Episode 4: The Origins of the Multiverse

More than 25,000 years ago, before humans, before civilizations, stone-eggs fell from the sky onto a world called Dominaria. From these eggs were born the Elder Dragons — the first conscious beings of the Multiverse. Among them, two twins: Nicol Bolas and Ugin, whose rivalry would shape the history of the universe.

Welcome to the first episode of our exploration of Magic: The Gathering lore. Today, we go back to the very origins of existence: the birth of the Multiverse, the first planeswalkers, and the creation of the threat that will haunt the Multiverse for millennia — Phyrexia.

The Multiverse: an infinity of worlds

The Magic universe is not a single world. It is a Multiverse — an infinity of planes of existence, each one a complete universe with its own physical laws, magic, and inhabitants.

The Planes: isolated universes

Each plane is a bubble of reality floating in an ocean of chaos called the Blind Eternities. This primordial chaos is deadly to any ordinary living being — venturing into it means instant death, disintegrated by the raw energies of inter-planar space.

The planes are completely isolated from one another. An inhabitant of Dominaria will never know that Ravnica exists. An elf from Zendikar will die without ever knowing Innistrad. This isolation is absolute... except for very rare individuals.

Among the most important planes:

• Dominaria — The "original" plane, a natural nexus between all the others. It is here that most of Magic's ancient history takes place.
• Ravnica — A city-world ruled by ten guilds, where every inch is urbanized
• Innistrad — A gothic world haunted by horror, inspired by classic horror films
• Zendikar — A wild plane with unstable landscapes, where the land itself seems alive

Only planeswalkers — exceptional beings endowed with a "spark" — can cross the Blind Eternities and travel between these worlds. The spark is innate: you are either born with it, or not. It usually awakens during intense trauma — a near-death experience, a devastating emotional shock. And in the era we are talking about, planeswalkers were not merely powerful mages. They were gods.

The Elder Dragons: the first beings

Long before humans, long before any civilization, the first conscious beings of Dominaria were the Elder Dragons. Their origin is shrouded in mystery. According to legend, they were born from the Ur-Dragon, a conceptual entity that transcends the planes themselves.

The Ur-Dragon is not a creature you can encounter or fight. It is a conceptual entity — the platonic idea of the dragon, of which all dragons of the Multiverse are imperfect reflections. When the Ur-Dragon "flies" through the Multiverse, its passage leaves traces: stone-eggs that fall onto the worlds it flies over.

On Dominaria, these eggs gave birth to several Elder Dragons, the most famous being: Arcades Sabboth, Chromium Rhuell, Nicol Bolas, Palladia-Mors, Vaevictis Asmadi, as well as Ugin, Bolas's twin brother. Each possessed unmatched intelligence and magical power.

The Elder Dragon War

The Elder Dragons did not live in peace. They fought over territory, resources, and above all power. Nicol Bolas, the most ambitious among them, dreamed of total domination.

A war broke out — a war between gods. The Elder Dragons fought for centuries, devastating entire continents. Nascent human civilizations were swept aside like ants under the footsteps of titans.

By the end of this war, only five Elder Dragons survived. The others were either killed or transformed into "normal" dragons — powerful but mortal creatures, lacking the divine intelligence of their ancestors. Among the survivors: Nicol Bolas and his twin brother Ugin.

Nicol Bolas and Ugin: the twins

Among all the Elder Dragons, two were unique: Nicol Bolas and Ugin, the only twins ever born from a single egg. Unlike their massive brothers and sisters, they were smaller, frailer. But this physical weakness pushed them to develop their intelligence far beyond the others.

Despite their common origin, the twins could not have been more different:

• Nicol Bolas (left) — Ambitious, cruel, hungry for power. From his earliest age, Nicol understood that brute force was not enough. He learned to manipulate. He helped fan the flames of tension between his brothers and sisters, taking advantage of the Elder Dragon War to eliminate his rivals while remaining in the shadows. When the dust settled, Bolas had eliminated his rivals without dirtying his claws. He is the first of the dragons, the oldest, the most cunning. This card shows his dragon form on Dominaria, before he reached his full potential.
• Ugin (right) — Wise, contemplative, a seeker of truth. Where Nicol saw only tools to exploit, Ugin saw mysteries to understand. He spent millennia meditating, studying the flows of mana, contemplating the universe. His body became translucent, colorless, as he transcended the limitations of the five colors of mana. He was the first to sense that something existed beyond Dominaria...

