The Brothers' War Annotations

The story of accompanying the new Brothers' War set had some surprisingly deep continuity references, so I thought it would be fun to do another round of annotations. Hopefully you'll also find it interesting. And hopefully I can get through the article without too many confusing sentences despite the set The Brothers' War having a story called The Brothers' War which frequently references the novel called The Brothers' War, all of them covering the in-universe event called the Brothers' War...

Before I get into the annotations, a quick review: I thought this story was amazing. Recent Magic stories have often been way too rushed, especially the ones covering planewide wars (Kaldheim, Dominaria United), and the Brothers' War is a complex multi-decade conflict, so I was wondering how it was going to go. Add to that the possible continuity snafu's that are always lurking with a time travel plot, and things could've gone pretty bad. Especially for me, as The Brothers' War is still my favorite Magic story of all time.

Luckily, and I think bravely, WotC decided not to retell the Brothers' War story at all, instead giving us a collection of much more personal stories that build on the established continuity! They cover all the characterization and character interaction I thought was sorely missing from Dominaria United, and go for a level of continuity references that's genuinely impressive. I also love how the ghost of Urza hangs over all the stories, even the ones where you wouldn't expect it (like with Tezzeret wondering about Karn's creator), which subtly but powerfully builds up to him finally appearing in person in the finale.

I do wonder if more casual fans feel cheated by not getting the whole story of the war though. If I were WotC I'd have plastered links to a discounted version of the e-book of The Brothers' War all over my sites and social media. (Or released it for free, but you know, that's not the world we're living in.)

Okay. Now let's dive into the specific references!

The Past Story

"It was snowing in Penregon."

I'll not go over all the places that get mentioned (Penregon, Kroog, Tomakul, etc). If their history is relevant it gets referenced in the story itself, and if you want to know more, check out the wiki, or my The Brothers' War (the novel) review. Sufficed to say for now, most of these places were probably thought up by the East Coast Playertesters, who did the designs for Antiquities and are known to have made maps with troop movements and everything, and then slowly revealed to the public through either the cards themselves, the map from The Duelist Supplement, the Antiquities comic, or in the novel, that last one becoming the definitive version of events.

I'll also not cover the whole story of the war or the entire life of major characters like Urza, Mishra, Tawnos and Ashnod, just specific events that get brought up in these chapters. If you want to know more, I can point you to the novel review, or the wiki, for that.

"Life continued in Terisiare, though the spring and summer seasons seemed to run shorter, the warm months compressing into warm weeks, and in winter, snow now fell in Penregon."

As I'm sure is common knowledge by now, the war between Urza and Mishra ended with the Sylex Blast, which blew up Argoth and cut of Dominaria and a few other planes from the rest of the multiverse, but also disrupted the climate of Dominaria, eventually leading to the Ice Age. The actual start of the Ice Age is still about 4 centuries away at this point, but the climate is cooling the whole time. Plus such a massive explosion would also severely effect the immediate weather. So expect things to get slightly better for Terisiare in a few decades, but to get worse and worse in the long run.

"Alone at last. Kayla held a grain report, the numbers grim, and stared over it to a newly drawn map of the Visceral Sea to the east, spread out on the table before her."

I'll talk more about Kayla a bit later. Just wanted to say here that I think the Visceral Sea is a new name. It probably explains why the homarid that will show up in Terisiare (in about 3000 years) will be called "Viscerids".

"Kayla allowed a polite and hollow smile. "Tawnos," she said. "I thought you were dead."
"Urza's former assistant bowed. "In a way, I was," he said."

Tawnos survived the Sylex Blast by hiding in his coffin, essentially a stasis pod, which he had build to imprison Mishra in after the war. In the epilogue of The Brothers' War Urza freed him from it shortly after the blast, but the prologue of Planeswalker ret-conned this into being five years later (which neatly lines up with the time this story takes place). So for all intents and purposes, Tawnos has been dead for five years.

"He stopped a demon from taking this world," Tawnos said, quiet but firm, eyes downcast. "His brother had been . . ." Tawnos searched for the word and found it in bitter memory. "Turned by that creature. Fused with a machine."

Gix had been manipulating the war, mainly on Mishra's side, for years, but Urza didn't find out about that until the last day of the war. After a Dragonball Z-style beam struggle between the Mightstone and the Weakstone Mishra got partially exploded, revealing he had been phyrexianized. Just before the Sylex blast robo-Mishra returned, having patched himself into one of his dragon engines.

"You told me he would keep my son safe,"

I don't think we ever saw this specific promise. Ironically Urza did send Harbin back to Penregon for his own safety before the final battle begun. Unfortunately he wasn't far enough away when the Sylex was activated.

"When the shaking stopped and the water receded, Kayla bin-Kroog was one of the few nobles left alive."

Kayla was last seen trying to comfort her grandson Jarsyl during an earthquake in Penregon that was caused by the Sylex blast. We knew she survived thanks to mentions of her later life in The Gathering Dark.

"He asked me to tell you to, ah"—Tawnos sipped his own tea—"to 'remember him not as he was, but as he tried to be.'"

