To the DLP community,

I have been thinking (shocking, I know) but there is a distinct lack of stories in our illustrious community that perform this crossover. Now, I know crossovers often tend to be somewhat… grating. They often have events or mechanics that annoy, offend or irritate those of us who like Harry Potter fanfiction. Most notable for me is taking Harry out of his world and into another (but then, a lot of concepts in fanfiction annoy me, especially time travel).

For the Too Long Did Not Read version see bottom of post.

However, I still love a well done crossover. They bring something fresh, new, exciting and often quite deadly to the world of fanfiction. It lets us see some of our favorite characters meeting, mentoring or fighting each other. Some of my favorite stories have been crossovers.

Examples of these are:
Grimm: A Fairy’s Tale
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=13117
[FONT=&quot]Harry Potter: The Denarian Renegade[/FONT]
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=5482
Harry Potter and the Summoner’s Stone
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7092183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Summoner-s-Stone

I love these stories, I really do. They are unique, well executed and they add something to the Harry Potter universe that rocks the boat. Yes, I like stories that begin to change how Harry sees the world, interact with or his powers in general. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, maybe it’s my dislike for the way cannon!Harry acted, or my revulsion of the sick world Ms Rowling managed to create (a truly horrifying world of summery execution, child soldiers, lies and corrupt emotions).

What does all this have to do with Magic: The Gathering (MTG)? I see MTG as an exceptional idea for a HP crossover. It has magic, many powerful spells, abilities and creatures that would seem right at home or easily meshed into the HP universe. There is also much conflict, sick and twisted denizens and powerful artifacts to create a wonderful fanfiction. So, why are there not more crossovers for Harry Potter and Magic: The Gathering? There are plenty for Naruto, a world which does not even have a touch of the arcane (unless you count chakra as mana).

In lieu of all this, I want to bounce an idea of the DLP community.
A HP x MTG story idea using my favorite faction from MTG to create possibly the most sadistic and evil Harry ever (will be debatable as his end goal is world peace… but then, so was Hitler’s).

I want to create a crossover using New Phyrexia’s Machine Orthodoxy. Now, to those of you who are not familiar with MTG’s Phyrexia or the Machine Orthodoxy I will summarize them for you. Alternatively you can follow the link below to read the official Wizards of the Coast fluff.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/stf/137

Phyrexia is a plane of existence, created eons ago by the evil scientist Yawgmoth. Phyrexians themselves are abominations of flesh, bone and metal. They are Yawgmoth’s idea of the perfect being.

The Phyrexians are constructs, not born but created from vats or assimilated from beings they capture (think Star Trek’s Borg). To further add to the creepiness the Phyrexians are not actually alive. They use a black mana (magic for the HP verse) based oil to animate their denizens. This is called Phyrexian Unlife (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=218058). As such, Phyrexians don’t have souls. Whilst they do have sentience, even abstract thought and individuality, they do not think like other life forms.

Now, the Machine Orthodoxy is one faction of Phyrexia that arose after the death of Yawgmoth. Lead by Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, they are a religious-esque cult who worship the physical as Phyrexians are soulless, a rather counter intuitive religion. They are a horrific cult who have many hideous beliefs. The main ones for a crossover stories sake would be that skin is a prison (they flay all their members and captives) and that all will be one. They are very literal as a religion and are in the process of making all living beings into one. They connect people together via flesh, metal or matted hair.

An important two points for the story here about Planes Walkers. Planes Walkers are born. They have the Planes Walker spark which allows them to Planes Walk (safely traverse different dimensions) and to use the mana contained in the different aspects of land. Now you can steal a spark from someone else but it is very difficult to do and not everyone can house a Planes Walker spark. Secondly, no Planes Walker has ever come from Phyrexia as Phyrexians are not born.

So the crossover would work thus. Harry’s parents in a bid to prevent voldemort killing him attempt to call forth a being of higher power to protect Harry (idea stolen from Deathly Hallowed and its predecessor Harry Potter and Death’s Incarnate https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=23926 and https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=10136). In those stories Lily manages to summon Death. Instead I propose both Lily AND James manage to create a planar portal and briefly summon Elesh Norn to our plane. Elesh Norn is her condescending self until she sees Harry and realizes… Harry has a dormant Planes Walker spark.

Now Elesh Norn’s aim is unite all Phyrexia beneath a new Leader who is her puppet. She would see the chance to control a Planes Walker as the perfect opportunity to create said puppet after the failure of Karn. So she would agree to prevent Voldemort from killing Harry in order to eventually gain her puppet. To do so she would give them a ‘black potion’ (phyrexian oil) for Harry to drink, preventing him from dying. Elesh Norn would also leave some kind of imprint on Harry that in the future will call to him, getting him to contact her.

