Legion of Dusk

Legion of Dusk
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Vicious Conquistador.jpg}}|150px]]
History
Founded on	Ixalan
Founded	c. 495 BD
Active	Mending Era and Omenpath Era
Status	Active
Membership
Leader	Queen Miralda (Legion) and Pontifex Mavren Fein (Church)
Notable members	Carmen, Elenda of Garrano, Mavren Fein, Queen's Bay Company, Vona de Iedo
Races	Vampires, Humans, Spirits, Demons and Dogs
Associated Colors

The Legion of Dusk (occasionally Dusk Legion) is the military arm of Alta Torrezon, an ecclesiastic vampire monarchy on the continent of Torrezon on the plane of Ixalan. The Legion persists as a storied praetorian organization of professional conquistadores: explorers, navigators, stewards, logisticians, and administrators of Alta Torrezon's Imperial project. Buoyed by a massive host of human aspirants, the modern Legion of Dusk is the premier expeditionary force of Alta Torrezon, capable of managing massive operations across oceans and directing its profit back to its coffers on Torrezon.

Structure and rituals

The Legion of Dusk is an alliance between the powerful Church of Dusk and the iron-fisted monarch Queen Miralda.

Nobles of the Legion have been turned into vampires, in the Rite of Redemption. The Legion's constant drive for conquest ensures that they always have enemy blood to drink. Their expeditions of discovery are led by vampire conquistadors and priests, with human soldiers filling the rank and file and other humans serving support roles as sailors and menial labor.

The vampires of Ixalan regularly undertake the Blood Fast, in which they starve themselves for some time. When this is over, they enter a state known as the rapture, in which they revert to an animalistic trance and attack anything in sight.

• Paladins. The vampires who lead the Legion are viewed as holy figures. The undead existence of these dark paladins is full of ritual and taboo. They feed only on the blood of the guilty: enemies of war, rebels of the state, or heretics who defy the church. They pray its power will allow the hopes of the church to be fulfilled and eternal life to be available to all without the need to subsist on the blood of the wicked.
  • The Sanctum Seekers. The Paladins of the Sanctum Seeker order were the first of the knightly orders to cross the sea and are still the most zealous.
  • The Bloodstained. Closely linked to the Church of Dusk, the paladins of the Bloodstained order are devout to the point of fanaticism.
• Priests
  • Glorifiers. These clerics specialize in bestowing the blessings of the church to bolster the pious.
  • Condemners. These clerics punish those who do not recognize the righteous authority of the church.
    • Shade-Binders. These Condemners capture and magically bind Shades called Revenants, beings composed of darkness, using blessed braziers that exude inky black smoke. Shades are used to guard ships and are sometimes bound in weapons.
• Venerables. The Venerables of the church are its saints and dead vampires who are held up as paragons of church ideals. Devout vampires often call upon the power of a Venerable through the use of relics. They are graced with a thin halo of glowing beads that float behind their head.

History

Before 803 BD, the continent of Torrezon was populated with a diverse assembly of kingdoms and independent city-states enjoying a renaissance of scientific progress, artistic flourishing, and vibrant trade: Alta Torrezon at this time was a small, prosperous city-state tucked into the mountains in the far northeast of the continent. Occupied at times with mercenary-led wars, these myriad polities nevertheless largely existed in a state of peace.

Before the Immortal Sun was brought to the continent of Ixalan, it was originally put into the care of the city-state of Alta Torrezon by the sphinx planeswalker Azor. For generations, the Immortal Sun remained under the protection of its holy custodians in a mountaintop monastery. Though the Immortal Sun became an object of religious reverence, its presence gave the local monarch a disproportionate amount of influence in regional matters. The monastery fell under attack by the forces of the rival king Pedron the Wicked who stole the Immortal Sun but in turn, lost it to Azor.

