Magic Lore: Ulgrotha, a Homeland

In today's article, I'll bring to the table a plane rich in history, which I hope to see soon in a possible return. It is one of the planes touched by Realmbreaker, in which we know that, after the Phyrexia banishment, portals (Omenpaths) have opened up between planes.

Ulgrotha is a plane very similar to Innistrad. With a traditional family of vampires in power, we also have angels and even giants coming from outside the plan and dueling.

Besides that, I'll taunt you, dear reader, with a few ideas. Besides having several similarities with Innistrad, coming back to this plane can explain the unfinished corners of the story, such as an important part of Serra's life. Maybe Elspeth will go there to investigate her mentor a bit more?

And even if we didn't have these reasons, we know 2 plane portals that were in this plane's old history. One connected the Sursi plateau in Dominaria to the Koskun Mountains in Ulgrotha. I say "connected", because we have not heard of it after the several disasters that affected Dominaria, as we know well. The second portal is in the abandoned Dwarf city under Castle Sengir. It is uncertain if it still works, even though we know Ulgrotha's Dwarf population came through it.

Well, if in the introduction alone we went through all that info, get ready, because we have a lot of history to come in new sagas!

In 1995, we were introduced to the game's seventh set, which until 2006 was the second set in the Ice Age block. It was left as something separate from the block, and was replaced by Coldsnap, which became a part of the Ice Age block. So, Homelands, the set in which everything I'll talk to you guys about happens, ended up becoming the second "blockless" set and was a bit left behind, considered a weak spot in the game's history. The cards in this set were heavily criticized for having a considerable lower quality than the ones released before, and because they didn't introduce any new mechanics. This set brought to us the history of a plane which was booming with life, was rich in mana, and was a bit different from the rest.

A long time ago, there were two great rival groups. One was powerful ancient mages known as the "Ancients", and the other was the Tolgaths, a planewaslker group (here I'll remind you that planeswalkers were more common earlier in history. After the mending, we had many changes made to them).

We don't know much regarding how the battles started or what was the first spark to ignite the war, but what we know is that Tolgaths arrived on the plane and inhabited the Citadel, a fortress that the Ancient ones made sure to watch to guarantee their rivals wouldn't become a danger to the plane. The Ancient ones surrounded them and a great war took over the plane.

Finally, after the war between these two powerful forces began, the plane started to suffer: creatures were summoned to fight for their masters, and magic duels and destruction could be seen everywhere. At a certain point in the war, next to the Greater Sea, one of the Ancient ones was forced to open up a rift to a different plane to drain mana and fuel their spells, which also shows how powerful they were.

The fight carried on until the Ancient ones managed to invade the Citadel. At this moment, a Tolgath mage named Ravi (memorize this name) comes into the story, and observes the siege without being able to do anything for three long days, seeing her friends being killed or captured, observing the fortress' spells and walls being broken. Knowing it would be just a matter of time until it all ended, Ravi goes to a Basaltic Spire close by, takes a pendant (Apocalypse Chime) from her neck and lightly rings it.

Right after going down the stairs under the spire to access a cave, she entered a sarcophagus, closed the door and sealed herself inside.

Right away, the effects that came to be were comparable to the Sylex Blast in Dominaria, because the artifact caused a chain magic reaction affecting the entire plane. The artifact's sound, attuned to the plane's mana patterns, disrupted all mana and Leyline channels.

Any creature that needed mana to survive died, and all mages which couldn't escape were burnt by a colorless fire. The land died throughout most of the plane, life dried out, and most creatures summoned to fight the previous battles disappeared, being absorbed by the very soil they were standing on. Where before was a rich land which produced mana, now drained mana and all life that stood on it. Even flying creatures at one point had to land...

Ravi, sealed inside the sarcophagus, reflected on what she had just done. Her old master had given her the artifact, asking her to use it whenever there wasn't anything left to be done, which means, in a last case scenario situation. However, he didn't consider that not only their enemies would be slain, but also the plane's entire living ecosystem. Ravi was a nature-based wizard, so, even inside the sealed space, she could feel the earth's strength fading away, and a solitary feeling began to fill her. Her ties to the earth were stripped away, which drove her close to madness.

