ENTRY 31: VALGAVOTH

It's finally time for the Big Boss Guy, the true Ultimate Villain of Duskmourn, who was first revealed prior to the set's release as the multi-part official audio drama reached its conclusion. And the entity known as Valgavoth isn't just the "master" of the house; he is, as you likely surmised by now, also the house itself!

Valgavoth is specifically a demonic moth entity, hence the moths incorporated almost everywhere in the house. A point is even made that "if you can see a moth, the house can see you," and it's apparently an especially bad idea to actually touch any moth shaped objects or images, making some of the house's carpets and wallpapers into a mothy minefield. A mothfield. He has a central or original body in the house's innermost depths, but he has rootlike tendrils spreading all throughout the plane, and the exact physical appearance of his true self still isn't set in stone; central to the storyline is the fact that Valgavoth periodically "molts" into a new body, his aesthetics and his powers shifting slightly every time.

A special cycle of basic lands even seem to show us some different faces of Valgavoth, though they're all stylistically similar; multiple, fiery eyes gazing from a lacey latticework of chitin. Every time he molts, Valgavoth must rest, and the house calms down to a state of slightly quieter, creepier death and misery referred to as a Quiescence, a calm before a storm. When Valgavoth emerges in his new form, refreshed and hungry, the explosion of paranormal mayhem is known as a Harrowing, which by the way also leaves behind another gigantic shed skin forming an ever-deepening tunnel to his freshest gooey center. NEAT!

Valgavoth was not, however, always simultaneously both a moth and an infinite haunted house.

The backstory of The House begins with a "magically and technologically advanced" plane closer in appearance to our very own world than any other setting ever hinted at in Magic's continuity, which you've already seen from the recognizable modern objects throughout Duskmourn cards. They've got cars and televisions and CD's and everything! This all pretty much seems to have just happened in the 80's at some point, I guess. Early in its history the house was a normal gaudy mansion owned by a family with a great deal of occult knowledge, who one day attempted to summon a minor demon as no more than a simple household servant. Instead, they got Valgavoth, a fear-fueled demonic entity so formidable that they hastily imprisoned it in the basement.

Generations later, as the story was forgotten and the house changed hands, the entity began speaking to and befriending a little girl who came to know it her secret best friend, "Val." Long story short, Val eventually fooled her into bringing him four sacrifices - her school bullies - that would give him enough power to break free. From there, he took over the house itself as a vessel, began luring and consuming more victims, grew his new body "House of Leaves" style, and soon began absorbing neighboring houses. Then the surrounding land. Then it just sort of snowballed into that entire plane of reality becoming a part of his body, and then he was strong enough to open doors and dangle lures into any other planes he wanted.

Valgavoth gets his own card of course; actually more than one! Valgavoth, Terror Eater is a black card of course, a legendary 9/9 elder demon for 9 mana. He can fly, he can drain health from your opponent to yourself, and he has "ward," which can protect him from enemy effects, as long as you sacrifice any three things at the time, other than lands. What's more, as long as Valgavoth is in play, the opponent no longer sends destroyed or spent cards to their graveyard, but exiles them out of the game. Then, you can play those cards as if they're yours, by paying life equal to their mana cost. That last bit is important, so you can play anything at all no matter what color magic your deck can produce!

In this body, Valgavoth has a beautifully dusty, fuzzy pale and mottled appearance, distinctly Lepidopteran-adjacent, though his wings are kind of like fleshy fins with long, bony rays. He has pairs of eyes where a human would have collarbones and ribs, but he also has a little tiny head kind of resembling a helmet with a visor. He's also got an abdomen that visible merges into the surrounding building structure!

He has an alernate card, too, here a "Harrower of Souls," which is only 4/4 for 4 mana, but both red and black. This one can fly, it can ward when you pay just 2 life, and the first time any opponent loses life each turn, you get to draw a card while growing Valgavoth with a +1/+1 counter. This is a lighter, cheaper, faster Valgavoth a little more focused on building offense, and his design illustrated by Chris Cold is also quite a bit different; a bony, spiny figure with dozens of tiny eye lights in his armor, though he still has the menacing Y-shaped "visor" eye, and his wings are just a mess of dark shadow matter billowing off his body and his little white arms. He overall looks more like some kind of bizarre bird-man here than an insect, but that's cool in itself! I guess he felt like being a hawkmoth today!

There's also an alternate art card of the Terror Eater form, with a really cool, meticulously detailed pen and ink looking illustration I really like. He's so nicely bony and veiny and buggy here, and you can see how the "visor" also constitutes a set of jagged vertical jaws in this design by....Pig Hands? Well, I have a new favorite artist name to be published on a magic card, and yes Pig Hands has more art to look at, including another, downright unbelievable Valgavoth piece for Duskmourn's box art. THIS WAS DONE IN PEN?

As a creature and villain concept, the whole "fear-eating entity" angle is kind of routine these days in horror, seen in just about any large enough fantasy setting sooner or later, but the main villain of a Horror House magic set couldn't have been anything else, and the idea of it being specifically a fear-drinking mothman interwoven with a carnivorous transdimension monster mansion is just plain good stuff. Not only a fresh take on that routine, but an even fresher take on an antagonistic force for Magic!

As I talked about in a previous entry, Phyrexia was Magic's ultimate epic horror threat for most of the game's existence, but its "toxic biotech hellworld" motif has been milked about as far as it possibly can, and its grand evil plan to invade the multiverse has already played out. Meanwhile, a more surreal "Lovecraftian alien invader" menace would be introduced with beings called the Eldrazi, which I'm sure I'll review some day, but as well received and beautifully designed as those are, there's only so much you can do with a bunch of incomprehensible interdimensional goo-squids that'll really surprise anybody.

Valgavoth can do hellworld and he can do alien invader, because he is himself the alien invader and the hellworld in question, but with his own clearly distinct identity I have to say is even more narratively versatile than even the antics of Phyrexia's countless cyborg mutant demon zombies. For as long as the game continues to put out original settings (alongside the ominously ever-growing output of licensed tie-ins, that is), the plane of Duskmourn, AKA Valgavoth, can technically inject any flavor of horror villainy into any story at all, and the many different "factions" we've already seen can just as easily leak into other planes on their own. They'll more than likely do that very, very sparingly if they ever even do it at all, but I really wouldn't mind if they were to go as hog-wild with Duskmourn as they ever did with Phyrexia as a recurring presence. Any of magic's more traditional Sword & Sorcery settings could now be invaded by killer clowns or malevolent dolls or haunted televisions, and we would all know why.

On a semifinal note - because I do have a bonus review page in mind that may go up in a week or so - it's been customary for almost two decades that I write loads of different horror and monster reviews every Halloween season, with the highest number concentrated in October. It's been customary for around one decade that I simultaneously put up a 31 day review special, too. Here in 2024, for the first time ever, the 31 day special, which you're reading right now, is almost my only October content at all. I'm sorry to those who look forward to a variety of video game bestiaries and other creature content from me every Halloween, and didn't have as much interest in Magic cards, but this is also because I spent this October doing more real-world activities than almost any other October, and it's even the first time in almost fifteen years that I've made a costume for a Halloween party. Two of them, even! Living Halloween entirely through the internet was fun for a while, but I feel a lot better kind of letting that go this year. I still had some other new content that began going up of course, which you can see on the main page, and I do have a couple of fun things planned for the coming post-Halloween months - including maybe a very big announcement or two.

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