WHILE INSTANCES OF medievalism are constructed through various media, some of the most intricate and complex manifestations of these constructions appear in the form of games that range from one-person video games designed for solitary entertainment to more traditional role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons (1974), which require a group of participants to work cooperatively towards a common goal. Among these games, Magic: The Gathering, first introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, is a popular card game that incorporates medievalist tropes to create, through play, an imaginary socio-economic setting in which players are positioned as “planeswalkers,” or powerful mages, who draw upon the power of the land to summon creatures and conjure spells. Players use these creatures and spells to destroy their opponents and win when they are the “last wizard standing.” Each land, creature, and spell appears individually on a card that contains its name, an illustration, any relative information regarding play abilities or costs, and “flavor text” comprising snippets of descriptive or narrative text that further develop the entity depicted on the card. Players choose from among thousands of cards when constructing decks for gameplay, although the number of cards in a deck can be restricted in certain types of play. Introduced in 2001, Magic: Online is a computer version of the traditional Magic: The Gathering game that employs virtual cards and online forums for game and tournament play. Gameplay in Magic: Online works similarly to that of its paper-based counterpart, with the physical “gathering” of players and its requisite social component replaced by virtual online interactions among players.

Although one could dismiss both forms of Magic as mere entertainment, an analysis of the game and its history reveals a dynamic blend of the modern and postmodern that have ultimately yielded a fantastic alternate reality that distinctly invokes the concept of neomedievalism that lies at the heart of this book. Magic furthermore reveals the unique relationship between such neomedieval forms and capitalism, as the game effectively creates a fantastic or magical setting through its ability to foster the illusion of a non-capitalist socio-economic situation. This chapter therefore begins with an overview of how Magic constructs its players as “wizards,” but also appears to imagine them as medieval lords whose ownership of land allows them to operate from positions of power within a feudal system.