Honor Bound

Writer - Jenna Helland

Story - Jenna Helland, Doug Beyer & Brady Dommermuth

Illustrators - Nils Hamm, Tomas Giorello & Steven Belledin

Letterer - Jino Choi

Art Director - Jeremy Jarvis

Based on characters by Brady Dommermuth and Volkan Braga

Released October 2008

SUMMARY

It can be found here.

Part one: Elspeth and her squire Aran head out to find the truth about "frightening tales" going around Bant. She has a few flashbacks to her youth and ascension, and eventually they discover a Grixis incursion into Bant.

Part two: Elspeth and Aran fight during a siege of Grixis monster. Aran urges her to use her magic, but she doesn't want to. Aran is cut down.

Part three: Elspeth blasts all the baddies and even brings Aran back to life, despite the laws of Bant forbidding it. In the end Aran tells her to keep using her powers, but she knows she will now never be at home in Bant again.

Alara Reborn Online

ALARA REBORN MINI-SITE & FEATURE ARTICLE

Last time I said that the Alara Reborn minisite (see Alara in Chaos, The Shards at War & The Threat to New Alara) had little more to say than "there's gonna be war and chaos!". I guess that wasn't entirely true, as it also mentioned the beginnings of the shards' cultures merging, like nacatl moving to Bant and taking the old name of leonin, Vithian survivors being welcomed as refugees by the humans of other shards, and Esperites discarding the laws of the Ethersworn, but the main point is still all the chaos and how it's feeding the Maelstrom, just like Nicol Bolas planned.

Doug Beyer's feature article, A New Age for Alara, mostly just gives an overview of Alara's Sundering and the Conflux, nothing we haven't heard before except for one little thing. He pays particular attention to the Asha/Malfegor conflict, and mentions that as Jenara, Asura of War becomes the de-facto ruler of Bant during a plane wide war, people are looking to her to claim the throne of Asha. Unfortunately at that point, just as my ears perked up, he reveals that Jenara is his preview card and the article shifts to how she's good in both agro and control decks... He does end with "Whether [Malfefor]'ll be able to enact vengeance on a newly-reborn Asha, face a newly coronated Jenara, or simply run roughshod over the embattled lands of Bant remains to be seen", and then a plug for Alara Unbroken, though as I already covered that book, we know neither Asha nor Jenara appears in it. Malfegor gets to face Rafiq instead, with some help from Elspeth.

Alara Unbroken

Writer - Doug Beyer

Cover Artist - Chris Rahn

First Printing - ...is not given in the colofon? But it's May 2009 according to the wiki.

I guess this book was never printed, and just miraculously appeared in stores one day?

SUMMARY
The book is split up in three parts, corresponding to the sets of Alara block.

Part One

After an prologue on Grixis, in which we see Nicol Bolas bossing around Malfegor and planning to use the convergence of the shards to regain his vitality, we get stories set on Bant, Jund & Naya.

On Bant Gwafa Hazid destroys Giltspire Castle to uncover the obelisk it was build upon, and Rafiq and his rhox pall Mubin are sent after him. They catch him, just as the world starts to tremble in an early warning of the Conflux.

On Jund Sarkhan Vol meets Kresh and his tribe, who are being goaded into battle against a dragon by Rakka Mar. That all turns out to be a diversion so she can blow up the beast's lair, revealing another obelisk.

And on Naya we start with an expanded version of Flight of the White Cat, with a spell capsule creating monsters that attack the nacatl, Jazal being killed, Ajani ascending and ending up on Jund, and him meeting Sarkhan (after the latter's journey with Kresh and Rakka). Rather than immediately going "vengeant" like in the comic though, he planeswalks back to Naya and ends up at to the ruins of the Coil, where a strange old woman goads him into swearing to kill whoever murdered Jazal.