Rathi Overlay
| Rathi Overlay | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Event Information | |||||
| Era | War with Phyrexia | ||||
| Date | 4205 AR | ||||
| Location |
Dominaria Rath | ||||
| Sets | Planeshift | ||||
| Characters | Crovax, Tsabo Tavoc, and everyone else on Dominaria and Rath | ||||
| Outcome |
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| Card art | art:"Rathi Overlay" | ||||
| Timeline | |||||
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The Rathi Overlay was the second stage of the first Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria. [1]
Description
The Rathi Overlay marked the cataclysmic second stage of the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria — a moment when two worlds collided by design. The artificial plane of Rath, long engineered and cultivated by Phyrexia as a staging ground for conquest, was overlaid atop Dominaria through dark magics and planar manipulation. With the Overlay, the legions of Phyrexia — millions strong — were delivered directly onto Dominarian soil in an instant, bypassing conventional warfare and unleashing devastation across the globe.
The success of the Overlay was made possible through two Phyrexian innovations: the creation of the plane of Rath itself and the harnessing of flowstone, a magically malleable substance that expanded Rath’s borders to brush against those of Dominaria. For decades, if not centuries, Rath had lurked in Dominaria’s shadow, its proximity unnoticed by most save for the most attuned arcanists. Flowstone, shaped into terrain and cities under the direction of Evincars like Davvol, Volrath, and Crovax, steadily thickened Rath's mass and density, until its planar weight strained the Aether between it and Dominaria to a breaking point.
When that tipping point was reached, the result was apocalyptic. Jagged spires of flowstone overwrote entire regions of Dominaria, rivers turned to glass, forests vanished, and whole populations were either displaced, fused, or phased into a twilight existence between worlds. The merging disrupted the natural flows of magic, mangling the Aether and birthing bizarre mutations such as the Volvers, Gaea's Skyfolk, Razorfin Hunters. The Rathi tribes, slivers, and other native peoples of Rath were either brought bodily into Dominaria or cast into shadow-form — half-existing echoes trapped between planes.
As the Stronghold transitioned from Rath into Dominaria, landing in the corrupted swamps of Urborg, Tsabo Tavoc made her way to the throne room to meet with the current Evincar, Crovax. Once her superior in the Phyrexian hierarchy, she now found herself answering to him. The encounter turned hostile. In a display of Crovax’s rising power and growing instability, the two challenged each other in a brutal confrontation. Crovax emerged victorious, killing Tsabo and solidifying his rule over the Stronghold and Phyrexian operations on Dominaria.
The Stronghold, formerly the heart of Rath, now stood in Dominaria’s swamp island of Urborg, bristling with over a thousand portal ships and countless Phyrexian shock troops. The immediate consequence was the fall of Koilos and the outbreak of massive battles as the Coalition fought desperately to repel this sudden, overwhelming invasion force.
Rath, as a plane, ceased to exist after the Overlay. Its substance was now embedded in Dominaria, but its identity was gone — its landscapes, peoples, and power absorbed into a broken whole. Dominaria, in turn, was never the same. It suffered grievous losses not only in lives and territory but in the very stability of its magical fabric. The scars left by the Overlay would not begin to fade until the healing brought by the Great Mending centuries later.
Though the Overlay gave Phyrexia its foothold, it also revealed the desperation of Yawgmoth’s strategy: to fuse worlds, to corrupt reality itself, and to reshape the multiverse in his image. That vision, at least, would not come to pass. But the Rathi Overlay remains one of the most terrifying examples of planar warfare ever recorded — a stark reminder of how fragile the boundaries between worlds can be.[1]
In-game references
- Represented in:
- Associated cards:
- Referred to:
References
- ↑ a b J. Robert King. (2001.) Planeshift, Wizards of the Coast. ISBN-13 0-7869-1802-0.