MTG Salvation

The Vorthos Guide to Magic: The Gathering
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Welcome back to Archive Trap, the unofficial guide to Magic: the Gathering. Today we start our discussion of The Ice Age, the period of time that began when Urza caused the Sylex Blast at the end of The Brothers' War which resulted in huge ecological upheaval on Dominaria. It also created the Shard of Twelve Worlds, a magical barrier that prevented travel - by planeswalk or portal - in or out. The Ice Age ends with Freyalise's casting of the World Spell, bringing down that magical barrier. For today, we will focus on the period between the Sylex Blast and the Ice Age proper, a time known as The Dark.

Things do not end well for any civilization on Sarpadia or Terisiare.
Hymn to Tourach by Greg Staples

Setting the Stage

• The Legends of Time Spiral
• Tea and Biscuits with Pete Venters
• The Gathering Dark

Fallen Empires takes place on the continent of Sarpadia. The races of Sarpadia lived in relative harmony with one another until the end of the Brother's War, when the Sylex Blast began a period of climate change resulting in the Ice Age. These changes sparked several societal shifts within the cultures of Sarpadia that ultimately resulted in their demise. Fallen Empires was interesting in that it feels like the first tribal set for magic. Five societies, each divided along color lines, all duking it out for supremacy on their little spot of land. I saw many of the names before, but it was not until my deep dive here that the setting really clicked.

Like The Brothers' War before it, The Dark also largely takes place on Terisiare. The Dark consists of the few centuries before the Ice Age set in for good, when the same climate change that hit Sarpadia also pushes the goblins of Terisiare further and further into human territories. This push eventually moved humans almost entirely out of the regional called Ghiva, in old Argive. Taking place approximately the same time frame as Fallen Empires, the novel The Gathering Dark stars Jodah, a man who would go on to become the legend of the Ice Age, despite never actually getting a card.

Pre-Revisionist Sources

Please note that there is a lot of material created before Wizards of the Coast began handling their stories internally - namely what is known as pre-revisionist continuity. In general, pre-revision falls into two categories: the Acclaim Comics (under the Armada imprint) and early novels pre-dating the Brother's War. I am not a fan of the Acclaim comics, as they tend to be so short there is little room for development of interesting characters, so don't be surprised by very brief summaries. If you want to know more, you can always check the wiki or the excellent Multiverse in Review. Because there are a number of discrepancies between pre- and post- revisionist history, I will be focusing on the official revisionist events - but where possible I'll weave in pre-revisionist story details that aren't outright contradicted by later stories. In general, this will only be for characters that appear in both.

I had no idea what Volumes I-VI were for decades.
Sarpadian Empires Vol. VII by Doug Chaffee

Fallen Empires
Geography

Fallen Empires takes place entirely on the small continent of Sarpadia. Sarpadia is divided into five regions that each correspond to a basic land type. Without going into a lot of detail (and because most of the geography is laid out in old issues of The Duelist which I do not have), the mountain range known as the Crimson Peaks is home to both a Dwarven society and tribes of orcs and goblins. The swamps to the west were home to the Order of the Ebon Hand and their stronghold. The majority of humans lived in the country of Icatia located on the inland and coastal plains, in the cities of Montford and Trokair. The continent is also home to an elvish society located in the forest of Havenwood. Surrounding the continent is the Voda Sea, and lurking in the sea are a unique breed of sea creature known as Homarids, intelligent Lobster-like creatures that are vastly different from any of Magic's other intelligent species.

Politics

Icatia was a moderately-sized human civilization on Sarpadia. Some time ago, the Order of the Ebon Hand split from the people of Icatia. While the Icatians typically worship the Hand of Justice, the Ebon Hand worshipped the Ebon Praetor and later their founder, Tourach. The Ebon Hand is opposed by the Order of Leitbur, the militant faith and ruling body of Icatia. When the Icatian city of Trokair was destroyed, it pushed a zealous wing of Icatians to split and follow their founder Oliver Farrel. This fracture ultimately led to the destruction of their civilization, orchestrated by the villainous planeswalker Tevesh Szat.

