The Loremaster: Garruk Wildspeaker and the Holy Grail

SPOILERS.

Seriously, if you want to read The Wildered Quest without having anything spoiled, go buy it and read it first. It's only like, R75 for the e-book. I'll wait here.

Ok, so, what the hell was up with the magical cauldron that mysteriously appeared to save Will and Garruk from downing, cured Garruk of his curse, and then vanished without a trace?

Eldraine is in great part based on the legends of Camelot, and the cauldron is Eldraine's version of the Holy Grail. The writer could have set it up better, cause it seemed to mostly come out of nowhere, aside from a couple of previous offhand mentions of it having gone missing and that knight sometimes quest to find it. They could have made it a chalice instead of a cauldron, so the connection was a bit more obvious. So why did they turn the grail, which is usually some form of a goblet or chalice, into a cauldron, and why is it black rather than white? There is a good reason for it, and it lies in the origins of the grail stories.

It would be understandable to think that the stories of the grail started in the Middle East, made their way west to England alongside Christianity, and were subsequently incorporated into the legends of King Arthur. But that's not what happened.

The French writer Chrétien de Troyes (often considered the first novelist) seemingly invented the Holy Grail, and the knightly quest to find it, for his romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal. But while he was the first to use that name, he actually seems to have drawn on old Celtic legends about the inhuman Tuatha de Danann – who are basically high-fantasy style elves. The king of the Tuatha owned a magical cauldron that could restore the dead to life (which could be considered a form of necromancy, which is within the black part of the colour pie - though which can do it too). When Christianity came to England, many old stories and traditions were altered to fit within the new anti-pagan rules imposed by the emerging Christian clergy. Thus, the ancient inhuman king with powerful warriors became the Christian King Arthur and his noble knights, the magical cauldron became a chalice powered by the blood of Jesus, and the ancient wizard Merlin became...ok, for some reason Merlin survived mostly intact.

So, the cauldron is the grail. Attention is not drawn to it in the novel, but it is Will's selfless act to try and save Garruk from drowning that causes the Grail to appear to him. (Proving him to have a 'pure heart' or whatever you want to call it. ) If it hadn't appeared, he and Garruk would most likely have drowned. But whyis it necessary to invoke such a powerful artifact to cure Garruk? Why has nothing been able to fix him until now?

Garruk's curse stems from a story called The Hunter and the Veil that came out when I first started playing Magic. In the story Garruk realises that the necromancer Liliana Vess is trying to obtain an artifact called the Chain Veil, a powerful magical artifact from the plane of Shandalar. The Veil houses the souls of an entire race of incredibly evil ogre wizards called the Onnake, who were thankfully destroyed many years ago. They have never told us what sort of stuff the Onnake did that makes them so incredibly evil, but the story assures us that, yes, they are indeed incredibly evil, and it's a good thing they are all dead, otherwise they would be doing incredibly evil things of an unspecified nature.

Garruk intercepts Liliana on what he thinks is her way to the Onakke Catacombs where the veil is hidden, but unfortunately, it turns out that she is actually leaving the catacombs, having already obtained it. Garruk is more powerful than her, and almost defeats her, until she desperately draws on the Veil's power to unleash a corruptive curse on him. She escapes as the curse begins to drive Garruk slowly insane, whilst black mana spreads slowly and painfully through his veins.

Later it was revealed that this is not the first time the Veil's curse has been used on a planeswalker – Ob Nixilis was originally a human who tried to use the power of the Veil but was instead cursed by it. As Nixilis proceeded to then turn into a demon, it has been assumed that Garruk's curse is also slowly transforming him into one.

So far the curse has been treated as pretty much unstoppable. We don't know much about it aside from it's effects on Nixilis and Garruk. Nahiri's lithomancy was able to suppress it in Nixilis (leading Jace to embed a hedron in Garruk to similar effect), but not cure it. Not even the immensely powerful Avacyn, who was able to cure madness, heal mortal wounds and cure many of the dual-nature werewolves by merging their savage and human halves together into the wolfir, was able to heal him. Unfortunately, we don't have a full explanation of why it has been so stubbornly hard to cure, which is why it would have been nice to have more of an explanation of where the Cauldron came from, and what it's exact nature and powers are. All we know is that it was originally looked after by Lochthwain, the black court, but vanished, and though many knights undertake a quest to find it, none have succeeded...or ever returned.

At any rate, there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the Chain Veil and it's powers. Now that Bolas is dealt with, and Garruk is back to not-turning-into-a-crazed-demon, perhaps we can finally get some answers to those questions.