That is a quote straight from the last paragraph of the novel. Urza actually planeswalked away before finishing the request, but he had made the same request to Harbin earlier, who in turn told Tawnos.

"Does he think I am still the little princess he won?"

Urza indeed "won" Kayla when her dad, the Warlord of Kroog, promised her hand in marriage to whoever could move a big statue. Urza did so by building his Avenger. Urza seemed more interested in the dowry, which contained Thran artifacts, and the warlord mostly agreed on the marriage so Urza could build ornithopters for him. Kayla didn't like being made the object of a silly "quest", but did say she preferred Urza over the list of strongmen who had sprained their backs before he came along.

"Kayla furrowed her brow and read the banner, realizing it was more than just a simple black field. Embroidered on it in a deep blue, so dark it was difficult to see from a distance, were two circles, side by side."

The Book of Tal comes from a few pieces of flavor text, the first going all the way back to Alpha with Northern Paladin. We mainly saw the Church of Tal as the antagonists in The Gathering Dark though, where their symbol was described as a double sunburst, of which we're clearly seeing a prototype version on this banner. In that novel their origin was described as "a union of two small sun-worshipping cults among the early Yotians, though the church itself, at its height, went out of its way to erase all traces of its humble beginnings", which seems to be confirmed later on when Kayla thinks "Tal. An old god of Yotia, something to do with the sun." The Tallites we've seen before mostly hated wizards, but it makes sense for them to start off hating artifacts in the wake of the Brothers' War.

The weird thing about the Church is that they supposedly died out after the Dark Age (in The Eternal Ice Jaya sees their double sunburst and doesn't recognize it), yet its holy book is still quoted on Southern Paladin, a card from Weatherlight, and the only Northern Paladin we ever saw in-story comes from the Greensleeves cycle, which also happens millennia after The Dark. But we've also got references to the Hymn to Tourach and the Martyrs of Korlis in post-Ice Age Dominaria in some Harper Prism novels, so I guess Dominarians just really like reinventing old religions.

"Found a home there until the Korlisians drafted us for the Tomakul Campaign of 955."

The dates at the start of these chapters are given in Argivian Reckoning, which starts with the birth of Urza. The date Raddic gives here is in Penregon Founded, which calculates from the date when, well, Penregon was founded. Urza and Mishra were born in 912 PF, so the Tomakul Campaign started in 43 AR. Lines up neatly with the 44 AR date given for chapter 4 of this story!

"He meant Urza's old tower. "I was taken there once, years ago," Kayla said. "But I could not tell you the way. It is well hidden in the mountains somewhere to the west or southwest. You'll know it by the thick mist that surrounds it."

Urza build his tower as a retreat after the fall of Kroog. It was indeed hidden in a perpetually foggy valley. Although the Tallites talk about finding it later on in the story, it's still standing in modern times for Teferi to make it his headquarters.

"Scouts returned from an expedition into Terisiare's far north, where they had heard rumors of a Gixian threat, a remnant of that foul order forgotten on Terisiare after the war's end."

In Planeswalker we learn that "about twenty years" after the Brothers' War ended, Phyrexia first attempted to infiltrate Dominaria with sleeper agents. They all looked the same though, so people got suspicious and killed them all. The plan was indeed overseen by Gix. Unfortunately for him the Shard of Twelve World locked Dominaria away for Phyrexia shortly afterwards, and Gix was chucked into the punishment sphere for his failure.

"She directed the construction of a grand manor house outside of Penregon, an estate that would prove her dedication to Argive as a gift to its future rulers—an exercise, she realized upon its completion and her relocation, in denial. She quit the manor and moved back to the city after only a year."

Despite Kayla abandoning the manor so quickly, and her and Jarsyl leaving Penregon altogether later on in the story, the place does survive for a few centuries, as Jodah, who is Jarsyl's great-great-grandson, grew up there. In fact, The Gathering Dark mentions Jarsyl living there, so presumably he returns at some point.

"Among them was a copy of a text, an exploration of the techniques of a scholar from the college of Lat-Nam and one of the Third Path's leaders, Hurkyl, who—if war stories were to be believed—once disappeared the first regiments of Mishra's army that attacked Terisia City."

Indeed she did, though she disappeared herself in the process as well.

"A story, tender and cruel, of a man and a flying machine in the western sky. Harbin."

Harbin was last seen clinging to the rigging and screaming his father's name as the Sylex blast sank his ship.

I don't really know what to make of this story about him perhaps being alive, or a ghost, or whatever. It feels like an odd plot thread to bring up and then abandon before Kaysa discovers the truth.

"I've heard stories," Jarsyl began, "of a school to the north, on the banks of Ronom Lake."

"There's nothing in Ronom," Kayla said. "The Gixians were driven out a decade ago by the first Talite crusade."

"Right, yes," Jarsyl said. "But I've heard there is something else there now—a school for people who can . . . do what we do."

"A school for magic?"

Jarsyl nodded. "Magic and artifice, both. They're teaching people like us how to be better. Stronger."

