With the launch of the Disney Lorcana companion app earlier this week, The First Chapter’s full list of 204 cards has finally been revealed. Players and collectors can now examine the entire roster, practice constructing decks, and build their wish list of most wanted cards ahead of the game’s September 1 launch (August 18 for local game stores in the US). Soon, the game will be in our hands, and we’ll all take our first steps into the magical realm of Lorcana, follow the call of the Great Illuminary, and become ink-wielding Illumineers. If that sounds like gibberish to you, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s everything you need to know about the story of Disney Lorcana.
Let’s start at the beginning. Lorcana is set in a world where people called Illumineers use magic ink to summon Glimmers, sentient snapshots of Disney characters. The realm of Lorcana is made up of vast regions called the Inklands, and at the center of it sits the Great Illuminary, a repository of every story ever told. The Great Illuminary’s purpose is to keep track of stories, which are kept safe in the Halls of Lorcana to prevent them from ever being forgotten. When the Illumineers mysteriously disappear one day, the Great Illuminary calls out to us. Those who accept the call become Illumineers themselves and learn how to wield the magical ink.
The process of creating Glimmers is detailed on Lorcana’s website. Upon first arriving at the Great Illuminary, the newly-called Illumineer ventures into the atrium where they find a giant mechanism towering over an open book. Above the mechanism is a stream of story stars that flow into it, each one containing fragments of beloved Disney stories. Nearby is a tool called an inkcaster, and when the Illumineer picks it up, magical ink flows through the mechanism, combines with the light from a story star, and pours onto a page of the book, creating a Disney character. The inkcaster then lifts the image off of the page, giving them form to create a glimmer.
There are three types of glimmers that can be summoned. Storyborn glimmers look identical to their Disney movie-counterparts; they are snapshots of the characters recreated directly from the films and shorts they originate from. Dreamborn glimmers are born from the imagination of the Illumineers. They resemble the characters you’re familiar with, but they’re altered slightly and reimagined in various ways that are unique to Lorcana.
Finally, Floodborn glimmers are created by Lorcana itself in a cataclysmic event. The exact nature of the Floodborn will be revealed in future sets, but their appearance in Lorcana is likely connected to the disappearance of the original Illumineers.
Many other mysteries remain. As Illumineers, it is our job to summon glimmers and send them out on quests to retrieve lore - fragments of a larger story - that have been scattered throughout the Inklands. We know that lore has to be kept safe in the Great Illuminary, but we don’t yet know who or what we’re keeping it safe from. What threats face Lorcana, what happened to the original Illuminaries, and what cataclysmic event birthed the Floodborn are all questions that will hopefully be answered over the course of Disney Lorcana’s initial story arc, which will play out over the first four sets.
Our weeklong Lorcana Week celebration continues for a few more days. Check out everything you’ve missed, including interviews with game designers Ryan Miller and Steve Warner, over in our Lorcana Week hub.