The Loremaster: The Nightwalker

You may have noticed I've said a lot about Leshrac lately. The reason is, I had made a custom commanderwalker card of him to hand out at the ICON by the Sea Commander game, as a sort of promotional come-play-Commander-at-the-Unseen-Shoppe sort of thing. He is obviously, not a real card (it says so), has no actual value, and can only be played at the casual Commander games I host at the Unseen Shoppe.

Sadly, the printed Leshrac cards were not as good quality as I was hoping due to various circumstances. But hey, there's always next year.

Why Leshrac though? I wanted a planeswalker I could link to the Unseen Shop that made sense. Leshrac is the Nightwalker, the background unseen force behind Lim-Dûl's rise to power and has links to a sort of dimension called the Nether Void, which has associations with the shadow mechanic. I patterned him after Freyalise and company and tried to give him abilities that both worked well in commander and made sense based on his character. Thus, he will give everyone power (for a price), can make creatures 'unseen', and will unleash great destruction in the pursuit of power.

What Price Shandalar?

Note: The following story is based on the MtG comic Ice Age by Jeff Gomez and Rafael Kayanan, and published by Armada

Dominaria, the Ice Age. 2900 years after the Brothers War.

Leshrac Nightwalker hovered slightly above the surface of Dominaria's Null Moon, wisps of shadow trailing from his midnight black cloak. Four balls of corrupted fire orbited his bone-white hair, while the hair itself wavered like a pale flame, wisps of smoke even seeming to curl from his eyebrows. Apart from his leathery, grim face and hands, the planeswalker seemed barely human, composed entirely of contrasting light and shadow.

In front of him stood an ornate metallic structure. It looked suspiciously like a temple. Perhaps the old wizard has finally gone mad, thought Leshrac. But he did claim to finally have an answer to why their ability to planeswalk had been reduced to a mere twelve planes. Twelve planes, cut off from the rest of the multiverse. ‘The Shard of Twelve Worlds’ it had been named. Probably by Faralyn, mused Leshrac. Pretentious bastard. He glided inside.

It was not often that a Gathering was called. Leshrac immediately sensed the fivefold energies of Taysir, supposedly the most powerful planeswalker that ever lived. Not that he ever did anything useful with his vaunted power. He was as stuck here as the rest of them. He stood on a balcony, wearing his infamous purple turban. His lover, Kristina of the Woods, stood next to him, pale skinned and freckled, seeming to Leshrac like waves of tranquil green power. Leshrac frowned. She was stronger than last time they clashed…but no. Not her. There was second figure, winged, hovering in the shadows, emanating similar energy. But the green didn't quite manage to stifle her fiery core. She must be the upstart half-elven planeswalker, Freyalise. Hmm. She had…potential. Yes.

The Loremaster: Ob Nixilis and Garruk Wildspeaker

Most of the original five planeswalker cards had their ups and downs in standard. There were times when they were really good, and times when they were terrible. Only Garruk Wildspeaker was consistant. Never amazing, but never bad, just always good. It says a lot that he is the only planeswalker ever reprinted in a Commander set.

Of course, he's not the only walker found in a Commander set. Commander 2014 feaured five new planeswalkers, specially designed for the format. But they messed up a bit with their announcement. Revealing Teferi without further comment created the expectation that it would be a whole cycle of pre-Time spiral walkers (known as 'Oldwalkers'). I certainly, was very excited at the possibility of Freyalise in green, and to a lesser extent, Leshrac for black.

The Loremaster: Freyalise and the Ice Age

When it was revealed that Commander 2014 would include older planeswalkers like Teferi, I said something a bit silly. 'If they don't make Freyalise,' I said, 'I will quit Magic.'

Fortunately, they did make Freyalise and I did not have to make good on my threat. But it did open a can of worms. Because Freyalise died during the events of the Time Spiral block. And part of the justification for her death was that Wizards wanted planeswalkers to have cards - she belonged to the older generation of near-omnipotent planeswalkers, and therefore was too powerful to have a card.

And yet here we stand with a Freyalise planeswalker card.

It is somewhat difficult to relate the early part of Freyalise's life. The comics that tell of it were written before the concept of a planeswalker 'spark' existed, and...well, frankly, they are a mess that makes very little sense. But I will try regardless.

Freyalise was a pyromancer living in Storgard, on the plane of Dominaria, during the Ice Age. Storgard was the last of the Fallen Empires, located in the terminal morraine of a vast glacier, and therefore constantly under threat of the growing ice. Freyalise was a bit of an oddity - she was a half-elf, something seen very rarely in the lore of Magic.