The Duelist #39-41 (Urza's Destinty)

And so we reach the final issues of The Duelist. To be honest, there is very little of interest for us here, but as you know I am a completist and I've done all the other issues of this magazine, so let's take a look anyway.

Bloodlines

Writer - Loren L. Coleman
Cover art - Kev Walker
Released August 1999

SUMMARY
Bloodlines spans the centuries between Time Streams and Rath and Storm, and takes us to various corners of Dominaria and Rath, showing what was going on there in the build up to Gerrard's adventures with the Weatherlight. It ends up being more a collection of overlapping stories than one single narrative.

First there is Tolaria, where Urza has embarked on a eugenics project to create the Heir to the Legacy, someone who can understand how to defeat the Phyrexians by having a certain affinity for them without being tempted to their side. Breeding starts in the fast-time zones, but the subjects there lose their bonds to Dominaria's mana, and with that their empathy. So Urza starts to manipulate bloodlines all over the plane in all sorts of ways, from arranged marriages to gene manipulation in fetuses. Throughout the book the Tolarian characters keep discussing the ethics of this project, but while individuals occasionally opt out, the project itself just keeps going.