Pattern Recognition #209 - The (Abridged) History of Innistrad

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berryjon

2 September 2021

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Hello everyone! This is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series as written by myself, berryjon. I am something of an Old Fogey who has been around the block quite a few times where Magic is concerned, as as such, I use this series to talk about the various aspects of this game, be it deck design, card construction, mechanics chat, in-universe characters and history. Or whatever happens to cross my mind this week. Please, feel free to dissent in the comments below the article, add suggestions or just plain correct me! I am a Smart Ass, so I can take it.

Innistrad, Innistrad, Innistrad. The Plane. The Set. The Block. Only Ravnica and Dominaria have more sets to their name, with Zendikar just behind. It is a curious portion of the game, from multiple perspectives. With the upcoming release of the two Innistrad Sets, I felt the itch to pretend to be 'up to date' with the cool kids on the block, so I'm going to take some time and explain Innistrad.

So, the first part of this will be the in-universe perspective, a history of the Plane from the earliest known events, through to the most recent, as well as the near future. And then, probably next week, I'll talk about Innistrad from an external, real world perspective, and why is works so well.

Let's start, shall we?

The oldest known event in Innistrad isn't its creation, but rather the founding of one of the major factions of the Plane, the Vampires. You see, a long, long time ago, there was a man who sought out immortality and agelessness for himself and those he deemed worthy - and in his eyes, only his grandson shared that quality with him. Vigo, the Carpathian.... Sorry, what I meant to say was Edgar Markov - man, I really have trouble telling the two of them apart - sought to create an alchemical concoction that would grant him and his true immortality.

However, he failed. He could not craft something of that degree, no Elixir of Immortality for him. Rather, he was approached by a demon named Shilgengar, who had manipulated Markov and his people towards this specific end. He suggested to the alchemist that the secret lay in the blood of creatures more divine than humans, and caused Markov and his sons to hunt down and capture the Angel Marycz.

This angel was drained of all her blood, killed in the process, and the fluid used as the core reagent in a profane ritual that would enable those who partook of the blood to live forever more. Edgar Markov did just that, but found to his lack of care, that there was a cost in blood, the blood of the living must be devoured in order to maintain the agelesness of those who partook in this ritual, these newly-named Vampires.

Satisfied with this result, Markov kept his word to himself, and gave the ritual to his grandson, Sorin, before any of the others in his family. Well, less gave, and more forced down his throat. You see, Sorin had these little things that Edgar lacked. Things like morals and ethics and a conscience. You know, little things.

Sorin reacted badly to this, and in response, his Planeswalker Spark ignited, becoming an Old Planeswalker, one of the ancient forces of nature that make modern Planeswalkers look like chumps.

Sorin traveled for a bit, met some people, had lunch, that sort of thing. Then one day, he returned to Innistrad and saw something that concerned him.

You see, in his absences, the curse of Vampirism had spread. Deliberately or not, he could not say. There were other, new bloodlines of Vampires, such as the Voldaren line, led by Olivia Voldaren , the Stormkirk line and the Falkenrath line, currently led.... by... I don't see anything current, so perhaps that will be the plot of Crimson Vow? No matter. What Sorin saw was that the Vampires had expanded their ranks, and that because of this, the population of humans was decreasing... fast.

Fast enough that soon, there would be no one left for the Vampires to feed on, and they too would die out.

Sorin's first thought was to convince everyone to, you know, stop gorging themselves. Like rational people when faced with lean times. Something even the most basic of civilizations understand. It's even in the Bible for crying out loud! You know, Moses and the whole 'save up the extra for seven years, so that we can be fed during seven years of drought'? That thing? No one?

His polite suggestion of "I'm the grandson of Edgar Markov, and the second oldest vampire in existence, do as I say!" was met with a resounding silence. Mostly because they were still eating.

Slightly peeved, and knowing he couldn't just start wiping out bloodlines, lest they get the idea to go after the Markovs themselves, Sorin first set up a couple Slayer Orders, to help defend humanity. It wasn't going to stop anything, and they weren't the first or the last, but it was to staunch the bleeding.... No. Sorry, bad pun there. Look, Sorin basically realized that his fellow Vampires where idiots and if the carrot of "Hey, let's not die!" wasn't going to work, then perhaps the stick would.

