I've suspected this for years, but I really think the Raven Man is Lim-Dul. I'm re-reading a whole lot of old lore to be sure, but he fits the bill so perfectly. Necromancer, ties to Dominaria AND Shandalar, old school Dominarian outfit, known to possess people, ultimate fate of his essence unknown. I mean, Lim-Dûl the Necromancer even looks a lot like the Raven Man, and if he's no longer a physical being, he may just not have the mutations anymore.
... Of course, with Shattered Alliance $40 a pop, it's hard to know the ending outside of summaries and exactly what is said about him.
I've long been in support of theories tying Lim-Dûl to either the Raven Man or the Chain Veil. However, Shattered Alliances as written was more or less compatible with the old PC game, and depicted him being taken to Shandalar by Leshrac at the climax, leaving behind the essence of Mairsil. So until the events of the game are definitely retconned (which could certainly happen), Lim-Dûl's spirit is assumed to be stuck on Shandalar, and Magic Origins confirmed Liliana's plane of origin as being Dominaria, not Shandalar, which seemingly scuttled the connection with the Raven Man.
Having said all of that... back around when Shards of Alara or so came out and Wizards was outlying their plans for the new, planeswalker-centric storylines going forward, Mark Rosewater mentioned the goal of establishing a rogue's gallery for Magic, which included bring back the best villains of the 'old days' including Nicol Bolas and the Phyrexians. Bringing back Lim-Dûl would also be consistent with that vision.
Lim-Dul wasn't a Planeswalker, was he? The Raven Man is already almost much confirmed a Planeswalker, as he has been seen in both Innistrad and Dominaria, unless he ends up being some kind of manifestation of Liliana's madness or some bull like that.
As for me, my best guess is that the Raven Man is in fact Urza. I mean, look at this picture, now look at this picture. Raven Man is basically Urza with a bad haircut. Both Raven Man and Urza aren't exactly evil per se, but both have a very dubious sense of morality.
Either way, i'm a supporter of the theory that, if Raven Man is in fact a real person, then he's someone from Magic's past.
They certainly play several strings at once. Loving it.
I would love for it not to be Emrakul, but did I miss where this week hurt that theory? If I did, please let me know. I need hope at this point that it isn't more Eldrazi shenanigans.
It does not fit the part where Jace says it is full of ghosts, of souls. At least for me.
He was talking about the Chain Veil. In his madness, Jace believed that Liliana wanted to channel mana to get rid of all the souls inside the Chain Veil while retaining its power.
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I've long been in support of theories tying Lim-Dûl to either the Raven Man or the Chain Veil. However, Shattered Alliances as written was more or less compatible with the old PC game, and depicted him being taken to Shandalar by Leshrac at the climax, leaving behind the essence of Mairsil. So until the events of the game are definitely retconned (which could certainly happen), Lim-Dûl's spirit is assumed to be stuck on Shandalar, and Magic Origins confirmed Liliana's plane of origin as being Dominaria, not Shandalar, which seemingly scuttled the connection with the Raven Man.
Having said all of that... back around when Shards of Alara or so came out and Wizards was outlying their plans for the new, planeswalker-centric storylines going forward, Mark Rosewater mentioned the goal of establishing a rogue's gallery for Magic, which included bring back the best villains of the 'old days' including Nicol Bolas and the Phyrexians. Bringing back Lim-Dûl would also be consistent with that vision.
Sure! But it's been thousands of years since then, so presumably he could have found his way back (maybe hitch hiked on another planeswalker).
Lim-Dul wasn't a Planeswalker, was he? The Raven Man is already almost much confirmed a Planeswalker, as he has been seen in both Innistrad and Dominaria, unless he ends up being some kind of manifestation of Liliana's madness or some bull like that.
As for me, my best guess is that the Raven Man is in fact Urza. I mean, look at this picture, now look at this picture. Raven Man is basically Urza with a bad haircut. Both Raven Man and Urza aren't exactly evil per se, but both have a very dubious sense of morality.
Either way, i'm a supporter of the theory that, if Raven Man is in fact a real person, then he's someone from Magic's past.
Lim-Dul has previously possessed people, so my line of thinking is that he's Lim-Dul's essence inhabiting Liliana's body.
I mean chandra has a hard time to spew out that fire in her Ob Nixilis duel, but Jace here can keep three illusions, steadily while being hit with Lily magic. Wtf, does he like ultra endurance to resist black magic? I would expect that when hit by death magic he would somewhat falter in keeping up his assaults and illusions. How does he stay mad, yet concentrated enough to keep illusions and brain prying while getting black deathed. I imagine that when someone as frail as Jace is hit by black magic hed crumple and almost die.
