Orazca

Orazca
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Information
Plane	Ixalan
Part of	Sun Empire, Ixalan

Orazca, the legendary City of Gold, is an ancient metropolis hidden in the uncharted jungles of the continent of Ixalan, which is located on the plane of the same name. Orazca housed the Immortal Sun. It currently serves as the capital of the Sun Empire.

Description

Gold covers nearly every building in Orazca, and jade inlays reflect the influence of the ancient merfolk who shared Orazca with the humans of the Empire. For centuries, the earth was closed up over the golden city, hiding its secrets and its treasures from all who sought it. For a long time, three golden spires were its only visible signs where they rose above the forest floor.

Situated in a valley, the blinding brilliance of the golden city can be seen from afar. Spires like needles reach high into the sky, burnished roads and buildings stretch into the distance, and at the center, an enormous temple rises like a gleaming mountain. An arch towers over the gates to the city, and a broad central avenue funnels into a market. The market's stalls are arranged in concentric circles that spread out from a fountain at its center, fed by aqueducts. The city's pyramids were painted red and white, now faded with age, with depictions of Azor giving the Immortal Sun to the Sun Empire.

Locations

• The Threefold Temple
• Atzal, Cave of Eternity
• Metzali, Tower of Triumph
• The Tomb of the Dusk Rose
• The Sanctum of the Sun
• The ritual district
  • The Winged Temple. Built-in ages past by the command of the Sun Empire, the temple was a testament to imperial might and the glory of the Threefold Sun. Lost and forgotten after imperial greed saw Orazca stripped from the empire, the Winged Temple was altered by the River Heralds. Now once more under the rule of the Sun Empire, the temple bears aspects of both cultures. The winged temple takes its name from the wave motifs crashing into each of its sides, giving the appearance of wings. During the battle between Etali and Zacama, the Winged Temple's golden facade melted, revealing a fan of dark stone beneath.
    • The priests' chambers, the middle tier of the temple. Features an observation platform, a viewing terrace where priests could raise tributes to the Threefold Sun in full view of the people who walked the streets of Orazca.
    • The Three Hundred Steps. The only route to the top, is a three-hundred-step stairway from the archway at the temple's middle to its summit. The designers of the Winged Temple ensured that no one approaching the temple top could do so without walking exposed to the light of the Threefold Sun. Considered a sacred number, one hundred steps for each aspect of the Threefold Sun, the steps below the middle tier are uncounted, to represent the plane without order or meaning before the grace of the Threefold Sun.
    • The recitation chamber, the highest tier of the temple.
• The Vault of Catlacan
• An unadorned building partially damaged by magic near the edge of the city holds an entrance to the plane's core. Stairs within the building descend to a large room covered in painted murals and reliefs of warriors emerging from a cave to worship a figure with a sun glyph behind their head. Along another wall, this one decorated with warriors fighting some impossibly tall bipedal creature, a door made of gold, silver, and copper stretches from the floor to the ceiling. This wall features a series of removable copper tablets carved with glyphs and inlaid with jade, cinnabar, and gems — amber, turquoise, and rose quartz.

History

Orazca was the Sun Empire's capital for many centuries, and tribute from across the breadth of Ixalan was brought to adorn its palaces and temples. The city was abandoned after emperor Apatzec Intli was gifted the Immortal Sun by its guardian and misused it. He wielded the artifact without any wisdom or restraint and the city was ruined. The Immortal Sun was taken away from the humans and gifted to the merfolk River Heralds instead. It remained on the floor of the Sanctum of the Sun of the Tower of Triumph. The Sanctum was guarded by Azor's Gateway.

The merfolk River Heralds had taken it upon themselves to defend the Golden City as they believed that no one should have the power that lay within. To protect its secrets, they only vaguely knew where it was, but not the exact location. They had been making sure no one would get there for centuries. In the end, it was Kumena, one of their own, who rediscovered the city.

The race for Orazca

Kumena was the first person to reach the Golden City in centuries. He seated himself in the Threefold Temple at the pinnacle of the city. He awoke the city and the creatures within. Among the creatures which had been held in stasis during Orazca's long hibernation, were the enormous elder dinosaurs. Each of these monsters embodied one aspect of the magic of the land.

Kumena was bested shortly after his ascension by the combined efforts of the vampires Vona and Mavren Fein. They quickly threw him out of the window of the Tower of Triumph.

After the vampires of the Legion of Dusk, came Huatli and her Sun Empire compatriots, Angrath and his pirate crew, and the unlikely pair of Vraska and Jace. While the four factions struggled above them to claim the sun's power for themselves, Vraska and Jace met with its creator, the ancient Sphinx planeswalker Azor. Learning from Azor that Ixalan was originally intended to be Nicol Bolas' prison, Jace remembered his confrontation with the dragon on Amonkhet and how he had glimpsed that Bolas' plan focused on Ravnica. Vraska and Jace hatched a plan to infiltrate Bolas' organization, with Jace taking Vraska's memories to allow her to deliver the Immortal Sun to Bolas and maintain his trust. Vraska used the spell taught to her by Bolas, resulting in the Sun being seized through a planar portal by Tezzeret.

