How I inadvertently created my first Horcrux
(without resorting to any brutal patricide or attempted infanticide)
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
- Albus Dumbledore
This is the story of how something that had been simmering inside my head for many, many years finally took a real — a corporeal — form.
A few years ago, during one of my sporadic wardrobe purges, I rediscovered a small box of cards I had stashed away close to two decades ago. It was a Harry Potter trading card game I had (almost) invented when I was about 9 years old. This was in the year 2000, before the release of the Order of the Phoenix book or the Philosopher’s Stone movie. Never having been a fan of either WWE, Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z, I never caught on to the trading cards mania that gripped the bulk of my pre-smartphone-equipped generation of kids, despite the persistent efforts of my cousins every Diwali and summer break. The Indian markets hadn’t as yet reaped the benefits of liberalisation and globalisation enough to make Hasbro’s limited release of Harry Potter Trading Cards available in India, and Amazon hadn’t started free shipping to Missouri just yet, much less Mumbai.
I craved for an interactive, immersive outlet for my Harry Potter fandom similar to what my Pokemon-obsessed friends had and eventually decided to create one for myself. And thus, replete with units of an undefined “power” and misspelt incantations written in newly learnt cursive script, a set of stamp-sized cards was created from the back of old school notebooks.
Regretfully, while the box of cards I found years later did include a master-list of all the cards in the game, my handwritten note made no mention of any gameplay instructions or what the cards actually do. The collective memories of myself, my sister and cousins who played the game back then haven’t been of much help in recalling any of this either and the game found its own special place in the legion of whimsical projects I never finished.
Cut to seventeen years later.
Armed with some stray Photoshop skills, a seemingly endless collection of outstanding fan-art and wiki pages contributed by a global community of similarly obsessed fans, and access to Pottermore — the tremendous treasure trove of trivia on all things Harry Potter, after many weeks of toil, a couple of months ago I was finally able to give that old whim a corporeal form.
At this stage I have to make a strong disclaimer: this as-yet-unnamed game is not intended for any commercial use whatsoever. I actually enjoy my day job and it could not be more at odds with designing and selling board games. What began as idle commute time musings, evolved into a weekend hobby and eventually exploded into a Captain Ahab-esque obsession that at one point consumed me for 36 hours straight. The ultimate objective behind it all was to allow my friends and myself to spend many afternoons immersed in Rowling’s magical universe, and nothing more.
Coming back to how this board game works…
The goal of the game is straightforward — compete with other players to be the first to finish Harry’s seven year journey, from the doorstep of No.4 Privet Drive to the heart of the Battle of Hogwarts, with each step on the board representing a chapter from the books.
Mirroring the design of the Marauder’s Map, the board itself is made up of seven triangles, each spanning one book, that come together to form a heptagon. American readers will recognise the board illustrations as the official chapter artwork by the incredibly talented Mary GrandPré. (Indian readers were woefully deprived of these visual treats in the versions published here).
Along the way, just as Harry did, but blessed with much more foresight, to complete the game players must collect all seven Horcruxes by making their way to the corresponding steps scattered across the board, and destroy the Horcruxes by earning and trading for specific Horcrux Demolishers.
Finally, to make their way across the board players are equipped with a set of 112 unique action cards of 7 categories or “classes”: [Harry’s] Spellbook (a collection of the charms and jinxes that Harry learns at Hogwarts), Friends and Foes (a motley crew of characters who aid or assail Harry along the way), Trolley of Treats (a delectable collection of edibles from Harry’s universe), Fantastic Beasts (a herd of the magical creatures Harry encounters in his many exploits), Haunts (a cluster of the enchanted places Harry visits over the years), Potente Potions (a set of all the mysterious draughts Harry learns to brew) and Charmed Objects (a mostly-Muggle-origin assortment of the various magical items Harry uses in his adventures).
A long overdue shout-out at this point: limited as I am by my own sub-par illustration skills, I will be eternally grateful to a whole host of illustrators without whom it would have been impossible to create a collection of 112 unique action cards. Because of them, my task was limited to scouring the internet for relevant images and editing them to better suit the theme of the corresponding card.
A majority of the illustrations for the cards originated from the exceptionally talented artists at Pottermore, while a handful of them are works of fan-art that have been so widely shared that it has proven hard to trace them to the original source. (Nevertheless, listed at the bottom of this post are a few of these artists!)
Players must follow the gameplay instructions written on each card to either attack another player, defend themselves from unceremonious attacks or merely progress across the board. Because the ultimate motive of this game is to relive the Harry Potter experience, each card also contains a relevant excerpt from the books at the bottom.
(A special feature of the gameplay that has never been successfully used by anyone who has played the game so far, including me, allows players to play all their cards in the same turn, as opposed to one in each turn, in case they happen to be standing on the same step (i.e. chapter) from which any one of the card excerpts they hold is derived. This of course, requires the player to trace every single card excerpt to the right chapter / chapter art — a challenge reserved only for the most zealous of fans.)
Today, the game is still a work in progress. With each new group of people I play with, or get into heated gameplay enhancing discussions with, I’m consumed by new ideas and suggestions that could make the experience more immersive and fun. Incorporating the Deathly Hallows, for instance, or some brilliant suggestions from friends for additional cards.
Couldn’t wait to share this first version though. Seemed fitting to post about this on the anniversary of the day I spent many childhood years wishing I could go on a Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters!
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Some of the fan-artists behind the card illustrations:
- The Avada Kedavra card: Titled “Voldemort” — created by KarimT. Check out more of his work here (especially if you’re a fan of the Marvel and DC universes!)
- The Severus Snape Card: Titled “Remembrance” — created by Felix Avenier. The artwork speaks for itself.
- The Droobles Best-Blowing Gum Card: Created by OPelaez, a gifted comic book artist and illustrator.
