Jace Beleren

Jace Beleren is a human planeswalker who is incredibly intelligent and adept at blue magic, with such talents as clairvoyance and illusion. His specialty, though, is in the art of inborn telepathy which makes him unique within the multiverse. He has a reserved and decadent nature and a troubled conscience, as he has made some poor decisions in the past.

History

Jace's adolescence

Jace's unique gift of telepathy manifested very early in his life, often to his parent's immense embarrassment. As such, his father sought the assistance of the local mage known as Alhammarret. Alhammarret took Jace from his father, and allowed him to apprentice underneath him. Under his tutelage, Jace spent years learning new spells and talents, but most importantly, he began to feel welcome for the first time in years.

It was not to last though. Jace eventually became strong enough to try his talents against his master, and learned the shocking truth of his own existence. He discovered that his spark had ignited over a year ago, dipping him into the blind eternities only for a moment. Alhammarret had lied to him about what had happened, telling him his illusions had backfired and not to concern himself with it. Alhammeret secretly told Jace's father about the event, and they agreed to keep the truth from Jace.

Jace seethed over this news for days, holding his temper close to his heart until finally, during one of their practice sessions, Jace snapped. Jace slipped into his mind and unleashed all of his rage and pain at once, completely destroying Alhammarret's mind. Jace left, a wanted individual everywhere within a hundred miles of his hometown. Finally, Jace erased his own memories, so that he would never have to see his teacher's face again and feel the weight of what he had done.

Agents of Artifice

Sketch by Aleksi Briclot revealing his unhooded face.

Jace found his way to the plane of Ravnica after some time. Here he made a comfortable life, living in the upper echelons of society and earning his money through blackmail. He would use his telepathy to learn the secrets of the wealthy and extort them for his continued silence. While conducting business, Jace was attacked by creatures summoned by members of the Infinite Consortium. After some degree of background research, Jace confronted the Consortium's master Tezzeret and learned that these attacks were in fact an "invitation" for Jace to join Tezzeret's organization. With some hesitation, Jace agreed and began training with Tezzeret to hone his telepathy for the Consortium's use.

Jace was partnered with a blademaster by the name of Kallist, who by some coincidence looked remarkably like Jace, and together they began to train each other in their own specialities between assignments. After a few years, Jace came to realize how badly the Consortium's attitudes had impacted him, and began to feel guilty, ironically, of not feeling any guilt over some of the things he has done in the Consortium's name. Things started to come to a head when a mission to Kamigawa ended spectacularly with the massacre of a Nezumi village. In punishment, Tezzeret savagely beat Jace for failing, though the mission failed through no fault of Jace's.

Shortly thereafter, an agent of Nicol Bolas, the original master of the Infinite Consortium and Tezzeret's main rival, contacted Tezzeret over a mining dispute on an unknown plane. Tezzeret scheduled a meeting with the dragon on an arctic plane and brought Jace along to insure that Bolas did not attempt to probe Tezzeret's mind. Jace became distracted by the dragon, who held two conversations with them both. Jace's defenses, which were untested to begin with, failed when Bolas struck. After fleeing for their lives from Bolas's forces, Jace succumbed to frostbite and lost a toe. This was the least of his injuries though, as Tezzeret used his manablade to torture Jace for having failed despite his inexperience and the vast difference of power that Bolas possessed.

Finally, Jace grew uneasy with Tezzeret's methods and total lust for power, and after refusing a task which went against his very nature, he ultimately fell out of Tezzeret's graces. Jace took Kallist with him and ran to the farthest reaches of Ravnica in hopes of escaping the Consortium's wrath. While trying to lie low, the pair ran into the lovely necromancer Liliana Vess, who flirted endlessly with both of them, finally settling into a torrid affair with Jace. Without Jace's knowledge, and with a heavy heart, Liliana revealed where Jace and Kallist had settled to the Consortium. In a desperate attempt to save both their lives, Jace tried to absorb Kallist's mind and switched bodies with the assassin when it failed.

Six months later, "Jace" in Kallist's body died and his mind returned to its original body with extreme trauma to Jace's psyche. Liliana took him away to recover and urged him to pursue Tezzeret for his part in Kallist's death. This resulted in Tezzeret and Jace scheming against each other, Tezzeret trying to kill Jace for his insubordination and impudence, and Jace just wanting to finally be free from Tezzeret and the Consortium. Jace turned to Nicol Bolas for help in locating Tezzeret's sanctum, and he and Liliana planned an assault on the artificer's base. Ultimately, the attack failed, Jace was captured, and Liliana's treachery came to light. Tezzeret spent months constructing an artifact to control Jace's mind without damaging his abilities, all the while having Jace tortured violently by the pyromancer Baltrice. Liliana approached the captured Jace and tried to make him understand the reasons she'd done the things she had. She genuinely cared for him, and she helped Jace to escape the prison Tezzeret constructed. Together they again attempted to destroy Tezzeret, wreaking havoc in his base of operations. Ultimately, Jace and the artificer dueled, resulting in Jace wiping Tezzeret's mind clean, leaving the consortium without a leader. Jace made a vow to himself to help Liliana in any way that he could.

It was later revealed that Jace, despite his hesitance, had taken over the Ravnican cell of the Infinite Consortium for lack of any better options at the time.

