For someone as old as she is, Liliana is incredibly short-sighted.
She thinks that it'll all work out if she can just get her youth and some measure of her power back. Who needs a soul anyway? Also Bolas is totally doing this because he cares about her well-being beyond how useful she is to him.
Oh wait, she hates the debt thing, but it'll all work out if she can just kill the demons with this shiny piece of headgear. An artifact made by evil magic with immense power totally has no drawbacks or anything.
Oh wait, the headgear is slowly killing me or overriding my will. But if I can just master the Chain Veil, it'll all work out.
Eventually, this cycle of "it'll all work out if I do X" has to be broken.
I don't think Liliana Vess has ever been the smartest tool in the tool shed or the most driven walker around to self improve.
She sold her soul for immortality after all. Going for the easy solution is pretty Black though I guess.
The chapter ends with Jhoira saying "Now We Are Ready" which kinda suggest no she is not planning to recruit more teammates. And on that basis I find her team woefully lacking to handle an Elder Demon who has been wrecking the Benalish Forces and his massive army.
As for speculation part of the enjoyment for me is the speculation. Being woefully wrong or off base doesn't really matter to me.
Jhoira said, “I’m not sure we have time for it(to hear the story of the vampire) NOW (because) I’m expecting someone.
Then Ajani shows up and she says, “NOW we are ready.”
Jhoira meant now we are ready to hear the story. Ajani may have more allies that they’re meeting up with.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I don't think Liliana Vess has ever been the smartest tool in the tool shed or the most driven walker around to self improve.
She sold her soul for immortality after all. Going for the easy solution is pretty Black though I guess.
Except in this case, going for the "easy solution" has yielded diminishing returns over time.
I actually went back and reread her Origins story, and Bolas told her that she was better off just accepting death than trying to run from it. This was coming from a dragon who was obsessed with regaining his pre-Mending power.
I don't think Liliana Vess has ever been the smartest tool in the tool shed or the most driven walker around to self improve.
She sold her soul for immortality after all. Going for the easy solution is pretty Black though I guess.
Except in this case, going for the "easy solution" has yielded diminishing returns over time.
I actually went back and reread her Origins story, and Bolas told her that she was better off just accepting death than trying to run from it. This was coming from a dragon who was obsessed with regaining his pre-Mending power.
Makes it worse Bolas read her the fine print and she still said yes please...talk about Vain.
Ive always been a little confused as to what exactly She thinks will happen when he gets "out" of her contract by killing her demons. Wouldnt logic say the power they imbued to her would dissapear and she goes back to being a old depressed hag?? AND piss off an Bolas off at the same time?? How is this good for her. I gotta be missing something.
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Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Ive always been a little confused as to what exactly She thinks will happen when he gets "out" of her contract by killing her demons. Wouldnt logic say the power they imbued to her would dissapear and she goes back to being a old depressed hag?? AND piss off an Bolas off at the same time?? How is this good for her. I gotta be missing something.
I really don't think Liliana Vess is thinking all that hard. She really seems to focus on what she wants now, not a few steps ahead. I want to get immortality cause I don't want to be an old hag so I sell by soul to demons, crap this contract sucks let me kill these demons to get my soul back...
She lacks foresight. Gideon and her are kinda similar in that respect. What is the worst that can happen if I toss this spear at a God, its not like he can hurt me. Oh right he can smite all my friends who aren't invulnerable.
Maybe that is why they both like Chandra, they have some serious Red Impulsive streaks.
Still I think she thinks she can use the Chain Veil to beat Bolas. She doesn't consider the possibility though that the Demon Contract might be the only thing that is keeping the Raven Man and the Chain Veil under her control. The fact that Bolas seems perfectly fine with her crossing off the Demons and helped write her contract doesn't seem to cross her mind either. And it really should considering Razaketh had a no direct attacks clause in his contract.
1) I think Jhoira* is holding off on approaching Teferi and/or Jodah until she actually has the Weatherlight up an running. It seems pretty clear that her relationship with them isn't what it used to be, and she likely thinks it'll be easier to sway them if she's already got the ball rolling.
1a) To this end, I don't really think Raff is meant to be "the mage" rather he's only there to fill in the role of "the Capashen" because big sis said no. Jhoira wasn't there to recruit him, and honestly didn't even seem to be aware of his existence until he inserted himself into the situation. She likely has/had every intention to recruit Teferi or Jodah as her magic expert.
