Silverquill Silencer (1 of 2) - Zezhou Chen

Silverquill Silencer

Artist: Zezhou Chen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

Forgive me if you already answered this, but does Vorthos discount faction cards named after a character? E.g. if you name "Shadrix Silverquill" do all the cards named in the school (silverquill pledgemage, silverquill silencer, etc) all benefit from the Vorthos discount?

If you name the character the faction is named after, you can count any card with that name in its title or flavor text.

rate the deck so far

Sorceries + Instants 2 Check for Traps 4 Silverquill Command 4 Ray of Enfeeblement

Creatures 4 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim 2 Intrepid Adversary 4 Luminarch Aspirant 2 Silverquill Silencer 4 Sister Hospitaller

Land 4 Cave of the Frost Dragon 4 Hive of the Eye Tyrant 8 Plains 5 Scoured Barrens 8 Swamp

"I am very much in the mood to start handing out expulsions." 

-Silverquill Silencer

Silverquill Silencer by Zezhou Chen

The Lore of Strixhaven: Silverquill College

"We agree that language is civilization's most powerful weapon. We argue over whether to use it to inspire our allies or shatter our enemies."

— Rinald, Silverquill inkmancer

The College of Eloquence

“Stylish, intimidating, and driven, Silverquill mages are masters of the magic of words. They create spells from spoken-word battle poetry or magical manifestations of the written word, writing patterns of runic ink on the air. Silverquill mages are natural leaders, driven and competitive, with a piercing wit and a never-second-place attitude. When you see a group of Silverquill mages coming toward you, you're struck by how devastatingly good-looking, put‑together, and well-dressed they are, orbited by their flitting "inklings" that congeal into runes and glyphs as they weave their magic.

The Dichotomy of Silverquill

This section explores the opposing beliefs and magics that make up Silverquill. For any college, a mage can also embody both colors of magic, combining aspects and spells into a unique identity.

White

The white side of Silverquill is about using the power of language to uplift and inspire their allies and shine light on the evils of society. Inkwrights, glyphweavers, and uillmancers conjure energizing verses that manifest as living ink. Warsingers, silvertongues, and battle poets use the power of their vocal performance to stir hearts and energize the air around them. Vainglories and honormancers wield the power of a perfectly crafted compliment (often directed at themselves) to enhance a person's most splendid attribute. Scornmages and lumimancers bring light to bear on shameful situations and hold corrupt institutions to account.

Black

The black side of Silverquill is about the power of language to point out stinging truths and attack their rivals. Bantermages, shadelocks, witstingers, and daunters use their incisive observations to pierce the confidence of their rivals. Inkcasters, duskmages, and shadewings can conjure inky voids of shadow magic, sometimes crafting them into living flying creatures called inklings or weapons made of pure darkness.

Locations

Grandloft Hall

The main Silverquill building is Grandloft, a vast train-station-like space with shafts of light streaking in from the enchanted windowpanes far above. Grandloft is filled with balconies, loges, booths, daises, and other spaces where orators can perform their craft. Inklings flit around the high windowed ceiling, and enchanted spotlights automatically focus on any mage who's using powerful magic.

The Rose Stage

The Rose Stage is a rotating circular platform on the Silverquill campus with a backdrop of roses made of magical ink (tributes left by spectators of past performances) that create excellent acoustics. Mage-students meet at the Rose Stage to practice performances, spar, or engage in honor duels. Professors and faculty often observe performances at the Rose Stage, watching and coaching the students' magical displays from the sidelines.

The Dramarium

A facility where Silverquill students train in physical fitness, dance, martial arts, and other acts of physical performance. Students can avail themselves of the preparation space called the Gray Room (actually a chain of rooms), which has hair and makeup salons, voice rehearsal booths, mirrored oration rehearsal spaces, and spa facilities. The back of the Dramarium has a special sensory deprivation chamber for mage-students who want complete silence in which to meditate and center themselves.