Homarids were unique and deserve more love.
Homarid by Mark Tedin

Planeswalkers & Legends

• Ebon Praetor - The Avatar worshiped by the Ebon Hand.
• Endrek Sahr - A wizard of the Order of the Ebon Hand who created the first thrulls.
• Oliver Farrel - A zealot who breaks away from Icatia and ends up murdering Tymolin Loneglade.
• Tev Loneglade - A planeswalker who, along with his sister Tymolin, lives on the continent of Sarpadia during the decline of the Fallen Empires. Tev uses his magic to keep his sister young, but a series of events ends with her death and his descent into madness, transforming him into the villain Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools.

• Hand of Justice - The Avatar worshiped by the Icatians.

• Thelon - An Elvish druid who created the thallids which in turn produced the first Saprolings.

• Tourach - The founder of the Order of the Ebon Hand, later worshiped by the Ebon Hand.

• Loren - Master Scout for the Elven Empire.

• Morgan - Advisor to the King of the Elven Empire.

• Sianna - Farrel's most prized disciple.

• Tymolin Loneglade - Tev Loneglade/Tevesh Szat's sister who was murdered by Oliver Farrel.

• Vaylesh - A high priestess of the Order of the Ebon Hand.

The Story of the Fallen Sarpadian Empires

• Fallen Empires #1
• Fallen Empires #2
• The History of the Sarpadian Empires

Most of Fallen Empires' overall story is told through flavor text. In Sarpadian Empires Vol. I, the elves of Havenwood develop thallids from fungus as a potential new food source in the worsening climate. The thallids were invented by Thelon from techniques learned from the Ebon Hand's thrulls. The goblins and orcs invade the dwarvish kingdom, ultimately destroying it. This fall is witnessed by Tymolin Loneglade, who had been fighting alongside her dwarven lover, Kaylen. When Kaylen is killed by an orc, she is exiled from the Dwarves. She goes to meet her brother, Tev, afterwards and asks for him to remove the enchantment that keeps her young (at this point they are thousands of years old). She wants to warn Montford of the impending attack of the mountain goblins and orcs, but Tev is cautious. His hand is forced when Oliver Farrel, a zealous leader of a splinter faction of the Order of Leitbur, declares Tymolin the incarnation of Tourach (the Ebon Hand's god). It's worth noting that Farrel's reasoning for turning against Tymolin is implied to be that she spurned his advances. His forces, led by Sianna, attempt to capture Tymolin but fail. However, Tymolin and Tev are separated in the battle. Tymolin is then taken by the Ebon Hand Priestess Vaylesh as bait for Farrel.

Elsewhere in the forest, the Elven scout Loren is sent to reconnoiter the thallids. Loren, who feels some sympathy for the thallids (because they had been bred to be intelligent), is attacked by the Elf King's advisor, Morgan. Loren is left to die at the mercy of the thallids when Tev Loneglade stumbles across him while looking for his sister. Tev destroys the thallids about to feast on Loren, but makes it clear that if the situation had been reversed, there would be a bunch of dead elves instead of thallids on the forest floor. Loren's salvation is not to last however, as Morgan finishes the job he started, murdering Loren and ensuring the elf kingdom's disastrous genocidal and isolationist policies stay in effect.

Meanwhile, Farrel has taken the bait, and arrived to fight the Ebon Hand, who is holding Tymolin. He kills Tymolin himself, and his forces go on to battle the Ebon Hand. Tev, feeling the death of his sister, loses all pretense of humanity and transforms into a draconic being, calling himself Tevesh Szat. Szat personally leads the goblins and orcs against Montford, and settles in to ensure the destruction of all civilization on Sarpadia for being such fools.