2) As far as the New Crew's relation to the Old Crew, Ajani fills Orim's role. While many people (myself included) tend not to think of him as such, Ajani IS a healer. That was his role from conception, his card art and story appearances simply tend to portray him more as a fighter who can heal, than as a healer who can fight. (There was a rather lengthy hubbub about this on MaRo's blog. Word of God is Ajani is a healer first and foremost.)
3) Just how many people (planeswalkers) does Ajani know? This old cat sure gets around.
4) Tiana = Kaylee. (Just the general vibe I get from her.) Also, I'm pretty sure she's at least part human. We know that Serra angels had relations with humans in Serra's Realm, and it's implied that they were also born just like humans, so I'm kinda feeling like she's maybe actually only half-Angel? (Hence her unsuredness in her angelic ability.)
*Somehow, for years and years and YEARS, until literally like a month ago, I've managed to read Jhoira's (Joy-ra) name as Jhoria (Jor-ee-ah). I've been mispronouncing her name for years despite it being literally right in from on me this whole time.
For someone as old as she is, Liliana is incredibly short-sighted.
That is because "Generic Black mana users" are short sighted gits, that is why they are evil 99% of the time because they haven't learned how to properly balance "cost of power" vs "What I actually get out of that power." Liliana is the sort of person who wouldn't check their average mana costs before checking Dark Confidant vs Phyrexian Arena and would just Jam Confident because "it is better" and then kills herself with gigantic fatties.
The chapter ends with Jhoira saying "Now We Are Ready" which kinda suggest no she is not planning to recruit more teammates. And on that basis I find her team woefully lacking to handle an Elder Demon who has been wrecking the Benalish Forces and his massive army.
Remember that the Weatherlight was never designed to be a silver bullet to destroy anything, the Weatherlight is a Symbol to inspire people, Imagine what will happen when the Weatherlight shows up in the skies above a Cabal and blasts something big and important, even more so than in the Phyrexian War it will spread legends of "That ship is back, it defeated Yawgmoth and the Phyrexians, what can the freaking Cabal do against that."
Suppose Bolas needs some easier to control minions...he has to deal with braniacs like Ral and Tez on the payroll trying to pull one over on him. Might be nice to have one minion to dumb to stab you in the back.
There is a reason that Sorin took one look at Liliana and left her alone.
Honestly, the fast pace of the story "clicked" for me when Ajani showed up. If everything seems rushed, that's because it is rushed. Jhoira is rushing the process of gathering her crew because she wants to get it done before Ajani was scheduled to meet back up with her. Presumably he met her sometime after Kaladesh block (and I think the things we are seeing aren't necessarily happening concurrently with the previous chapters with Gideon and Lilliana) and they concocted the idea of raising the Weatherlight together. Then he left the plane to figure out what happened to the rest of the 'Watch, and unlike some people Ajani knows how to stick to a schedule.
The only complaint I have is that as usual the travel times have been sped up or conveniently omitted. Assuming Jhoira's boat is sail powered, traveling from Bogardian to the coast of Jamurra alone should have taken a month. Then going through the Burning Isles, around the tip of the Aerona continent and up to Benalia could have taken the better part of a year using historic sailing technology. Doing that and going all the way back to Bogardian is a voyage that would have easily taken a year or more. Even if the ship has an artifact engine to power it through storm and waves to cut travel time (and sure, Jhoira is an artificer who built a submarine to make finding the Weatherlight easier, so I'll grant that even if it wasn't mentioned) you are still looking at quite a trip. But then again, that does give enough time for the Weatherlight to be restored by her team of artisans and the seed for its new hull to grow, so I guess this is only a problem in that it makes it hard to create a timeline that is consistent with the relatively short plot of Amonkhet. Which I didn't bother reading most of because it bored me. So I'm fine with that.
Maybe Tamiyo introduced Ajani and Jhoira? We know she has been to Dominaria before, after all...
Quote from "scottjhbert" »
The 'position' currently not really filled is Orim's. Any ideas?
Didn't Venser give her some teleportation tech? Seems like she could have just used that. I don't think she is a strong enough wizard to just make her own portal.
How does time work on different planes anyway? Are we just going with 24 hours everywhere and 365 days a year to keep things simple. You could say the timelines are desynched right now and that is the twist.
The text specifically says she is sailing from place to place, not using her Phyrexian ambulator (re: teleporter). Besides, that thing was made for planar travel, its not necessarily the best thing in the world for getting to and from different parts of the same plane.
Honestly I think the timeline only really works out if we postulate that Jhoria started the process of raising/restoring the Weatherlight months (or more) ago, as that there's a decent sized time jump between sections of this story.