And here is where I think Wizards missed out on a nice callback to earlier times. You see, Sorin knew that he needed something to fight back against the Vampires. Something that the Humans could inherently trust, something that was already available, but needed a little ... sprucing up to get to where he wanted them to be.

So, he made Angels.

Not just a random angel mind you, no. He went and he made an Angel among Angels. He made Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

Where is this missing link, you ask? Well, for a guy who spends most of his time as mono-, making Angels should be difficult, if not impossible. So why not mention that he gained the assistance of someone known for making Angels, for help in creating this paragon of goodness on Innistrad? What if Sorin gained the favor and aid of Serra the Benevolent?

Eh, it's just a missing thing. Although personally I find it hilarious that a Vampire was better at ecological conservation than a Elf. Vivien Reid.

Avacyn was a success. You see, part of this was that Avacyn led four other major angels in a sort of circle that each brought a single colour to the group. While these other four pre-existed her, they quickly became her lieutenants, and they would work together to address threats to Innistrad. Bruna, Light of Alabaster brought to the balance, and was most associated with spells and wards to protect humanity in death and beyond. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight represented , and took upon herself the task of fighting on the front lines beside any who would do evil. Sigarda, Host of Herons utilized , and acted as a protector of life itself, being pure and incorruptible.

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk was the Angel, and unlike the others, who saw all the vampires, witches, werewolves, demons and others like them as creatures to be destroyed, collared or chained, Liesa saw them as resources, as worthy of protection as much as any other. She would stop the other Angels from going too far in their cause, and one day, she took a step too far for Avacyn's liking and she and her entire flight of angels, were purged from Innistrad, and named Damnatio Memoriae.

Anyway, Sorin was satisfied with this new balance, that humanity wouldn't die out, and take the Vampires with them. So he left Innistrad for longer and longer periods of time.

Allow me to take a moment to talk about the other 'factions' of Innistrad, the Giests and the Werewolves. The former trend toward , and represent the spirits of the restless dead, those who cannot yet pass into the Blessed Sleep, part of Bruna's area of expertise. They are ghosts, plain and simple. Some helpful, like Geist of Saint Traft, and others are ... not. Like Latch Seeker. They exist, and are part of Innistrad.

The others, previously mentioned, are Werewolves. These creatures are (mostly) humans who have been afflicted by a Curse from the Moon, to transform into beasts under its full light. They are a threat, not only to their neighbors, but to passersby. Whole towns can be afflicted, and they can go on their own hunts by the midnight moon....

So yeah, they exist. Moving on with history.

After Avacyn went on her one-Angel rampage through the Flight, things settled down. Planeswalkers came and went, Vampires killed humans, humans killed vampires, all that jazz. Things were in (relative) balance.

That all went out the window when a very powerful Demon challenged Avacyn.

You see, Innistrad was the first set to lean really hard into the notion that Angels and Demons could never be truly destroyed. They were living aspects of their respective colors of mana - and . They were elementals of those colors, though certainly more self-aware, self-directing and capable of change than traditional elementals. And Avacyn knew this. She knew that she could never properly destroy any Demon on Innistrad, the best she could do would be to imprison them. And that meant building a prison.

A prison called the Helvault.

Griselbrand was this demon that challenged Avacyn, and she took up the duel, fighting against that demon in the presence of the Helvault. They fought for days, until Avacyn knew she could not win in a straight contest of arms. She would have to seal the demon directly. This, she did, but at the moment of the banishment of the demon to the Helvault, he impaled her with his spear, causing the spell that was affecting him to affect her as well.

With no warning, Avacyn herself was trapped in the Helvault.

The three remaining Angelic leaders took stock of their position and realized that they could keep up Avacyn's work. The church founded in her name, one that converted faith from the humans into power they could use, was normally directed to Avacyn, but they could tap into that as well. So they did so, acting to keep the balance that Avacyn fought for and established.

Sorin found out, and realized that he couldn't free Avacyn from the Helvault without destroying it, releasing all the demons within. So with a heavy heart, he refused to do that. It was better, in his view, to imprison one angel, no matter how powerful, than to let all the demons loose.

