Jedit

Writer - Clayton Emery
Cover art - Michael Sutfin
First released in December 2001

SUMMARY
At the end of last book Johan set of east across the Sukurvian Desert on the back of a drake to look for Efrava, the home of the tiger warriors. Now his drake crashes at the edge of the desert and Johan is saved from being eaten by sand wurms by Jedit Ojanen, the son of Jaeger. Using some sorcery Johan manages to convince the tigers not to kill him, and he is allowed to wander the Efravan oasis accompanied by Jedit and his friend Hestia. While this goes on Jedit's mom has a vision about the Prophecy of None, One and Two, which convinces her that Johan must be imprisoned. But the mage escapes, and with some lies about having fought side by side with Jaeger he convinces Jedit to come along with him back to the human realms.

Dominarian Annotations, episodes 1 & 2

Wizards has just started its previews of a new set that seems tailor made for me, a historian/archivist who has been a fan of the Magic storyline since 1998. I can't not talk about Dominaria on this blog! So welcome to the first installment of Dominarian Annotations, where I explain all the references to old lore in the latest Magic Storyline articles!

I'm not sure how frequent this series is going to be, that depends on the reference-density of the future episodes. The first episode was almost nothing but references, but the second was more plot focused and added little more to talk about, so I'll probably save these up until I've got a decent collection of things to discuss. I do intend to annotate all episodes of Return to Dominaria though, and I'll do a full review of the story after the last part has been released. Keep your eye on this blog, or on my Twitter or Tumblr, for future updates! Oh, and stick around for the regular articles of course. The Jedit review will be up tomorrow!

Now, let's dive into Return to Dominaria: Episode 1 and Episode 2!

Johan

Writer - Clayton Emery
Cover art - R.K. Post
Cartography - Rob Lazzaretti
First released in April 2001

SUMMARY
Hazezon Tamar, the ruler of the city-state Bryce, goes into the desert to meditate. There saves a starving tiger-man called Jaeger Ojanen from jackals and vultures. On his way back he runs into a druid who gives a very cryptic prophecy:

"When none meets one, only two shall remain."

The druid then also tells him Bryce is under attack by the forces of Tirras, a city-state ruled by Johan. Hazezon mounts a counteroffensive, during which Jaeger reveals himself to be immensely quick and strong. Afterwards the two go to Palmyra, the city-state in between Bryce and Tirras, which is ruled by Hazezon's estranged wife Adira Strongheart, leader of the Robaran Mercenaries. The city initially refuses to take a side in the war, but then Johan sends assassins after both Hazezon and Adira, Those are easily defeated, and Palmyra accepts the alliance with Bryce. Adira goes on a pirating trip with her elite troops, the Circle of Seven, to pay for the war effort. (She and Hazezon were both pirates before becoming rulers.) Jaeger joins the Seven to "experience humanity".

The Dragons of Magic

The Dragons of Magic
Editor - J. Robert King
Cover Art - Eric Patterson
Cartography - Dennis Kauth
Released August 2001

This anthology revolves around the most popular creature type in Magic (and the most popular fantasy creature in general). An obvious choice perhaps, but you might be surprised how little the dragons in this book actually have to do with the card game. But before I get to the stories themselves, some notes on the format of the book.

The book is divided into four parts, with three stories each. These are "Lord Dragons", "Slave Dragons", "Wild Dragons" and "Warrior Dragons". The division doesn't matter much though, and the placement of the stories sometimes seems a little random. What is interesting for us is that each part starts with a small introduction that gives some hints about where the stories fit on the timeline. Future anthologies will develop this further and outright divide their stories into sections labeled "Ancient" or "Pre-Invasion".

Oh and yes, this book gives credit to its cartographer in its colophon! But don't get too excited, it's just the map from Aerona we've already seen in Invasion. Only this time it is just labeled "Dominaria Before the Invasion". A bit odd to include this very minimalist map when many stories in the book happen on locations not on the map (and none of them happen in Hurloon or Shanodin). Still, it's nice to see the creator of the map credited!

Hazezon

Writer - Clayton Emery
Cover art - ...ehm... the colofon doesn't actually say who did the covers! How sloppy! But as mercury01 pointed out in the comics, the signature of Brom can be found on the back.
First released in August 2002

SUMMARY

The Circle of Seven and Hazezon infiltrate Tirras in an attempt to kill Johan but they get captured. They are put to work building skyships, which Johan intends to use to conquer Efrava. They steal one to escape but crash on a Magnetic Mountain, forcing them to make a long trek to the sea in an attempt to escape.

