Nic kelman, Wizards of the Coast Director of Entertainment Development
Meet Oko, The ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Multiverse’s Newest Planeswalker
The 82nd Magic: The Gathering expansion set, “Throne of Eldraine” will be released on October 4, 2019. Themed around Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the Arthurian legend of Camelot, this set will introduce players to a new fantasy world and its denizens.
On Wednesday, for the first time, we get to meet one of the planeswalkers who is spending time in Eldraine. The illustrious Oko is a Fey shapeshifter who is as charismatic as he is conceited, a man who is mysterious, clever, and vain.
Oko’s story will be revealed in detail in the first “Throne of Eldraine” ebook, Throne of Eldraine: The Wildered Quest. But today, we’re getting a sneak preview of his life and personality.
In order to get to know Oko a little better (and to figure out where he belongs on my planeswalker dateability chart), I interviewed Nic Kelman, Head of Story and Entertainment at Wizards of the Coast, who is one of the writers responsible for bringing his character to life.
Oko is a shapeshifter who is as charismatic as he is conceited, a man who is mysterious, uncommonly clever, and vain. He also has healing and mind-controlling powers. He considers himself pretty and witty and has a tendency to talk too much. He has high cheekbones, pale skin, and pointed ears. His arms are blue as if they had been dipped in woad. His upper face has the same blue tone, giving the appearance of a blue mask across his eyes. His eyes are dark, pensive, and even a little melancholy. Oko’s somewhat meager telepathic ability once allowed him to escape his persecutors. The technique to mesmerize someone was used on him long ago before he’d turned the tables on his captors. For this reason, he hates inflicting this on others (although it doesn’t stop him from doing it). Oko is able to shift another person into the same shape as he himself is taking if he is touching them when he does it.
Hating authority, Oko is an iconoclast and a bit of an anarchist. He sees it as his mission to help others — the hapless, the ignorant, the weak, the youthful strivers — to embrace their freedom and to cast off the rules of any government. He also seeks out alleged hypocrisy wherever he finds it. This often leads to quite cruel “pranks.” Ruining a wedding day, stealing the spotlight at someone’s lifetime moment of triumph, fooling a mother into believing her child has returned from a conflict — these are all great shapeshifting jokes to Oko who sees nothing as sacred, least of all the noblest of emotions. He usually avoids having to deal with the consequences of his actions by planeswalking away.