Unless I'm missing something, as soon as she got a clean hit in on the real Jace, the illusions disappeared.
She let loose a bolt of magic at Jace, the real Jace, that left him doubled over in pain. The other two Jaces vanished.
Honestly, I don't read Jace as overpowered in this article at all. It seemed like Jace was more likely to get himself killed if he had kept going than anything else.
Lastly, shout out to Dierk the geist mage. I guess Liliana is going to try and get a literal exorcist to try and exorcise the Chain Veil. Poor Dierk is about to get waaaaaaayyyy more than he bargained for. Alas, poor Dierk, I hardly knew ye.
I'd love to see Dierk, Geistmage become Dierk, Geist.
Liliana had never actually seen Jace lose a fight he'd had time to prepare for.
Jace confirmed as Batman.
Good story though, this was the first one with Lili and Jace interactions that I kinda liked it. Maybe because of the other dimension added with the Raven Man.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Really good story this week, the most interesting thing to me was that Jace can see the Raven Man. I'm not sure this rules out the possibility that he's all in Liliana's head but I think it does confirm that he's not a figment of her imagination. Perhaps he's a possessing entity? I like the Lim Dul idea
I'm fairly certain the way it was told was to confirm that it is all just in her head but that doesn't make it any less real. Based on the few interactions and the comment from Bolas I would guess the Ravenman was a planeswalker when he met Liliana and his entire interaction with her, sending her on the path to igniting her spark and damning herself, is part of some kind of Plots That Span Centuries(can I link schemes?). Then at some point she met and killed him but his ghost or memory fragment that is possessing her or what ever its doing is fulfilling that original plot or working on some kind resurrection plan.
Is it possible Raven Man is the human incarnation of Nicol Bolas? I mean the color theme is there and all. Maybe that will be the big reveal. Raven Man transforming into Bolas... Would be a fun card...
Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
What's with all this "when she killed the Raven Man" talk? In The Fourth Pact she specifically says that she bested but didnt kill him. And since then she hasn't really tried.
I'm still inclined to believe that the Raven Man is the personification of Liliana's fear of death (I mentioned way back then it would be a vastly convenient way to justify his presence in the present story over his lack of presence when Liliana was ageless).
I don't think this article did much to change this opinion of mine, since Liliana already notes that Jace was vastly powerful when prepared (and insane), so the Raven Man has every reason to fear being intruded even if he was just a personification. There's the issue of Jace being able to see the Raven Man, but Liliana was an Oldwalker, I won't be too surprised that she suppressed (bested) her fear for so long that her mind made the personification "real" in her mind and as such, can be seen by telepaths in that form.
The only minor change I might have from this article that the Raven Man could simply just represent Liliana's fears (not only of Death, but of anything). We don't know the degree of fear of death that Liliana felt when Jace came mind-knocking, but the Raven Man was so active in this article his presence might be simply driven from fear (of being mind-read) itself. Of course Jace being insane did add the factor that it was as good as death, which was why it isn't so clear whether the Raven Man manifested from which fear more.
The Raven Man still doesn't display any knowledge that Liliana herself doesn't know, so I'm still not inclined to believe he is an "external factor" as of yet.
I'm still inclined to believe that the Raven Man is the personification of Liliana's fear of death (I mentioned way back then it would be a vastly convenient way to justify his presence in the present story over his lack of presence when Liliana was ageless).
I don't think this article did much to change this opinion of mine, since Liliana already notes that Jace was vastly powerful when prepared (and insane), so the Raven Man has every reason to fear being intruded even if he was just a personification. There's the issue of Jace being able to see the Raven Man, but Liliana was an Oldwalker, I won't be too surprised that she suppressed (bested) her fear for so long that her mind made the personification "real" in her mind and as such, can be seen by telepaths in that form.
The only minor change I might have from this article that the Raven Man could simply just represent Liliana's fears (not only of Death, but of anything). We don't know the degree of fear of death that Liliana felt when Jace came mind-knocking, but the Raven Man was so active in this article his presence might be simply driven from fear (of being mind-read) itself. Of course Jace being insane did add the factor that it was as good as death, which was why it isn't so clear whether the Raven Man manifested from which fear more.
The Raven Man still doesn't display any knowledge that Liliana herself doesn't know, so I'm still not inclined to believe he is an "external factor" as of yet.
The problem is that Lili didn't have a distinct fear of death, at least no more nthan any normal person, prior to the incident with her brother that caused her to spark. Yet the Raven Man appears before that. He also appears after she is immortal, at times where she's in no mortal danger. I do think that we can basically say with a high degree of certainty that he's not a physical human because of the way he was just suddenly visible to Jace and apparently others can't see him normally. He could be some figment of her mind but I do think it would be cool if it were Lim-Dul or some other old villain because I feel like they'd have just put her on a new plane if they hadn't wanted to leave an avenue for callbacks to Dominaria.