The awakening of the sparks

One day, Ugin discovered the unthinkable: Dominaria was not the only world. Other planes existed, an infinity of universes separated by the Blind Eternities. This revelation was so overwhelming that his planeswalker spark awakened. Ugin became the first of the twins to be able to travel between worlds.

When he returned to share this discovery with his brother, Nicol's reaction was... unexpected. Learning that his conquests on Dominaria meant nothing on a cosmic scale — that he was just a fish in a pond when he had thought himself master of the ocean — this humiliation was unbearable.

Bolas's rage was so intense, so absolute, that his own spark awakened in a torrent of fury. In that instant, two of the most powerful beings of the Multiverse were born. Their rivalry would last for millennia.

The Thran Empire: greatness and decadence

Millennia passed. The surviving Elder Dragons disappeared into the shadows, roaming the Multiverse or sleeping in hidden refuges. On Dominaria, humans built civilizations, destroyed them, and built new ones.

Until one civilization surpassed all the others: the Thran.

The masters of artifacts

The Thran did not merely master magic — they had industrialized it. Where other civilizations relied on individual mages, the Thran created machines capable of channeling mana automatically.

Their capital, Halcyon, was a marvel of engineering. Crystal towers rose toward the clouds, connected by bridges of solidified light. Servant golems performed menial tasks. Flying vehicles crisscrossed the sky. And at the heart of it all: the Powerstones.

Powerstones were crystals capable of storing immense amounts of mana. A single stone could power an entire city for decades. The Thran Empire produced them by the thousands. Their power seemed limitless.

But this greatness hid a fatal weakness.

The Phthisis: the price of progress

A mysterious illness began to spread among the Thran. It was called Phthisis — a progressive degeneration that rotted organs from the inside. The first symptoms were mild: fatigue, coughing. Then the bones became fragile, the skin became covered with lesions, and finally... death.

The empire's best doctors searched for a cure. In vain. Phthisis was incurable. Worse still, it seemed to strike particularly those who worked near the Powerstones. The source of the Thran's greatness was also the cause of their decline.

The ruling council of Halcyon was desperate. It was then that they were told of an exiled doctor, a genius with radical methods, banished for experiments deemed unethical. His name: Yawgmoth.

Yawgmoth: the birth of absolute evil

Yawgmoth was not born a monster. He was a visionary — a man convinced that traditional medicine was limited, that one had to go further to truly heal humanity.

Exile and return

Before being recalled, Yawgmoth had been exiled for his experiments on the Eumidians, a humanoid race considered inferior by the Thran. He had used them as test subjects, testing radical surgical procedures, transplanting organs, grafting mechanical prostheses onto living flesh.

The council had banished him. But faced with Phthisis, they no longer had the luxury of ethics.

Yawgmoth returned to Halcyon as a hero. He studied the disease and made a crucial discovery: Phthisis was caused by the radiation of the Powerstones. The Thran were poisoning themselves with their own technology.

His "cure" was simple and terrifying: replace the diseased organs with mechanical prostheses. Artificial lungs. Mechanical hearts. Metal limbs. The patients survived — but they were no longer entirely human.

Court intrigue

Yawgmoth was not content with simply healing. He maneuvered. He gained the trust of Rebbec, the most brilliant architect of the empire, married to the artificer Glacian. When Glacian fell ill with Phthisis, Yawgmoth became his personal doctor — and began to insinuate himself into his relationship with Rebbec.

He cultivated allies, eliminated his opponents, and was preparing something far greater than a simple medical cure. He dreamed of a world where disease, weakness, death itself would be abolished. A perfect world. A world he would control.

He was just missing a place to build this world...

The discovery of Phyrexia

A planeswalker named Dyfed crossed paths with Yawgmoth. Fascinated by his intellect, she made the fatal mistake of revealing to him the existence of other planes. She took him to visit the Multiverse — and ended up showing him an abandoned artificial plane.

This plane was composed of nine concentric spheres, like the circles of Dante's Inferno. Each sphere was a world unto itself: one made of metal, another of decaying flesh, another of bubbling black oil. At the center, all the way at the bottom, was the heart of the plane — a furnace of pure energy.

Yawgmoth contemplated this place and understood that he had found his paradise.

He named it Phyrexia.