...

"Magic and artifice," Kayla repeated. She wondered—could it be? "Did they say who runs this school?"

"An artificer woman, Nod, and a mage they called Duck," Jarsyl said. He rubbed the back of his neck, as if ashamed to speak the names aloud. "I think he might be from the west, it's a funny name."

Now this is interesting! The Monastery of Gix did indeed lay near the Ronom Lake. In The Brothers' War we last see the Gixians travel to the portal in Koilos and enter Phyrexia, but clearly some of them stayed behind. We heard about the Tallite crusade against them in chapter 1.

In The Gathering Dark we learn that Lord Ith has build his Conclave of Mages where the Monastery used to stand, and that there is a bottomless pit underneath it. This pit is actually some sort of link to Phyrexia (and it is thus via this pit that the Gixians heard the whispers that made them summon Gix from Phyrexia in the first place) (Quick aside: the naming of Gix and the Gixians is a bit odd. In The Brothers' War there is mention of the Gixians before Gix enters Dominaria, and when he does it seems like he takes his name from them. In Planeswalker it is stated that the Brotherhood of Gix worshipped a mountain god of that name, and that it was ancient when Urza was born, but then later the name also shows up in Thran glyphs, and finally in The Thran we learn that Gix used to be Thran himself. So the sequence seems to be that the historical figure Gix eventually came to be worshipped as a mountain god, and then later used those worshippers to return to Dominaria and reclaim his name.)

The fact that there was already a wizarding school there this early is new information though. The Wiki has already assumed that this means the Conclave of Mages was founded this early, but it should be noted that in The Gathering Dark Lord Ith says multiple times that he was the founder of that place. So it seems that at some point the school from this story is abandoned, and then Ith founds the Conclave on its ruins later on. Which might sound convoluted, but remember that people are drawn to this place by that bottomless pit underneath it. Millennia later it would become the location of Lim-Dûl's citadel Tresserhorn.

Jarsyl hanging out at that location makes sense though, as the main thing we know about his later life is that he opened a gate to Phyrexia. Perhaps he too was inspired by the whisperings coming through the pit, like the Gixians before him.

Finally for this passage: Nod and Duck. These are clearly Ashnod and Tawnos, as "Duck" was Ashnod's nickname for Tawnos (sometimes she used "baby duck", with Urza being "momma duck").

The last time we saw Ashnod she was fighting Gix during the last battle of the war, and then when Gix appears next he's covered in blood, implying Ashnod died. How she could've survived the Sylex blast is a mystery to me, and like with Harbin we never get more information on her supposed survival. Again, I think that's a shame. Two named characters surviving the blast diminishes its impact, and if you're then not going to use those characters beyond their names being dropped... seems like a bit of a waste.

As for the two of them setting up a wizarding school, neither of them ever showed magical aptitude, but perhaps the two of them just do the artifice classes and have hired others to teach magic. The only thing we knew about the post-war life of Tawnos before these stories was that his supposed deathbed confession was written down in the T'Mill Codex, which was mentioned in Planeswalker as the one source on Dominaria revealing that the Mightstone and Weakstone became Urza's eyes.

On her lap, the last pages of a poem she had been working on. An epic, a history of the men who killed the world, lest they ever be forgotten—or forgiven."

Kayla's epic poem, "The Antiquities War", was first introduced in the Antiquities comics, where the narration came in the form of excerpts from it, with commentary by planeswalker and historian Taysir, The Brothers' War states it uses the poem as its primary source, in Planeswalker Xantcha owns several copies of it, and finally it'll pop up again in later chapters of this story.

"Master Tawnos, sir?" Sanwell asked. "My younger brother, Rendall—he's a cadet in the ornithopter corps, stationed at the palace."

Chapter 3 has few references, except for its main character Sanwell and his brother Rendall. When Kroog falls Tawnos sends Rendall off in an ornithopter loaded with all of Urza's writings and prototypes. He makes it to Penregon, enabling Urza to continue fighting the war. Sanwell hears about his brothers escape, and is the one to tell Urza about it when the latter returns to Kroog to find it destroyed. There he mentions his avenger got overwhelmed by Fallaji, as we see here. The brothers have few more appearances later in the novel, staying on as artificers in Urza's service.

Tawnos's talk with Sanwell here doesn't make much of an impression on him, as later when he's ordering Rendall to go, Rendall asks about his brother and Tawnos asks "do you want to send him with you?", only for Rendall to remind him that Sanwell is among the older students who he just send out into battle.

"A human soul was too myriad to be thrown into hell on the word of one god: damnation for the Yotians was not that simple. One had many souls throughout the course of their life, and each of them was afforded its own judgment."

In the Antiquities comics, when the Warlord of Kroog dies, there is a narration box saying "his seven souls went to their seven hells" (remember that the narration is supposed to be excerpts from Kayla's poem, and the Warlord is Kayla's dad!). There is no further elaboration on it there, but in the novel we get the explanation that Yotians believe people have several souls over your lifetime, which are all judged separately after you die.

