Greensleeves
| Greensleeves | |
|---|---|
|
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Greensleeves cover art.jpg}}|250px]] | |
| Details | |
| Race | Human Planeswalker |
| Birthplace | Whispering Woods in Aerona, Dominaria |
| Lifetime | Born 4057 AR |
| Sources | |
| Greensleeves Cycle | |
Greensleeves was an archdruid during Modern Times on Aerona (Dominaria), and briefly a planeswalker. She was a slender woman with long blond hair.
History
Dim-witted
During her youth, Greensleeves lived peacefully with her brothers Gull and Sparrow Hawk in the village of White Ridge, on the border of the Whispering Woods.[1] She was perceived to be dim-witted because she couldn't talk, but only chattered in animal sounds to communicate simple emotions-fear, hunger, interest, etc. One day a falling star was seen in the sky, which was reputed to be a bad omen. This was proven true when White Ridge was destroyed during a wizards' duel. The elders and the children all died, and almost all the remaining villagers decided to relocate elsewhere. One of the dueling wizards, Towser, came to Gull and, after assuring him he had no part in the destruction of the village, asked him to become his new freightmaster. Gull, confused by the mind magic of Towser and with nowhere else to go, accepted his offer and brought Greensleeves along.
Speaking
After a difficult slog through the forest, the Towser's wagon train reached its destination: the place where the star fell. The star was revealed by Towser to be a Mana Vault, a powerful artifact which could store mana. During the night, the camp was attacked by another wizard who kidnapped Greensleeves and Gull's girlfriend Lily. The wizard was defeated by a suddenly appearing Fungusaur. Finally out of the Woods, the convoy stopped for the night near a swamp. During the night, though, Kem, a bodyguard of Towser, was kidnapped by Sedfe Trolls, so Gull and Greensleeves entered the bog and saved him.
The convoy finally reached a coastal city. Gull was amazed to find out that Greensleeves suddenly could talk since it was the overwhelming magic of the Whispering Woods that had clouded her thoughts.
Wizard
One night, the siblings and Lily were kidnapped by Towser's minions. Back at the camp the wizard revealed his intention to kill Greensleeves and store her power in the Mana Vault. A fight started, and Towser was forced to teleport away Gull, as well as his friends Morven and Stiggur. The three found themselves on a tropical island, where they met other creatures enslaved by Towser. It appeared that the island was where Towser would send his minions when he didn't need them and that there wasn't any way to escape from it. Still, Gull refused to surrender and started organizing the people on the island in a ragtag army, until one day he was summoned back by Lily who, unbeknownst to herself, was a wizard. Towser had tied Greensleeves to an altar and he was ready to kill her when Kem changed sides and came to her rescue. At the same time Greensleeves, who also was revealed to be a wizard (she had summoned the Fungusaur), started summoning her friends and all the creatures of the woods to fight Towser's minions. Still, Towser was a veteran wizard and could control his creatures better than Greensleeves. She resolved to use an earthquake, which destroyed the cliff they were on and plunged them into the sea. A tsunami, caused by the earthquake, was coming, so Towser escaped with his flight spell. Gull, Greensleeves, and Stiggur escaped from the huge wave taking refuge in a crack in the cliffside, while Morven and Kem were swept away by the sea. After the water had settled, they found that Lily and some other friends had survived. They vowed to form an army to fight Towser and all other evil wizards who saw people as mindless pawns.
Archdruid
Greensleeves is compelled by a strange voice to leave the army camp and enter the woods, where she finds a cave.[2] This is the home of Chaney, an old druid, who is willing to teach the inexperienced Greensleeves everything she knows about magic. When Gull and the others find out about Greensleeves disappearance, they quickly follow her trail. Meanwhile, during her training, Greensleeves finds out that time in Chaney's house flows differently and what seems to be mere days, are indeed years. When Gull and the rest of the army finally find her, Greensleeves has grown up and become a much more skilled wizard.
Planeswalker
While Rakel continues to drill the men and women of the army, transforming them into real soldiers, Greensleeves and Chaney discover that the Mana Vault is, in reality, the "Stone Brain", a living artifact, created by the Sages of Lat-Nam in hope to stop the Brothers' War. The brain has the power to stop wizards from using magic, and use it on Haakon, the self-appointed King of the Badlands.
When Haakon manages to free himself from the Stone Brain command just enough to summon some Phyrexian Gremlins, they snatch the artifact and return to their home plane. The only hope to save Rakel and recover the Stone Brain is "shifting" to their location, which Chaney is too old to do. However, the druid believes Greensleeves can and donates a Nova Pentacle to help her focus her mana. Greensleeves is now successful in reaching Phyrexia, even bringing some friends. After being attacked by demons, she teleports herself to the Stone Brain and dons it: she can resist the voices, as they are similar to the effect of the Whispering Woods, and between them, she finds the spells she needs to destroy the demons, save her dying friends and return home.
Later, when Chaney dies, Greensleeves absorbs her lifeforce to become an archdruid herself.
Final sacrifice
Gull and Greensleeves's army grows into a formidable force and liberates almost all of North Aerona from evil wizards.[3] However, all the fighting and death take their toll on Greensleeves. The druid just wants some peace, in the company of her lover Kwam and her brother, who has married Lily and is the father of two daughters. The druid is supposed to regularly summon the wizards they defeated and tagged with the Stone Brain, but she is often too tired to do that. Greensleeves is also frequently visited by the shade of Chaney, who advises the druid, in cryptic words, that she'll need to make the "final sacrifice".