That does throw a kink into the meet up with Ajani, but it could be worked out by simply saying that they met during the Weatherlight's restoration and Ajani left again after agreeing to meet up again once Weatherlight was finished.
The story was already moving at a brisk pace in the previous articles, but this was on a whole new level. Honestly I felt like I was reading an early draft and not the finished article at points. Quite a few dialogues were wooden and awkward, and aaargh, so much exposition! I get that they have limited space to tell their stories, but this introduction of new characters could've been handled better imo. As is it feels like they're just relying on the nostalgia that comes from them being distant relatives to persons from the old stories. And it wasn't particularly made clear why they *have* to be related, either ... it seemed like Jhoira's reasons were mostly sentimental in nature, which is fine in a vacuum, but come on, they're trying to defeat a demonlord here, not to form an amateur sports team. Also, the Cabal continue to seem like not that dangerous of an antagonist as they're made out to be.
Maybe I'm overreacting and I'm sure some characters will be fleshed out more in the future, but man, it felt like some serious potential was squanderEd here. Especially because the new characters actually seem to be pretty interesting.
Re: Bezenlok's whole "readying Dominaria for it's one true master" thing...I'm surprised no one seems to have thought of "Dominaria's one true master" being...Belzenlok. Not that he is LITERALLY Dominaria's one true master (obvi, that's Bolas, duh...), but the dude is re-writing all KINDS of history, inserting himself into all sorts of stories and making himself the ONE TRUE EVIL FORCE in all of Dominaria's history. He's a Demon...I don't think it takes a leap of logic to think that he has no greater master than his own pride. I mean, sure, Bolas and yaddayaddayadda, but...just because he KNOWS Bolas, doesn't mean Bolas is his master. And from what we've seen so far, he doesn't seem the sort of demon to bow and scrape. Not when he can make himself seem badder and scarier than he perhaps actually is, thanks to his dementia magic using cleric/assassin/necromancer frat bros...
Re: Bezenlok's whole "readying Dominaria for it's one true master" thing...I'm surprised no one seems to have thought of "Dominaria's one true master" being...Belzenlok. Not that he is LITERALLY Dominaria's one true master (obvi, that's Bolas, duh...), but the dude is re-writing all KINDS of history, inserting himself into all sorts of stories and making himself the ONE TRUE EVIL FORCE in all of Dominaria's history. He's a Demon...I don't think it takes a leap of logic to think that he has no greater master than his own pride. I mean, sure, Bolas and yaddayaddayadda, but...just because he KNOWS Bolas, doesn't mean Bolas is his master. And from what we've seen so far, he doesn't seem the sort of demon to bow and scrape. Not when he can make himself seem badder and scarier than he perhaps actually is, thanks to his dementia magic using cleric/assassin/necromancer frat bros...
That was my basic assumption, which is why I laughed my rear end off at it because Belzenlok even making that claim when the Primevals, the Numena and the Phyrexians are a thing is hilarious.
Hey everyone, Jared Blando has ordered prints of his Dominaria map! Keep an eye on his website in a week or so. The Dominaria Map will be 30"x20", which is awesome.
How does time work on different planes anyway? Are we just going with 24 hours everywhere and 365 days a year to keep things simple. You could say the timelines are desynched right now and that is the twist.
Orbital rotations are technically different on different planes, but a "Year", as mentioned in the story these days, is approximately the same unit of measure everywhere. We didn't used to think so, but Teysa's modern age of 112 only works if she was born around 9965 Z.C. like is said in Guildpact, which would put the events of the original Ravnica block just a few years pre-Mending and still add up to the modern day.
So a "year" when mentioned in-story is the same unit of measure everywhere (otherwise everyone in-universe would have to constantly be doing math), even thought technically planes have different solar cycles. I know it hurts, but it's the easiest way to track a multiverse-spanning narrative. The whole different years mean different things only worked when you never saw much cross-pollination.
Please remember this thread is for discussions of Dominaria's story. Move to speculation if you want to talk more long-term speculation about what is coming in the overall story. This is not the place to argue for your storyline theories.
I find it kind of funny that many call jhoira old now. If i remember correctly from the book of planar chaos she was in that timeperiod already an older woman in a teenage body? And if a look at here new cards artwork. She still looks 20 years old.
She should be around forty, IIRC. And she has not a "teenage body". That is why many people hated her "manga teenager" art from FS. That is why I really like her new art, because it is the first that makes her justice. She does not look twenty in the most current art.
