Planeswalkers

For the Magic card type, see Planeswalker.
Planeswalker is also the name of the second book of the Artifacts Cycle.
For a list of planeswalkers see List of planeswalkers.

Planeswalkers were among the most powerful beings in the multiverse, and are the thematic identities of the players of the game. Planeswalkers can be born at random in any sentient race, with no outward signs of their latent power. However, there is an incredibly remote chance that any given sentient, natural being will be born with a planeswalker's spark. When that being is put through a period of extreme stress — in many cases, death — the spark can trigger, causing the individual to ascend and become a planeswalker. In certain extremely rare cases it is possible to transfer a spark from one being to another, but no one is sure of the precise means. The transfer is highly risky, and it is nigh-impossible to convince a planeswalker to give up his or her power.

Traditional planeswalkers

Planeswalkers have incredible magical capabilities, surpassing all but the most powerful mortal wizards. Planeswalkers' lives can last indefinitely, and their physical forms are matters of will. Through intense effort, planeswalkers can create their own artificial planes. Finally, planeswalkers can travel between separate universes with ease, while the vast majority of people throughout the multiverse are not even aware that other universes exist. Because of planeswalkers' prolonged life spans and immense power, some are worshipped as gods; many end up insane, or, at the very least, they come to regard the lives of mortals in low-esteem, if even at all..

A planeswalker is specifically a being who possesses a planeswalker's spark. There are other beings who, through various means, are able to travel between planes, but those are not technically considered planeswalkers. Many pre-revisionist characters were referred to as planeswalkers but may not technically have been; without any further information, they shall remain subject to debate.

The new breed of Planeswalkers

The new breed of planeswalkers (dubbed "planescrawler" by the storyline fans) no more displays the omnipotence of their predecessors. The new planeswalkers are live beings, not energy projections of the center of consciousness. They are immensely powerful mages, but by default (and on contrary to the old planeswalkers) they age normally, they are vulnerable, and they need normal nurture like classic mortals. Some of them managed to suppress or avoid some of these things by own magical means, specific to each one. Their only common ability - and, in fact, that what makes them planeswalkers - is the sole ability to planeswalk.

This new breed of planeswalkers was born after the Mending, when Jeska, Thrice-Touched by Infinity and the last of the old planeswalkers, sacrificed her lifepower and her spark to mend all temporal rifts in the multiverse (doing so in such a great scale was probably enabled by her former existence as Karona, the embodiment of Dominarian magic.) The Mending caused a change in the very rules of Multiverse and a change in the nature of the planeswalker sparks.

The new breed of planeswalker manifested itself for the first time in Venser of Urborg, a Dominarian artificer who participated at the solution of Dominarian temporal crisis.