Magic: The Glossary - Bloomburrow
A Root Vegetable and Some Moxie
One of the biggest benefits of learning to play Magic: The Gathering at any stage of life is the opportunity to expand your vocabulary. Card designers regularly mine dictionaries and thesauruses to put in front of players new and interesting words to describe the same ol' things. That's a compliment, not a dig; it's hard to describe well-worn fantasy tropes in ways that seem fresh, but they continue to do so 30 years into the game.
But the issue with this is new words don't really matter much if people don't bother to learn them. Sure, there are context clues: we know that "fumarole" has something vaguely to do with land, thanks to Wandering Fumarole. But did you get that connection way back in Ice Age with Fumarole? And if you're curious, a trait I expect you to exhibit if you clicked on this article, a "fumarole" is defined as a gap in the earth's surface near volcanic activity, through which hot gas spews forth. Knowing that, the art of Tundra Fumarole make a bit more sense.
Keep in mind that a word you might find simple is one that another Magic player might have never seen before it appeared on a card, especially if English is not that player's first language. There are also regional differences to consider. I see raccoons nearly daily here in the northern Midwest of the USA, but for someone in Africa or Australia, they probably only see them chasing after Cybertrucks.
Today, we're going to scan through Bloomburrow to see what new words we can learn. And if you didn't already guess, many of those new words are going to be critter-related.
Brightblade Stoat
Obviously "brightblade" is a made up word, as many words in Magic are, but a stoat is a real thing. Basically, they're a type of weasel native to Europe and North America, also known as an ermine. A fun fact about stoats is that, around 150 years ago, New Zealand imported crates of stoats in the hope of using them to thin their out-of-control rabbit populations. Instead, the stoats ate a ton of birds. And they're still there, eating birds and ignoring rabbits.
Jackdaw Savior
A jackdaw is a real bird endemic to Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe, related to crows and ravens. Like their gothic cousins, Jackdaws hang out in groups, are very intelligent, and often establish lifelong pair bonds. It's also well-documented as being a big fan of people, a trait that some attribute to its ability to read facial expressions and eye contact. They also really, really love shiny things.
Pileated Provisioner
The term "provisioner" is pretty self-explanatory, meaning someone who provides provisions, provisions being food and other important items stocked away for later use. But "pileated" might not be an adjective with which many are familiar.
In birdtalk, the "pileum" is the top of a bird's head, and if that bird is "pileated," it means that bird has a feathery crest atop the pileum. Most likely, if you've seen the term it was in conjunction with the pileated woodpecker, a bird that has seen considerable negative impact to its habitat in North America due to excessive logging. The pileated provisioner in the art of the card not-so-coincidentally looks a lot like a pileated woodpecker.
Shrike Force
It's a near-guarantee that this card was named "shrike force" entirely for pun reasons, but that doesn't mean everyone knows what a shrike is. "Shrike" is a term for a few dozen kinds of birds mostly in Africa and Eurasia, with two varieties also residing in North America.
Shrikes are awesome for a number of reasons, probably primarily because of their habit of capturing prey, usually insects, mid-flight, then impaling them on thorns and spines of plants for later consumption. And the loggerhead shrike, one of the two North American shrikes, is big enough to catch and impale much larger prey, like lizards, small mammals, and other birds. It's also known as the "butcherbird" for obvious reasons, though that name would look very odd on a white card.
Dour Port-Mage
If the frowny frog in the art wasn't an indication, the word "dour" describes someone who is harsh and arbitrary, unyielding and stubborn. It also tends to imply some sadness as well, often used alongside words like "sullen" or "grumpy."
The showcase version of the card does an even better job illustrating the meaning of "dour," though it could be argued that the frog's face just looks like that naturally regardless of mood.
Eddymurk Crab
While "eddymurk" is not a real term, it's more of a portmanteau of two real things. In this case, an "eddy" is a thread of current that runs counter to the water's main current. So if a river's rushing southward, an eddy in that river would be a stream that when flowing past an obstacle, doubles back. It's more common in oceans. And the other half of the word, "murk" probably refers to the goop and mud and other particulates that are kicked up by a counterflowing eddy.