Meanwhile, eleven wizards under the leadership of Towser and Karli have regrouped and protected themselves from Greensleeves's magic. Aided by the elemental Ur-Drago and a huge Keldon warlord with a personal grudge against Gull, they attack the army from three different directions. Greensleeves tries her best to help on every front, but the casualties are heavy: Petalia, captain of her bodyguards, is lost in The Abyss when the druid banishes the Ur-Drago. In another part of the Woods, Gull is confronted by the Keldon warlord: before the enemy can kill the woodcutter, Greensleeves teleports herself, Gull, and the survivors of their army to their headquarters. However, even the center of the Woods has been ravaged by the attackers. After seeing one of the wizards, Gurias, kill another of her bodyguards, Greensleeves unleashes her fury, killing him and summoning her most powerful spells, which cause the enemy to flee.
Greensleeves understands that the evil wizards have found one another thanks to the Stone Brain, so she intends to discover every secret of the artifact. She dons the helmet and finds out that its ultimate secret is buried somewhere in the ruins of the College of Lat-Nam, in the long-lost isle of Lat-Nam. The same night, Chaney's shade passes in the afterlife, after reminding Greensleeves once more of the final sacrifice.
The party teleports to Lat-Nam, which is a tropical island, covered by scrub forest and a poisoned glass desert, where once the College stood. The army is quickly attacked by the Duler angels and the merfolks of the Copper Conch; after a fight, Greensleeves communicates with the angels and the merfolk, who had been tasked by the Sages to be guardians of Lat-Nam, and befriends them. The rest of the army is summoned and excavation is started. After unraveling a Dragon Engine and other traps, a tunnel is found. However, the rest of the college has collapsed and it is now underwater.
The merfolk brings Greensleeves to the Lord of Atlantis, who carries the druid to the underwater portion of the College, where Greensleeves finds a skull of a Sage, to which she asks the secret of the Stone Brain. When the girl returns to the camp, she finds out that they have been discovered by Towser and the other wizards, who are attacking their army. After a long battle, the army retreats to the tunnel, where Gull has a prophetic dream about his dead family: however, among them, he doesn't see Sparrow Hawk, their long-lost brother, and has a revelation about the warlord's identity.
Towser proposes a truce, to which Gull answers by asking for a personal duel between himself and the warlord. When Gull reveals to the Keldon that the latter is, in truth, Sparrow Hawk, who has been kidnapped and enchanted by Towser to be a war machine, the two brothers reconcile. However, Haakon unleashes a fireball against the two, which are engulfed in flames.
This causes Greensleeves to go mad with anger and sorrow, making the "final sacrifice" of her ideal that every life is sacred. She blasts Haakon with a bolt, then traps the other wizards in the desert and summons a Force of Nature. Absorbing the mana of the creature, which is the mana of Lat-Nam and Terisiare itself, Greensleeves becomes a godlike being and loses herself, seeing her friends and family as mere ants compared to her.[3]
Human again
Before she can unleash her overwhelming power and destroy the isle, she is brought to her senses by Kwam and sees that her brothers have survived the fireball, thanks to the enchanted might of Sparrow Hawk. Greensleeves decides to pour all of her mana into the isle of Lat-Nam, curing the land of the poison and transforming the desert into a verdant forest, thus sacrificing her planeswalker powers.
High Wizard of the Domains
In the aftermath of the Battle of Lat-Nam, the surviving evil wizards, stripped of their mana by the Force of Nature, are brought before the druid who, using the secret of the helmet revealed to her by the skull, uses the Stone Brain to strip Towser of his magic. Seeing how the punishment has caused Towser to run away, screaming madly, Gull finds the solution too drastic and cruel, so he decides to let the other wizards retain their magic, but only for doing good. Greensleeves keeps to herself the last secret of the Stone Brain, its ability to give magic to anyone, thinking that a similar power is sure to cause another war for control over it. In the end, the wizards all pledge obedience to Greensleeves, who is declared High Wizard of the Domains by her followers.
On Greensleeves' spark
Greensleeves appeared only in prerevisionist books, in which there was no mention of a planeswalker's spark: any mage could break the plane's veil with the right spells and sufficient mana and travel across the planes. To make the prerevisionist books fit Revisionist Continuity, many people believe that wizards who became planeswalkers by spells possessed sparks that were flared by the spells they cast, but didn't know of these sparks or their role in becoming planeswalkers.
On Greensleeves' mana
Greensleeves demonstrated use of all 5 colors of mana. However, given her title of Archdruid, she was principally skilled in green magic and disliked harmful magic.
- White mana: Disenchant, Wall of Light, Wall of Swords
- Blue mana: Air Elemental, Counterspell, Invisibility, Juxtapose, Teleport, Unsummon
- Black mana: Nightmare, Quagmire, The Abyss
- Red mana: Ball Lightning, Chain Lightning, Earthquake, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Wall of Earth, Wall of Fire, Wall of Stone
- Green mana: Aisling Leprechaun, Camouflage, Craw Wurm, Durkwood Boars, Elvish Archers, Fire Sprites, Force of Nature, Fungusaur, Giant Badger, Grizzly Bears, Hurricane, Killer Bees, Living Artifact, Regeneration, Reincarnation, Rust, Shanodin Dryads, Timber Wolves, Tranquility, Tsunami, Wall of Ice, Wall of Wood, Wall of Brambles, Wanderlust, Winterblast, Wolverine Pack
- Artifacts she used: Clockwork Beast, Jade Statue, Nova Pentacle, Yotian Soldier
In-game references
- Represented in:
- Depicted in:
- Quoted or referred to:
Gallery
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Card art of Giant Badger.
References
- ↑ Clayton Emery (1994). Magic: The Gathering - Whispering Woods Harper Prism.
- ↑ Clayton Emery (1995). Magic: The Gathering - Shattered Chains. Harper Prism.
- ↑ a b Clayton Emery (1995). Magic: The Gathering - Final Sacrifice. Harper Prism.