College Mascot: Inklings

Black-aligned mages in Silverquill sometimes craft shadow magic into flying creatures called inklings. These living, inky voids can serve as helpers and pets, but their physical attacks can also be devastating, tearing at an opponent's life force. Their fluid, changeable forms alter to reflect their creator's thoughts and intentions.”

strixhaven colleges of magic…jameson collins in silverquill; college of eloquence studies as a human warlock with an alignment as a black mage.         “sharp style. sharper wit.”

fondest memories: hastalik kissing him on the rose stage to win a battle (jameson still winning regardless of the distraction), igniting the torches of enlightenment when an outside threat had taken them out, sneaking alcohol into the bibloplex with bella to get drunk and read ridiculous poetry from old alumni, seeing his mother’s portrait in one of the halls, creating his first inkling.

drabble beneath cut...

          jamie put ink to paper as he rest in the silence at the back of the dramarium. though the building contained rooms for other silverquill mages to practice their crafts loudly, the sensory deprivation chamber at the back was a room of silence. all jamie could hear was his own breath and the moment of his quill against paper. sometimes he needed the space, when knowledge of the future haunted him in it’s lost fragments.            there were a lot of expectations placed on the child of a great legacy, a child of a renowned mage who had once walked the halls. jamie was expected to have far more control over his magics than others and yet sometimes they never quite made sense in his head. or worse, sometimes they made too much sense.             this pure silence was interrupted when jameson heard the door open and a boisterous prismari boy came in, frilled collar around his throat and heavy steps that bound towards jamie with purpose and passion, as prismari did most things. “you look ridiculous,” jamie informed him without even looking up from his poetry, words meant for malevolent spellcasting had easily shifted into affectionate words regarding hastalik, magics that would work in ways he couldn’t be sure of.              “and you look extremely delicious,” hastalik informed jameson, leaning down and kissing the man’s throat, staining it with his shaman like magics so a red streak would burden jamie’s neck for at least a few hours.               jamie allowed himself a smile since hastalik couldn’t see it, the gesture fading away as his...companion, jamie supposed, sat down next to him on the ground in the almost entirely black room.               “i can’t do what she did,” he admitted in the darkness. “i can never be that good.”               jameson felt hastalik’s hand rest upon his knee, thumb caressing it gently. “you are beyond good, your magic is different.”                jamie remained quiet for a moment, eyeing the page of magical poetry he had written down and the inked eyes upon his hands that moved. he’d tattooed his magical ink there to help with his gazes into the future, but they only seemed to make the future less clear than the cards did. “she saved this school so many times, what have i done but exist here?” jameson swallowed. his mother’s legacy was too much, but in reality it wasn’t even what he cared about.                 jameson simply wanted to feel close to her and the pressures of the school had made him believe that following in her footsteps would. in reality the only time jamie felt close to her was when he was with hastalik, with someone who loved him, not exactly as his mother had but with as much perseverance as she had.                 “you’ve captured my heart,” a silly line, expectant of someone from a college like prismari that loved the dramatic but was incapable of the same linguistic gifts of silverquill. “it’s not much but it’s something,” hastalik insisted, leaning in once more, this time pressing his lips to jamie’s, red magic upon them to warm his affections upon jamie’s lips. jamie allowed him to. his magic could come another day, his mother’s legacy could be worked on later, right now he had a dark room with a man who wanted him.

@jamesoncollins

Silverquill Silencer

"I am very much in the mood to start handing out expulsions."

Artist: Zezhou Chen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

Silverquill Silencer

Artist: Zezhou Chen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

Hi there Mark. I just saw the spoiler for Silverquill Silencer. The alliterative name, the art, and the effect all seem evocative of Meddling Mage (the Alara Reborn version, specifically). Was that intentional?

Yes. Meddling Mage is the card we use for all naming inspiration.

“What do you think of this name?”

“Not Meddling Mage-y enough.”

(I’m gonna make a masterpost of these because it’s probably getting confusing, but in the meantime: This is part seven. Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and sad au). Thanks to @sweetwhumpandhellacomf​ for help with names!

For as long as Lian could remember, the temple in their city had been held as a peaceful, quiet and safe refuge. It wasn’t that any more; in the days after the city fell, the soldiers had emptied it of much of its sacred objects, its furnishings and decorations, and converted into an administrative building.

It was still the place best suited for a wedding, though.

Today the temple’s main hall was brightly lit and decorated. The empress’ people had rounded up every well-respected or important subject of Lian’s that they could, but the crowd that filled it were still mostly foreigners.

Lian smoothed their hands down the fabric of their wedding gown. Breathe. Shoulders straight and head high, under the weight of silk flowers and pinned hair. Breathe. Smile. Don’t look at her. Look straight ahead.

They tried to distract themselves with the thought of how their gown, repellent though it was, had been carefully and lovingly made by the seamstress who still thought that Lian was worthy of being her ruler. It helped, a little.