The Purifying Fire

At some point during Jace's first year working for the Infinite Consortium, he was sent to track down and retrieve a scroll Chandra had stolen from the Sanctum of Stars in Kephalai. However, his mission was to erase all memories of it from the pyromancer's mind, and not just to return the scroll to Kephalai. He tracked her to the monastery of Keral Keep where he confronted the girl. After a short battle, Jace completed his objective and planeswalked away.

Zendikar

Roughly three years after retrieving the Dragon Scroll from Chandra, Jace's interest in it was once more piqued for an unknown reason. With Garruk's "assistance", Jace soon decoded the location in the scroll maps as being Zendikar. Shortly thereafter, he followed in Chandra's footsteps, having hired a guide to climb through the mountains of Akoum. Using his skill at illusion to keep himself safe, he and his guide soon encountered the bedraggled Anowon, who attacked Jace and killed his treacherous guide. Subduing Anowon, Jace ripped the information he sought from the vampire's mind and convinced him to act as a guide to the Eye of Ugin.

Upon arriving at the Eye, a wall slid down and separated the two, with Anowon shouting warnings at Jace that fell on deaf ears. What Jace found, much to his surprise, was an immense Dragon fighting Chandra, who was hard pressed to continue the fight. Jace immediately offered his help, but was stunned to find his spells malfunctioning and one of the Hedrons floating about the cave absorbing his magic. Acting upon intuition, Jace told Chandra to try and generate fire that could not be seen, and with it, she defeated Sarkhan, knocking the entire group unconscious. Chandra was the first to awake and pulled Jace to his feet before walking away, leaving Jace to ponder who had manipulated the pair into crossing each other's paths.

With Chandra gone, Jace had no reason to stay in the Eye. With his goal accomplished, albeit catastrophically, he wandered the caves and questioned once more how all three walkers came to be in the same place at the appropriate time. Despite his ignorance of the plane and the Eye, Jace couldn't help but notice that something had been set in motion with his involvement. He resolved to inform the sages of Sea Gate at Halimar of this development, but before he could leave the labyrinth, Anowon returned, demanding to know what had happened. Before Jace had a chance to answer, the vampire sage stalked off into the heart of the Eye muttering to himself. With no guide, Jace managed to find a nearby town and acquired a mount. Wasting no time, he began his trek back to the ship to finish his voyage. On the way, an enormous member of the Eldrazi Brood attacked, killing Jace's mount but leaving the mind mage unscathed. Jace arrived at the boat and continued on his way.

Two weeks later, Jace stood consulting an archivist at the Lighthouse of Halimar. He learned a bit about the Eldrazi, but felt no wiser for the knowledge. He recounted the events of his journey for her, and decided to search out where Chandra learned of the scroll. The merfolk archivist begged Jace to return if he learned anything, and Jace walked away saying he would share anything he found.

Test of Metal

Possessing all of Tezzeret’s knowledge about Tezzeret’s life, Jace set a series of traps to try and locate him should he have survived Kamigawa.

When Tezzeret stumbled into such a trap upon Esper, Jace and Baltrice were alerted and went there to try and deal with him. Tezzeret got the upper hand, infecting Jace with an etherium device which prevented him from using any of his abilities, including planeswalking. Tezzeret promised to remove the device after Baltrice helped him find the sphinx known as Crucius the Mad.

The Etherium device was removed by Nicol Bolas later, as part of Tezzeret's plans, and, once again free, the artificer and the telepath immediately rekindled their war. Bolas intervened once again, unbeknownst to Jace, and sent Tezzeret to Mirrodin.

Trivia

Promotional card of Jace for the Agents of Artifice novel.

• Jace may have spent an undisclosed length of time on the plane of Lorwyn around the time of the Aurora studying the peculiar nature of dreamstuff in that world. In this hypothetical encounter he had a brief mental encounter with the flamekin Ashling, though she never became aware of his presence. The nature of this article leads to some doubts as to its veracity.

• As of July 2011, Jace's Lorwyn Planeswalker card has been reprinted six times, featuring a total of four different artworks. These include those found in Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra, as well as a special promotional card for Agents of Artifice buyers in selected stores, and in a special Japanese print run of Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra.

In-game references

Represented in:

• Jace Beleren
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Jace, Memory Adept
• Jace, Architect of Thought

Depicted in:

• Counterspell (Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra)
• Fact or Fiction (Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra)
• Jace's Erasure
• Jace's Ingenuity
• Lay Bare
• Negate (Magic Player Rewards)
• Omniscience
• Selective Memory

Quoted or referred to:

• Chandra's Outrage
• Essence Scatter (Magic 2013)
• Hive Mind
• Illusionary Servant
• Jace's Phantasm
• Jace's Archivist
• Leyline Phantom
• Mind Control (Magic 2011)
• Nature's Claim
• Phantom Warrior
• Redirect
• Summoner's Bane

External links

• Doug Beyer, Christopher Moeller, Brady Dommermuth et al. (November 5, 2008). "Fuel for the Fire, Part I". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Doug Beyer, Andrew Robinson, Brady Dommermuth et al. (November 12, 2008). "Fuel for the Fire, Part II". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Doug Beyer, Jeremy Javis, Brady Dommermuth et al. (November 19, 2008). "Fuel for the Fire, Part III". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Doug Beyer (October 24, 2007). "Planeswalkers Unmasked". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.