Esper

Esper
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Shard of Esper.jpg}}|250px]]
General Information
First seen	Shards of Alara
Last seen	Conflux
Status	Merged with the other Shards, recovering from New Phyrexia's invasion
Game Information
Colors
Mechanics	Colored artifacts
Demonym	Esperite

Esper is one of five Shards of Alara. It is primarily blue-aligned, with white and black as secondary colors. After the Conflux, Upper Vectis on Esper is located south along the coast from Valeron.

Description

Esper is a world where purpose and control have triumphed over savagery and chaos. Bereft of red and green mana, this plane's natural forces pale next to the supernatural power of its human and vedalken mages. Under the foresight of Esper's ruling sphinxes, the plane has transformed from wilderness to a tightly-controlled magocracy. Human and vedalken mages control almost every aspect of life here, from the tides and winds to its inhabitants. The most interesting thing of note about Esper is the omnipresence of the aether-infused filigree metal known as etherium. The inhabitants use it to improve their skills and life spans. Travelers to Esper should expect a spectacle of sophisticated beauty, not only the plane but also its denizens have been meticulously designed according to a grand plan. Everything here is observed and controlled. The forces of high magic rule supreme.

A temperamental gray sky dominates the view wherever you travel in Esper. Towering clouds sliced along wizard-defined grid lines float over vast oceans, slate-colored islands, and deserts of glass. Esper has strong winds and heavy downpours, the only elements of nature here not yet completely controlled by the sphinxes' magocracy. Esper’s oceans and seas typify all forms of marine geography, from the pitch-black Inkwell to the pale Dwindling Sea, from the placid Sea of Stars to the whirlpools of the Twin Maelstroms, from the vast Sea of Unknowing to the mysterious Kingdom of Fog. The vedalken set up tide control rudders to regulate the periodicity of the tides in most of Esper’s waters, and tidemages help ships navigate through Esper's turbulent weather. Despite these advancements, what lurks beneath the sea here is still largely a mystery.

In Esper, the artificers create many machines, ranging from birds to golems. Drakes circle the skies, while still humbled by the power of sphinxes, who dominate and protect the plane. Gargoyles and wizards are the knights of Esper. Under the control of the mages and vedalken, they are ready to repel any attack. A small race of blue-skinned sentient beings called the homunculi, act as servants. A telemin is an Esper mage-puppet, a creature that willingly submits to being "played" like an instrument by a mage's mind-control abilities. The telemin itself is merely the instrument—the mind-mage is considered the artist responsible for the quality of the performance.

The Ethersworn of Esper (consisting of humans, vedalken, and even sphinxes) are dedicated to infusing all life on Esper with etherium. Their quest is called the Noble Work. The "Ignoble Flesh" is the term for a splinter group who takes this philosophy to an extreme. Its adherents believe the flesh is fallible and impure and should be shed through the eventual replacement of the entire body with etherium. The very few who have achieved this goal are called aether-liches.

Geography

The environment of Esper consists of Islands, a great sea called the "Sea of the Unknown", various underground waterways, and a great desert where the sand is finely broken-down glass. It is said that despite the vast pursuit of knowledge, not much is known about the inhabitants of the sea. The glass in the desert occasionally shifts and fuses with itself to form giant glacier-like masses of glass. There are twenty-three sorts of winds on Esper. These winds are considered by the Vedalken to have a mystical significance. The silver wind runs up Esper's coastline to Valeron. Esper has clouds that are dissected and skies that are marked and measured by flowing lines of mystical dust. It has elaborate, stylized towers with curved flowing shapes that show craftsmanship and control over the elements.

Deep under the landmasses of Esper, in the waste pits and flooded tunnels known as Tidehollow, thrives a second, shadowy ecosystem of refuse golems, aether-liches, and the undead guides known as scullers. The pristine, mage-driven civilization of Esper and its sinister underworld live symbiotically, supporting each other through the power of etherium. There is no untamed wilderness in Esper; everything is well thought out and to exact specifications.