The nine spheres of hell

Phyrexia was structured into nine spheres, each with its own function:

• First sphere — Artificial surface, imitating a "normal" world to deceive visitors
• Second through Fourth spheres — Industrial zones, forges, and transformation laboratories
• Fifth sphere — The Dross, ocean of black oil and organic waste
• Sixth sphere — Domain of the priest-machines and high officials
• Seventh sphere — Prison and "reeducation" zone
• Eighth sphere — Industrial heart, where bodies are transformed into machines
• Ninth sphere — The heart of the plane, where Yawgmoth would eventually merge with Phyrexia itself

Yawgmoth began to bring his "healed" patients there — Thran transformed into beings half-flesh, half-machine. On Phyrexia, he could go further with his experiments, without the ethical limitations of Dominaria. The first Phyrexians were born.

As for Dyfed, the one who had given him this gift? Yawgmoth stabbed her mortally. Rebbec, out of mercy, delivered the final blow — but the result was the same: no one knew the way to Yawgmoth's new realm anymore.

The fall of the Thran Empire

The truth eventually came out. The Thran discovered the horrors of Phyrexia — the experiments, the forced transformations, the tortured bodies of their compatriots. A civil war broke out between the supporters of Yawgmoth and those who wanted to stop him.

Glacian, dying of Phthisis but refusing Yawgmoth's "care," created weapons to fight the mad doctor. Rebbec, torn between her husband and her mentor, ultimately chose her side — against Yawgmoth.

The war was brief but devastating. Yawgmoth's forces, reinforced by his Phyrexian creations, were too powerful. The Thran Empire collapsed. Millions died. Yawgmoth fled to Phyrexia with his faithful followers and his creations.

In a final heroic act, Rebbec sealed the portal between the two worlds. She used the two halves of a Powerstone that Dyfed had cracked during her death throes — the stone into which Glacian's soul had been accidentally absorbed. These two halves were named the Mightstone and the Weakstone.

The portal was sealed. Phyrexia was cut off from Dominaria. But Yawgmoth had eternity ahead of him. He bound himself to the heart of Phyrexia, merging with the plane itself, becoming a quasi-divine entity — the Father of Machines. For millennia, he prepared his revenge...

The Brothers' War: the fate of Urza

Millennia passed. The Thran Empire was nothing more than a legend, its ruins buried under layers of history. Until two brothers rediscovered them.

Urza and Mishra were born into a noble family of Dominaria, but their mother died in childbirth and their father entrusted them to different tutors. They met again years later as apprentice archaeologists, and despite their opposite personalities, developed a rivalry... then a mutual obsession.

These two cards show the brothers at the height of their power:

• Urza (left) — Cold, calculating, obsessed with perfection. Depicted as "Lord High Artificer," the undisputed master of artifacts. He saw the world as an equation to solve, people as variables. Brilliant, but incapable of true empathy.
• Mishra (right) — Passionate, impulsive, hungry for recognition. "Claimed by Gix" reveals his final corruption: Gix was a Phyrexian demon and praetor who had survived the closing of the portal. He manipulated Mishra for decades, gradually transforming him into a monster.

The discovery of the stones

Trained as archaeologists and artificers, the brothers took part in an expedition to Koilos, the ruins of an ancient Thran site housing the portal to Phyrexia. In the depths, they discovered a secret chamber containing an ancient machine, powered by a huge Powerstone.

The two brothers, fascinated, touched the stone at the same time. An explosion of mana occurred. When they regained consciousness, the Powerstone was broken in two, and each brother was holding one half:

• Urza — The Mightstone, which strengthened nearby artifacts
• Mishra — The Weakstone, which drained the strength of what surrounded it

These were the same stones that Rebbec had used to seal Phyrexia millennia earlier. Each contained part of Glacian's soul. By touching them, the brothers had awakened something ancient... and attracted the attention of forces that had been waiting for a very long time.

Total war

What began as a brotherly rivalry degenerated into armed conflict. Urza joined the kingdom of Yotia, Mishra that of Fallaji. Each built increasingly powerful war machines, powered by their respective Powerstones.

The conflict lasted thirty-six years. Armies of golems clashed. Mishra's Dragon Engines ravaged cities. Urza's Avengers retaliated. The continent of Terisiare was transformed into a field of ruins.

But the worst was invisible. During all those years, the Phyrexians infiltrated both camps. Gix, the demon praetor, had found a way to leave Phyrexia. He whispered in Mishra's ear, offering him "improvements," gradually corrupting him.

By the end of the war, Mishra was no longer human. Beneath his skin, there was nothing but metal and black oil.

The Sylex Blast

The war culminated on the island of Argoth, the last refuge of wild nature on Terisiare. The two armies clashed there in an apocalyptic final battle.

It was there that Urza discovered the truth. Face to face with his brother, he saw what Mishra had become: a Phyrexian abomination, an assembly of flesh and metal, a puppet whose strings were pulled by monsters from another world.