 

"A pair of broad, tattooed Sumifans marched past, a nervous song on their lips that left a taste of ozone on the air."

Sumifa is not one of the places on Terisiare originally thought up by the East Coast Playtesters. Instead it comes from the novel Song of Time. People practice song-magic there, so the ozone taste is probably a side-effect of their magic. Song of Time suffers form some early novel "we've not nailed down the continuity yet" weirdness and shows Urza and Mishra was wizards commanding other wizards, rather than artificers in a setting where magic is only just being discovered. Still, it establishes that the songmages work for Mishra, which is reconfirmed in The Brothers' War. We never actually see them in that later novel though, and their songs are only mentioned as meditation techniques, so presumably their magical effects are subtle enough for people to write them off as mundane. Or they do have the more powerful magic as shown in Song of Time, but they keep that hidden from outsiders. Who knows.

Other than that chapter 4 doesn't have anything to discus either. It's more of a World War I reference than a The Brothers' War reference! Between the fall of Kroog and the final battle at Argoth the novel really speeds up, sometimes skipping years at a time. The siege of Tomakul is only told in flashback, this is the first time we see it in more detail.

"The Golgothian Sylex had first been created or discovered by Feldon, a scholar of languages and ancient glaciers, some decades before the Brothers' War. As well, it had been created by Ashnod, carved from the skullcap of the qadir her master, Mishra, replaced. Also, it had been pulled from Old Phyrexia's deepest ichor well by Gix, a demon who slouched to Dominaria out from dreams of steel and oil. Also, the Sylex had been chiseled from a giant's tooth and kept by the kobolds of the Khers; as well it was one of Tal's hardened tears, the spell-frozen corona of a falling star, the melted heart of a mountain hammered into shape by Sardian dwarves, and so on, and so on."

"The myths of that old world-ender's beginning filled reams, and there was no way to tell which one was true. Likewise, for the Sylex's end."

"Karn believed his to be the real one, but histories Teferi had dug up spoke of the Sylex being destroyed by Urza, or shattered by Jared Carthalion, or consumed by a great and long dead dragon, or tossed into a lake as tribute to some icebound god."

"By Teferi's reckoning there were four or five Sylexes worth following up on, and contradictory histories for all of them: thus, the anchor, the needle, and the tapestry."

In the novel the Sylex is fished out of the sea by some fishermen who sell it to Feldon. He later gives it to Loran when Terisia City is destroyed by Mishra, but she is captured by Ashnod. Finally Ashnod passes it to Tawnos, who hands it to Urza, who then detonates the thing. Ashnod also makes a replica (Ashnod's Cylix, from Alliances) that she gives to the Gixians as a decoy. You can see how this turned into the first two explanations of its origin given above. The others are completely new.

As for its destruction, in the Wayfarer comic it's revealed that the planeswalker Ravidel owns the thing when he uses it to threaten the Gathering of the Sages of Minorad (more on them later), and eventually Jared Carthalion casts Rust on it. But then years later, in the Return to Dominaria story, Karn digs up the Sylex in Yavimaya, only for it to get destroyed again in the Dominaria United story. The mention above sort off fixes that continuity error, although we're still unsure which of the things was the genuine article. As for the other explanations, people probably assume Urza destroyed the Sylex because it was nowhere to be seen after he blew up Argoth and ascended. The bits about the dragon and the ice god are new.

"Silver could evade time's ironclad law. Urza discovered that silver could travel physically back in time, made Karn and, Teferi supposed, started this whole affair."

That's the start of the novel Time Streams, where Urza tries to go back in time to stop the Phyrexians before they become a threat. He gives up on that after his time machine explodes, kills most of his students, and creates bubbles of fast and slow moving time all over Tolaria. Or "Tolaria in flames, rifts torn in time, that endless lingering.", as stated later in this paragraph.

"Urza sat cross-legged with the bowl in his lap. The runes within the bowl spiraled toward the center. Blood from the gushing wound on his forehead dribbled into the bowl and filled the carved runes with crimson." 

This bit, and all subsequent cursive text in this chapter, come straight from The Brothers' War, though sometimes bits are omitted. For example, the line "Mishra was screaming something" is actually "Mishra was screaming something, but Urza no longer heard his voice. All he heard was the land, crying for release." Clearly the second part was omitted because Teferi doesn't know what Urza is thinking.

"I need to tell you some things about the future," Teferi said to Urza. "Your future, my present. It concerns everything."

Obviously the discussion between Urza and Teferi isn't from The Brothers' War. There we jump from Urza detonating the Sylex in the final chapter, to him standing next to Tawnos's coffin in the epilogue.

"You're going to spend your life trying to fight the Phyrexians. First for what they did to your brother, and then for what they will do to you."

"Is that what that thing is called?" Urza muttered. "A whole race of them . . ."

Since Gix manipulated the brothers from behind the scenes. Urza only learned about his existence in the last moments of the war, when Tawnos gave him the Sylex and told him about the encounter he and Ashnod had just had with Gix.

