Tamiyo/Tamiyo's Stories

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Tamiyo/Tamiyo's Stories
 
 

Tamiyo traveled through the Multiverse collecting stories on scrolls. She used these stories as catalysts for her magic. After her death, her son Nashi took possession of the scrolls, carrying on her legacy.[1]

Iron-Bound Scrolls

Among these stories, three are kept in iron bands. She promised to never open them again. One of these stories describes the destruction of Serra's Realm. Another of these stories is the story of New Phyrexia, from Urza's creation of Karn, who created Argentum and Memnarch, and the plane's corruption.[2] The third was her failsafe if she was to die.[3] The story would live on with her personality and some memories. One of these stories was later warped by Emrakul to allow her to be sealed in Innistrad's Moon.[4]

Story of New Phyrexia

While compleated and leading New Phyrexia's Invasion of the Multiverse on Kamigawa, Tamiyo corrupted one of the bound scrolls into the following story:

Many eons ago there was a great wizard by the name of Urza. So wise was he that all the mages of the Multiverse flocked to him for advice; so powerful was he that only his brother Mishra stood as a potential rival. But Mishra hated him bitterly, and soon a war began.

The war spanned decades and took untold lives. Worse, it allowed evil without compare to blossom. An awful affliction spread through Mishra's armies—a black oil that changed everything in its path.

The wizard Urza creates an heir from pure, unvarnished metal. He names him Karn. The same spark of creation that birthed him burns brightly in his breast. Karn, too, must create. As a sculptor chipping at marble, he shapes his world. When it is done—the creatures named and granted boons, the climate carefully crafted, the earth shaped and polished—he appoints his own successor, Memnarch, to oversee it.

Memnarch, the heir's heir, is a copy of a copy—a faded image of Urza himself. It longs for the power its grandfather wielded as easily as a poet wields a brush. It longs for its parents' ability to create. It longs to see more. Over years it plucks life from this plane and that, settling them all within this garden, waiting for the flowers to come. And they do, but they aren't the flowers Memnarch expects: these bloom in black oil. Their choking roots wrap around that which is alive and whole. Soon, the whole garden drowns beneath the oil. The heir returns to discover his home has been torn asunder.

This story, however, ended on a more positive note, referencing Elspeth Tirel and the end of the invasion on New Phyrexia:

Once upon a time there was a great evil, one that threatened to swallow the planes of the Multiverse whole. Unfeeling and uncaring, it infected the hearts of those it encountered.

There was someone who fought against it.

There was a protector in white.

Other Stories

  • He Who Frightens the Sun - A story about greed. Origin: Kamigawa
  • Original - From the creation of the autonomous Myr. Origin: Mirrodin
  • Winter's Howl - About a woman losing her husband to the cold. Origin: Dominaria during the Ice Age
  • Before her compleation, Tamiyo stored all of her memories within a scroll, to be animated after her death.[2]
  • The story of a plant sprouting to life from a single particle of sand, each tendril growing to impossible heights, controlled by the will of its creator.[1] A weapon born from the earth.
  • The story of a thief disappearing under a veil of invisibility to escape.[1]
  • The story of the Fomori empire and Loot.[5]

Tamiyo's Journal

Tamiyo's journal was a bound collection of research notes originally written by the planeswalker during her investigation of Innistrad. She passed the journal on to Jenrik, after whose death it was discovered by Jace Beleren. At least 14 entries include the phrase "there's more to Avacyn's madness." All known entries are listed below.

Entry Time Text Cards
With angels came mysteries. Clue (Token, #13)
Consider this: the shepherd turns on her flock. Why?[6] Clue (Token, #16)
The symbols—when did they change? Clue (Token, #15)
The appearance of these warped stones throughout the provinces is too pervasive to be random. More evidence is needed to determine the reason behind them. Catalog (Shadows over Innistrad)
The tides have begun to ignore the moon. Engulf the Shore
Their chanting grows louder as the tide rises. Clue (Token, #11)
433 Harvest Moon, ~4560 AR A stoic rider on a dappled gray arrived at my study unexpectedly this morning, carrying with him a most curious delivery. A burlap-wrapped parcel, easily larger than a human, required both of our efforts to heave into the observatory's foyer. The rider said little, but pointed with a soiled boot-tip toward the label written in Jenrik's scrawl: "Specimen for immediate inspection."

