1- Any plans for themed starters later on?

The next starter set we do is slated to have fixed warbands, so you will get a balanced warband right out of the box. The trick is that the starter sets aren’t marked, so you don’t know which of the warbands you’ll randomly get.

People have suggested doing themed starter sets where you know what miniatures you’re getting, but the problem with that plan is that inevitably one set is more popular than the others. The experienced players buy the “good” starter sets and actual beginners don’t have all the options that they’re supposed to have.

2- Is there a creature you would call the "mascot" of Dreamblade, like Pikachu for Pokemon or Dark Magician/Kuriboh for Yugioh?

The closest thing we have to a mascot is Ekkyon Wayfarer. He appears on the packaging on base set boosters and starters. But we’ve never played him up much. Unlike a lot of other games, Dreamblade’s appeal is more game play rather than any licensed tie-in. Since there’s no TV show or computer game to use as hype, there’s no mascot. The game is about your warband and what you can do with it, not about characters from a licensed property.

3- Are there any plans for 10Ks in Canada, Europe or Australia in 2007?

Yes, there are. Europe will be running 10Ks in 2007, probably Australia, too. In the mean time, some top European players have been coming to 10Ks in the US. Nicolas Pilartz from France took the top spot at GenCon SoCal 10K with his Temple Goodstuff warband.

As for Canada, we might have 10Ks there after the first season culminates with the $50K championship at GenCon. For now, of course, we are running 1Ks in Canada, which are easier to get to and easier to win than the 10Ks.

4- How soon until we see multi-aspect minis?

We’re not going to mess around with aspects in Chrysotic Plague. If we are going to mess around with aspects, it won’t be until the set after Chrysotic Plague or later. And we’re not talking about those sets yet.

Multiaspect miniatures are going to be part of the game, sort of like they are in a certain TCG that we like a lot. The lineages are clearly set up to benefit from multi-aspect creatures. But we wanted to play aspects straight for the first few sets at least. We wanted to define them individually before mixing them.

5- Are misses on dice just misses or will they have significance in a later set?

We made those misses different so we could make abilities that tie into them, and we’re going to do so.

Originally, we were going to have defense abilities that would trigger off open misses that the attacker rolled. We didn’t want to launch the game with open-miss abilities because we wanted to emphasize attacking, which blade abilities do nicely. The open-miss abilities were slated for later. The problem is that the open miss system makes attack rolls swingy. A bad roll for damage and blades would be even worse if the defender had open-miss abilities. Dreamblade really lets you show of your game play skill, and if open-miss abilities made attacks swingy, then luck would start to disrupt skillful play.

We are still going to do abilities that activate on defense, but they won’t trigger off open misses.

6- Are there any plans for a Wizards-produced online version of Dreamblade down the road, like with Magic / Magic Online?

We've talked about it, but we don't have any plans. Magic Online has shown that you can successfully take a collectable strategy game online, so we get that question a lot. Dreamblade, however, has 3D pieces that just wouldn't translate to a flat screen like a card does. Lots of the miniatures have hidden details that you can only see from the back. You can only really appreciate a Dreamblade miniature by picking it up and turning it around. Plus, we built the miniatures at a larger than normal scale so that they'd have a nice heft in the hand. Some of the Baxar's War miniatures in particular are big, chunky, and fun to play with. Finally, it's fun to roll a handful of attack dice. None of this real-life fun would translate well onto a computer screen.

7- Earlier we asked about limited events in the Dream Series and you couldn’t name specific plans. Do you have an update?

The fans have called for limited play, and we’re having our first ever dream series limited events in January. On January 26 to 28, stores across the US are going to host sealed-booster tournaments featuring Chrysotic Plague. That means that anyone can compete without having to invest in the big-ticket miniatures that are winning 10Ks. These tournaments are going to be a special opportunity for good players who haven’t gotten heavy into the tournament scene yet, and a great way for new players to get involved. As prizes created just for these tournaments, we’ll be awarding alt-paint Scarab Warcharms.

Here’s the URL for more information on Chrysotic Plague limited event: http://ww2.wizards.com/Dreamblade/Articles.aspx?Doc=op_20061208a

[image: alt-paint scarab warcharm]

8- What’s the story on the 10K upset in Seattle?

Basically, the best Dreamblade players on the planet show up, and most of them are playing variants of the so-called Kitsune warband, using the best Valor Bloodcuts. One guy tells us that not only is the Kitsune warband the best, but that you can’t beat it, even with a warband designed specifically to take it down. Then those Kitsune warbands lost one by one to a Temple Goodstuff warband played by Chris McCreath, an unknown from Portland. One might say that Kitsune’s hopes were eaten.

Here’s the report on the tournament: http://ww2.wizards.com/Dreamblade/Articles.aspx?Doc=op_20061201a