Most of the ceremony was unfamiliar to Lian, long and boring and dry. They got through it with their face smooth and blank, moving when and where they were told, standing beside the empress on the dais and signing their name into a huge ledger with an elegant hand. It didn’t matter. But the second part…

It probably wasn’t only spite that motivated the empress to include traditions from Lian’s culture. The paper-thin illusion that Lian was here by choice and the empress had a perfect right to claim dominion over their subjects had to be paid lip service. It almost undid Lian.

The high priest - young, for a high priest, and Lian didn’t recognise her; they were not sure what had become of her predecessors - brought out the long, thin blue strip of cloth, embroidered with wishes for good luck and happiness, and for a long moment Lian was completely unable to make themself move. They could more easily have plunged their right hand into an open fire or a vat of boiling water than they could have stretched it out towards the empress.

But they had lain awake and sleepless for weeks trying to think of any other alternative to this, and come up with nothing. The only path forward they could see that didn’t involve the Empress killing more and more of their people was for Lian to do this. They thought, fiercely, of the seamstress and their sibling, and their messenger boy, and all of the kitchen and laundry and secretarial staff back at their palace. Every soul in this city whose fates rested in the hands of the empress.  

Lian held their hand out.

The empress’ hand was delicate, pale, fine-boned. She clasped Lian’s hand, her fingers cool and smooth and unhesitating. Lian forced their fingers to bend to clasp hers back.  

The priest wound the strip of cloth around and around the two hands in front of her, tying it in a series of intricate, decorative knots. She was good at keeping her expression schooled, but Lian saw her lips thin as she spoke.

“What was two, is now one,” she announced. “Like fibres twisted together to make strong thread, your lives are joined. Your homes and hearths will be shared, your lives shared, your hopes and dreams shared. As the gods witness.”

There was a smattering of applause, and more than a little whispering and tittering behind them. Lian barely heard any of it over the sound of their heartbeat in their ears.

It doesn’t mean anything, they tried to tell themself. The gods won’t hold you to this. They know it isn’t real, they know you don’t want it. You know you don’t want it. It isn’t legal and it isn’t real. You have to pretend it is, for your people’s sake, but in your heart, where it matters, it isn’t.

The empress grasped Lian’s hand with hers, firmly, and they followed where she led, focusing all of their attention on maintaining their serene expression. They emerged out of the temple into natural light, a cool breeze and murmuring, chaotic noise that hushed as soon as they appeared.

Lian stood beside the empress, at the top of the steps that lead down into the biggest square in the city. The square was lined with soldiers and absolutely crammed full of people. They gazed up, a sea of faces all directed towards the brightly, richly dressed pair, and the noise died away.

The empress’ hand moved, taking Lian by surprise. She raised it, gracefully lifting their joined hands into the air for the crowd to see. Lean brown fingers and delicate pale ones, wound around and around with blue fabric in the bright sunlight.

Lian obediently held their hand up, straight and graceful, returning the pressure of the empress’ fingers despite the humiliation coursing through them. Lian knew that if anybody was here who didn’t realise how things were - and that was possible; the empress had invited a lot of dignitaries from neighbouring countries and even Lian’s people didn’t all understand - it would look like celebration to them. Joy, pride.

To Lian it felt like a different sort of pride - it felt like gloating. They were being held up in front of everyone like the severed head of an enemy. Like the bodies that adorned the walls of Lian’s city even now.

Lian gazed out at the crowd, this one mostly their people, and their heart seized. For a long, horrified, helpless moment they thought that the crowd wouldn’t cheer. That they would just stand there in hushed silence, refusing to play along with the charade of a joyful wedding.

Don’t do this, they thought frantically, as if they could compel their subjects with sheer terrified will alone. No, no, no, you have to do something! Please! Look at the soldiers everywhere, don’t you see…!

Then someone at the back raised a ragged cheer, and the crowd followed suit. It was hardly a roar of approval; it was slow to build, confused, half-hearted. Lian could see a lot of troubled or blank faces above applauding hands, and the occasional calls of ‘bless their majesties!’ or ‘congratulations!’ were easy to pick out over the general wordless noise.

But it was cheering, and Lian’s heart started beating again, and the soldiers stayed where they were on the edges of the square. People threw flower petals, and the musicians struck up a joyful melody.

Lian prayed this would be enough to satisfy the empress.

 ~

Once they had returned to the palace, Lian’s arm and shoulder began to ache fiercely. The actual feast was bad enough - their joined hands on the table between their plates, under the eyes of all the wedding guests. At real weddings they had been to, Lian had seen happy couples attempt to feed each other with their free hands at this point - they were pathetically glad that the Empress had not heard of that, or if she had she wasn’t inclined to do anything so undignified and frivolous in public. They picked at their food, with their left hand, until a cool raised eyebrow from the empress made them flinch and finish what was on their plate. They didn’t taste anything.  

