Magic the Gathering

Tapestry

Roon’s Tales — Serra Planes

By Issar Roon ⋅ February 5, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

As you approach the study you see the heavy oak door slightly ajar. A thin shaft of light cuts into the hall­way as if it was a fresh wound from a sharp sword. The blood red car­pet in the hall­way only makes the image stronger. You peek inside to see Issar Roon hunched over a thick book on the edge of his desk. As the weight of your foot causes a floor­board to creak, he turns and sees you peer­ing in.

Ah, I see you have returned once again. Per­haps you are becom­ing inter­ested in the vast knowl­edge of my library and I?

The heavy book bal­ances pre­car­i­ously on top of dozens of other worn and beaten vol­umes, all look­ing older than the last. It appears as if the only thing pre­vent­ing the book from falling is the long-forgotten tales under­neath. He sees your gaze and his eyes shine with a smile.

Yes, I was just read­ing this pas­sage on a very old planeswalker. Serra, her name was. Per­haps you have heard of her? No? Then come in. I will tell you a beau­ti­ful tale about one of the most beloved planeswalk­ers there ever was. But I warn you! It does not end hap­pily like some silly love story.

You hes­i­tantly step towards the old man and look for a place to sit. You see noth­ing in the room but books, scrolls, and parch­ment. The stools present dur­ing your first visit have mys­te­ri­ously dis­ap­peared. Issar Roon sees the dis­may on your face and ges­tures for you to sit on the floor.

It will be more pleas­ant for you if you ignore the mess and make your­self comfortable.

See­ing a soft-looking car­pet cov­ered in some ancient sym­bol you walk slightly to the right of his desk. With only a small por­tion of the sym­bol revealed you can only guess as to its mean­ing, and so sit down and ignore it.

Lit­tle is known about the begin­nings of Serra. Most say she was named after a god­dess, but a few believe she was the god­dess her­self. Either way, she became to be revered as a god­dess dur­ing her lifetime.

Why? Well, she cre­ated her own plane, among other things. I imag­ine most peo­ple would feel the need to fear or wor­ship such a being.

He sees your mouth open, and waves a hand for you to close it and be patient.

No, no. Beings who cre­ate planes are not that com­mon. I apol­o­gize if I’ve given you that belief. You see, the sto­ries I derive the great­est enjoy­ment from telling are the most fan­tas­tic. And well… I would say that pow­er­ful beings who cre­ate whole worlds on their own can be con­sid­ered fan­tas­tic. Would you not agree?

He motions for you to stand and look at the book with him. As you bend over, mak­ing sure not to acci­den­tally knock a sup­port­ing book out, you begin to make out sketches of a fab­u­lous world.

Serra’s plane was not like Phrexia at all. In fact, one might say they can be com­pared to each other as day and night would be. Phrexia was a hive of evil and death, but this plane was filled with white mana. In fact, even though all five col­ors of mana existed, Serra banned the use of black mana for fear of cor­rupt­ing the plane’s essence. Because white mana dom­i­nated the plane, it was a plane of law and order. Among the many beings that lived there, one stood out, angels. Many sto­ries tell of Serra’s Angels, and their devo­tion to her. Fol­low­ing her out of their own free will, they upheld order within the plane, and dealt pun­ish­ment to those who would do evil.

Float­ing islands were cre­ated so that all of Serra’s fol­low­ers would have a place to dwell. The sun was per­ma­nently set on the hori­zon, as if it were ris­ing anew each time one looked. Indeed, even the flow­ers were in bloom at all times. It was a par­adise cre­ated in Serra’s image.

He hes­i­tates to go on, as if say­ing any­thing fur­ther would ruin the beau­ti­ful images form­ing in your mind. Slowly, he speaks again.

Sadly, her par­adise would not last. In fact, it was Phrexia that altered Serra’s realm. You see, Urza appeared on the plane after being wounded in an attack by Phrex­i­ans. Serra, with her mind and heart devoted to heal­ing, allowed Urza to stay and rest. Even­tu­ally, he thanked Serra and left to con­tinue his jour­ney. Unknown to Serra, the Phrex­i­ans were pur­su­ing Urza, and attacked her realm. Her angels and fol­low­ers fought bravely, but the Phrex­i­ans brought with them mas­sive amounts of black mana. Her plane became cor­rupt, and she was forced to flee what was no longer paradise.

You wait, expect­ing the old man to con­tinue his story, but he remains silent for a long time. Finally, he moves and casts an angry look towards you.

What are you doing still here? Get out! I’m an old man and can­not be both­ered by pry­ing eyes and curi­ous minds!

Sur­prised, you move quickly to the door and pull the heavy thing closed behind you. Your last image is of Issar Roon bent over the book with his head in his hands.

This is a work of fic­tion based on the sto­ries and entries pro­vided by Wiz­ards about some of the early char­ac­ters. The author takes some lib­erty with the story for dra­matic pur­poses. So the story por­trayed here may not be the exact story accord­ing to Magic Canon. The author has found ref­er­ences and art to use in the fol­low­ing loca­tions: Ency­clo­pe­dia Phyrex­i­anna and the MTG Sal­va­tion Wiki. Writ­ten by Bren­dan Weiskotten.

Issar Roon is a historian on Dominaria, friends with numerous planeswalkers he collects and catalogs the stories of the ages. He's very old, occasionally grumpy, but sharp as a sword in battle.

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