The Balrog of Happiness

Another amusing bit of lint that blew out from under the bedstead of history is this little thing. I have absolutely no memory of creating this, but it's perfectly obvious to me in retrospect what I had in mind. This is a one-card typesetting master control file, with a made-up card that would include pretty much everything that real Magic cards would require, but all in one single card.

A typesetting control file would normally have lots of these in it. It would be a plain "text" file (not Word or anything else exotic or proprietary), and each card in the set would start with +CARD. The next line would be typeset as the title (upper left, Magic Medieval, once in black and then again over the top in light gray, just a teensy weensie up and over from the first one.) Then the casting cost, with each character being replaced with an EPS file containing the appropriate symbol. Line 3 is the card type (middle left). "Red" was the color of the card. I don't recall what purpose that served, although I suspect if it were "White", that's probably what modified what color the drop shadow of the title was. Next was a command to apply the appropriate artist's name at the bottom. \qh was Quinton Hoover, for example. Then there's the power and toughness (this line was blank on non-creature cards), and all remaining lines went into the text box. Things beginning with a backslash were commands. As you might guess, \tap became a tap symbol, and \mana{3} became a gray circle with a 3 in it, just as \mana{U} would become a blue mana symbol.

+CARD Test Balrog 4-281-35 1WBRUG Summon Happiness Red \artist 9/9 \tap: Make everybody be happy. Spend \mana{3} to add dancing and singing to the festivities, and possibly confetti. +ENDCARD

There's letters and numbers in the title, every color of mana in the casting cost, and a tap symbol and mana symbol in the text block. And happiness! What more could one want?