"No," Teferi said. He thought of Zhalfir. Of Shiv. Of the Mirage War. Of time torn apart and Urza's fury. "Not then. Never."

This is a list of Teferi's big failures. He phased out Zhalfir and Shiv to protect them from the Phyrexians in Invasion, but created two big time rifts in the process, and thanks to some meddling by Jeska in Future Sight Zhalfir was locked out of the timestream forever. Teferi gives a detailed description of how he phases out Zhalfir and Shiv in chapter 1 of the present day story. The Mirage War started when Teferi accidentally phased out his own Isle, which attracted Mangara, Jolrael and Kaervek, whose meddling in Zhalfirin politics eventually led to war.

"Teferi understood. With horror, he understood. There was no unknown spell to discover, no secret mechanism by which Urza activated his Sylex. Hurkyl's meditations were well documented. The runic carvings on the Sylex had been cast and re-cast, etched in perfect replica on Saheeli's copy. It was all known and understood. They had everything they needed but the person. The trigger to detonate the Sylex was not a spell or an artifact—it was a person."

I wonder where this is going. According to Feldon some of the runes in the Sylex say "Wipe the land clear. Bring the ending. Topple the empires to bring a fresh start." and "Call the end, fill with memories of the land." And when people touch the thing the whole world seems to darken for them. Part of the reason Feldon gives it to Loran is because he's afraid that if Drafna took it, he would use it, as Drafna has been acting "strange" since his wife Hurkyl disappeared. Perhaps there is an element of despair required to use the Sylex?

After the first chapter of the Dominaria United story, in which Karn finds glyphs similar to those in the Sylex, I had hoped we would get more information on its origin, but Dominaria United had way too much stuff to do in way too little time, so that never happened. Here's hoping there'll be more information revealed when someone gets around to using it in March of the Machines.

"And there was silence in Terisiare."

Again, straight from The Brothers' War. As is everything in this chapter below this quote. The only difference is that in the novel the date is given as 64 AR, but as I mentioned earlier, Planeswalker ret-conned this to 69 AR.

The Present Day Story

"Stronghold"

Obviously the names of the chapters are all sets set either on Dominaria (Antiquities & The Dark) or on Rath (Stronghold, Nemesis, Exodus), the plane merged with Dominaria in Planeshift.

"There are times when destiny calls forth a people and demands an action. Now is the time. We are the people. This is our action."

The flavor text from Awakening, when Eladamri is rousing the skyshroud elves, en-Kor, en-Vec and en-Dal for an attack on the Stronghold. 

"The expression on Elspeth Tirel's face when Teferi answered was one he'd seen before. It was at Tolarian Academy, on a visit to Barrin, his old headmaster—not so much a visit as an act of contrition. Teferi remembered the venerable mage standing up from his desk, his face sunken, jaw quivering, the tempest inside stayed only by propriety. The name dividing them was Rayne—Barrin's dead wife, killed in a war Teferi spearheaded, a war he bore responsibility for."

Rayne died in Prophecy. Teferi is a bit harsh on himself here. He was one of the leaders of the Jamuraan defenders in that war, but it was started by Keldon religious zealots, who were in turn manipulated by the Phyrexians. Here it sounds like Teferi had to go to Tolaria to tell Barrin his wife died, but actually Barrin was there, fighting in the war. He was the one who vaporized Greel after he killed Rayne. There could still have been a visit by Teferi to a grieving Barrin in between Prophecy and Invasion though.

"No. You listen to me. Koth and I once tried to do exactly what you're proposing, and it ended in failure."

As recounted in The Lost Confession.

"It had taken Teferi some time to track Wrenn down, locating her finally on the plane of Cridhe, where she and Seven were basking in the intense mana showers of the plane's Clan Tree."

Cridhe. CRIDHE. CRIDHE! It's 2022 and I'm reading about the Clan Tree of Cridhe in a Magic story!?

Cridhe is the setting of Cursed Land, the fifth Magic novel ever published. The plane apparently only has green mana, which is generated by a massive tree. Cursed Land is a completely stand alone story that I don't think has ever been referenced by another source before. It's so stand alone in fact that it features nothing you would recognize as uniquely Magic the Gathering beyond a planeswalker showing up in the epilogue, and I'm convinced it's actually a D&D novel hastily rewritten to cash in on the initial Magic hype. Still, it's cool to see such an obscure plane referenced.

"I can't help but think that this path has been trod before . . . by Urza, my teacher. He, too, assembled heroes—Planeswalkers and mortals—to battle Phyrexia. Even so, history remembers him as the monster this plane needed to defeat the monsters who threatened it."

Urza gathered together nine planeswalkers, the Nine Titans, for an assault on Phyrexia. An assault that turned out to be quite a disaster, ending with Urza himself being seduced by Phyrexia and switching sides. You can get more details in the Planeshift review.

"Who was the true Teferi? Was it Teferi, mage of Zhalfir, who pledged to defend his home no matter the cost? Was it Teferi, master of time, the elitist, nigh-omnipotent planeswalker who thought everyone should simply get in line and follow? Or was it Teferi the disruptive student, who used cruel humor to obscure his own fears that no one would ever understand him, that no one would ever consider him a friend?"

