The Loremaster: Tezzeret

Tezzeret was born in Tidehollow, on Esper, one of the shards of Alara. Unlike most planeswalkers, Tezzeret has no surname. In fact, he didn't even have a name until, as a boy, he stabbed a bully with a shiv - tezzeret being the local slang for an improvised weapon. Tezzeret is a highly-intelligent gifted artificer. However, he has a rather explosive temper, and when he loses it, people tend to end up dead.

When he was seven years old, his mother was killed, run over by a guildmaster's carriage. That was when Tezzeret decided that he would do anything he could to become a powerful mage, so no one could ever take something from him again. To that end he began stealing small amounts of the rare, expensive and highly-in-demand magical alloy etherium, a metal that only a group called the Seekers of Carmot knew the secret to making. He was helped in this endeavor by discovering he had a natural talent for rhabdomancy, the magical ability to locate metal. With the money he earned from this, he joined the Machinist Guild, and at the age of 19, amputated his right arm, replacing it with an artificial limb made of etherium filigree. The guild immediately elevated Tezzeret to master status.

Using his newfound status, Tezzeret joined the Vectis City Academy, and applied for entry into the Seekers. In order to gain entry, he had to best Silas Renn in a dual, which he was unable to do. The Seekers denied him entry. Tezzeret worked hard to get a second chance, but kept being passed over. Finally, he had enough and broke into the Seeker's vault to steal the Codex Etherium...only to find that the pages were blank. The Seekers didn't know how to make etherium. No one did.

Unfortunately, this time Tezzeret got caught. When the Seekers tried to kill him to cover up their lies, his spark ignited, and he planeswalked to the shard of Grixis. There he met Nicol Bolas - who offered him power if he would work for Bolas.

For some unknown reason, Nicol Bolas appears to actually care about Tezzeret. Most of his minions find themselves discarded and killed if they fail him, rebel against him, or just outlive their usefulness. But Bolas has spent great effort and considerable rescources to bring Tezzeret back in line when he strays (which has happened multiple times).

Tezzeret, for his part, deeply resents Nicol Bolas for his role in creating the Seekers, as he spent much of his life working to become one, only to find that their teachings were all lies. But, Nicol Bolas did promise him power, and has delivered on that promise.

Tezzeret was placed in charge of one of Bolas' organisations, the Inifinite Consortium, which exploited the power vacuum on Ravnica in the aftermath of the original Ravnica storyline. He repaid Bolas by assassinating everyone who knew the Consortium answered to Bolas, and taking it for himself. It worked, for many years Tezzeret operated with impunity - until Liliana, who was secretly working for Nicol Bolas, manipulated him into starting a war with Jace Beleren. The war ended with Jace erasing Tezzzeret's mind, cutting off his etherium arm, and leaving him in the hands of the nezumi on the plane of Kamigawa.

Bolas managed to retrive Tezzeret and spent months rebuilding his mind and body. He then sent Tezzeret to New Phyrexia to keep an eye on the Phyrexians, and sabotage their leadership structure. At some point after this, he was ordered to relocate to Kaladesh, where he infiltrated the government (known as the Consulate) and was eventually appointed Grand Consul. He used his power to seize control of a powerful artifact Bolas needed - the Planar Bridge - and despite the fact that Jace and the Gatewatch blew it up, Tezzeret escaped with the core, allowing him to rebuild the Bridge, and later, use it to transport another powerful artifact - the Immortal Sun.

Both artifacts seem to be of great importance to Bolas' decade-spanning plans, though exactly what he plans on doing with them is still unclear. One thing is for sure, when Bolas enacts his endgame, Tezzeret will be right there too.

The Loremaster: Ajani Goldmane

Ajani Goldmane was one of the first five planeswalker cards, printed in Lorwyn. We knew little about him, as the Lorwyn 5 didn't actually show up in the storyline of Lorwyn, but he was interesting in that he was a grizzled and battle-scarred leonin with abilities that didn't really fit that sort of image - mostly he was about healing and protection.