Speaking of what...the "It had been so long since Urza's final powerful spell had all but ended the Phyrexian invasion" still bugs me, especially in relation to Jhoira-Jodah relationship.
If Martha just replaced this part with "It had been so long since Jeska's final spell had ended the rifts that threatened the plane to be torn apart" (credit: my good friend Andethir), all would be OK. I have still ambiguous feelings about Wizards' approach to Time Spiral events (sans Mending). Yeah, there is the Meandering River/Calciform Pools art homage, but other than that, I have a sneaking feeling that if possible, they pretend the whole postapo period just not happened and refer to the Invasion as the major breakpoint and reference point.
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She thinks that it'll all work out if she can just get her youth and some measure of her power back. Who needs a soul anyway? Also Bolas is totally doing this because he cares about her well-being beyond how useful she is to him.
Oh wait, she hates the debt thing, but it'll all work out if she can just kill the demons with this shiny piece of headgear. An artifact made by evil magic with immense power totally has no drawbacks or anything.
Oh wait, the headgear is slowly killing me or overriding my will. But if I can just master the Chain Veil, it'll all work out.
Eventually, this cycle of "it'll all work out if I do X" has to be broken.
She sold her soul for immortality after all. Going for the easy solution is pretty Black though I guess.
Jhoira said, “I’m not sure we have time for it(to hear the story of the vampire) NOW (because) I’m expecting someone.
Then Ajani shows up and she says, “NOW we are ready.”
Jhoira meant now we are ready to hear the story. Ajani may have more allies that they’re meeting up with.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Except in this case, going for the "easy solution" has yielded diminishing returns over time.
I actually went back and reread her Origins story, and Bolas told her that she was better off just accepting death than trying to run from it. This was coming from a dragon who was obsessed with regaining his pre-Mending power.
Makes it worse Bolas read her the fine print and she still said yes please...talk about Vain.
I really don't think Liliana Vess is thinking all that hard. She really seems to focus on what she wants now, not a few steps ahead. I want to get immortality cause I don't want to be an old hag so I sell by soul to demons, crap this contract sucks let me kill these demons to get my soul back...
She lacks foresight. Gideon and her are kinda similar in that respect. What is the worst that can happen if I toss this spear at a God, its not like he can hurt me. Oh right he can smite all my friends who aren't invulnerable.
Maybe that is why they both like Chandra, they have some serious Red Impulsive streaks.
Still I think she thinks she can use the Chain Veil to beat Bolas. She doesn't consider the possibility though that the Demon Contract might be the only thing that is keeping the Raven Man and the Chain Veil under her control. The fact that Bolas seems perfectly fine with her crossing off the Demons and helped write her contract doesn't seem to cross her mind either. And it really should considering Razaketh had a no direct attacks clause in his contract.
1) I think Jhoira* is holding off on approaching Teferi and/or Jodah until she actually has the Weatherlight up an running. It seems pretty clear that her relationship with them isn't what it used to be, and she likely thinks it'll be easier to sway them if she's already got the ball rolling.
1a) To this end, I don't really think Raff is meant to be "the mage" rather he's only there to fill in the role of "the Capashen" because big sis said no. Jhoira wasn't there to recruit him, and honestly didn't even seem to be aware of his existence until he inserted himself into the situation. She likely has/had every intention to recruit Teferi or Jodah as her magic expert.
2) As far as the New Crew's relation to the Old Crew, Ajani fills Orim's role. While many people (myself included) tend not to think of him as such, Ajani IS a healer. That was his role from conception, his card art and story appearances simply tend to portray him more as a fighter who can heal, than as a healer who can fight. (There was a rather lengthy hubbub about this on MaRo's blog. Word of God is Ajani is a healer first and foremost.)
3) Just how many people (planeswalkers) does Ajani know? This old cat sure gets around.
4) Tiana = Kaylee. (Just the general vibe I get from her.) Also, I'm pretty sure she's at least part human. We know that Serra angels had relations with humans in Serra's Realm, and it's implied that they were also born just like humans, so I'm kinda feeling like she's maybe actually only half-Angel? (Hence her unsuredness in her angelic ability.)
*Somehow, for years and years and YEARS, until literally like a month ago, I've managed to read Jhoira's (Joy-ra) name as Jhoria (Jor-ee-ah). I've been mispronouncing her name for years despite it being literally right in from on me this whole time.
That is because "Generic Black mana users" are short sighted gits, that is why they are evil 99% of the time because they haven't learned how to properly balance "cost of power" vs "What I actually get out of that power." Liliana is the sort of person who wouldn't check their average mana costs before checking Dark Confidant vs Phyrexian Arena and would just Jam Confident because "it is better" and then kills herself with gigantic fatties.