Someone clearly had a lot of fun coming up with all these references! 

"After Kroog was destroyed while most of its defenders were at his side, Urza vowed that none of his allies would ever need to fear for their own defense again, even while laying siege to a city far from their homes."

—From an anonymous annotation in The Antiquities War, by Kayla bin-Kroog, Folio Editione

The flavor text of Yotian Soldiers, though the attribution is new. Could the anonymous annotator by Taysir again?

"Jhoira, I've got to go," he said, standing up. "Give my love to Adeliz."

Jodah and Jhoira dated for a bit following their meeting in Time Spiral block. According to Return to Dominaria it didn't work out, but clearly they are back to speaking terms. We don't really know anything about Adeliz other than that she's a Ghitu, like Jhoira, who was trained at the Tolarian Academy.

"General Sharaman," said Jodah. "The leader of Urza's armies."

Sharaman first shows up in The Brothers' War as a lieutenant who flies off with Urza on a mission to find Mishra. Turns out Mishra was actually luring Urza away so he could make a surprise attack on Kroog. The one that causes Kroog to fall, as seen in chapter 3 of the past story. Sharaman is mentioned as having risen to the rank of general later in the novel.

"I served Urza faithfully for decades . . . My nephews. Good boys. I cradled their corpses split apart by Mishra's dragon engines." His form became hazier as the effects of Saheeli's trap weakened. "I stood by while he ordered the sacking of Sardia and other provinces that wouldn't give over their resources. I thought that history would forgive us because we were the righteous ones."

The bit about his nephews is new. The sad story of the Sardian dwarves plays out mostly off-screen in The Brothers' War, but is one of Urza's biggest war crimes. They are mentioned a few times as merchants at first, before Urza talks about needing their resources. We never see the Sardian campaign, but later in the novel it is said that "there are reports from the surviving Sardian dwarves that burning rain falls from the sky into their land".

"Teferi had mentioned the Starfield Orb to Jodah once, explaining how he'd obtained it in one of the hidden caches Urza left behind sometime during the Phyrexian Invasion. But he downplayed the orb's significance. Maybe it had confounded him? No, it was more likely that Teferi erred on the side of wisdom by assuming the orb was too dangerous to fiddle with. Jodah would have done the same, especially after detecting the use of soul energy in the orb's enchantments. No wonder it affected spirits like it did. Urza had truly fallen into dark practices in his final days."

The Starfield Orb, first named here, was retrieved by Teferi and Niambi in Return to Dominaria chapter 6. The bit about "soul energy" and Urza's "dark practices in his final days" might be a reference to the soul bombs, the devices he and the Nine Titans used to destroy Phyrexia. They were powered by the soul of the planeswalker Tevesh Szat. Perhaps the Starfield Orb was an earlier test run?

"Jodah held his hand out, directing the shock at the orb. In a blue flash, the world vanished, replaced a moment later by the interior of an austere cottage. The room was illuminated, but there didn't seem to be any origin for the light. Jodah found himself seated at a grand table. On top, a vast array of toy figurines almost impossibly small—soldiers, some on horseback, against a squadron of mechanical dragons—were in a simulated battle."

""Urza, you old git," he said softly. "A pocket dimension." And not just any. This pocket dimension was made to resemble the cabin Urza lived in more than a thousand years before. It had been located in the Ohran Mountains on the isle of Gulmany, a fact Jodah knew because he'd paid it a visit once upon a time."

This is the cabin that Urza and Xantcha lived in during the present day parts of Planeswalker. At the start of that story Urza is completely nuts and obsessively replaying his war against Mishra, trying to figure out when the Phyrexians took over his brother. That's what all the figurines Jodah sees are for. Jodah's visit to the cabin was revealed in the epilogue of The Shattered Alliance.

"The Antiquities War by Kayla bin-Kroog," a voice behind him announced. Jodah spun around to see a woman in padded armor, her hair pulled back from her angular face. "That's the folio edition," she said. "Produced to commemorate the first gathering of the Sages of Minorad. There are several copies of this work on the shelf, all different editions, from scroll to tome."

The Gathering of the Sages of Minorad comes from the Armada comics, specifically Wayfarer. It was supposed to be a gathering of the best and brightest minds of Dominaria to herald a glorious new age after the Ice Age and Flood Age had subsided. Only then Ravidel showed up with what may or may not have been the Golgothian Sylex, threatening to blow them up if they intervened with his plans, and enslaving or striking down a few planeswalkers who attended. It's a very long story.

"I know you," said Jodah. "Xantcha. You were Urza's companion."

"In my dreams, I am Xantcha," the woman said. "But I am not her. Everything she was is contained within the golem, Karn."