So, when Voldemort comes to kill Harry he actually manages it but still gets blown away. However, the Phyrexian Oil reanimates his soulless body, and prevents his mind from dying. So Harry is now a soulless unmodified Phyrexian-esque being (not an actual Phyrexian as he was not created in the vats). The physical/easily noticeable changes this would/should make? Well for one Harry would bleed black (he would have oil, not blood [totally not emo]) and ghastly skin color due to this (Caucasian skin is white to tan but gets much of its coloration from the blood it contains, which would now be black oil).

Furthering the soulless idea – Harry would not act or react as normal person would. He is a soulless abomination. This would actually let him shrug off most of his emotional and possibly physical abuse that he suffered in cannon (Harry’s cannon childhood should have produced an emotionally detached sociopath). Instead Harry would be almost ambivalent to all forms of harm, emotional or physical, to himself or others. He has emotions, they just don’t work like yours or mine. It would be ideas and concepts that really get his ire up/make him feel hurt. Again, the strange dichotomy of Phyrexia, physical beliefs with spiritual ideals.

So Harry would end up as one creepy kid. Ghastly skin, bleeds black, defies most know medical knowledge, is ambivalent to abuse… Yeah. Creepy.

As our story progresses into Hogwarts this creepiness will be pursued with Harry beginning to delve into the teachings of Elesh Norn, the Machine Orthodoxy and Phyrexia in general. His utter disregard of most normal morals and social expectations would leave him very isolated.

Now, in terms of actual powers Harry’s planes Walker spark would awaken sometime before the beginning of year 1 (say, just before or after getting his letter). The upshot of being a Planes Walker, far more power than any wizard/witch could ever dream of wielding (how many wizards can call down the Wrath of God? http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wrath%20of%20god). Over the years, through communication with the denizens of Phyrexia, and his own trial and error Harry will amass a collection of MTG spells and summons (creatures) he can call upon. The columniation being such spells as Wrath of God, Journey to Nowhere (warp a person out of existence) and Defy Death (raise the dead) and creatures including Chancellor of the Annex (a Phyrexian angel) and the Blightsteel Colossus.

On the flipside though, Harry would be terrible at wand magic. He would be incapable of performing most higher level spells as he does not have the right type of magic to funnel it through a device as surgical as a wand. Quite simply he would have too much mana (magic) to fit through the thing. Hence most transfiguration, charms etc would not work. He would be able to perform the basics of them, and even eventually learn some more complicated stuff but with far more effort than he put in in cannon. This would actually make him weak in early years as he would be struggling to learn a previously unheard of system of magic in his world and put in the monumental effort to learn one he is unsuited too. He would be good at potions though, just to rub it in Snape’s face.

So over the years, we see his progression in power through hardship, a trial by fire. We see his warp by the ideals of Phyrexia and the corruption of his friends. He will be promising them world peace, giving them a great speal. For example:

“We only fight because we do not understand each other. If people like Malfoy, Snape, even Dumbledore only understood. If they knew what we know, if we knew what they knew. If everyone understood how everyone else felt there would be no bullying, no neglect, no denying of information, no war. Why would we fight when we would be in essence fighting ourselves? No child would feel the terrible hunger of loneliness as we would all be with them, united as one. That is the world I want to create. A perfect world, utopia. And unlike others who claim such a thing I actually have a means and what is a little physical pain to a goal such as that?”

So the story would be a descent into madness and awakening of powers for Harry and his friends. I can see such ideals easily pulling in Hermione, Ron, Neville, Luna and others when worded in the right way, so as to appeal to their particular childhood skeletons. Others such as Draco we would get to gleefully Dismember (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230082, read the flavor text).

This would also lead to a delightful scenario for the final battle. Voldemort’s forces vs the remnants of Dumbledore’s vs the Invading Phyrexian’s (Harry’s faction). Possibly the two sides of the blood purity war would put aside their diffrences in the face of proposed annihilation or would that realization arrive too late? Time will tell.

The sticking point in such a story though is the endgame. The apocalypse. Harry’s final goal would be to bring Phyrexia’s creations here and transform earth into a Phyrexian Plane. This would mean the extermination of all life on earth as we know it and the destruction of our culture and history. I don’t think this would be very appealing to many readers; your protagonist causing the death of everyone on earth is somewhat against the grain (I did say most evil Harry ever).

So my first question for you all is: Do you feel such a story would be worth reading?
My second question is: What ideas do you have for an alternative endgame for Harry and how would he possibly get to it?