As I removed the wrappings, my breath caught in my throat as I saw fur, then claws, then the lupine muzzle come into view—a werewolf. A cursory examination revealed it to be far larger and more complete than nearly anything else of its kind that has passed through my hands. To my great surprise, the corpse was icy cold and had been dead for some time by now. The post-mortem reversion of lycanthrope corpses to their human forms was a well-known fact that stood in harsh contradiction to the specimen before my eyes. Though quite eager to begin my work, I did inquire for a receipt confirming the time of delivery—he signed it simply "R. Karolus."

The specimen was cleansed, drained, and labeled, and I began on the left anterior section. Large amounts of thick fur were first removed, revealing the sample's dermis.

Though it is customary in such procedures to cover the face of the specimen, both to protect it from damage during the examination and for some of more delicate dispositions, I could not help but linger on its expression. Eyes wide and staring, its open mouth seemed to be caught in a call to something beyond the slayer in front of it in its last moments. Most likely, as so many that I had seen before, staring rapturously towards the Moon.

The beast's expression brought to mind Jenrik's words to me. "The exact means by which a person is subjected to the curse of lycanthropy is unknown," he had said, "though it is closely linked to the basic nature of every lycanthrope. The sight of the moon fills them with unbearable savagery and strength, though the touch of her silver is poison."

I still vividly recall my first days on Innistrad, a place of seemingly endless winter nights—the perfect slate to stage my lunar studies. As I stared up at the Heron, so perfectly full, clear, and bright that she drowned the stars, a rapturous...wildness bloomed in my heart as well. Perhaps it was the vivid memory of a past worlds away within the clouds. Perhaps there was something enviable in the lycanthrope, who did not fear to grasp that wildness and hold it close to them. Perhaps they know an ecstasy we never will, from the silvery tides of moon magic running through their veins.

Hallmark colorations of a Gavony province howlpack were visible about the upper mandible. The area was marred by the presence of stringy connective tissue that had wrapped around the teeth. Closing of the jaw was likely impossible for the afflicted at the time of death.

After the loss of three scalpels of Blessed Silver, attempts to make the first chest cavity incision required the use of our heavier tools, particularly a woodcutter's saw that had been hastily coated and blessed by Avacynian missionaries in the next town over. With great effort, the rib cage was separated, the specimen split from clavicle to pelvis, its contents exposed to air.

I have often admired the lycanthrope's orderly interior, organs neatly packed and encased in their membranes, branching vessels traversing perfect pathways throughout. Massive lungs for communicating with their packs over great distances and for tree-lined sprints, a relentlessly effective liver for processing the flesh of their prey within minutes, heavily vascularized adrenal glands prepared to spill their contents into the bloodstream. An oblique reflection on the human form, elevated to a predator's ideal.

This one, though. This one was...new. There was, in fact, little or nothing of the human form that remained within.

The peritoneal interior was filled with a network of tough sinew of varying thicknesses that had grown to such an extent that it pushed aside many of the organs. Though the animal had appeared larger from the outside, a significant portion of this bulk was likely made up of such a substance. They connected in some places in thick nodules, clustered together.

The largest cluster resided on what used to be the animal's liver, swollen to nearly twice its usual size.

The organ emitted a foul odor—briny, rotten, and easily detectable despite my thick examination mask. I found myself surprisingly loath to excise the thing, though curiosity quickly conquered disgust.

The halves separated, leaving a hard, round object embedded in one half, not unlike a sliced peach. They revealed a spongy mass of the twisted sinew studded with what appeared to be three broken teeth, and strands of thick gray fur.

The pit stuck in the center of one of the halves. I rolled it over to face upward.

No, not a "pit," but a sightless, yellow, lupine eye. An eye most likely staring skyward. Perhaps, as its cephalic sisters, heavenward toward the Moon.[7]

433 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Diario di Tamiyo (Shadows over Innistrad)
434 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad)
435 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… 타미요의 일지 (Shadows over Innistrad)
441 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… 多美代的札记 (Shadows over Innistrad)/多美代的札記 (Shadows over Innistrad)
443 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… タミヨウの日誌 (Shadows over Innistrad)
535 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Дневник Тамиё (Shadows over Innistrad)
546 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad, #265†a)
643 Hunter's Moon, ~4560 AR Alchemical analysis on the moorlands' cryptolith formations was completed today. It indicates a number of exceptional features of the samples received, including a high surface hardness, and a directional energy field along a twisting axis. Curiously, inspection of the striations suggests a material only recently emerged from the earth. In contrast, crystalline analysis seems to indicate the samples are far older than all other geological formations found within the area.

