#lorehold

Kirol, History Buff (Secrets of Strixhaven No. 0198, Illus. Bryan Sola)

In my last post I talked about how the design of the inklings from Silverquill, this time it's back to Lorehold. Where Silverquill mages use pens, ink and paper as spellcasting mediums, Lorehold frequently uses scrolls and tomes - presumably ancient ones that they unearth during their archaeology fieldwork. Kirol is carrying one on their back here, and other examples abound ... for example, the scroll-based magic gatling gun shown on Lorehold Command or the art of Quintorius, Loremaster (where the scrolls look more like condiment squeeze bottles).

Most of the scrolls contain writing in some kind of magical faux-cuneiform that seems to have been widely used in Arcavios's history and is being studied extensively by Lorehold students (see Professor of Symbology). It seems to be equivalent of Latin in our world: An ancient language or script that served as the lingua franca for multiple different cultures. In illustrations, it also makes for some nice visual effects, especially when infused and "animated" with magic. I really like how the individual glyphs dance around the bottom of the column in this illustration, scattered, but still forming a cohesive arc and motion.

What disappoints me a bit, though, is that despite almost every second Lorehold illustration showing this apparently very important language, it is never named or mentioned - neither in the story, nor in the Planeswalker's guide (as far as I'm aware). It exists solely as a visual code to to communicate to the player that these characters are learning an ancient language. We have two sets worth of Strixhaven stories now, so you'd imagine that it'd at least get namedropped in passing ... but nope.