The problem is that Lili didn't have a distinct fear of death, at least no more nthan any normal person, prior to the incident with her brother that caused her to spark. Yet the Raven Man appears before that. He also appears after she is immortal, at times where she's in no mortal danger. I do think that we can basically say with a high degree of certainty that he's not a physical human because of the way he was just suddenly visible to Jace and apparently others can't see him normally. He could be some figment of her mind but I do think it would be cool if it were Lim-Dul or some other old villain because I feel like they'd have just put her on a new plane if they hadn't wanted to leave an avenue for callbacks to Dominaria.
Well, it could go either way. It may sound like grasping at straws (mainly due to lack of information), but the Raven Man could have just been a personification of her fear and even before the incident with her brother, Liliana was not exactly very secure. After the incident it got overshadowed by mainly death but if we take the assumption that the Raven Man's panic in the recent article was less to do with death but simply fear of being mind-read, then he could still potentially just represent fear (although death is usually the main reason invoking it).
Well, it's a technicality, but just for wording clarity, her ascension only granted her agelessness, not "complete" immortality. She still can be killed (mainly by other planeswalkers due to power differences) and that is still a legitimate reason to fear death (consider her reaction to Sorin being mentioned as a distant reference). She doesn't have to be in mortal danger to be in thought about the possibility about being killed (pretty sure she had a lot of free time back then to have her thoughts wander that direction), so the Raven Man popping in from time to time doesn't seem completely out-of-the-way.
Of course, I'm not in any way against the Lim-Dul theory either, but the Raven Man's lack of outside knowledge at the moment has me more on the personification theory.
I'm still inclined to believe that the Raven Man is the personification of Liliana's fear of death (I mentioned way back then it would be a vastly convenient way to justify his presence in the present story over his lack of presence when Liliana was ageless).
I don't think this article did much to change this opinion of mine, since Liliana already notes that Jace was vastly powerful when prepared (and insane), so the Raven Man has every reason to fear being intruded even if he was just a personification. There's the issue of Jace being able to see the Raven Man, but Liliana was an Oldwalker, I won't be too surprised that she suppressed (bested) her fear for so long that her mind made the personification "real" in her mind and as such, can be seen by telepaths in that form.
The only minor change I might have from this article that the Raven Man could simply just represent Liliana's fears (not only of Death, but of anything). We don't know the degree of fear of death that Liliana felt when Jace came mind-knocking, but the Raven Man was so active in this article his presence might be simply driven from fear (of being mind-read) itself. Of course Jace being insane did add the factor that it was as good as death, which was why it isn't so clear whether the Raven Man manifested from which fear more.
The Raven Man still doesn't display any knowledge that Liliana herself doesn't know, so I'm still not inclined to believe he is an "external factor" as of yet.
A thing that really peeves me at those "it's just his imagination!" is that the Raven Man actually interacted with Liliana and gave her some tips on necromancy and about the "cure" for Josu's condition. I'm not saying that this couldn't be justified in-universe (something like "Liliana found the cure herself, she never needed Raven Man, it was just something she made up in her mind because was scared of using the cure and decided to blame someone else!"), I'm saying it's lazy and uninspired writing and that I would hate if that would be the case. It could be done, but then again, Magic lore is so convoluted they could justify anything with the proper explanation.
I believe that's a joke, but if it isn't, there's no way they would be doing this. First off, that's Yawgmoth we're talking about. The guy was so evil and degenerate his dead body corrupted the land he was buried in.
I believe that's a joke, but if it isn't, there's no way they would be doing this. First off, that's Yawgmoth we're talking about. The guy was so evil and degenerate his dead body corrupted the land he was buried in.
Primarily it was intended as a joke, mostly referencing the fact that wizards has gone to such lengths to emphasize that Yawgmoth is indeed dead and will never return.
But it was also a jab at the Lim-Dul theory. Yawgmoth was originally from Dominaria also. And Karona theoretically saw Yawgmoth on old Phyrexia after he was supposed to have died.
My point is not that Yawgmoth is secretely alive and is the Raven Man. My point is that there is about as much evidence that the Raven Man is Lim-Dul as there is evidence that he is Yawgmoth. That said I do like the Lim-Dul theory.
I believe that's a joke, but if it isn't, there's no way they would be doing this. First off, that's Yawgmoth we're talking about. The guy was so evil and degenerate his dead body corrupted the land he was buried in.