But the worst was yet to come:

After a week in stasis, the sarcophagus was supposed to open, providing her an exit. But her old master didn't teach her how to open the sarcophagus. Stuck, Ravi was awake, incapable of dreaming, aware of each second that went by throughout the future years she would be stuck inside. Without her ties to the earth and unable to gather enough power to open the lock, her spirit was quickly broken and claustrophobia set in. Madness doesn't even begin to describe her mental state.

The only spot in Ulgrotha that resisted, untouched by the entire devastation, was where that old Ancient lord opened up a rift to another plane. The life surrounding the rift still seemed to bloom. Meanwhile, most humans on the plane migrated to the plateaus in the north, and goblins and other humanoids such as orcs found homes in the southern mountains. Minotaurs which were already living isolated from everyone else at the vales kept on living their lives the same as before and were largely unaffected.

Swamps were already uninhabited and most small sea creatures throughout the coasts were destroyed by the impact of the blast. What little forest was left still had native creatures and monsters. Most of the plane became desolated, and the weather changed. Where trees died and withered, a low grass and resistant shrubbery survived, just like smaller lizards, insects and smaller creatures, but where the rift poured mana from the depths of the soil seemed an oasis with prosperity and vitality among the destruction.

Just a few decades later, no evidence of the battle could be seen, no tracks, no citadel tower; there were only legends and myths.

Several generations went by and the plan briefly recovered. One day, a colony of dwarves from another plane ends up going through an underground portal to Ulgrotha searching for precious minerals and stones, by digging their way in. They came out right below the Mountains, where they settled and built a Dwarf city, called "New Freedom". The Dwarves dug until they reached the surface, and started to build a big stone castle called Morning Light, with a view to the salt marshes.

Besides that, they built sailing ships to explore the world they had found, leaving behind the rest of their kin to finish the work on the castle while they got to know this new place a bit more.

After a duel between planeswalkers in the swamps near the unfinished castle happened, an old Vampire Lord called Baron Sengir was left stranded on the plane. Weak, he needed two things: Fresh blood and a safe place to escape to.

When the Dwarves returned from their expedition, they discovered all of their kin had been killed or transformed into Zombies by the Baron. Though they knew many ways of entering their own castle, the Baron turned out to be too strong for them.

In one of his attacks to the Dwarf mine, the Baron captured the Dwarf King's daughter, Irini Sengir, transforming her into a vampire. She was only called Irini before, only becoming a type of adoptive daughter to the baron, and getting the name Sengir after transforming. After this, the Dwarves accepted they would never be able to regain the castle, which was now called Castle Sengir, and left it to the Baron.

The Dwarves, defeated and demoralized, set out to find another home on this plane. The survivors swore a life oath of vengeance and strike the knowledge of the planar gate from their history. Right afterward, the Baron discovered where Ravi was still stuck, mad from years in prison. He freed her from the coffin and brought her with him, renaming her as Grandmother Sengir.

Yes, that is a bit odd, considering the Baron should have the same age or even be older than his "grandma" - but this is the story, and by reading a few flavor texts, it even makes sense, such as, for instance, this sentence from Grandma from the card Apocalypse Chime:

Almost at the same time Baron arrives at this point in the story, Serra lands on Ulgrotha. At this time, she was a nomad after her artificial plane, created by her, was invaded by Phyrexians. For those who don't know this particular piece of history, I'll add an important note here:

During the Phyrexian invasion to Dominaria, Urzan escapes to Serra's sanctuary quite wounded, with the goal of using their healing powers to recover, as the plane was made exclusively of white mana. However, without thinking of the consequences, as he tended to do, right after his departure from the plane, it was invaded by Phyrexian forces commanded by Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, which had followed his trail. The plane managed to defend itself, but was completely corrupted and millions of its inhabitants were dead or corrupted by the oil. Unable to witness what the plane had become thanks to Black mana, Serra leaves it commanded by Radiant, Serra Archangel and goes wandering across the planes.