The strength of the internal lodestone field in each monolith is able to distort local field lines and poles. Over time, we have received more reports of these formations, causing a net migration of our poles to a location just offshore. The disruptive properties of the stones appear to also extend to an ability to warp the flow of mana through the region, with potentially severe effects for beings composed of raw mana—particularly the angels of the plane. Perhaps there's more to Avacyn's madness...[7]

644 Hunter's Moon There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Diário de Tamiyo (Shadows over Innistrad)
653 Hunter's Moon There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad, #265†b)
711 Hunter's Moon There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad, #265†c)
712 Hunter's Moon There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Journal de Tamiyo (Shadows over Innistrad)
735 Hunter's Moon The previous week brought reports of continuing increases in werewolf-related fatalities sent by the Gavony Census, which have been confirmed by independent slayers and far exceed the numbers of Jenrik and Lotka's typical predator-prey predictions.

Since then, roads to the observatory have been blockaded, and further information has been difficult to gather. Many of our colleagues have barricaded themselves in their homes and abandoned their work. Resources have thinned, but I remain determined to continue my recordings on their causes.

The feeding behavior of Innistrad's supernatural inhabitants is closely entwined with the regular motions of the heron moon. A celestial conductor, she commands the mysterious motions of the primal heart that lead to transformation or murder with the shifts of her tides.

As our colleagues in Kessig had seen the renewed savagery of lycanthropes, here in Nephalia we too have recorded signs of the moon's unease (see Table 6-32). The oceans themselves have risen to record high tides in addition to a change in their direction—despite experiments performed in triplicate, far exceeding tolerances for measurement error. The gravitational force governing the movement of the tides appears to have shifted from the moon itself to a location very close to the sea.

Recent measurements of moon phase durations have shown asymmetric alterations. The implication is that the moon's orbit itself is being pulled in some direction by a very large, very nearby object still invisible to humanoid eyes.

Curiously, both the tidal vectors and the field distortion provide identical foci that may be traced to the same coordinates—a large reef off the coast of Nephalia.

As candlelight flickers over my pen, I recall the lights of the soratami rites of the New Moon. We had held our festival lanterns in the ways of our forebears, beacons guiding each new moon to rise from the sea of clouds. What fruit will the reef bear to this plane?

Each of my studies seems to blossom into more inquiries. For every answer, three questions...

More questions, endless questions.[7]

Clue (Token, #12)
855 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad, #265†d)
922 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Tamiyo's Journal (Shadows over Innistrad, #265†e)
I’m certain that the fate of Markov Manor is connected to these cryptoliths... Pore Over the Pages
Remember to have Jenrik research Markov Manor. Clue (Token, #14)
In summary of this initial set of observations, our best explanation is the sudden migration of a large celestial Object in increasingly close proximity to Innistrad.

Taken in total, the findings presented in this work support the presence of an object of significant mass. Most likely a new astral body, an eldritch moon of sufficient size as to provide a gravitational pull able to disrupt the normal patterns of both the tides and magical energy.

Future field studies will be arranged to investigate.[7]

935 There’s more to Avacyn’s madness… Diario de Tamiyo (Shadows over Innistrad)

References

  1. a b c Akemi Dawn Bowman (March 19, 2024). "A Long Way from Home". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  2. a b K. Arsenault Rivera (March 17, 2023). "March of the Machine - Episode 3: Mother, Son, and Story". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  3. Aftermath: The Ultimate Event Set (Video). Magic: The Gathering. YouTube (May 11, 2023).
  4. Nik Davidson (May 11, 2016). "Stories and Endings". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  5. Alison Lührs (April 2, 2024). "Outlaws of Thunder Junction - Epilogue 2: Bring the End, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  6. Kelly Digges (April 20, 2016). "Liliana's Indignation". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  7. a b c d Mel Li (April 6, 2016). "The Drownyard Temple". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.