MTG Lore: The Time of Dragons and the Beginning of Time

The ancient events that preceded the planeswalkers and the historic battles that ravaged the multiverse have long since been forgotten or erased by time. This lost era is what we can call the Mythohistory in Magic: The Gathering lore.

Equilor

Equilor is home to a civilization that developed powerful magic, as well as the oldest known plane. Everything we know about this plane was first published in a novel called Planeswalker in 1998. It was part of a series of books and short stories about Magic: The Gathering lore.

Urza and Xantcha first visited this plane accidentally while they were looking for answers regarding the origins of Phyrexia. There, they end up learning a lot about the multiverse. The Equilorians tell Urza that he was only able to find them because they let him, which shows how powerful this civilization was. They also warn him that the vastness of the multiverse is home to forces that are even more dangerous than Phyrexia.

Equilor has existed since the beginning of time, and its people have evolved so much throughout the millennia that they achieved a state of enlightenment that put their society on another level. They're entirely different from the rest of the multiverse.

The Time of Dragons

Around 30,000 years before Urza and Mishra came along, the Elder Dragons spawned from the primordial essence known as Ur-Dragon. It is said that, while flapping its wings, The Ur-Dragon created storms across the multiverse, and it's from these storms that the Elder Dragons were born.

Among the first elder dragons, the most notable ones were undoubtedly Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and his twin brother, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. They both came out from the same egg, unlike their other cousins and siblings.

Over the following centuries, these elder dragons fought against humans in Dominaria and, eventually, among themselves in what became known as The Elder Dragon War. Nicol Bolas and Arcades Sabboth, another dragon, were the main players in this conflict. Ugin was the only dragon that didn't take part in this war. Instead, he decided to travel across the multiverse and hoard knowledge, as he had recently learned how to travel between planes.

Other notorious Elder Dragons from Dominaria are Chromium Ruell, Palladia-Mors, and Vaevictis Asmadi.

Some time later, Ugin returned to Dominaria to show his siblings what he had learned in his travels. Bolas and Sabboth were leading opposite forces in war, and, though Ugin tried to put an end to it by showing what he learned, that only made Bolas envious. Furious, Bolas ended up awakening his spark and disappearing.

Nicol Bolas and Ugin met again centuries later, when they were both planeswalkers already. The twins immediately started battling each other, even though Ugin still tried to reason with Bolas, a futile attempt. Their battle spanned days, years, and maybe even centuries. It only ended when Ugin took his brother to the Meditation Plane. Bolas dealt the final blow in the end.

Ugin's death echoed through the plane, all the way to the Blind Eternities, and threw Bolas far away across the multiverse. Ugin would rise again years later, his spirit reborn in a new body, and now he knew his real purpose: to protect the multiverse from threats like Nicol Bolas.

Bolas eventually lands in Madara, in old Dominaria. Weakened by his battle with Ugin, he ends up facing a powerful Demonic Leviathan. This battle completely destroyed Madara and created the first temporal rift. Bolas devoured what was left of the Leviathan, absorbing its powers. Whatever was left of Madara became known as the Talon Gates of Madara.

Nicol Bolas continued his search for power, and Ugin continued his search for knowledge, always tracking his brother closely.

The End of the Time of Dragons

At the very end of the Time of Dragons, the last Elder Dragon was born in Ravnica: Niv-Mizzet. Very little is known about his early days, though he would become incredibly important for the multiverse as a whole in the future. What we do know is that he defeated and killed all his rivals. He survived as the last dragon in Ravnica.

Ravnica's main planet is covered by a huge metropolis whose architecture is a combination of ruins, great halls, and stone chambers. The city itself is home to magic and metaphysics, science and politics, and it is one of the most densely populated places in the multiverse.

During many, many years, Ravnica was the center stage for constant battles between certain factions, the Guilds of Ravnica, which fought nonstop for power. Niv-Mizzet is the founder and leader of one of these guilds: the Izzet League.

The war nearly destroyed this plane completely, but then Azor I, a powerful Sphinx, drafted a peace treaty between these rivals, an enchantment that would end that entire battle and become the basis for law and order in Ravnica. The ten guilds all signed the treaty, and that's how the Guild Pact came to be. Azor became the first Living Guild Pact.

As leader of the Izzet League, Niv-Mizzet had an incomparable intellect and was deeply respected in Ravnica. Though he wasn't a planeswalker like his siblings, he was, without a question, one of the most powerful Elder Dragons in history. He is also one of the most ancient beings in the multiverse, as he has been alive for 15,000 years.

The Numena

The rest of the Dominaria dragons were defeated by the five Numena, powerful avatar wizards. Each of them represents a mana color. After defeating the dragons, they took over Dominaria and reigned for centuries until they met their end.

Two Numenas ended up killed by the other three in a battle for power. Lowallyin, the blue avatar, reincarnated as Ixidor, a powerful Dominaria Illusionist Wizard. Kuberr, the black avatar, was worshipped as a god by members of the Cabal, a dark organization formed by wizards, clerics, and minions. Averru, the red avatar, reincarnated as the powerful city of Sanctum.

Because of the battle between these powerful beings and the death of two of them, a sixth avatar came along, Karona. This avatar is the amalgamation of all the mana in Dominaria, and the three Numena survivors initially called her Mother.

Karona came along as a primordial essence that would end the Numena, who all got together to defeat her and eventually did so successfully. However, this battle cost them their powers and their own lives. That's how the era of the Numena ended.

The stories that follow the Time of Dragons are still a critical part of Magic: The Gathering's Mythohistory, but they are complex. To do them justice, we'll need to explore them in more detail, so we'll do that in future articles. The stories about Ugin and Bolas, the Thran Empire, and the Time of Legends include important details and facts that were shown through the history of the game and make Magic: The Gathering lore so vast and fascinating.

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