Although temperamental and impulsive, she encouraged peace between the various plains nomads and the foundation of the state of Aysen, taking on the mantle of protector of its people, eventually being described as a goddess.

Feroz was a kind and gentle adventurer, more focused on white, green and blue mana, owner of a special ability which allowed him to understand and learn the languages of all the creatures he met.

During his trips, Feroz acquired powerful artifacts which protected him from enemies. With the help of spells, he was able to revert his aging. That allowed him to explore, for many, many years, the infinite planes and the wonders of the multiverse. This experience resulted in him becoming very wise and understanding, at a level only a few planeswalkers have managed to reach even today. He could see how the multiverse was connected at all levels instead of just seeing it as most did.

After going through so many planes, Feroz started to rethink the practice of summoning creatures to win, because he saw many cultures being decimated because of this practice.

Landing on the Koskun Mountains in Ulgrotha, close to the Rift (the area of the plane with a link to another plane, opened up by the Ancient wizard described at the beginning of the article), he was soon impressed by the ritual tattoos on a particular Minotaur, because they closely resembled the five mana colors connection. That proved to be more than just a coincidence, as Feroz was able to identify the spark of the planeswalker embryonic capability inside that Minotaur.

Feroz then decided to settle with the Minotaurs until he could teach the future planeswalker and was planning to leave only when the Minotaur could protect his clan and homeland from other planeswalkers. This Minotaur was called Sandruu, and, in just a few years, Feroz felt ready to explore the plane with him.

In one of their journeys, attracted by the weird abundance of life in Onella city, on the northern plateaus, Feroz sensed the presence of another planeswalker when he entered the town. As they were getting ready for a possible duel, they were relieved to realize this other traveler was Serra, someone who shared their beliefs and views. Among them, they both believed in not exploring other creatures, but, unlike Feroz, which was a much wiser and older man, Serra was a young stubborn woman which had settled on that plane before he ever came there.

What impressed Feroz were Serra's guardians. They were angels which didn't look like living beings, but rather pure white mana reincarnations inhabited by war spirits. Soon Feroz' admiration for Serra became love, and their relationship flourished.

It didn't take long for Ferroz to ask for Serra's hand in marriage at the peak of the Koskun Mountains, where he had first entered this plane. With his residence established, a wife by his side and Sandruu's training advanced, he set him free to explore the multiverse on his own, and stayed back to take care of the world he was starting to enjoy and call home.

Sandruu went looking for the expertise of many planeswalkers, but his confident nature took him further and further each time. In one of his journeys, he fell in love with a planeswalker called Kristina, who taught him a lot about life and magic. But at this time he crossed not only Kristina's path, but also Taysir's, a mage based on all magic colors which was also in love with Kristina.

Taysir is a supreme wizard, described in other previous stories. Some think that his great power also brought him madness, which even made him start to refer to himself in the third person. Sandruu ended up caught off guard by Taysir's ferocity and cunning, but managed to escape back to the safety of his native plane. Or that was what he thought. While panicking, when returning, he ended up making a mistake and fell close to the caverns, away from his tribe. Taysir, as he was more powerful, not only managed to follow him, but got to Sandruu's tribe before him and set up another trap, imprisoning Sandruu in a distant plane as soon as this Minotaur was able to get to his people.

Feroz felt Sandruu's agony, but when he arrived, he could only witness the Minotaur's destiny, and wasn't able to do anything. Confronting Taysir, enraged with his friend and protégé's exile, Feroz faced him in battle. But Taysir cowardly manipulated the Minotaurs and forced them to fight for him. Feroz tried to finish the battle without hurting his friends, but that only forced Tayasir to create a great landslide, resulting in the destruction of the ancient caverns, erasing centuries of tales and history.

