Card of the Week: Giant Shark

In the abyss/Never surface/Unless summoned by the slowest riffs
I dwell alone/Aphotic zone/Awakened only by the lowest tone

--Green Lung, "Living Fossil"

From the Depths

The ocean was vital to my home city of Alsoor. Though the farms of the surrounding countryside supplied the city with crops, the true bounty of the city came from the sea. But as the climate cooled, the crops diminished and the sea truly became the lifeblood of the city.

I remember watching the fishermen’s ships come back into harbor as a child. Each day they’d sail out far from land, and on good days they’d come home laden with their catches. And sometimes—on the best days, at least to myself and the other children—they’d bring back monsters to show off as well. Huge squid with sharp beaks and barbed tentacles. Pillbug-like crustaceans as large as dogs. But it was the sharks that fascinated me the most, with their black glassy eyes and their rows and rows of razor teeth.

Among the fishermen, tall tales spread like wildfire. Fantastic stories of elusive white whales, ancient monsters of the lochs, and the inevitable ones that got away were so common as to be found in every dockside tavern from Alsoor to the ruins of Sumifa. And there were always the rumors of sharks larger than anybody’s ever caught, lurking out somewhere in the dark waters.

A roughly-scaled comparison: megalodons are thought to have grown up to 50 feet long, while the largest hammerhead sharks are around 20 feet long.

But the Giant Sharks are more than just rumors or fables. Though unseen during the warmer years before the Brothers’ War, they began to appear during the Dark Ages and into the Years of Ice. I believe that they are creatures of the cold depths, and as the world cooled the shallower waters also cooled and became hospitable to them. When Dominaria warmed again they disappeared along with the ice—I am unsure if they have died out or merely returned to the cold depths. But Dominaria is only one world—surely, they must still exist elsewhere in the vast multiverse even if they no longer live here.

As for myself, I never did see a Giant Shark during my childhood in Alsoor. I imagine that hauling one back to shore would have been a very difficult task for even the most experienced fishing boat. But the sailors told stories, and not just the drunken fishermen—sober merchants and serious ship captains as well. I believed the stories without hesitation as a child, but became skeptical as I grew to be a man. But when I discovered my magic, years after the fall of Alsoor, I learned to summon these great beasts for myself. (And since learning that the sailors' stories of the Giant Sharks turned to be true, I can no longer discount the white whales and loch monsters either. I remain skeptical, though.)
 
Lore

Badlands are good places to find fossils: the soft sedimentary rocks erode easily to expose the fossils within, and the minimal vegetation makes them easy to find.

There are many places in Dominaria where the bones and teeth of ancient creatures can be found, so ancient that they've turned to stone. The scholars that flock to these places study the bones that they find to form theories about the distant past, long before humans or elves or even dragons first woke. Some of these discoveries speak of creatures wildly different from anything living today, while others are the clear ancestors to today's animals. And while the bizarre finds are fascinating, the familiar are perhaps more valuable to the scholars in developing their understanding of the world.

A great white shark tooth vs. a megalodon tooth.

The learned have long speculated on the existence of Giant Sharks, for their teeth have been found in many places around the world. There is no mistaking their shape—they resemble the teeth of the smaller White Sharks so closely in everything but size that they could be nothing else. The superstitious may say that these teeth are the petrified remains of dragon tongues or other such foolishness, but any of the fisherman that brought the catch into Alsoor would have recognized them for what they are.

Swimming with the Sharks

Very few if any mages of note actually bring these ancient creatures into battle. While they are indeed fearsome in size and strength and their bloodlust makes them even fiercer, they require a great deal of mana to summon. Furthermore, their dependence on the ocean—and the ties that all duelists involved must have to it—make them even more of a liability in a duel.

Even the greatest champions relegate their Giant Sharks to the sideboard, though.

However, I have heard that some great mages in far-off lands include the summoning spells for these Giant Sharks in their spellbooks as signs of their magical aptitude. To them, wielding a Shark in battle is both a token of great victories against the most potent of foes as well as a concession to their future foes that they need not use the full extent of their talents. Whether this is humility or arrogance I cannot say, though I would hazard to guess that it is one for some mages and the other for others, and both for more than a few.

Danatoth of Alsoor (Dan Hyland)


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