Xantcha was a Phyrexian newt, designed to be a sleeper agent. She rebelled against her makers though and was Urza's companion during Planeswalker. It is heavily hinted she was created from Mishra's flesh, and after her death Urza uses her heartstone to activate Karn. (You can read more about my theory on how these "reincarnations" of Mishra keep Urza on the right track, and how he goes bad when they're not around, in the Bloodlines review)

"Jodah had met the real Xantcha briefly."

This is new information. In the epilogue of The Shattered Alliance he waits until Xantcha leaves before approaching Urza. But maybe he was still around when she came back.

"A door at the far side of the room opened, and stepping inside was another individual, this one a man, stout and severe, with dark hair and a harried brow. Flipping back through The Antiquities War again, Jodah arrived at a portrait that matched the man."

"Mishra," said Jodah. "You are a construct as well."

Maybe this is a Mishra construct, but more likely it is a Ratepe construct. Ratepe was a man who looked like Mishra who Xantcha sought out in an attempt to drag Urza away from his minifigs and towards doing something against Phyrexia. He later becomes Xantcha's lover. (Then again, this is all Urza's creation, who thought Ratepe was Mishra, so maybe it is a Mishra construct?)

"A smaller folder within the file contained even more arcane information on familial lineages along with a grand design of disparate objects all united into a singular weapon."

"The Legacy," said Jodah. "This whole place—it's Urza's failsafe in case he perished before he could deploy it against the Phyrexians."

The Legacy was a collection of artifacts that formed the Legacy Weapon. The familial lineages are a reference to the Bloodlines Project, in which Urza tried to breed the perfect Heir to the Weatherlight (who turned out to be Gerrard). Together they were Urza's main plan to take out Yawgmoth.

The presence of these texts shows this is only an approximation of Urza's old cabin, as he didn't come up with the Legacy and the Bloodlines stuff until after he had abandoned that place and moved to Tolaria.

"Blood is foul, the flesh dross. My ascendance thirsts for life itself."

The flavor text of Vicious Hunger.

"Ajani was never left out of Bolas's plans. He'd devise special stratagems to occupy the leonin while Bolas's other schemes progressed. To Tezzeret, the truth was evident: Nicol Bolas—Planeswalker, elder dragon, god-pharaoh—was obsessed with Ajani Goldmane. Whatever had happened in their battle during the conflux of Alara had inspired a hesitancy in Bolas that he had for few others."

In that battle Ajani used his magic to create an avatar of Bolas's own soul, which then chased Bolas away from Alara. He had already drawn a lot of power from the Maelstrom formed by Alara's reformation at that point though. I don't think we've actually seen any of those scheme's to keep Ajani occupied.

"He made his way to the tower, a defunct fortress used by a previous lord of the plane, a deity the Vedalkens called "Memnarch." He had never gotten a satisfactory explanation for who or what this Memnarch was from either contacts in Lumengrid or any of the current Phyrexian leadership. Surprisingly, Jin-Gitaxias had been the most forthright when he described Memnarch as "a mistake, but a valuable one for our purposes." Whatever this Memnarch's nature, its former haven was still intact. In fact, it looked in far better condition than the toppled wreck Tezzeret remembered."

This tower is the Panopticon, as Karn later names it, from where Memnarch observed the entire plane through the Darksteel Eye. There is some wonky continuity surrounding it, as the Planeswalkers Guide to Scars of Mirrodin say it became the seat of Karn during the period when he was corrupted and controlled by the praetors. In the Quest for Karn story it's a destroyed wreck though, with Karn hidden elsewhere. That story features no praetors at all.

Memnarch used to be the Mirari, a device created by Karn to observe Dominaria, but which somehow started granting wishes. After Karn retrieved it he turned it into a sentient being to stand as warden over Argentum while he went off to travel the Multiverse. Phyrexian oil corrupted Memnarch, who renamed Argentum to Mirrodin and began kidnapping people from other planes to experiment upon them in an attempt to become a planeswalker himself.

Argentum/Mirrodin/New Phyrexia is a very cool plane, and crucial in the current story, but both Mirrodin blocks each came out at points when continuity was not WotC's number 1 priority I'm afraid...

"That's when Karn finally spoke: "Jhoira . . . Jhoira is my friend . . . my best friend. We met in the original academy, before the accident drove us from Tolaria. She named me. Karn . . . from an old Thran name. She said . . . She said it meant—""

This is Karn's famous "Jhoira is my friend" mantra. In Bloodlines Urza capped his memory at 20 years as his mind couldn't handle immortality with a perfect memory. He started repeating these words to himself every night so he wouldn't forget Jhoira. He gets cut off here just before the final word. "Strength", if you're curious.

"Waste not, want not."

I couldn't place any of the other intrusive Phyrexian thoughts Tezzeret is suffering from, but "Waste not, want not" as a Phyrexian idiom comes from Planeswalker, where Xantcha oft repeated it.

"Bathed in hallowed light, the infidels looked upon the impurities of their souls and despaired."

—The Book of Tal

The flavor text of Holy Light, the one bit of Tallite flavor text that's actually from The Dark.

"More than once, you chided Aran on his handling of a blade."