Then there's that big-ass crab.
Kitnap
It's another pun, as a "kit" in this context refers to a young mammal, specifically the kinds of mammals that are center to the plot and art of Bloomburrow. In terms of the etymology, it was first used as a shortening of "kitten," as you might have guessed, before being extended to describe the litters of foxes, raccoons, muskrats, etc.
Osteomancer Adept
This is more of a fantasy thing, but I personally love all the different ways to describe magical professionals by adding some archaic prefix to the root "mancer." We're all familiar with pyromancer, cryomancer, chronomancer, or necromancer.
We get a bit more esoteric in Magic, though, with the lethemancers, anathemancers, mimeomancers and ophiomancers. The osteomancer joins this latter category.
Presumably, an osteomancer is a wizard that deals in bone, as the prefix "osteo-" is ancient Greek for bone. The art seems to confirm this, though I can't be certain whether osteomancy is its own school of magic or just a subset of necromancy.
In Bloomburrow Commander, we also see "Octomancer" join the fray. This one is probably even more obvious, although one could make the argument that an octomancer's specialty is not octopodes but rather just the number eight.
Psychic Whorl
Generally, aside from being a darkhorse good first word for Wordle, "whorl" is basically the same as "whirl," so much so that depending on where you're from or who taught you English, the two words might be indistinguishable to your ear. It means "twist" or "volution," which also means "twist." The spirally patterns of a fingerprint are referred to as whorls.
Bloomburrow marks the first time the word "whorl" appears on a Magic card. In fact, it appears thrice: Psychic Whorl, Nightwhorl Hermit, and Wick, the Whorled Mind. It's that last one which concerns me at prereleases if people put an imaginary hyphen between the R and L of "whorled" when they pronounce it.
Coruscation Mage
Here's a real word that probably appears on a Magic card thanks to a deep dive into a 150-year-old thesaurus. It's rarely used in common parlance today, but there was a time when everyone knew that a "coruscation" was a bright flash of crackling, often multicolored, light. In other words, most fireworks are coruscations. So a coruscation mage is basically Jubilee from the X-Men.
That's the literal meaning, at least. It's also been used to describe a showing of intelligence, namely through a particularly witty turn-of-phrase. Next time when your friend whips out a groan-inducing pun, you could say they really coruscated.
Manifold Mouse
It depends on what your profession or personal interest is that determines your understanding of the word "manifold." If you're a mechanic, a manifold pushes a mix of fuel and air into an engine's cylinders. Another type of manifold farts out exhaust. Neither of those definitions of manifold are related to this particular mouse.
The generic definition of "manifold" is simply a lot. Like, "a lot." Many. Multiple. Manifold. Mouses.
Fecund Greenshell
Fecund is generally understood as a synonym of "fertile" or "fruitful." Basically, if something's fecund, it's capable of producing a lot of babies. Its offspring will be as numerous as the stars of the sky, or at least that's what I learned in Sunday School.
Another Magic card you may know, Fecundity, means the same thing, but in noun form.
Murmuration
I've always been a fan of the word "murmuration" and I annoy anyone around me often whenever I'm able to point one out. Literally, its the undulating motion of a flock of birds in flight, usually starlings. That action is named such likely due to the low humming drone that a flock of birds' murmuration produces. The art of the card is depicting a murmuration, and if that's not enough, the flavor text really hammers it home.
If you watched Netflix's Cabinet of Curiosities, you probably already know this, as its second-best episode, the eighth and final one, was titled "The Murmuring." That was written by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Jennifer Kent, so you should probably watch it if you haven't.
Insatiable Frugivore
It might seem like a made-up word, but "frugivore" is a real thing. Simply, it's a creature whose diet consists entirely, or almost entirely, of fruit. To be an "insatiable" frugivore means you just can't stop eating all those tasty strawberries.
Squash. What it is and what it does
I fully accept that most of they whom might read this aren't as much of a word nerd as I am, and that's okay. But I hope we all were able to learn a thing or two along the way today, and when you head out to your Bloomburrow prerelease, you're fully equipped to coruscate your opponents with your flashy wit.
We'll see you next time, my twenty-toed toads.