But afterward, the empress led Lian smoothly around the reception hall, greeting important foreign people and nobles from her homeland, and that was even worse. Lian had no choice but to follow meekly, enduring congratulations and introductions and the occasional suggestive remark with politeness and grace. They made a show of rueful smiles when they saw someone take note of how they were trailing after her, arm outstretched. They explained the meaning of the tradition to a few patronising foreigners, while the empress sipped wine with her right hand and signaled Lian with a subtle tap when she thought they had spoken long enough.

They loathed the intimacy of it, shoulders brushing, sweat-sticky palms, fingers pressed against hers and rendering every nervous twitch and shudder obvious. If she found it uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. She would grip Lian’s fingers firmly when she wanted to lead them somewhere new.

“Ah! Your majesty, your highness!”

Lian was surprised when the man in front of them, after bowing extravagantly to the empress, turned and did the same to Lian. They noted the pointed ears lying back against the tousled brown hair. This, then, had to be the elven ambassador whose visit had spurred all of this into motion.

“Of course, her imperial majesty and I have already met,” he said. His voice was accented, surprisingly deep, and very warm. “But I have not yet had the pleasure of introducing myself to you, esteemed Ruler. Rylior Silverquill, at your service. I have the great honour of representing the government of the combined Elven Nations of Greater Indregarda at your court.”

“I - oh,” Lian stammered. They were surprised to be granted their old title by a foreigner - was he supposed to do that? Nobody else today had. “Be welcome, Ambassador. I am most pleased to know you.”

The elven ambassador grinned, and it made him look young and roguish and not at all as formal and stuffy as Lian had imagined he would be from the letter and the way the empress spoke about elves. “As I am most pleased to know you.”

“Ambassador,” the empress said, her smile sparkling. Her fingers tightened on Lian’s, warningly. “I’m so touched you could make it here in time for today! I know we gave you precious little notice, you really didn’t have to change your travel arrangements.”

“Oh, the winds were kind to us! And I very much didn’t want to miss it,” Ambassador Silverquill said. His eyes flicked to Lian, thoughtfully. “Your ceremony was of surpassing beauty - well worth the trouble. It doesn’t do to miss an opportunity to celebrate the joy of your friends. And the elven nations are, as always, very… very good friends to all our peers here on this side of the Emerald Ocean.”

“We hold the friendship of the elves dear indeed,” the empress said.

“I look forward to getting to know you both better in the days to come,” Ambassador Silverquill said. “As well as familiarising myself with your beautiful city, and the unique challenges of this region. It always takes a while to settle into a new posting, but I expect it will feel like home in no time at all.”

“I hope you find your accommodations sufficient,” the empress said, her smile cold and bright. The light glittered off the jeweled pins holding her hair up. “For one used to the Elven Court, things must seem bare and crude to you out here. I have not had time to implement many of my planned improvements.”

Ambassador Silverquill’s expression sharpened. “As to that, if you require any help from our experts,”he said pleasantly, “I hope you will not hesitate to let me know. The food supply issues, for example…”

“Oh, honoured ambassador,” the empress said, giving one of her tinkling laughs. Her fingers shifted against Lian’s; they knew she wanted to tap her fingernails irritably. “I must insist we don’t discuss work! This is a night for celebration!”

“Of course! How rude of me! I shouldn’t intrude on this joyous occasion with such weighty matters,” the ambassador agreed. He shifted his body subtly so he was again addressing both Lian and the Empress equally. “I will speak of such things when we all have the time to grant them our full attention. Perhaps, the day after tomorrow?”

The empress’ grip tightened against Lian’s for an instant before relaxing. “We shall see,” she said, glacially.  

“Then let me take my leave of you with one last congratulations,” Ambassador Silverquill said. He gave another extravagant bow, his hand moving in a graceful gesture. “Ruler, Empress - on behalf of my people, I hope you have many happy years together.”

Lian kept their smile fixed, showing no sign of how that last phrase had stabbed like a needle of ice. They knew they should be thinking harder, about what the ambassador’s manner suggested about the Elven Nations and their stance towards the empress. But just at that moment, they could not. Their heart hurt, like it was tearing itself apart, like they were dying, as they had fancifully thought they would on the day they had agreed to marry the empress.

“Thank you. I hope so too.”