The Apostasine Wars

In 803 BD, Alta Torrezon was a solitary, deeply religious city-state in the mountainous east of the continent, not yet in the realm of vampires. For centuries, Alta Torrezon had served as the divine heart of the continent, dispatching missions across the continent and to lands even farther beyond. At some point in ancient history, faith and territorial interests severed that religious capital from the rest of the continent. Alta Torrezon and its people were content to concern themselves only with the affairs of the realm east of the Deoro; the church in Alta Torrezon sent out ministers and missionaries, but by contemporary accounts, the monarchy of Alta Torrezon faded into self-imposed isolation, leaving the rest of the continent to their golden age.

In contrast to the rest of the continent's peaceful golden age, Alta Torrezon was a nation in crisis: its venerable monarch had just died without naming a clear successor and, per the crown's laws of succession, each of the monarch's three children inherited titles and lands, splitting the kingdom into three parts. The monarch's daughter, the eldest of the three children, inherited the capital territory of Alta Torrezon. Jealous of their sister's take, the monarch's middle and youngest children — two brothers who had themselves served on the monarch's council and inherited counties and duchies of their own — called their lords to war. Against the wishes of the church, these brothers demanded their sister divide her inheritance between the two of them. She refused, and Alta Torrezon exploded into civil war.

Content to stay out of the profane affairs of warring lords and nobles before the civil war, the church was the spiritual and economic reserve for Alta Torrezon. With the brothers' attempt to usurp their sister, however, the church was forced to act. Quickly, most of the church's leadership declared the brothers to be heretics, apostates who had turned from the divine plan to glorify themselves. The brothers, meanwhile, with backing from the lay preachers and more radical elements of the institutional church, declared their sister and the leaders of the faith to have turned from the missionary spirit of the faith. The church and the crown were rigid, corrupt institutions, the brothers said. It was their duty to tear down the cardinals and bishops, to melt down the queen's crown and the pontifex's golden miter, and give them to the people. They declared themselves to be the "apostasine princes," and the civil war began.

The civil war raged on for two hundred and fifty years, with the children of all three rulers carrying on the conflict. The sheer brutality of the high war periods ruined the population of Alta Torrezon, spoiling the land as almost every inch of it was fought over. In quieter periods, the war was fought by small bands in low-grade, simmering conflict. The nobility was diminished, knights and small lords thinned, and masses of peasants slaughtered in miserable battle, but neither side was willing to admit defeat; instead, a mutual cessation of hostilities was agreed upon. This tense interregnum would last for fifty years before the war began anew.

The Gift

In 495 BD, the civil war picked up once more. On the offensive, the apostasine armies enjoyed a series of victories, and soon they came within sight of the spires of Alta Torrezon. The remnants of the combined forces of the monarch and the church formed to meet the overwhelming invading army. Just as defeat seemed certain, a stranger emerged: wreathed in rippling black vapor, this rider charged into the honor guard of the apostate princes, slaughtering all in her path. The enemy army broke ranks and retreated, routing before the singular attack. The combined forces of the crown and church rallied, finishing the apostasine princes' forces and settling the matter.

The stranger introduced herself as Elenda, custodian of the Immortal Sun, who had returned to Alta Torrezon after centuries of wandering on Ixalan. Elenda had been searching for an artifact called the Immortal Sun, stolen centuries prior from Alta Torrezon by the sphinx Azor. The monarch and pontifex of the church were incredulous of such a claim; that event was all but ancient history, having occurred centuries before her return to Torrezon. Elenda confessed to the monarch that she had taken on the blessing of vampirism to continue her search for the Immortal Sun on Ixalan and had returned to Torrezon to give this gift to her people so that they could aid her in her search. The pontifex interpreted Elenda's revelation as a selfless act of sacrifice. With the church's blessing, loyalist nobility partook of Elenda's gift. This ritualistic blessing of the chosen with vampirism became known as the Rite of Redemption.

The conquest of Torrezon

Strengthened to supernatural might by Elenda's vampiric gift, the crown and church quickly secured victory over the apostine princes and reunited Alta Torrezon. However, even united, the rulers of Alta Torrezon were not content with their ancient borders. Bolstered with vampiric strength and appetite, they began a campaign of conquest across the continent. Combining centuries of battlefield experience with the superhuman gifts of vampirism, Alta Torrezon's knights become the deadliest army on the continent.