Announcement

Hi there everyone

If you look at the right side of this page, you'll see I've not been very good at regularly updating this blog, and that there was a steep drop in content from oktober 2015 onward. Which just happens to be when I started a normal day job again. Prior to that I was doing part-time night shifts, which was pretty ideal for a blogger.

This lack of regular updates has been a thorn in my side for a while now. It just feels like I'm constantly late for deadlines, and the last thing I want is for this blog to start feeling like a chore. Having finally wrapped up the Weatherlight Saga, this felt like the right moment to take stock and figure things out. Thus Multiverse in Review is going on hiatus for a little while, to give me time to work ahead and figure out a good regular schedule for myself.

Don't worry, this project is far from over and I intend to see it through to the end. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to the reviews coming up, especially the nonsense in Onslaught block! I've already finished reading Dragons of Magic and am currently working my way through Johan. I think that when I'm done with the Legends I cycle I should have a pretty solid idea of the new schedule.

If you want to keep in touch in the meantime, I will be commenting on the replies on the blog itself, and you can also follow me on Twitter and Tumblr.

I hope you're all not too mad at me for the lack of reviews in the upcoming weeks, and that I'll see you all again when I return with my regularly scheduled programming!

Upcoming Reviews

Now that we are done with the Weatherlight Saga, I thought I'd give you all a little heads up on what I'm going to cover next. Because at this point the release schedule of the books get's a bit cluttered. First a list of all the books released, in chronological order, from Invasion block to Mirrodin block. I've color-coded the various cycles for your convenience.

• Invasion (oct 2000)
• Planeshift (feb 2001)
• Johan (april 2001)
• Apocalypse (jun 2001)
• The Dragons of Magic (aug 2001)
• Odyssey (sept 2001)
• Jedit (dec 2001)
• Chainer's Torment (jan 2002)
• Judgment (may 2002)
• The Secrets of Magic (may 2002)
• Hazezon (aug 2002)
• Onslaught (sept 2002)
• Assassin's Blade (dec 2002)
• Legions (jan 2003)
• Emperor's Fist (mar 2003)
• Scourge (may 2003)
• The Monsters of Magic (aug 2003)
• The Moons of Mirrodin (sept 2003)
• Champion's Trial (nov 2003)
• The Darksteel Eye (dec 2003)
• The Fifth Dawn (may 2004)

So yeah... at least the anthology titles fit neatly in between the regular cycles, but the Legends I and II cycles get everywhere, each being released simultaneously with two regular cycles. To make it easier for myself to do the continuity and timeline overviews, I'll move them around a bit in my schedule, so we only cover one cycle at a time. Furthermore, since Odyssey block runs straight into Onslaught block I want to keep as few novels as possible in between those. Thus Legends I will be moved forward and covered before we get to Odyssey, while Legends II will have to wait until Onslaught is wrapped up. Don't worry, Legends I and II have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Secrets of Magic can stay put, as it actually has some interesting backstory on minor Odyssey/Onslaught characters like Balthor. Finally there's a handful of other stuff I still need to cover, which makes the review schedule for the coming months as follows:

• The Mirage Document
• The Dragons of Magic
• Johan
• Jedit
• Hazezon
• Odyssey
• Chainer's Torment
• Judgment
• Odyssey online (OdysseyOnline.com, Magic book archive, MagicTheGathering.com)
• The Secrets of Magic
• Onslaught
• Legions
• Scourge
• Onslaught online
• Assassin's Blade
• Emperor's Fist
• Champion's Trial
• An article on the Legends I, Legends II & Greensleeves timeline issues
• The Monsters of Magic
• The Moons of Mirrodin
• The Darksteel Eye
• The Fifth Dawn
• Mirrodin online

Somewhere in between all this I will also do a review of the Portal: Second Age story, but when that will be depends on when my copy of The Official Guide to Portal: Second Age arrives.

From Mirrodin onward the storyline starts following an easy to follow schedule again, with each set getting their own novel and the extra cycles and anthology series being cancelled. At that point we really only have to worry about a few online anthologies and the occasional tidbit from a player's guide. But by the time I'm covering those we should be well into next year, so let's not get ahead of ourselves!