Battle for the Mirari
| Battle for the Mirari | |||||
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| Event Information | |||||
| Era | Rift Era | ||||
| Date | 4305 AR | ||||
| Location | Otaria, Dominaria | ||||
| Sets | Odyssey, Torment, Judgment | ||||
| Characters | Aboshan, Balthor, Braids, Burke, Chainer, Eesha, Jeska, Kamahl, Kirtar, Laquatus, Llawan, Pianna, Seton, Skellum, Teroh, Thriss, Turg, Virot Maglan and many others | ||||
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The Battle for the Mirari was an event on Otaria, on the plane of Dominaria during the Rift Era.[1][2][3]
Description
A century after the Phyrexian Invasion shattered Dominaria, the continent of Otaria — isolated by vast oceans and riven by its ambitions — became the stage for a new catastrophe: the Battle for the Mirari. This legendary conflict, centered around the Mirari, a singular artifact of unspeakable power, which reshaped the continent's politics, peoples, and very landscape.
The Mirari’s discovery by the cabalist youth Chainer marked the beginning of Otaria’s descent toward chaos. Unearthed from a forgotten villa outside Cabal City, the artifact radiated a lure that few souls could resist. Rather than hoard its power, Chainer — ever loyal to the Cabal — presented it to The First, who, perceiving its potential, enshrined it in the Cabal Coffers as the prize of the Cabal Pit, the brutal arena battles that entertained Cabal City.
Kamahl of the Pardic Mountains, a barbarian who had mastered every challenge of his homeland, was drawn to the city by rumor of the artifact. Befriending Chainer and the noble centaur Seton, Kamahl began his ascent to fame. Among others pulled into the artifact’s orbit were Lieutenant Kirtar of the Order — an ascetic force bent on destroying relics - and Ambassador Laquatus, an exiled merfolk scheming to return to power.
Their fates first entwined when a Krosan dragon laid siege to Cabal City. In the dragon’s death throes, Kamahl was crushed beneath its corpse, and Kirtar seized the glory for the kill. Presented with a choice of the Cabal's treasures, Kirtar selected the Mirari, which granted him visions of dominion. Yet Kirtar’s triumph was not pure: Laquatus, ever the manipulator, had rewritten his memory, sowing false alliances and feeding his designs.
Thus began a deadly race. Kirtar fled back to the Order lands, pursued by Kamahl and Laquatus, each hungry for the Mirari's promise. Kamahl, though outwardly seeking vengeance for stolen honor, was already enthralled by the artifact's seductive whispers. At the Order's Citadel, Mirari's corruption bloomed. Pianna, the young leader of the Order, discerned the Mirari’s toxic influence. Before she could act, Kirtar, driven mad by the orb, encased her in pure crystal and unwittingly triggered a disaster, encasing a full half of the Citadel in crystalline structures at the cost of Kirtar's life force. Amidst the chaos, the Mirari was spirited away to Mer Emperor Aboshan's court, though he too would find only ruin in his grasp.
In the underwater empire, Laquatus's return spelled disaster. Emperor Aboshan, already sliding into mad paranoia, seized the Mirari. His genocidal designs to flood Otaria culminated in his death as well as the creation of the Aboshan Trench from the inundated shores of Otaria. Soon after, the Mirari returned to Cabal City, carried by the trickster Braids.
Meanwhile, within the Cabal, Chainer's star rose. Having lost his mentor Skellum — murdered in pit combat orchestrated by the First—Chainer, spiraled into despair and ambition. Enraged and heartbroken, he challenged the First for leadership, wielding the Mirari and invoking the true name of his master, "Calchexas," a secret weapon bought with Laquatus’ aid.
Although the First proved too mighty to kill, Chainer banished him to the southern city of Aphetto and assumed control of the Cabal. His reign, however, quickly curdled into tragedy. The Mirari twisted his body and mind, causing nightmares to bleed into waking life. Still, he launched the grandiose Mirari Games, meant to showcase his power and entrench his rule. Instead, the Games became a massacre.
Attacked by Order forces seeking vengeance, Chainer unleashed every horror from his dementia space upon Cabal City. Amidst the carnage, Kamahl returned to confront his friend. Their fateful duel ended when Chainer, overwhelmed by the Mirari’s demands, lost his humanity, his body dissolving into a nightmare of writhing monsters. Kamahl, honoring his final plea, took up the Mirari and burned Chainer’s monstrous remains amid the city's destruction.
The aftermath was a study in devastation. Kamahl found himself beset by challengers from across Otaria, each coveting the relic he carried. Under the sea, Laquatus’ forces collapsed into oblivion, trapped by the widowed Empress Llawan’s cunning magics, while on the surface, the Cabal and the Order floundered without clear leadership.
Ostensibly looking for redemption, Kamahl returned to the Pardic Mountains, only to succumb again to the Mirari’s temptations. Seeking to unite the fractious tribes, he organized a brutal tournament, where victory over him would grant leadership. Each triumph fed the artifact's growing hunger. In a moment of madness, Kamahl nearly killed his sister Jeska, saved only by a cruel miracle of the Mirari’s making, which set her body to writhe in eternal fiery torment. Horrified, Kamahl finally rejected the artifact.
Kamahl and his mortally wounded sister ventured into the Krosan Forest led by their mutual mentor Balthor Rockfist, hoping that Seton’s druids might heal her. Behind them, the shattered remnants of the Cabal and the Order, spurred by Laquatus’ schemes, pursued them, while armies from Llawan’s court closed in from the sea.
In Krosa, the final battles erupted. Laquatus, having manipulated the surface armies into alliance, sought to seize the Mirari once and for all. Yet his schemes unraveled. Seton’s druids, animated by the primal will of Krosa, resisted fiercely. The alliance collapsed under its treacheries; even the undead Balthor, raised by dark magic, hunted Laquatus to exact a final revenge.
Ultimately, Kamahl embraced the teachings of the druids, forsaking bloodshed for growth and rebirth. He reforged himself as a warden of the wilds, casting aside the ways of conquest the Mirari had tempted him toward. As the armies slaughtered one another in the wilds, Kamahl found new purpose in healing the scarred continent. He plunged the sword through the body of Laquatus and into the forested ground of Krosa. Although this act ostensibly ended the battle for the Mirari, the artifact's warping influence had not ended, and instead started to leak into the very soil of the continent.
In-game references
- Represented in:
References
- ↑ Vance Moore. (2001.) Odyssey, Wizards of the Coast. ISBN-13 0-7869-1900-0.
- ↑ Scott McGough. (2002.) Chainer's Torment, Wizards of the Coast. ISBN-13 0-7869-2696-1.
- ↑ Will McDermott. (2002.) Judgment, Wizards of the Coast. ISBN-13 0-7869-2743-7.