Thank you for your time.

---------- Post automerged at 01:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:24 AM ----------

TLDNR Version

Harry is a soulless abomination created with the phyrexian oil from MTG. This was done by his parents trying to use a higher power to stop Voldemort killing him as a baby.

Harry gains planes walker powers throughout the story but sucks at normal magic.

Harry is slowly corrupted by Elesh Norn of the Machine Orthodoxy with their horrific ideas of how the world should be and what constitutes perfection.

Harry in turn corrupts his friends.

They eventually all train up, open a portal to the plane of New Phyrexia and lead the Phyrexian army on its apocalyptic assault on earth. Everyone else dies.

Do you feel such a story would be worth reading?
What ideas do you have for an alternative endgame for Harry and how would he possibly get to it?

Now go read the wall of text if this caught your fancy.

 

Hell no.

He's neutralized as soon as someone sees he's a corrupted inhuman abomination, i.e. as soon as he's recovered from Godric's Hollow.

With that said, I would like to see someone else attempt an HP/MTG crossover. Though I'm not that experienced with MTG, from what I've seen the lore is interesting.

 

What? Are you serious?

You propose a crossover with a universe as lore rich and with as much potential as MTG and turning Harry into a soulless phyrexian abomination that will destroy the world is the first thing that comes to mind?

I am sure if you posted such a thing on FF.net the droves of soulless fools lacking in any sort of standards would love it.

Maybe you are in the wrong place.

 

I have started three hp/mtg crossovers, though I have never gotten more than a few thousand words in. The very first one I started involved Harry as a member of the crew of the Weatherlight. I wasn't sure where I wanted to take it after I got him acquainted with the crew, so it didn't get much farther than that. The weatherlight saga is quite long, and a bit daunting, to try and have Harry in it from the beginning. Though that is my favorite magic era, before planewalkers got retconned.

The next one involved Harry's planeswalker spark igniting after Voldemort hits him with the killing curse in the Forbidden Forest. I got far enough to introduce Chandra into the story (she was impressed with Harry's fiendfyre), with plans of showing Nicol Bolas as well.

My final one involved Chandra coming to Hogwarts to steal some ancient knowledge, but Dumbledore was drawing too many parallels to Jace (whom I hate) so I scraped it. It was going to be one of those slow reveal stories where Dumbledore isn't the man we thought him to be.

If I were to continue one, it would probably be the second.

 

Also, maybe posting this idea in the plot bunny thread might have been more acceptable.

 

I like the idea of a crossover. Planeswalker!Voldemort and Planeswalker!Harry battling across the multiverse. Gathering allies across the different planes.

There's potential for a huge story right there.

And I'm gonna call it right away! Harry/Aurelia otp!

 

If I were to attempt this crossover I would probably set the story in the Invasion Era. I would also probably lean more towards MTG style magic due to greater familiarity with it.

Open with Voldemort as a young black Mage in Urborg attempting to create a Horcrux, with the shock of its creation awakening his spark and sending him to Phyrexia, where he would end up offering himself as an ally for the invasion of Dominaria in exchange for greater knowledge and power, his interaction with the Phyrexian's and their brand of magic could also explain his utterly inhuman appearance later. The next couple chapters would cover his study of Phyrexian's magic, some of his travels across the planes, *while working for Yawgmoth, his personal curiosity and his recruiting of the Death Eaters, homegrown allies for the Phyrexians to spearhead their invasion. This also gives the oppurtunity to develop him from an ambitious and amoral black Mage to the inhuman monster we know and love.


Now we skip forward a few years and Voldemort is acting in full compactly as a skilled Planeswalker and traitor to Dominaria. He is tasked with the elimination of Urza's bloodline project among the Benalian clans. The Death Eaters would be used for the majority of the operation, but he decides to personally eliminate the Potters, due to rumors of them both being incredibly talented students of the Tolarian Academy. This ends in his backfiring curse splitting his spark between him and Harry, weakening him a great deal and making Harry a latent Planeswalker.

From here I am debating whether I would want to make a Dumbledore-like Urza or just have Dumbledore as a skilled professor at the Tolarian Academy, possibly taking Barrin's place.
Skip forward to Harry as a student at the Tolarian Academy who for some reason has the attention Urza himself and has an unnerving talent in for spells involving black mana, unknown to him this is due to possessing a piece of Voldemort's spark. Finally finding the child that caused his ruin Voldemort would lead an army of combined Phyrexian's and Death Eaters in an attack on the Academy, Harry's second encounter would awaken his spark allow him to escape with his life.

