough with that rant, here's our card, appropriately enough a horseman. One of the horsemen actually. For those who never read Revelations, there is a sequence with the breaking of the seven seals. When the first four seals are broken, they summon the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Pestilence is a side-interpretation/member, I guess the part-time Horseman, usually standing in for Conquest or Death. As shown above, Conquest is depicted riding a white horse. He carries a bow and arrow and he wears a crown on his head. I personally feel Conquest steps a little too far into War's territory, which is probably why most writers depict him as Pestilence.

Another mechanical note about these cards. Notice how the text box is red. Look at the four other corners. Notice the blue triangles. When you place a card on top of another, called stitching, you rotate the bottom card by one so the text is clear under the plastic edges. This causes one of the four triangles above to appear in clear triangle on the text box. If the colors match, it triggers the effect in that text box. In this case, if you stitch Conquest on top of a destruction minion (remember, destruction is red, deceit is blue), you will trigger the text in the red box. This is Hecatomb's version of encouraging multicolored play and off-color triggers.

Moloch, Eater of Children - Hecatomb

Moloch no like light.

The Gods in Hecatomb are probably the most powerful cards in the game. In the same sense Magic lets you summon planeswalkers to aid you, Hecatomb lets you summon Gods. They usually came with a come-into-play effect (the yellow text). followed by a continuous effect. The Gods themselves were pulled from various mythologies and H.P. Lovecraft. One of the Gods is Cthulhu. Seriously, it's the card name and everything.

This guy, Moloch, comes from the former sources: classical mythology. Moloch was a God associated with the Ammonites and with child sacrifice. He's even mentioned in the Bible, God telling the Israelites not to sacrifice their children to him. I find it very sad that they had to be told not to sacrifice children to the death god, and it makes me shudder to think what they were doing before hand. Moloch also receives a cameo in Paradise Lost, Milton following the tradition of listing some of the old pagan gods as fallen angels. When they made that Sinister film, it astounds me they didn't use Moloch, the evil child-sacrifice god, and instead opted to make up a demon.

Art wise, this guy is freaking terrifying! I think it has the same color scheme problem, but the details that matter, the doll parts hanging from his horns, come in loud and clear.

Slaughter Wheel - Hecatomb

Some history first. Back in the day, Wizards of the Coast tried publishing more games besides Magic the Gathering. One such product was Hecatomb. The main gimmick featured was five-sided plastic cards. Four of the sides were a clear plastic that allowed players to stack cards and easily see the text underneath. I've heard no complaints about the game, and it actually seems rather innovative. The problems though are in practicality. You needed special sleeves, boxes, and pages if you wanted to store cards. The cards as I said were plastic, which made them more durable but was also a more expensive material. I can only imagine how the sheets were even cut. Hecatomb was a neat concept that was sadly too much of a drain on collectors and manufacturers to keep being produced, receiving only two expansions.

But enough with that, let's have a card.

Bob the Builder finally has his revenge.

Hecatomb had a Magicesque cost system, with four different colored types. Blue was Deceit, gray Corruption, red Destruction, and green Greed. This guy belongs to Deceit. What exactly is deceitful about a steamroller is lost on me.

Actually, the art on this reminds me of the original Juggernaut from Magic the Gathering. A huge wheel crushing people underneath it. This subsequently reminds me of Malefic Steamroller, from Wizards miniatures game Dreamblade. While Hecatomb was a horror game, it delved a bit into black comedy, hence the humorous imprints on the wheel. My only real complaint art-wise is that the color scheme is pretty much one color, making it harder to pick out any details, especially in the background.

One final comment is the subtype, Animate. The Wheel here falls along similar veins as Christine, an animated vehicle trying to kill you. This has the bonus of being able to power up its Animate brethren. Stephen King, write a sequel where Christine teams up with a homicidal steamroller.