There are artists whose work you admire.

And then there are artists whose illustrations have been quietly living in your subconscious since the 1990s, lurking somewhere between mana burn, badly shuffled decks, and the realization that maybe keeping a one-land hand was not the correct decision after all.

This year, The Plague is proud to welcome Bryon Wackwitz to Drammen.

As one of Magic’s original artists, Bryon helped shape the visual language of the game at a time when nobody quite knew what Magic was going to become — including, presumably, Magic itself. Back then, fantasy illustration was stranger, rougher, and far less concerned with branding guidelines. Which is precisely why we still love it.

Bryon’s work belongs to that era: expressive, atmospheric, and unmistakably human.

In recent years, Bryon’s work has found a natural new home in Sorcery: Contested Realm — a game that shares much of Old School Magic’s fascination with painted fantasy, slower gameplay, and cards that feel more like artifacts than products.

Which, admittedly, made him dangerously compatible with The Plague.

From the beginning, The Plague has drawn visual inspiration from the Norwegian illustrator Theodor Kittelsen and his haunting Black Plague works — melancholic landscapes filled with folklore, silence, decay, and the uncomfortable suspicion that something is slowly approaching across the hill.

In other words: exactly the sort of atmosphere Old School players call “cozy.”

Throughout the weekend, Bryon will be signing cards, meeting players, and participating in the general slow-moving cardboard necromancy that tends to unfold at The Plague.

We are also excited to share that we will have a special commission created for the event — inspired by both Bryon’s work and the shadow of Kittelsen that still lingers over The Plague.

Five years in, The Plague continues to grow — not by becoming louder, but by leaning further into the things we love most: old cards, painted worlds, strange stories, and the people who brought them to life.

We could not imagine a better guest to join us beneath the mountain this year.