Eternal Night

[["Information",[{"data":"[[Mending Era]]","label":"Era"},{"data":"4561 [[AR]]","label":"Date"},{"data":"[[Innistrad (plane)|Innistrad]]","label":"Location"},{"data":"''[[Innistrad: Crimson Vow]]''","label":"Sets"},{"data":"[[The Gatewatch]]","label":"Affiliations"},{"data":"[[Adeline]], [[Arlinn Kord]], [[Chandra Nalaar]], [[Grigori]], [[Katilda]], [[Kaya Cassir]], [[Olivia Voldaren]], [[Sorin Markov]], [[Teferi Akosa]]","label":"Characters"}]],["Outcome",[{"data":"\n*Restoration of the balance between day and night on [[Innistrad (plane)|Innistrad]]\n*Banishment of [[Olivia Voldaren]] from the plane"}]],["[[Timeline]]",[{"data":"[[Harvesttide Festival]]\n\n[[Eternal Night|Eternal Night]]\n[[Creation of the first Phyrexianized planeswalker]]"}]]]

Eternal Night
Information
Era	Mending Era
Date	4561 AR
Location	Innistrad
Sets	Innistrad: Crimson Vow
Affiliations	The Gatewatch
Characters	Adeline, Arlinn Kord, Chandra Nalaar, Grigori, Katilda, Kaya Cassir, Olivia Voldaren, Sorin Markov, Teferi Akosa
Outcome
Restoration of the balance between day and night on Innistrad Banishment of Olivia Voldaren from the plane
Timeline
Harvesttide Festival Eternal Night Creation of the first Phyrexianized planeswalker

The Eternal Night was an eerie event on the vampire-dominated plane of Innistrad. During this period, the sun vanished completely, plunging the world into an unending night bathed only by a cold, unyielding moonlight. This darkness was not merely an absence of day but a manifestation of a sinister curse engineered and exploited by Olivia Voldaren, a ruthless vampire matriarch who seized the Moonsilver Key — an ancient artifact that bound the natural cycle of the moon and day.

History

Under the shroud of endless darkness, the vampire houses of Stensia tightened their iron grip on the human population. Humans, denied rest and refuge, lived in a state of constant fear and exhaustion. The vampires, perched high in their spires and manors, exacted blood tithes nightly, draining their victims in cruel rituals that deepened despair and death across the land.

Villagers like Grigori endured this brutal existence, caring for their loved ones as best they could while exhausted from constant vampiric attacks, trapped in a bleak cycle with no hope of dawn. The vampires' dominion turned once-thriving villages into shadows of ruin, with desperation spreading unchecked.

Amid this oppression, a ragtag alliance of defenders fought back. Led by figures such as the battle-hardened knight Adeline, the fiery planeswalker Chandra Nalaar, the wolf-shifter Arlinn Kord, the time mage Teferi, and the witch Deidamia, they waged desperate guerrilla warfare to protect the last bastions of light and humanity. Despite their valor, they recognized that the curse of the Eternal Night could not be ended by resistance alone.

Realizing the scale of the threat, the defenders sought the aid of Sorin Markov, an ancient and powerful vampire elder burdened with watching Innistrad's decline. Sorin, creator of the now-lost angelic protector Avacyn and reluctant guardian of humanity, returned to his ancestral home to confront the chaos unleashed by Olivia Voldaren.

Olivia's seizure of the Moonsilver Key allowed her to disrupt the moon's natural cycle, locking Innistrad into Eternal Night. Her ambition culminated in a dark political wedding designed to unite the vampire families and cement her tyrannical rule, using Sorin's missing grandfather, Edgar Markov, as a groom and as a means to an end.

Sorin infiltrated the Voldaren Estate, witnessing the macabre spectacle of Olivia awakening vampire ancestors to her cause and twisting the legacy of the Markov line. A desperate and violent confrontation erupted between Sorin, Olivia, and the spirit Katilda, a ghostly witch freed by the key's power.

The tide turned with the freeing of Sigarda, a radiant angel long imprisoned by vampire magic, whose cleansing light shattered the vampire stronghold's wards and defenses. Allied forces, including Arlinn, Kaya, Chandra, and Teferi, stormed the manor, fighting through hordes of vampire thralls and undead to challenge Olivia's dominion. In the end, the vampire matriarch opted to flee rather than perish, and with the restored Moonsilver Key, the ritual at the Celestus could finally be completed, breaking the Eternal Night and restoring Innistrad to its former day-and-night cycle.

In-game references

Associated cards:

• Borrowed Time
• Glorious Sunrise
• Katilda's Rising Dawn
• Light Up the Night
• Rite of Harmony
• Sunset Revelry
• Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset
• Unnatural Moonrise
• Moonsilver Key
• The Celestus

Referred to:

• Adamant Will
• Angelic Quartermaster
• Candlelit Cavalry
• Candlegrove Witch
• Chilling Chronicle
• Dawnhart Geist
• Dawnhart Wardens
• Daybreak Combatants
• Dreadfeast Demon
• Firmament Sage
• Flame Channeler
• Embodiment of Flame
• Mysterious Tome
• Parish-Blade Trainee
• Ritual Guardian
• Splendid Reclamation (Innistrad: Crimson Vow)
• Sungold Barrage
• Unnatural Growth

Eternal Night on other planes

• Until the Fusion of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, the plane of Shadowmoor had an eternal night lasting centuries at a time.
• Until the End of Diraden's Eternal Night, the plane of Diraden had an eternal night lasting several decades.