Less than a century later, a vast, undead army marched out from Alta Torrezon, crossing the Deoro river under a pale banner. This army was a fearsome assembly of legions and mercenary companies now united under a single rule: the order of Saint Elenda. They called themselves the Legion of Dusk. No strangers to war, these fearsome knights rode out on a swift campaign of conquest, razing much of the eastern marches of Torrezon before the western states managed to snarl the Legion's advance. Though the west held for a century after this first assault, the Legion was inexorable, having been honed in their own civil war and blessed with the undying gift of vampirism.

For four more centuries, the armies of Alta Torrezon inexorably swallowed up kingdom after kingdom, expanding outward from their mountainous home, driving waves of refugees toward the free cities on the coast. In the final century of Alta Torrezon's expansion, the few remaining independent city-states on the continent's southern coast would fall to the Legion's armies, sending those briefly settled refugees fleeing once more — this time across the seas to Ixalan and other lands beyond. Those who could not flee across the ocean were either slaughtered in their keeps or bent the knee and pledged themselves to the new crown in Alta Torrezon.

The Age of Ever-Flowing Blood

The Legion of Dusk again sought the Immortal Sun, which was brought across the sea to the continent of Ixalan. At the behest of the Queen Miralda, their instructions were to track down the first and greatest of their kind, Saint Elenda, who would help the pilgrims fulfill their righteous purpose.

When the Immortal Sun was stolen off the plane and Elenda reappeared, she told her followers that they were finally free from their ancient duty. An angry and confused Vona asked her why she had left them and denied them immortality. Elenda answered that immortality was not the purpose of her gift, but protection. Deference to forces greater than themselves and humility would lead them to salvation, not the Immortal Sun. She said that she had found the sun and decided to become its sentinel within the Golden City while awaiting the arrival of other members of her order. She asked to be brought to Queen Miralda. Vona denied her, but Mavren Fein punished Vona for speaking ill of the living saint. After reprimanding Vona, the three left and the Legion left the continent of Ixalan. An apocryphal story says that Vona never returned to Torrezon but tried to claim Orazca for her own.

The Legion's attempted conquest of the continent was repelled by the Sun Empire. However, before the war could continue, New Phyrexia's Invasion of the Multiverse started, and the captured Mavren Fein's vampires had to join with the Sun Empire to defend the plane.

Aftermath of the Invasion

Rebuilding is slow and fitful. Alta Torrezon aches with the invasion's aftermath. Noble families petition the crown daily for restitution and repayment of their war debt. Human claimants seek guidance and assurances. Apocalyptic fervor animates the more hagiographic elements of the church, who demand action from their new pontifex, Mavren Fein. Adding to it all is a wave of famine that grips both the human and vampire populations of the continent. Alta Torrezon's vampires — those without ties to the Legion of Dusk — struggle to find sources of food that fit within the church's narrow allowance: heretics, lawbreakers, prisoners of war, and other sanctioned donors who have not been touched either by Phyrexian oil or the lingering effects of exposure to Halo. Discontent and hunger simmer across Torrezon. Starvation-induced Blood Fasts and reports of gristly feedings come daily now to the courts of the crown and church, and though the crown and mainstream church demand an end to these heretical practices, radical bishops and cardinals call for an even greater bloodletting. Torrezon may have thrown off the Phyrexian invaders, but Queen Miralda struggles to keep order.

The crisis of faith

The arrival of the Phyrexians and the ensuing war of the invasion have convinced many of the faithful that the end times are upon them. Coupled with Queen Miralda's post-war austerity regime, the great famine, and time to reconcile the horrors they have all lived through, much of Torrezon's population simmers with discontent. Old institutions seem unable to respond to the scale of devastation around them, and those outside of Alta Torrezon look to the capital with jealousy. The capital was spared the brutality of the invasion and now says to the rest of the realm that they cannot feed.

