Magic: the Gathering

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The Story of Nahiri, from Salvation to Vengeance

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Nahiri is back in Zendikar Rising and now it's time to know her story.

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When Nahiri lit her planeswalker spark she wandered through the blind eternities and was found by Sorin Markov, they forged an unlikely bound. The vampire and the kor lithomancer were like father and daughter, and he teached her about the Multiverse and showed many new existence planes. Together, they dsicovered the Eldrazi and witnessed the destruction caused by Ulamog on a long forgotten plane. They met Ugin, the Spirit Dragon some time later and the three Planeswalker created a plane which linked the Eldrazi in Zendikar for millenia.

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The three decided to stop the Eldrazi, inducing the creatures to manifest in their physical form and then binding them to a plane, sacrificing that plane for the sake of the Multiverse. They looked for a plane with diverse ecosystems and abundant mana, a powerful attractive to the unsatiable hunger of the Eldrazi. Wanting to start their work immediately, the three chose Zendikar, Nahiri's homeland. At first, she feared for her world, but she knew she could count on the two other planeswalker for any incident that could happen. Sorin Markov attracted the Eldrazi to Zendikar, directing their hunger to the unique mana of that place, while Ugin used his invisible breath to fight the Eldrazi and their uncolored magic and, in this way, tie them to the plane. Nahiri built a massive network of stone hedrons, which formed the grates of a prison, forbidding the Eldrazi to leave. Ugin organized the hedrons to direct the energy lines around the stones, making them almost impossible to be moved.

The planeswalkers focused their power in a imprisoning spell in a secret place on the Akoum mountains, a subterranean chamber called the Eye of Ugin. To make sure the prison wouldn't be broken, the three planeswalker sealed the chamber with a mystical key: The Eye of Ugin could only be reactivated in the presence of the three planeswalker sparks and by the invisible and uncolored fire of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

The trap of the planeswalkers worked. Emrakul, Ulamog and Kozilek manifested in their physical form on Zendikar and were confined by the hedrons network magic and, thanks to the magic of the imprisioning spell, they fell asleep on Zendikar. With their mission successful, the three went separate ways, but Sorin and Ugin told Nahiri that they would return whenever she needed.

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Nahiri had a pleasant life among her people for a long period. The wild mana of Zendikar attracted other beings to the plane and Nahiri took the burden of protecting Zendikar from those who would cause damage to her world and, more importantly, damage the hedrons. The most known enemy was the interplanar conqueror Ob Nixilis, but before he could cause too much trouble, Nahiri intervened and connected her power to an hedron, removing the powers and the spark of the demon and imprisioning him on that world.

Some time later, Nahiri started teaching some young Kor how to keep the hedrons aligned and that was how things went for centuries, until she became tired of living that life and retired to a meditative sleep.

Centuries passed and her teachings about the Eldrazi became distorted; Talib (Kozilek), Kamsa (Emrakul) and Mangeni (Ulamog) became gods worshipped by the Kor. Nahiri was revered as "Talib's Prophet", which teached the Kor the arts of lithomancy. When the vampires built a sanctuary on the nexus of the hedrons network, the Eldrazi's prison became unstable and their bloodlines spread through the plane once again. Nahiri woke up and realized something was terribly wrong. She asked for Sorin's and Ugin's help, but they didn't answer, as Ugin was already dead and Sorin ignored her calling. Alone, she managed to restore the prison by herself. Confused about why Sorin didn't answer her, she decided to go after him to discover what happened.

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When Nahiri arrived at Innistrad, Sorin explained that her call for help was probably absorved by the Helvault. The way the vampire spoke to her made him sound like he didn't care about her world, neither with his promisses. Nahiri blamed Sorin for everything that happened and for what could happen to Zendikar. Offended, Sorin angrily remembered her about who raised her as a planeswalker and advised her to look for Ugin, as he had his own world to take care of. Nahiri saw that as a treason to their past bond and attacked Sorin. On that moment, Avacyn intervene, as she felt the thread that Nahiri represented to Innistrad and decided that she needed to be destroyed. The two fought each other, until Sorin stepped in and banished Nahiri to inside the Helvault.