Aran was Elspeth's squire in Bant. He appeared in the webcomic Honor Bound. When we last saw him he did say she had given the people hope and that he knew she would do the right thing, so he probably is disappointed in her for leaving Alara.

"How much would you give up for love? Ask Daxos of Meletis, as he has given up everything."

The paragraph following this bit finally given us (assuming it's true) a glimpse into what "life" is like for Daxos at the moment, beyond the very limited information we got in the Theros Beyond Death Story Summary. (Can you have a summary without a complete text?) There it was said he and Elspeth had a meeting before she left the plane. I wonder what they said to each other...

"She was so mad," said Chandra. "Threatened to drown me! I didn't even burn the whole forest down! Just one teensy-weensy part of it. I mean, trees grow back . . . eventually. Oh, and don't tell Nissa any of this."

This is a reference to the beginning of The Purifying Flame, in which Chandra causes a forest fire.

"We paid a priest from Zinara to cast a ward to keep chickens away from the place."

Zinara was a city also featured in The Purifying Flame. With Elspeth overhearing this we were super close to a possibly huge storyline reveal, as that place is ruled by the Order of Heliud. Hopefully when this whole Phyrexia thing is over Chandra and Elspeth can have a chat about Heliud, Heliod, and Gideon, and finally reveal the connections between them. Hey, now The Raven Man has officially been confirmed as Lim-Dûl, anything is possible!

"Venser," said Jodah, taking the wine and gulping some down.

"You knew him?"

"Long ago, when he was very young and I was . . . somewhat younger. I'm ashamed to say that I punched him in the face for circumstances that weren't his fault.

It happened in Planar Chaos. Venser had pushed Jodah through a portal to prevent him from going back to plead with Freyalise and possibly getting himself killed. After Freyalise gave her life (and that of the Skyshroud Forest) to close one of the time rifts Jodah got a bit heated and threw some punches when he met Venser again.

"Did no one? . . ." Jodah straightened himself up and cleared his throat. "You are in the presence of a four-thousand-year-old man. I know, I know—I don't look a day over twenty-five hundred."

"Twenty-five hundred? He didn't look older than twenty-five! "How is this possible?""

"Oh, you know—the usual. A very, very, very long story that we don't have time for and that I don't have the patience to tell."

I mean... you hid from some goblins in what turned out to be the fountain of youth. It's really not that long a story Jodah... (It happened in The Gathering Dark)

"By Urza's salty breeches . . ." said Jodah, his shoulders going slack."

Weird curses involving Urza go all the way back to "Urza's udders!" in Whispering Woods.

"A final gift from Jaya to Phyrexia. Chandra would be the natural choice, but the very first thing I learned about magic is that fire and light are not so distant. You can help me cast it."

This is a reference to Jodah's very first appearance in The Gathering Dark. His master Voska asks him to light a fire, but instead of drawing red mana from the mountains he draws white mana from the lands surrounding the manor he grew up on (that one Kayla build) and summons a big light instead.

"He began to recite words in a language Elspeth couldn't understand. As she listened, a flood of images began to infiltrate her mind—a beautiful dark-haired woman; Jodah looking no older than he did now; the sound of shattering glass; and then fire."

I'm guessing the shattering glass is a reference to Jodah saving Jaya from possession by Lim-Dûl by breaking his magic mirror in the climax of The Shattered Alliance. Which would mean the spell they are casting is Jaya's Immolating Inferno.

"Remember Boy? Oh, he had a name. You never asked him; it's too late to know what it was."

We first see Elspeth's ascension in the aforementioned webcomic Honor Bound, but the expanded version of the story, which included "Boy" comes from Godsend, the Theros e-book.

Read the roots, tell the tale

Future forms in waving weeds

Higher than truth is hope

—Rootwater Saga

The flavor text of Rootwater Mystic.

"Visions invaded Nissa's mind of dozens—hundreds—of battles taking place that same night. Massive, gray-skinned warriors led by stained-glass angels battling back Phyrexian horrors boiling up from the city sewers. Elven lords bedecked in warpaint riding atop metal war machines while human mages in flight hurled spells down upon many-horned beasts. Minotaurs desperately defending their sacred stone halls from biomechanical monstrosities, aided by goblin peasants showing no fear."

Visions of Keld, Llanowar and Hurloon, which Nissa wouldn't recognize.

"Her heart became the wrath of Gaea, a simmering anger that boiled and frothed like a choleric tide washing over the entire vale. Life energy found new receptacles in the bodies of the fallen—both mechanical fighters and mangled Phyrexians. Gaea's would-be destroyers now reassembled themselves, their bodies of steel transmuted to heartwood, oil and powerstones converted into a circulatory system through which energy-rich sap flowed. With uncanny grace, the mass of elemental warriors embarked upon their procession toward the battlefield to fight for the survival of the plane."

"Nissa sensed that this was not the first time Dominaria's Worldsoul had touched Phyrexia."

Indeed, this transmutation of Phyrexians into "woodmen" happened before in Invasion. 

Whew! That was everything I spotted and thought worth mentioning. Did I miss anything?