Desperate, broken, Urza did the only thing he could do. He activated the Golgothian Sylex, a Thran artifact whose function no one truly understood.

The explosion was... inconceivable.

• Argoth was vaporized. The island disappeared from the map.
• Both armies were annihilated. Hundreds of thousands of dead in an instant.
• The climate of Dominaria was upended. An Ice Age began, which would last several millennia.
• And at the heart of the explosion, Urza's planeswalker spark awakened.

Urza survived — transformed. The Mightstone and the Weakstone had merged with his body, replacing his eyes. He was no longer human. He had become a planeswalker, a being capable of traveling between worlds.

And the first thing he understood, with his new divine senses, was that Phyrexia still existed. That the monsters who had corrupted his brother were only the vanguard. That the true enemy was biding its time.

Urza's crusade had just begun.

The Oldwalkers: mortal gods

Urza was not an ordinary planeswalker. At that time, all planeswalkers were extraordinary. They are now called the Oldwalkers — the ancient walkers — to distinguish them from modern planeswalkers, who are far more limited.

The Oldwalkers were quasi-divine beings, endowed with powers that mortals could not even conceive of:

• Immortality — An Oldwalker did not age. Nicol Bolas and Ugin had already been roaming the Multiverse for 20,000 years when Urza's spark awakened.
• Malleable body — Their physical form was only a projection of their will. They could change appearance, become invisible, or abandon their body to exist as pure consciousness.
• Unlimited powers — The most powerful could create entire planes, manipulate time, resurrect the dead. The planeswalker Serra created her own personal paradise. Urza built time-travel machines.

The extent of their powers was hard to grasp. When Urza was decapitated centuries later by an enemy, his head continued to speak, to think, to plot. As long as an Oldwalker's mind remained intact, he lived. The destruction of their body was only a temporary inconvenience.

These beings shaped the Multiverse according to their desires. They waged wars that lasted millennia. They played with civilizations like children with ants. And among them, three figures dominated: Nicol Bolas, who manipulated entire empires to grow his power; Ugin, who studied the deepest secrets of existence; and now Urza, consumed by a single obsession — to destroy Phyrexia.

Summary: the foundations are laid

By the end of this era, all the elements of Magic's grand story are in place. Titanic forces are about to clash, and their conflicts will define the millennia to come.

Three figures will dominate the history to come:

• Nicol Bolas (left) — The dragon-planeswalker, the oldest and most cunning of the Oldwalkers. For millennia, he has manipulated civilizations and events from the shadows. Every war, every disaster, could be another piece on his grand chessboard. What does he really want? Absolute power? The destruction of his brother Ugin? Something even more terrible?
• Yawgmoth/Phyrexia (center) — The Father of Machines has merged with his artificial plane. He is no longer a man — he IS Phyrexia. And Phyrexia never sleeps. In the nine spheres of his mechanical hell, legions of half-flesh half-machine monsters are preparing. The invasion of Dominaria is only a matter of time.
• Karn (right) — A glimpse of the future. This silver golem does not yet exist, but he will be created by Urza and will play an absolutely crucial role in the events to come. We will discover him in Episode 2.

And Urza? He has become a planeswalker, but at what cost? His brother is dead. His world is in ruins. And he now knows that an enemy infinitely more dangerous than Mishra waits in the shadows.

His crusade against Phyrexia begins. A crusade that will last centuries, that will lead him to the far reaches of the Multiverse, and that will force him to make increasingly terrible choices. For to defeat monsters, Urza is willing to become one himself...

The war is not over. It is only just beginning.

In the next episode...

Episode 2: The Saga of Urza

Urza travels the Multiverse in search of weapons against Phyrexia. He discovers Serra's Realm, a paradise created by a planeswalker, and accidentally destroys it. He founds the Tolarian Academy, where he experiments with time travel — with catastrophic consequences. And he creates the being who will change everything: Karn, the silver golem, the only creature able to carry the seed of Phyrexia without being corrupted.

But Urza's methods become more and more extreme. How many lives is he willing to sacrifice? How many worlds is he willing to destroy? How far will he go to save the Multiverse?

Sources

• The Thran (novel by J. Robert King, 1999) — The complete story of Yawgmoth and the fall of the Thran Empire
• The Brothers' War (novel by Jeff Grubb, 1998) — The detailed account of the war between Urza and Mishra
• The Brothers' War (Magic set, 2022) — A modern look back at these events, with new cards illustrating the key characters

Products related to this episode

Relive this saga with cards from the corresponding sets: