Rhys
| Rhys | |
|---|---|
|
Taer Rhys Daen Rhys of the Fourth Gilt-Leaf Pack Mr. Big Elf (Lorwyn) Second Safewright Rhys (Shadowmoor) | |
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| Information | |
| Colors |
 (Lorwyn) (Shadowmoor) |
| Species | Elf |
| Job | Warrior |
| Birth, Life & Death | |
| Birthplace | Lorwyn-Shadowmoor |
| Lifetime | Mending Era, c. 4520 AR |
| Death | c. 4564 AR |
| Sources | |
| Lorwyn, Morningtide, Eventide | |
Rhys was a Gilt-Leaf elf on plane of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. He was a former commander of the Hemlock pack of hunters who found himself humbled by his own actions and subsequently banished from his tribe. Forced to abandon his life amongst the elves, Rhys would band together with a group of unlikely heroes from across the other races to stabilize their plane's two conflicting halves.
Description
On Lorwyn, where the measure of an elf's beauty determined their placement in society, Rhys belonged to the immaculate caste. His Lorwyn self was a model representative of Gilt-Leaf ideals. He lived as a hunter and upheld the strict values of his elvish fiefdom, placing beauty, cunning, and duty above all else. An accident that he caused destroyed his horns, however, and his left horn was broken off into a jagged, irregular spike two inches above his forehead, while his right became a charred, blackened stump ending halfway up its height.[1] His disfigurement caused an immediate crisis of identity, and Rhys considered himself cursed by his own hand and unworthy to call himself a leader, hunter, or even an elf any longer.
In the timeframe immediately following the loss of his horns, Rhys was resistant to masking his flaws or appearance with glamers.[1] As his unnatural lifespan began to supersede that of a normal elf, however, he had allowed Maralen to bestow upon him a complicated glamer that maintained his youth and restored his horns. Under the spell's influence, Rhys appeared as he did in his prime, and his horns had grown to a length and majesty not afforded to regular elves.[2]
Across both Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, Rhys appeared to be left-handed.[3]
History
In his youth, he was sent to the Murmuring Bosk like many promising young elves who displayed the potential to become a shaman. Despite his desires, he ended up as an apprentice of the red yew sage Colfenor. Colfenor taught Rhys the secrets of poisonous yew magic and the wisdom of the yew, wishing for him to become a seedguide: elf druid-mages who served as ambassadors to treefolk tribes.[1] After some time, their ways parted naturally, and Rhys instead chose the path of a hunter, though still with a kind of telepathic connection with his mentor. His past as a treefolk's pupil was often the subject of contempt and disagreement among both his superiors and his friends.
Demotion
In 4520 AR, Daen Rhys was tasked with eliminating a boggart party that raided Elvish territory. His carefully laid trap was ruined by a young archer named Yelm, who loosed an arrow before the signal came. As the fight devolved into a chaotic melee unbecoming of elvish elegance, Rhys had to initiate his backup plan— two giant brothers named Brion and Kiel— to ensure that few of the boggarts escaped. However, employing eyeblights such as giants was strongly criticized by his superior, Taercenn Nath. Nath also killed the archer who ruined the ambush, overriding Rhys' authority. For his failures, Rhys was subsequently demoted, and command of the Hemlock pack was handed over to his friend Gryffid.[1]
Later, Nath ordered the elimination of a boggart gathering in the Porringer Valley. Rhys was a wary participant, fearing the provocation of the valley's treefolk. He asked to perform reconnaissance first, to which Nath begrudgingly agreed. In doing so, Rhys identified the gathering as the Feast of Footbottom, which was merely a peaceful festival and cultural exchange for the boggarts. Rhys informed Nath of his discovery, pointing out the presence of a pacifist boggart matron, Auntie Thumb, and the general placid behavior of the assembled creatures. Nath, with a cold smile, ordered to attack anyway, revealing that he planned from the very beginning to abuse the unsuspecting boggarts' annual gathering for their obliteration.[1]
Exile
Reluctantly, Rhys obeyed and fought despite the continued telepathic forbiddance from his mentor Colfenor. Rhys felt no glory in the hunt, seeing himself as a mere butcher as he killed indiscriminately and with growing shame. The combined might of the assembled hunting packs proved superior to the frantic and disorganized hoards of defenseless creatures. Then, suddenly, the boggarts fell into a state of unexpected feral frenzy, starting to kill and devour fallen elves. The elves were unprepared for such resistance and were becoming dangerously overwhelmed. Battle-mad and beaten, Gryffid called upon Rhys to use his treefolk magic, and when Rhys hesitated, he cursed him. In a desperate bid to save his friend, himself, and anyone else that he could, Rhys invoked Colfenor's magic. His mentor heeded the request— the result was a ruinous blast of poison that eradicated the forest and killed everyone except Rhys, Gryffid, and Nath.[1]
Rhys awoke to find himself alone in the desolate wasteland he had created, suffering visions of his mentor's disappointment in him. Shortly thereafter, a peculiar elvish woman appeared and introduced herself as Maralen of the Mornsong tribe and the victim of an unrelated massacre. Rhys was suspicious of the woman, but she appealed to his sense of elvish decorum and convinced him to take her to Lys Alana to alert the Gilt-Leaf of her own slain tribemates. More pressing, Rhys realized that the blast had destroyed his horns, making him an eyeblight. The two then encountered a vengeful greater elemental who banished them from the ruined woods.[1]
Now cut off from his tribe, he was unaware that he was soon to be branded "kin-slayer", traitor, and outlaw by Nath and Gryffid for what he had wrought in the valley.
Siring the Sapling
After meeting the elemental, Rhys and Maralen were found by a strange party consisting of female flamekin Ashling, kithkin archer Brigid Baeli, and a trio of fae, the Vendilion Clique. Surprised, he found that the flamekin carried a message for him. It was from none other than Colfenor, who was waiting for him in Kinsbaile.
Rhys arrived at Kinsbaile as they were preparing for their annual Festival of Tales. There, Colfenor allowed Rhys to unburden himself by telling him of the devastation he caused in the valley, and subsequently, the red yew declared that Rhys would be his final pupil as he postulated on his own mortality. Colfenor asked Rhys for one final service, for old times' sake, wishing for him to travel to the Murmuring Bosk and plant his seedcone there so the yew line would not die out and his lifetime of knowledge would be preserved. Rhys and his companions set out on the journey, narrowly escaping Gilt-Leaf forces that had been pursuing him. A merrow ferryman named Sygg, an acquaintance of Ashling, brought them to Bosk through the Dark Meanders. During the journey, Maralen and the Vendilion clique vanished.
Upon arrival, Rhys was stunned into a heartbroken silence when he found the Bosk destroyed. Trees were systematically uprooted, hacked, and burned. The sacred treefolk grove was no more. Despite the desolation, some hardy black poplar seedlings were slowly growing, symbolizing that the damage could be regrown in some decades. As he arrived at the exact site that Colfenor rose from centuries ago, Rhys planted the seedcone with a solemn reverence as if performing a ritual for his own kind, and then invoked an ancient blessing to ensure its growth.
When Rhys returned to the ferry, he found Brigid wounded, and no sign of Ashling or Sygg. The kithkin claimed that Ashling went mad, killed Sygg, and she managed to douse Ashling in the water at the price of her injuries. Rhys knew Brigid was lying, but helped her to heal. After she was healed, Brigid hit Rhys with a stone. Sygg rose from the water with Ashling's quenched body. The kithkin took Ashling, trapped both Rhys and Sygg in a net, and flew away to Kinsbaile with the help of her wing bow. Thanks to Sygg's ability to produce acid, the pair were freed from the net and reunited with Maralen and the strangely silent fae. The fae then provided them with a way of transport to Kinsbaile - young kin who would carry them.
The Master and the Mentor
When the party descended on Kinsbaile, the carrier fae was vaporized by battle-druids' elvish magic. Nath and Gryffid ambushed Rhys in Kinsbaile, and after a short hunt, Nath offered him a sword and challenged him to a duel. Rhys taunted him, doubting his ability to hunt by himself. Shortly after the beginning, Rhys tossed the borrowed sword towards Nath and escaped to the river. However, Nath found him, and the taercenn and the outlaw battled. Nath wounded Rhys very seriously, but in the end, Rhys grabbed the taercenn's horns and twisted his head until his neck snapped. The rest of the elves did not attempt to stop him when he was leaving.
When Rhys returned to Kinsbaile, he witnessed the rekindling of Ashling by the greater elemental and the fiery demise of Colfenor. As the red yew burned to death, his madly spoken prophecy of a world that was going to change and that he would ensure to be a part of this new world, were the last things that rang in Rhys' ears.
Rhys and the party wandered once more to Murmuring Bosk to check the progress of Colfenor's offspring. Surprisingly, they found a young but mature treefolk, who freshly rose from the ground and spoke to them (a process that would normally take decades), greeting them in the name of her seedfather.
Oona's defeat
Once the Great Aurora occurred and transformed the plane into Shadowmoor, its inhabitants transformed with it. Rhys' Shadowmoor self had never suffered disfigurement, and living in the benevolent society of the Wilt-Leaf had allowed him to reach heights that were ever out of reach for his Lorwyn self. He had been made whole again, and his honor had been restored without him knowing he had lost it to begin with.[4]
The Great Aurora's controller - the queen and mother of all faeries, Oona - was defeated by the coalition of Maralen, Rhys, Brigid, Sygg, Ashling, and the sapling of Colfenor. Though Oona was defeated and her body was destroyed, her consciousness remains hidden, slowly recovering strength in secret while she searches for the means to reclaim her throne. Following the end of her reign, the plane began to fuse, triggering the start of the Pendulum Year.