Primarily it was intended as a joke, mostly referencing the fact that wizards has gone to such lengths to emphasize that Yawgmoth is indeed dead and will never return.
But it was also a jab at the Lim-Dul theory. Yawgmoth was originally from Dominaria also. And Karona theoretically saw Yawgmoth on old Phyrexia after he was supposed to have died.
My point is not that Yawgmoth is secretely alive and is the Raven Man. My point is that there is about as much evidence that the Raven Man is Lim-Dul as there is evidence that he is Yawgmoth. That said I do like the Lim-Dul theory.
To be fair there is 'more' evidence that is it Yawgmoth over Lim-Dul, other than the whole dead thing. Lim-Dul shouldn't be on Dominaria, its possible he got there somehow but without a reason for this presented it falls squarely in baseless speculation. But yes the dead thing is a definitive strike against yawg and it would be awesome if they started bringing back their old villains, besides Bolas.
The problem is it's arguably moving at too much of a clip. It'll feel rather weird if Jace unravels the mystery in a week.
We literally just had 3 days of people complaining it was going too slowly. Are you people never satisfied? ._.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I think the writing and story are moving at a good pace, but I think there need to be more time skips. The issue I have is that Jace seems to be unraveling the entire mystery in three days in story, where it would feel better if he was taking a month or two at least. Wizards has had this issue on and off lately, with the actual internal time for events being wonky. There's some implication, for instance, that the time between Avacyn returning and going nuts just a year or two, or maybe even months, which means every other block happened in very rapid succession.
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Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I think the writing and story are moving at a good pace, but I think there need to be more time skips. The issue I have is that Jace seems to be unraveling the entire mystery in three days in story, where it would feel better if he was taking a month or two at least. Wizards has had this issue on and off lately, with the actual internal time for events being wonky. There's some implication, for instance, that the time between Avacyn returning and going nuts just a year or two, or maybe even months, which means every other block happened in very rapid succession.
Well remember that there's probably a lot of travel time being cut out. Innistrad isn't small and there aren't cars. Jace has been travelling by horse or foot the whole time. It's probably been a couple of weeks in actual time.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I think the writing and story are moving at a good pace, but I think there need to be more time skips. The issue I have is that Jace seems to be unraveling the entire mystery in three days in story, where it would feel better if he was taking a month or two at least. Wizards has had this issue on and off lately, with the actual internal time for events being wonky. There's some implication, for instance, that the time between Avacyn returning and going nuts just a year or two, or maybe even months, which means every other block happened in very rapid succession.
Well remember that there's probably a lot of travel time being cut out. Innistrad isn't small and there aren't cars. Jace has been travelling by horse or foot the whole time. It's probably been a couple of weeks in actual time.
Part of the issue is that the writers are in a bit of a catch 22. They are basing a lot of the story on Lovecraft's short stories, which rarely last longer than a few days and often just a few hours. This is quite different than the usual timescale for magic stories, so reconciling the two perspectives is difficult to do without deviating from either.
Good story this week, def surprised and happy to see Geralf and Gisa expanded on. And I like how we get glimpses of what's going on with the main narrative and learn more about the Drownyard Temple. The back and forth between the twins and how we need to take everything in context was very fun.
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Lim-Dul wasn't a Planeswalker, was he? The Raven Man is already almost much confirmed a Planeswalker, as he has been seen in both Innistrad and Dominaria, unless he ends up being some kind of manifestation of Liliana's madness or some bull like that.
As for me, my best guess is that the Raven Man is in fact Urza. I mean, look at this picture, now look at this picture. Raven Man is basically Urza with a bad haircut. Both Raven Man and Urza aren't exactly evil per se, but both have a very dubious sense of morality.
Either way, i'm a supporter of the theory that, if Raven Man is in fact a real person, then he's someone from Magic's past.
He was talking about the Chain Veil. In his madness, Jace believed that Liliana wanted to channel mana to get rid of all the souls inside the Chain Veil while retaining its power.
Cōnservātum album delenda est.
Lim-Dul has previously possessed people, so my line of thinking is that he's Lim-Dul's essence inhabiting Liliana's body.
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Unless I'm missing something, as soon as she got a clean hit in on the real Jace, the illusions disappeared.
Honestly, I don't read Jace as overpowered in this article at all. It seemed like Jace was more likely to get himself killed if he had kept going than anything else.
I do believe the proper titles are:
Dierk Geistmage into... Dierk, Geist Mage.