And so it was, the new status quo for Innistrad. Naturally, however, this had to change, and that change came from a Planeswalker named Liliana Vess. Who is not A Villainess. She just believes that consequences are a thing that happens to other people. Never her.

Vess had come to Innistrad long before the imprisonment of Grislebrand, and she made it her home away from home, so to speak. However, she had met and struck a deal with Grislebrand before his imprisonment in the Helvault, part of a larger series of deals she made under the 'guidance' of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. Now, she wanted out of the deal, or rather, all the benefits and none of the drawbacks and that meant killing those demons she had contracted with.

Once she found out what happened, she went to the Helvault, and after threatening Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, the Helvault was broken, and all the Demons and Avacyn were released. With Avacyn restored, the slowly decaying balance was reinforced with a vengeance.

Oh, and Vess finally killed Grislebrand, and Avacyn let her off with what amounted to a "Thanks, don't do it again or I'm going to kill you. Painfully." Or words to that effect. And yes, I just summarized the important plot of three whole sets in about as many paragraphs.

After Avacyn came back, her church restored and the darkness pushed back, she started to receive prayers and beseeched by requests to do something about the Werewolves, who had also grown in number over time. As this was within her job description, Avacyn investigated and determined that the nature of the werewolf curse was too deeply entwined with the base nature of the person afflicted to safely remove. She couldn't return them to normal, but she could create the Cursemute, a way to stabilize those affected so they could maintain themselves without the harrowing changes each full moon.

Now, the Werewolves in general kinda hated the Church of Avacyn as they saw her symbol as a collar to be put on their necks and control them. To them, this was just another collar, one willingly placed on themselves by themselves. To others, it was a chance to live a relatively normal life, and those who took to the Cursemute called themselves the Wolfir and joined Avacyn' cause.

This new world of peace and prosperity for humans, of bright sun shining days and warm comforting nights with no immediate threat of Vampires, Spirits, Zombies or Werewolves who would kick down your door and eat you (if you're lucky)... lasted for about a year.

That was when Nahiri, the Harbinger returned to Innistrad. She was mad at Sorin for his betrayals, real and perceived, and feeling the need for revenge, began to litho-shape Innistrad, altering the planar leylines to draw the last remaining Eldrazi - Emrakul - to there.

Creating the Drownyard Temple, Nahiri invoked the Cryptolith Rite to summon Emrakul, the Promised End Through the Breach to Innistrad to devour it whole.

To put a not-so-fine point on it, this was the point where everything went to hell. Innistrad became deeply corrupted, the Plane itself being thrown into turmoil as everything went sideways. Sometimes literally. The Angels, for example, as creatures of pure mana, were with one exception, twisted and malformed. Avacyn herself went from Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip to Avacyn, the Purifier  ^Flip. Her sisters Gisela and Bruna were merged into Brisela, Voice of Nightmares  ^{Meld  Meld}, and when Emrakul chose to withdraw from the Plane as it wasn't ready yet, the only angel left standing was Sigarda, Heron's Grace.

Nahiri, for her part, personally wiped out the Markov line, and the fallout from that happening is something I think is going to be dealt with this winter when Crimson Vow is released. After all, Wizards has promised us a wedding!

Now, for all the doom and gloom I've just talked about, for most of its history, Innistrad has actually been quite stable in terms of culture as far as Planes go. It hasn't seen the massive upheavals of Dominaria - except for the leadup to the most recent set, hasn't been as fractured as Ravnica. And it's fairly familiar setting as well, for reasons I will go into next time, and this familiarity is what helps keep this set fresh in people's minds.

But regardless, this current state of affairs is an exceptional time for Innistrad, not the norm. This is a time of upheaval, of loss and gain. What will the plane look like when the dust has settled? Will there still be Flights of Angels? Will the Bloodlines finally get their heads out of their collective asses? Will the Werewolves finally be relevant?

What I do know is that Innistrad is still in development as a plot. That things are going to happen soon, and I for one am looking forward to it.

Join me next week when I look at Innistrad from a player perspective, and analyze some of its themes, and why it's so popular.

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!