Maralen gave Rhys a white flower that she had used to help kill Oona. Rhys initially mistook the flower for Shadowmoor's own dawnglove, but the bloom was in fact its mirrored twin moonglove, a flower deadlier than even his yew poison. The moonglove was immune to the auroral tides and had traveled with her all the way from Lorwyn. She instructed him to use it on her if ever there was a sign that Oona might return through her, or if she demonstrated the same tyranny.[5] The promise became enchanted with fae magic, and until that day came, Rhys could never die.[6]
Last Task
For forty years, Rhys continued his vigil over the new queen of the fae and his former travel companion, Maralen. Due to his unnaturally long lifespan, Rhys became the only elf with living memory of the elves' cruel supremacy over Lorwyn's other races before the collapse of their empire that was precipitated by the downfall of Oona and the Phyrexian invasion.[6] Rhys lived among the fae, in Maralen's stately residence within Glen Elendra. There he served as Maralen's confidant, the two bound by their shared knowledge of Maralen's changes and the fear of Oona's reemergence, and walked its halls enshrouded in a glamer that preserved his youth and unmarred horns.[2]
A few years after the invasion, Marlen seemed to quickly succumb to Oona's returning grasp, but kept any indication from Rhys.[2] What Maralen thought were telltale signs were in fact just the machinations of her distant older brother Oko, who had fled the plane years prior and returned now fueled by a familial grudge. Manipulated by this disguised sibling into believing that Maralen was transforming into the foe that they had defeated forty years prior, Rhys was ready to fulfill the oath he had undertaken with his friend those many years ago and moved to strike her down before the transformation could fully take hold.[7] He brandished his moonglow-tipped dagger against Maralen, but she escaped. Rhys and Oko gave chase, each under the misconception that Oona's influence was seeping into Maralen.
Rhys tracked Maralen to Goldmeadow as it blurred into Mistmeadow from the unwelcome presence of Shadowmoor’s incarnation, Isilu. Rhys struck her with the moonglove poison, ensuring her death; however, she suffered the blow with no resistance, alarming Rhys, who was expecting her to employ Oona's familiar trickery. He was confronted then by Oko, who admitted that he had roused Isilu to destabilize the plane and turned Rhys against Maralen, thinking that he was vengefully striking against his mother, Oona. A horrifying realization dawned on Rhys that Maralen was not, nor was she ever, at risk of Oona's tyrannical impetus.[8]
In a desperate bid to save his sister, Oko acquired a vial of dawnglow — an infusion of dawnglove and the only antidote to moonglow — from nearby Gilt-Leaf forces and used it to cure her. As Maralen returned from the brink of death, Rhys realized that Maralen had too strong a hold on her own identity to ever become Oona as they had feared. He was at peace, knowing that Maralen could continue her reign forever free of Oona's resurgence. Eirdu, Lorwyn’s incarnation, appeared to offset Isilu's darkness as daylight fell on the surrounding meadow and its inhabitants, including Rhys’ old allies, Ashling and Brigid, who had also been brought together again by the ensuing conflict. Lorwyn's light similarly illuminated Rhys’ broken horns, which reminded him of their earlier adventures together.[9]
Although balance had been restored, the magic bond between Rhys and Marlan ended when he struck her with the fated moonglove extract. Maralen, desperate to sustain Rhys' life that had now come to its natural end, asked him to form another oathbound promise with her. Rhys declined, instead thanking her for her friendship and their time together as he bid her a final farewell. With his duty fulfilled, Rhys was allowed to rest, and his form faded beautifully into the wind as a shower of petals from across Lorwyn and Shadowmoor.[9]
Gallery
Story appearances
In-game references
- Represented in:
References
- ↑ a b c d e f g Cory J. Herndon and Scott McGough (2007), "Lorwyn", Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b c Seanan McGuire (December 9, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 2: Shake Off Slumber". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Jay Annelli (February 5, 2024). "Rhys". Twitter.
- ↑ Rei Nakazawa (March 31, 2008). "The Deepening Shadowmoor". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2020-11-25.
- ↑ Cory J. Herndon & Scott McGough (2008) - Eventide, Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Neale LaPlante Johnson, DK Billins, Laurel Pratt (September 26, 2025). "Planeswalker's Guide to Lorwyn Eclipsed". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Seanan McGuire (December 11, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 4: Fetch Me That Flower". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Seanan McGuire (December 15, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 6: Full of Hateful Fantasies". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Seanan McGuire (December 16, 2025). "Lorwyn Eclipsed Episode 7: The Charm Dissolves Apace". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.