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During her long permanence in the Helvault, Nahiri finaly met Avacyn after the archangel sealed herself in the artifact to contain a demon as powerful as her. Her vengeance would begin there. 6000 years after they were imprisioned, the Eldrazi became free, thanks to the action of three planeswalkers, Jace, Sarkhan Vol and Chandra, which on that time acquired Ugin's invisible fire, also thanks to the schemes of Nicol Bolas, which for some reason wanted the titans to be freed. This time, Sorin intervened and tried to find Ugin to help him rebuild the hedrons network, as only the three of them could imprision the Eldrazi once again. He found the Spirit Dragon on Tarkir and was instructed to bring Nahiri, but Sorin was incapable of freeing Nahiri without destroying the Helvault.

When Liliana Vess destroyed the Helvault in her search for Griselbrand, Nahiri fled back to Zendikar only to find the Eldrazi free, consuming her homeland, the continents destroyed and neither Sorin or Ugin were there to fight alongside her. Filled with rage, she swore vengeance against Sorin, promising to make Innistrad bleed in the same way that Zendikar suffered. She went back to Sorin's homeplane and attacked the Markov Mansion, destroying it with her lithomancy and imprisioning the vampires in a state of eternal agony inside its walls. While she acted on Innistrad, the people started to follow and adore her like a savior, some ironically believing that she was an ancestral vampire. She built cryptoliths on Innistrad, using them to channel the plane's leylines to attract Emrakul to that world and devastate Innistrad like the Eldrazi did with Zendikar. As the main hub for the invocation of the Eldrazi titan, Nahiri built the Drownyard Temple with the help of Gisa's ghouls. On that moment, Avacyn, under the influence of Nahiri's cryptoliths, saw that she considered her enemies as monsters. The vampires manifested themselves as bloodleech creatures, smelling blood, and even her own creator looked like a monster to her. Sorin was forced to destroy her, even though she was the plane's last line of defense against Emrakul, the Promised End. The Eldrazi titan entered Innistrad and started to corrupt the world and its citizens, killing thousands. It would be the end of the plane, as it was the end of Zendikar. Sorin called Olivia Voldaren to invoke her vampire army and attack Nahiri. Nahiri waited for them on the ruins of the Markov Mansion with her own army of cultist and Eldrazi abominations. On the final conflict, Nahiri was gravely wounded, but she managed to seal Sorin in stone, like he did with her in the past. After this victory, she left Innistrad - she lost her world, but Sorin also lost his. What Nahiri didn't know was that both Zendikar and Innistrad would be saved by a group of planeswalkers.

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Some time later, during the War of the Spark, Nahiri was attracted to Ravnica by the Interplanar Beacon and couldn't leave due to Bolas using the Immortal Sun. During the invasion, the imprisioned planeswalkers, including Nahiri, met the ravnican leaders to create a plan to fight the Dragon.

What she didn't know was that Sorin also came to Ravnica and he came after her furiously, as not even a threat to the whole of the Multiverse could make them leave aside their vengeance battle. Ignoring the war that surrounded them, the two planeswalker fought between themselves in a Single Combat.

However, later, after realizing the seriousness of the situation around them, they decided for a temporary truce, uniting their strenght against the Eternals of Bolas' Dreadhorde. They were between the few planeswalkers who decided to remain in Ravnica after Chandra deactivated the Immortal Sun, assisting in the final battle against Bolas.

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We don't know what happened between Sorin and Nahiri after this, although it was confirmed that both survived and that they still have a lot to talk about. In addition, Nahiri is coming back on Zendikar Rising. What is going to be her reaction when she finds out that her world is safe and what she will feel about what she did to Innistrad? We will know soon.