In the church, eschatological excitement clashes with staid orthodoxy. Bishops and cardinals murmur declarations of heresy at each other under the vaulted ceilings of grand cathedrals. Gold-draped priests in the capital contend with ragged, charismatic street preachers in the capital, while outside of Alta Torrezon sanctioned pastors buttress their lonely parishes and humble flocks against great penitent marches. Though not formally divided, the factions developing among the faithful are clear. The church orthodoxy is directed by Pontifex Mavren Fein. The radicals look to Antifex Vona de Iedo for guidance. This division has found its way to the profane politics of the crown and realm: Queen Miralda is de facto aligned with the pontifex and the church orthodoxy. Aligned against her rule are myriad separatists organized under Vona.

After the end of the Phyrexian invasion, Alta Torrezon was eager to fund a series of expeditions to Ixalan. Considering the simmering tensions within the church and to ensure neutrality in their overseas endeavors, Alta Torrezon ordered the Legion to create a new commercial venture that would work for the benefit of the people of Torrezon: the Queen's Bay Company. The company was infiltrated by extremists under Vito Quijano de Pasamonte.

When the Company reached the place of Aclazotz's binding in Ixalan's Core, Vito Quijano de Pasamonte broke his bindings. In return, the bat god bestowed his blessing on Vito and his followers, turning them into batlike demons.

While Aclazotz attacked Chimil, the inner sun, to deprive the core of light, Vito and his followers rampaged across the Core, taking Oltec citizens to feed to their god. They were met with resistance by the Oltec army and by the Sun Empire party. Huatli summoned a horde of dinosaurs and killed Vito with his own lance.

Aclazotz escaped, securing passage to Torrezon on a Dusk Legion ship. He decided that he would find Vona, hoping that she would make better use of his power than Vito.

The Fleet

Fleet size comparison by Aleksi Briclot.

The Legion's fleet consists of massive cathedral-like galleons and smaller caravels. According to Governor Beckett Brass, it was reduced to merely eighty fighting ships by 5 Dawn Era.

Miraldanor

Recently the Legion had brought its ships to Ixalan to retrieve the Immortal Sun. Here, they were confronted by the Sun Empire and the River Heralds. The Legion had established a strong presence on a group of islands in the waters of what has become known as Queen's Bay. Their holdings, collectively called Miraldanor after their queen, were protected by a string of forts.

• Adanto, their first and strongest fort.
• Leor, the Edge of Exile. Held siege and captured by the Sun Empire.
• Dúrran, the Fort of Faith.
• Conqueror's Foothold, their first settlement on the mainland of Ixalan.

Trivia

• The Legion of Dusk culture is loosely based on the Spanish Conquistadors. The initial creative pitch of Ixalan was "vampire conquistadors."

In-game references

Associated cards:

• Champion of Dusk
• Dusk Legion Dreadnought
• Dusk Legion Duelist
• Dusk Legion Sergeant
• Dusk Legion Zealot
• Dusk's Landing
• Echo of Dusk
• Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• Forerunner of the Legion
• Glorifier of Dusk
• Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
• Legion Conquistador
• Legion Lieutenant
• Legion Reconsecrator
• Legion's Chant
• Martyr of Dusk
• Skyblade of the Legion

Referred to:

• Angrath's Ambusher
• Bloodthorn Flail
• Coat of Arms (Treasure Trove, #108)
• Crash the Ramparts
• Don Andres, the Renegade
• Duskborne Skymarcher
• Fiery Cannonade
• Moment of Triumph
• Oteclan Levitator
• Paladin of the Bloodstained
• Queen's Bay Soldier
• Rampaging Ceratops
• Recover (Rivals of Ixalan)
• Sanguine Glorifier
• Shatter (Rivals of Ixalan)
• Soulcoil Viper
• Sunshot Militia
• Swashbuckling
• Tarrian's Journal
• Thought Vessel (Treasure Trove, #118)
• Vampire Champion
• Vraska's Conquistador