Out of the wreckage, Feroz managed to get a long sword from a Minotaur who had fallen down and, with a single quick blow, broke Taysir's skull in half, greatly burrowing himself in sorrow, as this was the first time he had to take a life and that really disturbed him.

Even unknown by the tribe and mortally wounded, Taysir didn't die completely. His soul was taken by the Anaba's (the Minotaur people) ancient gods, and they kept him for decades, temporarily stripping his planeswalker abilities from him and showing him the mistakes he made in his life. Only when he was redeemed, they'd return Taysir to his body. His flesh shell now lay on the graveyard pile at the depths of the caverns.

A short while afterward, Feroz and Serra get married at a ceremony with the Anaba people and get their own wedding tattoos, besides exchanging rings to seal their matrimony. Feroz founds the Wizards' School to teach magic to the people, and Aysen Abbey is built in Onella city, to honor Serra.

Both, then, started dedicating their time to researching the plane even more and found out that most of the plane had already been ruined by a great calamity centuries before, which drained a part of its life, transforming it into a dead zone. Travelling through these deserted and dangerous lands meant death, for sure. They knew something terrible had happened, transforming the land.

With time, they learned there was only life in one part of the plane, which was where they were; a place close to the ocean, with extensive forests, high mountains and plateaus which went from the sea to the brink of the desolated desert. To say there were great constructions was a stretch; the only construction they could see was a stone castle, built by the Dwarves. Feroz tried exploring the castle, but a bad feeling took hold of him, preventing him from going forward. He felt there was something ancient and evil inside, and, even though he was curious, he didn't want to risk his life and go see what it was.

After a few months of researching, Serra and Feroz managed to get a few answers to their mystery, aside from the haunted castle, about the powerful strength coming from another plane which nourished this rich part of the plane. Now that they had explored a far bit, they settled down in a house on an island far from the coast and then started to build a paradise over there. With magic, Serra infused the small island with mana originated from the distant continent, making it a beautiful island. There, the land would no longer drain life.

Also using his magic, Feroz brought over great blocks of granite and marble from the mountains of distant places and used them to build a great villa facing the sea. Throughout two years, they build their home. Serra traveled through many planes and collected various creatures which could live there and repopulate that beautiful isolated place. When she returned with the creatures, the home she and Feroz had started to build had risen on great vertical columns, shallow water pools and a garden he had grown, adding his magic to her own.

At the island's main tower, with a view to the biggest water pool, Serra and Feroz started to work on the only mana flow available coming from the huge portal.

The memory of what Taysir had done still troubled them. So, confident that this shouldn't happen again, after a lot of effort, during a night the mana flow was stronger, a solstice, Feroz cast a powerful spell known as Feroz's Ban, which isolated the whole plane from everything else.

This great spell prevented other planeswalkers from entering the plane to steal or harm other creatures there. Unreachable through Scrying or any other detection tools, their whole world was wrapped around the rest of the multiverse like a ship in a glass bottle. For those who already knew the plane, it was very odd, as it was as if the plane had disappeared. For its inhabitants and a great portion of the plane which had lost almost all of its vital strength, the change went by unnoticed.

Ten generations passed as Feroz and Serra kept on working hard to keep their illusions, keep themselves young and strengthen the Ban spell. It was during one night, however, at a summer storm, when Feroz suddenly had a fatal accident in his lab. An elemental he was studying got free and dealt him great blows. Feroz didn't seem to wish death, but also didn't fight against it. On his deathbed, he asked Serra to leave the plane and never tell anyone what they did. Before she could reach him with her healing magic, he was gone. Maybe he lived for too long? Or maybe he found out something that made him give up on everything? It didn't matter, as he was already gone.

His loss made Serra very angry, and she was soon seen in Onella city, Aysen capital, wandering through the streets, disguised. While she watched the people, she witnessed an accident about to happen and tried to use her powers to change what was going to happen so that a man wouldn't get seriously wounded. But as fate has its peculiarities, the man died, and, like a switch, she realized why Feroz had asked her to leave Ulgrotha and leave its inhabitants to their own fates. For years, Feroz guided Serra's actions. Without him as her partner, a lot of the responsibilities she had taken on lightly now had a much more serious character.