Remember that the Weatherlight was never designed to be a silver bullet to destroy anything, the Weatherlight is a Symbol to inspire people, Imagine what will happen when the Weatherlight shows up in the skies above a Cabal and blasts something big and important, even more so than in the Phyrexian War it will spread legends of "That ship is back, it defeated Yawgmoth and the Phyrexians, what can the freaking Cabal do against that."
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
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Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
There is a reason that Sorin took one look at Liliana and left her alone.
The only complaint I have is that as usual the travel times have been sped up or conveniently omitted. Assuming Jhoira's boat is sail powered, traveling from Bogardian to the coast of Jamurra alone should have taken a month. Then going through the Burning Isles, around the tip of the Aerona continent and up to Benalia could have taken the better part of a year using historic sailing technology. Doing that and going all the way back to Bogardian is a voyage that would have easily taken a year or more. Even if the ship has an artifact engine to power it through storm and waves to cut travel time (and sure, Jhoira is an artificer who built a submarine to make finding the Weatherlight easier, so I'll grant that even if it wasn't mentioned) you are still looking at quite a trip. But then again, that does give enough time for the Weatherlight to be restored by her team of artisans and the seed for its new hull to grow, so I guess this is only a problem in that it makes it hard to create a timeline that is consistent with the relatively short plot of Amonkhet. Which I didn't bother reading most of because it bored me. So I'm fine with that.
Maybe Tamiyo introduced Ajani and Jhoira? We know she has been to Dominaria before, after all...
Lilliana, of course.
How does time work on different planes anyway? Are we just going with 24 hours everywhere and 365 days a year to keep things simple. You could say the timelines are desynched right now and that is the twist.
That does throw a kink into the meet up with Ajani, but it could be worked out by simply saying that they met during the Weatherlight's restoration and Ajani left again after agreeing to meet up again once Weatherlight was finished.
It helps to have a large circle of friends across the Multiverse you can call on.
Maybe I'm overreacting and I'm sure some characters will be fleshed out more in the future, but man, it felt like some serious potential was squanderEd here. Especially because the new characters actually seem to be pretty interesting.
That was my basic assumption, which is why I laughed my rear end off at it because Belzenlok even making that claim when the Primevals, the Numena and the Phyrexians are a thing is hilarious.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Yeah, sure. Kerrick was reliable too!
Orbital rotations are technically different on different planes, but a "Year", as mentioned in the story these days, is approximately the same unit of measure everywhere. We didn't used to think so, but Teysa's modern age of 112 only works if she was born around 9965 Z.C. like is said in Guildpact, which would put the events of the original Ravnica block just a few years pre-Mending and still add up to the modern day.
So a "year" when mentioned in-story is the same unit of measure everywhere (otherwise everyone in-universe would have to constantly be doing math), even thought technically planes have different solar cycles. I know it hurts, but it's the easiest way to track a multiverse-spanning narrative. The whole different years mean different things only worked when you never saw much cross-pollination.
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So that just makes her a cougar. And slow time water does wonders on keeping menopause away. #awomanhasneeds
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
She should be around forty, IIRC. And she has not a "teenage body". That is why many people hated her "manga teenager" art from FS. That is why I really like her new art, because it is the first that makes her justice. She does not look twenty in the most current art.
Speaking of what...the "It had been so long since Urza's final powerful spell had all but ended the Phyrexian invasion" still bugs me, especially in relation to Jhoira-Jodah relationship.
If Martha just replaced this part with "It had been so long since Jeska's final spell had ended the rifts that threatened the plane to be torn apart" (credit: my good friend Andethir), all would be OK. I have still ambiguous feelings about Wizards' approach to Time Spiral events (sans Mending). Yeah, there is the Meandering River/Calciform Pools art homage, but other than that, I have a sneaking feeling that if possible, they pretend the whole postapo period just not happened and refer to the Invasion as the major breakpoint and reference point.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
So then we have..
Gerrard -> Jhoira
Sisay -> Jhoira
Mirri -> Shanna
Ertai -> Raff
Orim -> Ajani
Hanna -> Tiana
Crovax -> Arvad
Squee -> Squee
Who gets Tahngarth's place? I almost think that Squee takes Tahngarth's place, as weird as it sounds, because then Slimefoot can take Squee's place.
OTOH, I guess it's possible that Slimefoot takes Starke's place. Then there's Barrin's daughter... I always forget her name...
Hannah.