In Sarpadian Empires Vol. II, the Ebon Hand's thrulls - which are living creatures created from dead flesh - begin to turn on the Order; Endrek Sahr inadvertently made them too smart. Then, in Vol. III it seems the thallids, like the thrulls, also began turning on their masters. How much of this was due to Tevesh Szat's influence is unclear. By Sarpadian Empires Vol. IV, the orcs and goblins have finished destroying the dwarves and moved on to Icatia, which falls shortly thereafter in Vol. VI. According to Ice Age #1, some Icatians survive and make their way to Terisiare, where we will pick up their story again later.

Sarpadian Empires Vol. V details the conflict between the Vodalian Merfolk and the Homarids. With the climate cooling, the normally arctic-dwelling Homarids began encroaching on Sarpadian waters. The Voda Sea was an enticing new climate for them. They thrived there and eventually overwhelmed the merfolk, forcing them to flee. The merfolk empress Galina III attempted to flee through a magic portal, but when she arrived at her destination it was thousands of years later, and she'd skipped over the Ice Age entirely, reigning during the Invasion of Phyrexia. For the Homarids, they began to follow a deep sea trench that opened between Argoth and Sarpadia following the Sylex Blast and would arrive in Terisiare during the Ice Age, where they become known as Viscerids.

In the end, the thrulls overrun what remains of Sarpadia, while the thallids dominate the waste that is Havenwood. Sarpadia becomes remote, and even Phyrexian patrols sent there are never heard from again.

Jodah has no card, despite starring in a trilogy.
The Gathering Dark Cover Art by Gary Ruddell

The Dark
Geography

Things have changed on Terisiare since The Brothers' War. While the continent itself remains, the borders have all changed (and even the landscape changes due to the Ice Age). What was once Argive is now known as Giva Province, a land of refugees flooding south. Inside Giva there is a town called Thorn. To the south of Giva Province are the city states of Alsoor and Ghed (a port city), in the general area of what was once Korliss. Off the coast to the southeast of the continent lie the Shattered Isles, remnants of the once great Argoth that was destroyed in the Sylex Blast. The Kher Ridges and Sardian mountains continue to divide this region from the rest of Terisiare.

What was once the Monastery of Gix is now the home of the Conclave of Mages. Surrounding the conclave are the Sardian mountains to the south and east, the Tanglewoods (forest) to the north east, the Malpiri Plains to the north, and the remnants of Ronom Lake (now largely swampland) to the west. The center of the continent is still home to the Great Desert, while the lands farther west are home to Almaaz, a formerly tiny city-state that survived and thrived following the Sylex blast, and the City of Shadows in what used to be Lat-Nam.

The wiki has a full rundown on this geography, and even a map.

Church of Tal Inquisitors were hypocrites, using 'faith' magic to hunt down mages.
Elgaud Inquisitor by Slawomir Maniak
This one is from Innistrad. There are not very many good images of The Dark.

Politics

On Terisiare, most of the natural resources were used up in the Brothers' War, so only smaller City-States survived the political and environmental upheaval following the Sylex Blast. These city-states are usually peaceful, but attempts to intimidate the farm lands into sending their crops to one city or another can result in violent clashes. Compounding these conflicts is the ever-growing encroachment of goblins into human lands.

Thanks to the devastation wrought by the Brothers, Urza and Mishra's names became curses for the average person. Folklore casts them as mages, and sentiment against magecraft escalates to the point where magic users are shunned in most areas. This is codified in the doctrine of the Church of Tal, which preaches that magic is evil and conducts an ongoing inquisition against magic. The Church itself is hypocritical in this regard, using magic itself but deeming their use 'miracles.'

Though most societies stigmatize its users, Magic survived the Brothers' War. In general, there are two rival centers of magic on the continent: The Conclave of Mages and The City of Shadows. The Conclave was founded in the remains of the former Monastery of the Brotherhood of Gix. It was much less structured than its rival, with its resident mages indulging in frequently hedonistic pursuits and engaging in the slavery of initiates who can't pass its tests.

The City of Shadows, by contrast, was founded in the wake of the College of Lat-Nam, the college founded by Hurkyl and her husband Drafna. It was much more secretive than the Conclave and is the legacy of Feldon and the other surviving members of the Third Path.

Did Jeff Grubb misread Dark Sphere? Or were Barl and Ith always two characters?
Ith, High Arcanist by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai

Legends

Barl - An artificer and lackey of Mairsil the Pretender who constructed the cage that keeps Ith imprisoned (although in pre-revisionist continuity, he and Ith were the same person), as well as the machinery that keeps the conclave running.

Ith, High Arcanist - A wizard who has mastered all five colors of magic, and potentially one of the most powerful mages of the Era. He founded the Conclave in the former Monastery of Gix. He believed that the proximity to the bottomless pit to Phyrexia would allow him to draw on their power.

Jodah - A young mage from the Ghiva province. Generations ago, his family consisted of wealthy landowners, but their ancestral home has since fallen into disrepair. In order to escape Ghiva, he is apprenticed to the red mage Voska and sets off to learn magic.

Mairsil the Pretender - Ith's former apprentice, who usurped Ith's place. He imprisoned Ith beneath the Conclave and tries to force him to reveal the secrets of travelling between worlds. Mairsil believes that if he can find a way to cross over to Phyrexia, the dark lords of Phyrexia will grant him the power to planeswalk. He has secretly transferred his life force to a ruby ring, as a contingency against his death.

Primata Delphine - A zealot from the Church of Tal who doesn't realize her church's own hypocrisy and employes magic in her hunt of magecraft. She hunts Jodah across the continent, and when she discovers the conclave, she vows to lead a holy war against it.

Sima - A blue mage from the City of Shadows who comes to Ghed looking for Voska but finds Jodah instead, and warns him against his reckless displays of magic. When she saves Jodah's mirror from going overboard instead of Jodah, she follows him all the way to the Conclave of Mages.

Minor Characters

• Jarsyl - The grandson of Kayla Bin-Kroog - wife of Urza - who experimented with the legacy of his two possible grandsires - Mishra and Urza. He discovered a magical means to open a Gate to Phyrexia, and disappeared, leaving behind only his journal and notes.
• Norin the Wary - A legendarily cowardly adventurer.
• Rasputin Dreamweaver - A mage who helps Tivadar of Thorn in his crusades against the goblins.
• Tivadar of Thorn - A refugee from the town of Thorn in Ghiva who eventually returns to lead a crusade against the goblins who overran his home.
• Voska - Jodah's master, a red mage of great skill who was up for recruitment by the City of Shadows. An unfortunate run-in with Church of Tal results in his death while he buys Jodah a chance to escape.

The Rag Man is a creepy, but benign, figure in the book.
Rag Man by Daniel Gelon

The Story of the Dark
Capture by the Church of Tal

The Gathering Dark takes place about 300 years after Tev Longdale becomes Tevesh Svat. For a decade, Ith - former Lord High Arcanist of the Conclave of Mages - has been kept prisoner beneath his former citadel (which is apparently in the same place as the Brotherhood of Gix's monastery) in a magic-negating cage. His jailer is Mairsil the Pretender, his former apprentice who usurped his position and imprisoned him. Mairsil keeps him alive for one reason: he wants Urza's secret, which he believes Ith knows. Over the years, Ith slowly descends into madness, until one day he summons enough power to push through the cage and summon a creature to go find him help. That creature was a mockery of a man dressed in rags.

The ragged man, or rag man, found what he was looking for in a young mage named Jodah. Jodah and his master, Voska, have travelled south from Giva into the territory of Alsoor. Voska, obviously a red mage, is having a hard time training Jodah. Jodah cannot quite master even the most basic pyromancy spells to light a fire, but trying something similar he creates a huge ball of white light - which lights the fire but is also visible for miles. As congratulations, Voska gives Jodah a mirror to help him see himself as others do. The light attracts a group of goblins which the pair attempt to fight off. However before Jodah can cast anything, he finds himself tripped by something. Turning to look, he sees the ragged man moving away. It turns out this helped save his life, as moments later a patrol from Alsoor comes across the group and helps rout the goblins. Unfortunately, they are members of the Church of Tal, and saw Jodah's light magic over the horizon, and are seeking the mage who cast it. The leader catches a glimpse of Voska's fire magic, and they bring the pair in for interrogation.

In Alsoor, they are interrogated by Primata Delphine, from the Order of St. Zil. The church wants Jodah to testify that Voska is a sorcerer, but he resists. Although Voska is bound by magic manicles that prevent casting, Jodah is left unbound. Jodah casts the light spell again, blinding his captors, and escapes out a window with Voska. They split up in order to better their chances of escape, agreeing to meet again in the port city of Ghed, to the south. The rag man helps Jodah again by pointing out emptied fish barrels he can use to get out of the city without being seen.

As a Goblin fan, Tividar is probably my least favorite character in all of Magic.
Knights of Thorn by Christopher Rush

The Battle of Pitdown

Jodah makes it to Ghed, but Voska never arrives. To make matters worse, he is sealed in the city thanks to a plague. To pass the time, Jodah becomes a delivery man for an old herbalist, and makes night time deliveries of her 'potions.' He practices his magic in his room at the herbalist's, and tries it out on the potions he delivers. It turns out the potions he has tampered with work better than he thought - they completely cure all ailments. This development unfortunately leads the church to his location in Ghed. A woman follows him in the night, demanding to know where he learned magic. She is shocked to learn that Jodah is Voska's student and that Voska is still in Alsoor. To save Jodah, she leads a church patrol away. When Jodah returns home, he finds the church escorting away the old herbalist. With nothing else to do, he resolves to go find Voska, and enlists in the Ghed army.

The Ghed army is heading north toward Alsoor, but is there mainly to intimidate the farms in the surrounding area into selling their harvests south instead of north. Unfortunately, Alsoor's army (which has elvish mercenaries from the Shattered Isles - implied to be the remnants of Argoth) is doing the same and what started as military maneuvers becomes a full-fledged war. The Ghed army captures a spy from Alsoor, and leave a young boy named Tivadar to guard the prisoner. Jodah uses their shared history as refugees from Giva to convince Tivadar to allow him to speak to the prisoner. The spy reveals that he had heard of Voska, and that Voska is held prisoner by the church in Alsoor.

The two armies eventually meet in the Battle of Pitdown, where the two armies faced are attacked by a third faction: goblins. The remnants of the two armies unite to beat back the goblins, but Jodah becomes separated from his squadron and finds himself wounded and wandering through the ruins of an old city. The rag man saves his life once more by alerting him to more goblin raiders, and Jodah dives into a nearby fountain. The fountain ends up healing his wounds… among other things… and Jodah escapes the goblins.

A week later, he reaches the great bridge separating Alsoor and Ghedand learns that the war is over and that the Church has negotiated a peace. Because the plague has reached Alsoor, the church (and Primata Delphine in particular) is bringing heretics from Alsoor to be burned in Ghed instead. Jodah rejoins the Ghed and is assigned to transport church prisoners, among whom he is shocked to find Sima. She had gone to Alsoor to find Voska as well, but fell into a trap intended for Jodah. Jodah engineers the prisoner's escape that night, only for the two of them to be stopped by Primata Delphine, who wields what is apparently sorcery of her own. By instinct, Jodah uses the mirror to block Delphine's attack, and to his surprise the mirror reflects it back. Without time to think on what just happened, the two escape on Delphine's horse, and Sima pledges to take Jodah somewhere he can receive true magical instruction… with the Third Path.

Yes, Feldon's third path is still alive and kicking (although not Feldon himself… he dead). Sima even uses the curse “Feldon's Cane and Crutches” earlier in the novel. After the events of Loran's Smile, the school of magic he founded continues on, despite the church's attempt to stomp out magecraft.

Jodah left it a mystery how he traveled the continent so quickly.
Safe Haven by Christopher Rush

The Conclave of Mages

Sima and Jodah manage to gain passage aboard a ship for the City of Shadows. On board, Sima begins more formal instruction for Jodah, but her remedial lessons do not quite get through to Jodah. Their trip is cut short when their ship is attacked by merfolk, who cut a hole in the hull to sink the ship. In the scuffle, Jodah is thrown overboard and he drops his magical mirror. Sima, in a split second decision, saves the mirror - believing Jodah can take care of himself but the mirror once lost is lost forever.

The merfolk's true goal is clear when they then deliver Jodah's unconscious body to the rag man. The rag man trades a Coral Helm for Jodah, and the merfolk go on their way. When Jodah wakes up, he believes the rag man has saved his life, and follows him to a safe haven that transports the two just outside the Conclave of Mages. They make their way through the half-finished Maze of Ith to the Conclave, where the rag man indicates that Jodah should keep quiet about the strange minion's involvement. Inside, Jodah is tested by Barl - the master artificer of the conclave and inventor of the Stone Calendar and Barl's Cage - and is deemed to have passed.

Jodah finds that the Conclave is a rather hedonistic place. Each mage does basically whatever they want, whenever they want, and magic food fights are not uncommon. At one point, a necromancer reanimates a turkey, and several other mages animate bread rolls to do battle with it. The only mage of note in the conclave is Orm, who is known for his skull (it is unclear if it is actually his skull or a skull he uses). While the conclave seems light hearted at first, when Mairsil and Barl are around there is a palpable fear of the two men, and it is clear from the start that something is wrong. Jodah is assigned to the Library, as a transcriber. During the course of his work, he discovers something amusingly meta - that there are several different versions of the Antiquities War (the Brothers' War) floating around, meaning our real-life versions are simply the erroneous versions created during the Ice Age. One day, he gets a random visit from Mairsil, who encourages him to pursue his magical studies while working (while also showing off his mastery of all five colors). Jodah had thought he would eventually have another teacher, but no one is really interested in teaching at the Conclave - they claim it is all about self-discovery. In reality, it is more about hoarding secrets. So Jodah spends his lunches and evenings meditating on the distant mountains, until he is able to use the simple spell Voska tried to teach him those months ago.

Even cut off from the plane, Phyrexia looms large over the Ice Age.
Phyrexian Hulk by Matthew D. Wilson

Mairsil takes an interest in Jodah thanks to an obscure name mentioned in his interview: Jarysl, Jodah's great-great grandfather. Jarsyl was a mage in Ghiva province who disappeared without a trace. Marisil recognizes the name - he has Jarysl's journal which recounts the mage's efforts to find a way to Phyrexia - and that Jarsyl is in fact Harbin's son. By extension, that makes Jodah the descendant of Kayla Bin-Kroog and either Urza or Mishra (it is never made clear). Mairsil has developed a stone calendar to tell him when the barrier between dimensions is the thinnest, but has yet to crack the magic Jarsyl used to cross over. He believes that he can use Jodah to open a gate to phyrexia, at which point he will no longer need Ith. Mairsil believes that if he can just cross over to Phyrexia, the dark lords there will grant him the power of a planeswalker like they did Urza (he… has his facts mixed up a little).

Mairsil spins a slightly different tale for Jodah, who believes he is enlisting for aid in a special project. The whole 'dark lords' thing is left out. Jodah diligently gets to work studying Jarsyl's journal while mastering his use of red magic. Eventually, he discovers the key Marisil was missing, and together they gather the necessary pieces of the spell to open the gate. But when Jodah tries to cast the final piece, he cannot infuse his mana in the spell and suffers from mana backlash (flavorfully, mana burn). Mairsil is enraged at the failure, and Jodah leaves, unsure of his place at the Conclave.

Soon after, the Rag Man appears to Jodah, and beckons him to follow. He leads Jodah deep underneath the Conclave to Ith's prison. Ith makes a plea for freedom, but his mad bent scares Jodah off.

The Fall of the Conclave

While Jodah was busy in the Conclave, so were Sima and Primata Delphine. Jodah's initiation to the Conclave blocked Delphine's mechanism of scrying his whereabouts. Instead, Delphine turns to tracking Sima. Having realized her error in failing to save Jodah, Sima finds a clue that sets her on the path to the Conclave. She arrives there and is granted entrance, but bungles the entrance interview and leads Barl and Mairsil to believe both she and Jodah are spies. In order to keep Jodah, they arrange a duel so that he can kill his supposed handler and thus be ostracized from the City of Shadows.

As a side note here, Mairsil and Barl are interesting villains. They are ruthless, yes, but what is more interesting is that they make halfway decent decisions on bad information. That is something which is pretty rare, where the villains do not actually know what is going on but still make competent choices.

Mairsil the Pretender bears a striking similarity to the Raven Man's description.
Art by Chris Rahn

Jodah and Sima are led to the duel, each wearing ceremonial garb so they do not recognize one another. Jodah shows how far he has improved, and delivers a coup de grace by distracting Sima with a light ball while sending flaming daggers at her. It is only after casting the last attack that he realizes - through her body language and her rather unique spellslinging style - who he was fighting. He rushes to her side, and uses the healing magic from his potions (without the potion part) to bring her back from the brink. Mairsil is not amused, and prepares his wand to kill the duelists himself. Luckily, they are saved by a very timely siege engine attack.

You see, Primata Delphine had tracked Sima here and discovered a trove beyond her wildest zealot dreams. While Sima was being interrogated and held captive, she prepared an assault on the Conclave with the townsfolk of the surrounding regions. Her forces storm the Conclave and begin wreaking havoc. Sima and Jodah use the opportunity to make themselves scarce. Jodah, having learned how willing Mairsil is to sacrifice him, decides to free Ith after all. Ith's release only adds to the carnage, and the Rag Man sacrifices itself to save Jodah. The minions final words were to save Ith - namely, from himself. Primata Delphine and Mairsil face off, and Mairsil visibly shakes her will by relating her church's hypocrisy when it comes to magic. He uses his wand to steal her magic bit by bit, before finishing her. The Conclave mages, after the shock of the initial assault, make short work of the attackers. Ith, however, has a score to settle.

Mairsil comes across Jodah and Sima, who are trying to escape, and is only prevented from killing them (again) by the timely intervention of a revenge-mad Ith. Ith burns his upstart former apprentice to cinders, and is close to doing the same to Jodah but not before catching a glimpse of himself in Jodah's mirror, which snaps him out of his mad rage.

In the aftermath, the Conclave is ruined and Ith decides to go his own way. He offers to take Jodah on as an apprentice, but Jodah has already made his decision. Along with Sima and any of the Conclave survivors willing to come, Jodah leaves for the City of Shadows.

The Archmage Eternal

After joining the City of Shadows, Jodah's natural talent and leadership put him in a position of power at the school of Lat-Nam. He and Sima fall in love and remain together for her life, but the fountain of youth Jodah hid in as a young man has permanently regressed his aging to a crawl. His longevity lead him to become known as the Archmage Eternal.

Thanks for reading! Next time we launch into the Ice Age proper, one of the longest and richest time periods in Magic's history. You can read all about it in The Ice Age II: The Shard and the World Spell.

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments or on the forum, and we will address it in future updates. Have a suggestion for something you want to see? Let us know, and we may address it in a future column. You can also follow me on twitter @Jay13x or Archive Trap Mini on Tumblr.