Good story though, this was the first one with Lili and Jace interactions that I kinda liked it. Maybe because of the other dimension added with the Raven Man.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I don't think this article did much to change this opinion of mine, since Liliana already notes that Jace was vastly powerful when prepared (and insane), so the Raven Man has every reason to fear being intruded even if he was just a personification. There's the issue of Jace being able to see the Raven Man, but Liliana was an Oldwalker, I won't be too surprised that she suppressed (bested) her fear for so long that her mind made the personification "real" in her mind and as such, can be seen by telepaths in that form.
The only minor change I might have from this article that the Raven Man could simply just represent Liliana's fears (not only of Death, but of anything). We don't know the degree of fear of death that Liliana felt when Jace came mind-knocking, but the Raven Man was so active in this article his presence might be simply driven from fear (of being mind-read) itself. Of course Jace being insane did add the factor that it was as good as death, which was why it isn't so clear whether the Raven Man manifested from which fear more.
The Raven Man still doesn't display any knowledge that Liliana herself doesn't know, so I'm still not inclined to believe he is an "external factor" as of yet.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
The problem is that Lili didn't have a distinct fear of death, at least no more nthan any normal person, prior to the incident with her brother that caused her to spark. Yet the Raven Man appears before that. He also appears after she is immortal, at times where she's in no mortal danger. I do think that we can basically say with a high degree of certainty that he's not a physical human because of the way he was just suddenly visible to Jace and apparently others can't see him normally. He could be some figment of her mind but I do think it would be cool if it were Lim-Dul or some other old villain because I feel like they'd have just put her on a new plane if they hadn't wanted to leave an avenue for callbacks to Dominaria.
Well, it could go either way. It may sound like grasping at straws (mainly due to lack of information), but the Raven Man could have just been a personification of her fear and even before the incident with her brother, Liliana was not exactly very secure. After the incident it got overshadowed by mainly death but if we take the assumption that the Raven Man's panic in the recent article was less to do with death but simply fear of being mind-read, then he could still potentially just represent fear (although death is usually the main reason invoking it).
Well, it's a technicality, but just for wording clarity, her ascension only granted her agelessness, not "complete" immortality. She still can be killed (mainly by other planeswalkers due to power differences) and that is still a legitimate reason to fear death (consider her reaction to Sorin being mentioned as a distant reference). She doesn't have to be in mortal danger to be in thought about the possibility about being killed (pretty sure she had a lot of free time back then to have her thoughts wander that direction), so the Raven Man popping in from time to time doesn't seem completely out-of-the-way.
Of course, I'm not in any way against the Lim-Dul theory either, but the Raven Man's lack of outside knowledge at the moment has me more on the personification theory.
A thing that really peeves me at those "it's just his imagination!" is that the Raven Man actually interacted with Liliana and gave her some tips on necromancy and about the "cure" for Josu's condition. I'm not saying that this couldn't be justified in-universe (something like "Liliana found the cure herself, she never needed Raven Man, it was just something she made up in her mind because was scared of using the cure and decided to blame someone else!"), I'm saying it's lazy and uninspired writing and that I would hate if that would be the case. It could be done, but then again, Magic lore is so convoluted they could justify anything with the proper explanation.
I believe that's a joke, but if it isn't, there's no way they would be doing this. First off, that's Yawgmoth we're talking about. The guy was so evil and degenerate his dead body corrupted the land he was buried in.
Primarily it was intended as a joke, mostly referencing the fact that wizards has gone to such lengths to emphasize that Yawgmoth is indeed dead and will never return.
But it was also a jab at the Lim-Dul theory. Yawgmoth was originally from Dominaria also. And Karona theoretically saw Yawgmoth on old Phyrexia after he was supposed to have died.
My point is not that Yawgmoth is secretely alive and is the Raven Man. My point is that there is about as much evidence that the Raven Man is Lim-Dul as there is evidence that he is Yawgmoth. That said I do like the Lim-Dul theory.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I think the writing and story are moving at a good pace, but I think there need to be more time skips. The issue I have is that Jace seems to be unraveling the entire mystery in three days in story, where it would feel better if he was taking a month or two at least. Wizards has had this issue on and off lately, with the actual internal time for events being wonky. There's some implication, for instance, that the time between Avacyn returning and going nuts just a year or two, or maybe even months, which means every other block happened in very rapid succession.
Well remember that there's probably a lot of travel time being cut out. Innistrad isn't small and there aren't cars. Jace has been travelling by horse or foot the whole time. It's probably been a couple of weeks in actual time.
Part of the issue is that the writers are in a bit of a catch 22. They are basing a lot of the story on Lovecraft's short stories, which rarely last longer than a few days and often just a few hours. This is quite different than the usual timescale for magic stories, so reconciling the two perspectives is difficult to do without deviating from either.