After the Immortal Sun was taken away by Tezzeret, the Legion of Dusk departed, following a furious Elenda of Garrano back to their home of Torrezon. With Angrath, Vraska, and Jace's departure from Ixalan, the various groups of pirates following them also departed, along with the River Heralds. The abandoned city was claimed by Apatzec Intli III, who proclaimed a new age of conquest that would now target Torrezon.

Orazca became a new and shining heart of the empire. Its population exploded as migrants from across the empire streamed into the ancient metropolis, claiming homes, fields, shops, and temples as their own. Once more the city hummed with the sound of a living population, and it seemed — for a time — that the Sun Empire was at its zenith.

Phyrexian Invasion

Orazca was able to prepare for the Phyrexians when news of the invasion reached the core of the Sun Empire. Unlike Atzocan, Orazca had plenty of warning that a fearsome enemy had landed on Ixalan. Unlike Pachatupa, Orazca had time to organize its citizens and the ever-increasing flow of refugees and retreating soldiers into an effective fighting force. Imperial priests, working with River Herald shapers, were able to seal the city again, protecting it against attack with the very earth and stone of Ixalan itself. However, these defenses would prove insufficient. By sealing themselves in against exterior threats, the Sun Empire inadvertently trapped themselves in with an unknown, terrifying, internal threat: Phyrexian sleeper agents, seeded throughout the waves of soldiers and refugees that fled to the safety of Orazca.

When New Phyrexia invaded Ixalan, the jungles around Orazca burned a ring of fire so hot that the golden borders of the city bubbled and melted, sinking into their foundations, flowing into the scorched earth. An acrid rain fell over the city, swelling its waterfalls to dark, raging torrents. Much of the foliage that had greened it was now dead, choked to withered black rot.

The battle of Orazca happened under the earth, inside of the sealed city, far from the warm sun of Ixalan. While the Sun Empire above ground coalesced around the emperor and the fight to hold the terraced city of Pachatupa against a seemingly endless horde of Phyrexians, the fight through the dark, firelit halls of Orazca was a grim, paranoid slaughter. Many tens of thousands of Imperial citizens and River Heralds died or were turned in the opening hours of the battle, and many thousands more were lost when the second wave of sleeper agents activated in the following days. The city was reopened by those trapped inside desperate to escape: a maneuver that, inadvertently, allowed Sun Empire forces under the command of Huatli to venture into the city.

Huatli led a force of roughly one hundred auxiliaries, including her lancers, survivors from various regiments, and freshly-released prisoners, along with fifty dinosaurs, to call the elder dinosaurs to Orazca and break the siege of Pachatupa. Etali, recently compleated by the Phyrexians, was killed by Zacama after injuring Zetalpa, and the Phyrexian forces were forced to flee.

Restoration

Orazca was the last city to declare itself free of the Phyrexians once the invasion concluded.

After the crowning of Apatzec Intli IV, the Sun Empire started the work of repairing the city of the wounds it had suffered during the invasion. Tens of thousands of refugees now crowd the city — citizens of the empire who came after the Phyrexian Invasion left their home states ravaged and inhospitable.

Opened once more to Ixalan's sun, the golden city holds a new reputation among the people of the Sun Empire: that of a graveyard, a memorial that — as its defenders discovered in those dark days — hides deeper secrets yet. In Orazca, in the deep and forgotten layers far below the earth, a team of Sun Empire soldiers fighting to clear out a nest of Phyrexians discovered a grand, ancient door, sealed with great shards. This is the door to the underground, through which the world below the surface can be accessed.

In-game references

Represented in:

• The Golden City of Orazca
• Spires of Orazca

Associated cards:

• Arch of Orazca
• Atzal, Cave of Eternity
• City's Blessing
• Metzali, Tower of Triumph
• Orazca Frillback
• Orazca Puzzle-Door
• Orazca Raptor
• Orazca Relic
• Tomb of the Dusk Rose
• Sanctum of the Sun
• Winged Temple of Orazca

Referred to:

• Blood Sun
• Demystify
• Dusk Legion Zealot
• Expel from Orazca
• Exultant Skymarcher
• Gilded Sentinel
• Harnessed Snubhorn
• Headwater Sentries
• Jungleborn Pioneer
• Overflowing Insight
• Queen's Commission
• Raptor Companion
• Ravenous Chupacabra
• Relentless Raptor
• Sailor of Means (Rivals of Ixalan)
• Shaper Apprentice
• Stampeding Horncrest
• Sun Sentinel
• Tempest Harvester