Notable locations

• The Cesspools. Esper's cities and settlements are nothing if not clean. Waste material of all kinds is shipped to the Cesspools, deep pits where monstrous creatures swim through the ashen mulch and "process" the refuse. The Cesspools have given rise to their ghoulish ecosystem that Esper's civilized world does its best to avoid. The Cesspools, support their ecosystems of strange creatures, including sluice serpents, brinewraiths, hauntcreeps, and sludgestriders.
• The Cliffs of Ot. These wind-carved cliffs hang improbably throughout the Sea of Unknowing. Travelers are encouraged to listen to the whispers and wails in the sea spray; some Esperites believe the sounds are the voices of the dead. Vedalken, however, believes the cliffs are a place of mysticism, and that meditating on their heights will yield arcane insights.
  • The Lighthouse build over the Obelisk of Esper.
• Cloudheath. A large, rocky expanse above which a storm with high winds and driving rain has been raging for over a century. A single tower stands in defiance of the Eternal Storm, home to a single human hermit called Tiln. Tiln is an ancient, powerful, and irascible stormcaller. From time to time he will begrudgingly help guide a huge storm away from a major city or rescue a vessel lost in the Kingdom of Fog.
• The Crypt of Knowledge. This sacred place is reserved for the clerics, who protect the arcane secrets and bodies of great archmages contained within it. Half tomb, half library, the Crypt of Knowledge is treated with the utmost respect. Speech is forbidden here, and documents and sepulchers are moved and manipulated telekinetically so as not to sully them by touch.
• The Dwindling Sea, a pale sea.
• The Glass Dunes. Esper’s largest contiguous landscape is a large, glittering, white "sand" desert known as the Glass Dunes. Though normally calm, windstorms here can kick up the glass-dust and permanently blind those whose eyes aren't protected. Beneath the dunes, glacierlike masses of glass slowly accumulate through pressure and time.
  • The Crystal Labyrinth, a vast, complex maze. The skies over the maze are kept turbulent by powerful magic so that none can bypass the labyrinth, and many have died attempting to reach the sphinx Kemuel.
    • The Riddle Gate, a planar portal guarded by Kemuel.
• The House of Dialectics. A sort of parliament chamber where the most influential human mages come to argue, convince, entreat, and bargain. Unlike vedalken society, human culture is not strictly hierarchical and is instead governed by influence, alliances, and debts of loyalty.
• The Inkwell, a pitch-black sea.
• The Kingdom of Fog, a mysterious sea.
• Palandius. The largest vedalken city, and considered a work of art by most vedalken, Palandius's dramatic architecture works with the natural terrain to create a dramatic, organic cityscape. It overlooks the Sea of Unknowing and is a major port for human-vedalken trade.
• The Sanctum Arcanum, also known as the Seekers' Sanctum, headquarters of the Seekers. A glass-and-steel vedalken temple fortress in the clouds. The atmosphere above it is enchanted so that it's never overcast, and a shaft of light cuts through a permanent hole in Esper's clouds, forever illuminating the temple. It houses the Codex Etherium, and sages and scholars from across Esper travel to the Sanctum to behold them. Many small academies have cropped up around the sanctum dedicated to studying the texts in specific contexts.
• The Sea of Stars, a placid sea.
• The Twin Maelstroms, a sea of whirlpools.
• The Unknowing Sea, a vast sea.
• Vectis, Esper’s largest human fortification. Built around central, soaring spires of etherium.
  • Lower Vectis
    • Tidehollow, backwater birthplace of Tezzeret. Slums sheltered from the weather inside a subterranean system of caverns that extend for miles under Esper's largest islands. Half-filled with darkened seawater, it smells of fish and mildew and despair. The seas' tides have worn the rock into a sort of honeycomb, a baffle for the crashing waves. Tidehollow may conceal evidence of long-dead cultures from Esper's ancient past related to the era of a unified Alara.
    • Bellow's End. Its cistern leads to an abandoned house in Upper Vectis.
    • the Shadow Way
  • The Vectis City Academy, institute of the Seekers of Carmot
• The Visitarium. This complex has a multitude of "visitation bays" in which humans can host other creatures for various transactions, whether they're for business, educational, or secretive purposes. Humans meet with vedalken visitors here, for example. There are large, central bays in which Esper's sphinxes land to discuss matters with the humans they deem worthy of their communication.

History

The Esper Ethersworn have been studying planeswalking and could contact Vronos. In exchange for knowledge, Vronos agreed to planeswalk in a controlled setting for the Ethersworn for a while.

The Conflux

When the Conflux happened, red and green mana flooded into Esper. Because of these wild colors, the wizards and vedalken began to leave and Esper's tight hegemony began to fall apart. Flesh creatures entered Esper and mixed with the creatures made of etherium, oftentimes stealing the precious metal. The vedalken, who had fallen short of etherium, began to hoard and weaponize as much of it as possible while continuing missions to Jund to secure more sangrite in hopes of unraveling the mystery of how to turn it into etherium. Esper's borders continued to smash into Bant and Grixis until it became part of the new Alara.

The intrusions into the wilds, however, have drawn the ire of the fierce creatures, none more so than the dragons, who regularly bombard the fortified cities of Esper.

The young artificer Breya rediscovered Sangrite in Jund, forging the first new etherium in centuries.

New Phyrexia's Invasion

Alara as was targeted by Elesh Norn's Machine Legion as part of New Phyrexia's Invasion of the Multiverse with a simultaneous strike on Bant, Esper, and Jund. At some point during the invasion, the Maelstrom itself awoke to fight on behalf of Alara.

Notable inhabitants

• Tezzeret
• Sharuum
• Crucius
• Silas Renn

Planeswalker visitors

• Nicol Bolas
• Ral Zarek
• Sarkhan Vol
• Tezzeret
• Tibalt
• The Wanderer

In-game references

Represented in:

• Esper

Associated cards:

• Esper Battlemage
• Esper Charm
• Esper Cormorants
• Esper Panorama
• Esper Sentinel
• Esper Sojourners
• Esper Stormblade
• Esperzoa
• Obelisk of Esper

Referred to:

• Armillary Sphere
• Aven Trailblazer
• Brainbite
• Celestial Purge (Conflux)
• Cloudheath Drake
• Countersquall (Conflux)
• Courier's Capsule
• Court Homunculus
• Cumber Stone
• Etherium Abomination
• Ethersworn Adjudicator
• Ethersworn Canonist
• Ethersworn Sphinx
• Glaze Fiend
• Inkwell Leviathan
• Onyx Goblet
• Reliquary Tower (Conflux)
• Salvage Slasher
• Sludge Strider
• Spellbound Dragon
• Tidehollow Strix
• Tower Gargoyle
• Vectis Agents
• Vectis Gloves
• Vectis Dominator
• Vectis Silencers
• Vedalken Outlander
• Windwright Mage

External links

• Magic Arcana (September 17, 2013). "Shard Preview: Esper". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Kelly Digges (September 09, 2008). "The Riddle of the Sphinx". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mike Flores (September 25, 2008). "Well, That's Fair". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Noel deCordova (September 17, 2008). "Locked in Orb-it". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Doug Beyer (September 17, 2008). "Time for Esper". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.