After that I am not sure what direction I would go, either have Harry eventually return to Dominaria and join up with the crew of the Weatherlight, or have Urza eventually track him down taking him on as an apprentice and grooming him as his finally piece for his Legacy weapon. The last route I considered was Harry wandering the planes and preparing for his conflict with Voldemort and the eventual invasion on his own terms.

Based off Harry's cannon personality I can see him using a combination of Red/White magic and add on Black due to acquiring Voldemort's spark.

I haven't written anything in years, so tell me if this is a terrible idea or any area I could improve on it.

 

Planeswalker!voldemort just seems so obvious that I don't think it's really a good idea. I just don't like the idea of shoehorning in characters into the other universe's roles. If you want a character to blow up half a continent like Barrin did, using MTG magic, just use Barrin.

 

So you would recommend cutting out the Planeswalker!Voldemort completely, and stick with Phyrexian Abomination!Voldemort? The main reasons I went with Planeswalker!Voldemort is to give him some reason to actually give two fucks about Harry, due to the reclamation of his spark and the fact that prior to repairing the Rifts there wasn't much that could challenge a Planeswalker with the exception of other Planeswalkers, some Phyrexian creations like Gix and the Negators being an exception.

 

Hmm.... Haven't played in years but Planeswalker Harry Potter doesn't sound really all that interesting to me. From what I understand they're the heavy hitters of the multiverse, Hard to kill bitches? Or so wiki tells me, not exactly a recipe for anything but a curbstomp.

Just a thought though,

I mean if a planeswalker (dunno any of them) was to say, summon Harry Potter, Master Of Death a legendary human wizard to, "insert plot" wouldn't that be something? I know, cliched example but it's all I got right now.

Because from my understanding the player is supposed to be a planeswalker and they summon creatures all the time? What's Harry Potter to the likes of Angels and dragons after all?

Interesting? Or just plain bad?

 

Pre-Rift Planeswalkers are incredibly hard to kill, but the MTG verse still can has a fair amount of beings that can threaten them. The upper level Phyrexians have decent odds on killing or permanently incompacitating them, as well as various gods from other planes and a few extremely skilled mages. There is a reason Urza gathered nine other Planeswalkers to invade Phyrexia. The other reason I was slightly stuck on the Planeswalker idea was exploring how a Planeswalker's magic works and how they develop into the awe inspiring beings they generally are.

Post-Rift Planeswalkers are considerably more mortal, but still incredibly dangerous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before anyone mentions it I am aware Urza brought a few of the Nine Titans intending to turn them into magical nukes once they betrayed him.

 

I don't know much about MTG but planeswalker Harry sounds nice to me. And a story which explores how Harry grows as a planeswalker might be good.

Pulling all HP characters into the MTG just for the sake of it on the other hand isn't a good idea in my mind. I dislike that kind of fusion Xovers.

Harry starting from ground up and building his own skills to challange a big bad planeswalker might be abetter story line. It would also work better introduction for those poor fellows like me who don't know much of anything about MTG lore.

 

You don't really need Harry to be a planeswalker for him to be powerful, interesting, etc. It might be relevant in a really long, drawn out story, but how many planes do you think Harry is going to go to while going through the Innistrad plot, for example? Probably none. Worldbuilding is key here, and if you just jump ship halfway through, it's kind of weird. It's possible, if you're doing a super epic thing, but probably too ambitious and not necessary.

I like the idea of Harry working to learn how to harness magic to summon a fire elemental, or to control a dragon. Giving him a spark to get away from Earth is fine I guess, and is probably the go-to idea, otherwise you're making him shift dimensions without using the canon-given method, and I think Harry in the multiverse is a lot better than MTG on Earth.

 

I think the idea of a MTG crossover has potential but it's going to need a lot of work to blend the two settings.

Some plot idea that immediately sprang to my mind were:

- An agent of the Infinite Consortium (Tezzeret maybe???) investigating rumours about the Deathly Hallows, maybe by attempting to infiltrate Hogwarts/The Ministry of Magic. Seems like the sort of artefacts they'd be desperate to get their hands on.

- Nicol Bolas (or more likely one of his agents) manipulating the first war between the Death Eaters and the Order towards his own end. I could see him playing both sides against the other to further some scheme of his own. Maybe Bolas engineered the prophecy because he has grand designs of his own towards Harry.

- One of Hogwart's founders (Slytherin maybe) was a planeswalker or maybe Merlin was actually a Planeswalker. He returns to earth centuries later to check on his handiwork.

I personally think keeping it all on earth rather then having a HP character travel to one of the MTG planes is the best bet.