We didn't have to wait very long to get Ajani's origin, however. He was born on Alara, a plane that had long ago been split into five pieces called shards. Ajani was from Naya, a jungle covered shard linked to white, green and red mana. Due to being born an albino with white fur, Ajani was shunned by all the other leonin, aside from his brother Jazal. Not even his royal blood (Jazal was kha, or king, of the leonin) saved him from their derision.

The five shards of Alara were on a collision course with each other. When they collided, Alara would be reunited, but a nexus of powerful energy called 'the Maelstrom' would be formed. The ancient dragon-planeswalker Nicol Bolas was dying of old age, and, believing the nexus could restore him, enacted a plan to empower it. If the inhabitants of the shards went to war with each other, the excess energy of spells that they cast in battle would be gathered by the Maelstrom. there were a few obstacles to his goal - one was that Jazal was a rather moderate leader, unlikely to be drawn into a war. Furthermore, he may have convinced the elves and humans of Naya to remain neutral as well.

So Nicol Bolas had Jazal assassinated. His plan succeeded (Naya did later go to war), but he inadvertently made an enemy of Ajani, whose spark ignited due to the trauma of his brother's death. Planeswalking to another shard - Jund - Ajani met the planeswalker Sarkhan Vol, who explained to Ajani that he was a Planeswalker. Sarkhan (sounding very Sith) encouraged him to take hold of his anger and use it to track down his brother's killer. He also showed Ajani how to planeswalk back to Naya.

Whilst on the trail of Nicol Bolas, he was attacked by another leonin and severely injured. Planeswaking away, he found himself on another shard - Bant - where he was rescued and healed by a third planeswalker, the knight-errant Elspeth Tirel.

Eventually Ajani, with the help of a combined army of elves and leonin, managed to track down and confront Nicol Bolas. Bolas absorbed the Maelstrom Nexus, restoring his youth and much of his power. But he underestimated Ajani, who blindsided the elder dragon by absorbing the remeining energy of the Maelstrom and using it to create a reflection of Bolas that banished the dragon from Alara forever.

At some point after the events of Alara, Ajani joined an unofficial group of planeswalkers that also included Tamiyo, Elspeth and Narset. Dubbed the 'Story Circle' they travelled the multiverse collecting stories.

Elspeth was a rather broken soul, having been tourtured by Phyrexians when she was young (which would make her one of the oldest living planeswalkers). But Ajani felt he owed a debt to Elspeth for healing him. After failing to get her to return to Bant from a self-destructive sojourn on Dominara, he followed her to the plane of Theros. Though he helped her succeed on her quest to defeat the evil planeswalker/god Xenegos, he was unable to prevent her from being killed by the sun god Heliod. But this time Ajani's vengeance took a very different form. Donning Elspeth's iconic cloak, he traveled the length and breadth of Theros, telling all about the bravery of Elsepth, and about the betrayal of her supposed patron Heliod. The gods of Theros derive their power from their worshipers, and Ajani's tales have turned many away from following the sun god.

Eventually Ajani felt the story of Espeth had become widespread enough that it would continue to be told without him, and he left Theros, travelling to Kamigawa to tell Tamiyo of Elspeth's death, and giving us the awesome scene of Tamiyo's little children clambering all over Ajani demanding he tell them stories.

But Ajani had one more task to take care of - Elspeth had told him of the planeswalker Tezzeret's actions on New Phyrexia, so when Tamiyo told him of crimes committed by his followers on Kamigawa, Ajani decided to track down the renegade artificer and bring him to justice. Tracking Tezzeret to the plane of Kaladesh, Ajani fell in with the Gatwewatch - a group of planeswalkers consisting of Gideon, Jace, Liliana, Chandra and Nissa - and helped them defeat the oppressive Kaladeshi Consulate, but not before Tezzeret revealed he was working for Nicol Bolas, and made of with a powerful 'planar bridge', which would allow Bolas to transport objects between different planes.

Although the Gatewatch wished to confront Bolas immediately, Ajani was no fool, and admitted that while he had defeated Bolas in the past, the elder dragon had been caught off guard, and would not be defeated so easily again. Ajani left to find others to help fight the dragon. Meanwhile, the Gatewatch ignored him, and...well...lets say that ended badly for them...