Serra buried Feroz in an unmarked grave close to the spot where he had first entered the plane and where he had asked her to marry him, at the peak of the Koskun Mountains. She also rose a huge stone wall and inscribed the history of that world on it. If any planeswalker entered the plane, they'd have to go through there, so, they'd read Feroz' life story on the wall.

But Serra's decision wasn't something completely voluntary, out of her own free will. Serra was manipulated by the Baron to leave the plane, after he got stronger and incited more sadness and guilt than she would normally feel. After all, he needed more freedom to increase his influence on the plane.

When all was finished, she opened up a one-way portal for just a moment and crossed over to the outer-world. When the portal closed behind her, she fell to her knees and cried.

Less than a month later, a planeswalker who wanted her wedding ring, as he believed it was magical in nature, challenged her to a duel for the artifact. Stuck in a world which she now hated, unable to return to her paradise or the arms of her beloved husband, she accepted the duel and fought against the wizard for two days. Finally, when the enemy wizard cast a final series of spells, she disenchanted her protection circles and allowed herself and her wedding ring to be hit by lightning bolts and fire. One of the spectators, a young priest named Angus, couldn't bear to see the other wizard explode Serra while she was laying down, unarmed. With a strong strike of his staff, he knocked out the wizard and watched as the man dissolved into a puff of smoke.

Angus then carried Serra back to his home and tried to heal her the best he could, but she had been mortally wounded by her opponent. On her last two days alive, in secret, she told the Priest the story of her life, the years she spent with Feroz, and Feroz's dreams.

When she finally died due to her wounds, he buried her in an unmarked grave in the hills with a view to Sursi, in Dominaria. When the cathedral he had spent fifty years building and watching over was finally ready, dedicated to his 70th birthday, he dedicated it to Serra: Cathedral of Serra.

Feroz has been gone for 20 years, and Serra was killed in a wizard duel. The Ban Feroz created was still intact, but it was built without the knowledge of the Dwarven City Portal at the depths of Castle Sengir. With time, the mere presence of the portal undid the ban, and now, without its creators to tune it and strengthen it, the Ban is starting to come off. This world once again starts opening up its doors to outsiders and planeswalkers can feel this world's pulse gathering around Dominaria once again.

Ulgrotha's countries have started to battle each other. Sengir, the Baron, used this to spread fear and increase its influence over the plane. With the death of Feroz, the ban started to fail and planeswalkers were once again capable of reaching Ulgrotha.

Among the familiar planeswalkers who visited the plane after that, we have Leshrac and Nicol Bolas, which went through this plane during the fight for the closing of temporal rifts. Both faced each other in an epic battle through 4 planes and Ulgrotha was one of them.

During its brief stay in the plane, Leshrac saw an army of vampires marching through the night under the reluctant command of Ihsan's Shade, Baron Sengir's lieutenant, which probably points to this vampire lord finally conquering Ulgrotha. Leshrac felt the existence of a vibrant forest and short and robust mountains, however the dominant mana in that land was Black. Curiously, the plane was described as without oceans or rivers. If that means Ulgrotha's state has gotten worse with the fall of Feroz's Ban, or if it's just a mistake from the author, we don't know yet.

We've come to the end of our story, but, of course, this isn't the end for this plane. We know that, after this last chapter, we returned to it briefly with the Phyrexian invasion, but we didn't get much information on it, so there's not that much to say, besides figuring out if Grandma Segir is still around (and if she's still young). Besides that, vampires have shown to be a very active and strong force, so much so that they defended the plane against Phyrexians. Will we see a union between the vampire lords in Innistrad and Ulgrotha?

P.S.: The images you saw here (except for Taysir's) were all made by the incredible illustrator Rebecca Guay, when she worked on the comic novel which brought part of this story, called "Homelands On the World of Magic: The Gathering". I just cleaned out the speech bubbles.

I hope you enjoyed this story! See you next time!