Thran Empire
| Thran Empire | |
|---|---|
 | |
| History | |
| Founded on | Terisiare, Dominaria |
| Active | Time of the Thran[1] |
| Status | Fallen |
| Membership | |
| Notable members | Dyfed, Glacian, Gix, Rebbec, Yawgmoth |
| Scryfall Statistics | |
|
11 artworks  9.1%  18.2%  18.2%  9.1%  18.2%  9.1%  18.2% | |
- For the novel about the Thran, see The Thran.
The Thran Empire (Thr-ann)[2] was an ancient human civilization on Dominaria. It spanned large stretches of Terisiare up to around -5000 AR when it fell in the Thran-Phyrexian War.[1] The Thran created powerful artifacts and crafted ornate designs into their creations.[3] The ruins of Thran civilization were a subject of archaeological study in later years, notably by Tocasia, Urza, and Mishra.
Description
Locations
- Chignon - city-state
- Halcyon - the capital city-state
- Caves of the Damned - a quarantine area for the city's sick
- Council Boulevard - a street on the eighth tier of the city
- Council Hall - seat of the Elder Council
- The Hall of Judgment - the courts of Halcyon
- The Halcyon Infirmary - a hospital building designed by Rebbec
- The Halcyon Mana Rig - a vast and subterranean machine that produced powerstones
- Lower Ward - located beneath the upper terraces of the city
- Thran College of Artificers - the university for the study of artifacts
- The Thran Temple - an aerial temple powered by a man-sized powerstone
- The Losanon Basin - tropical riverplain
- Losanon - city-state built on the delta of the Losanon basin
- Megheddon Defile - a mountain pass on the other side of a desert plain from Halcyon
- The Null Sphere - a massive artifact broadcast, monitoring and command station
- Nyoron - city-state on the south shore near Yavimaya
- Orleason - city-state that sided with Yawgmoth but was later claimed by the Thran Alliance
- Pilgrim Way - the single highway through the desert linking all the city-states of the empire
- Phoenon - the oldest city-state, located in the mountains. First to fall to Yawgmoth
- Seaton - city-state that sided with Yawgmoth
- Wington - city-state that sided with Yawgmoth
Structure and Governance
The Thran came from the east and carved out an empire that covered two-thirds of Terisiare, with colonies all over Dominaria.[4]
The full extent of the Thran Empire is unknown. At its height, the Thran Empire was divided into the eight city-states of Halcyon, Nyoron, Seaton, Phoenon, Orleason, Chignon, Losanon, and Wington.[5] Halcyon served as the Empire's capital during its final golden age, though Phoenon was the oldest of the eight. The site of Nyoron was later occupied by Kroog.[1]
In modern times, Thran ruins have been found both on Terisiare and Shiv, as well as distant Caliman. The locations of most Thran city-states are unknown. However, the Caves of Koilos, known to the Thran as the Caves of the Damned, are the site above which Halcyon was suspended. Descendants of the Thran still live in places like Shiv and Ru-Nora.[4]
The Empire was governed by a council with a tiered voting system. An initial round of voting was decided simply by the volume of "aye"s and "nay"s shouted by the full assembly. In the absence of a clear majority, a count was gathered from the eldest delegate from each city-state. If that vote was also undecided, the proposal finally passed to the larger leader's council, composed of prominent Thran of varied backgrounds.
History
Early History
The founding of the Thran Empire on Terisiare is lost. The Thran migrated in from the east and their empire covered two-thirds of the continent, though they also had colonies in other places like Caliman and Shiv.[4] It is said their patriarchs all "founded a city, or took over a city that was already there perhaps."[6] The earliest known point in Thran history is the recognition of Halcyon as its capital less than 200 years before the city's destruction.
Around the time of Halcyon's ascendance, the Thran Civil War arose. Rival factions of artificers and eugenicists emerged on opposite sides of a political debate. The former, backed by the Thran elite, supported traditional powerstone-based machinery and a magic-centric worldview, especially in healing. Eugenicists promoted a materialist and scientific approach to medicine, eventually leading to such innovations as surgery and a germ theory of disease. The backlash against "degrading" eugenic theories led to the exile of prominent eugenicists, Yawgmoth among them, after 100 years of civil war. It would only be 14 years until a much more devastating war broke out.
Unrest
Five years later, 9 years before the Thran-Phyrexian War, Glacian, the lead artificer of Halcyon, was wounded in an Untouchable riot and contracted an unknown disease, incurable by traditional Thran healing. At the behest of Rebbec, Glacian's wife, the reluctant Elder Council recalled the lead eugenicist, Yawgmoth, from exile, in the hope that his alternative approach to medicine would prove effective. Yawgmoth ultimately diagnosed the illness as phthisis, a degenerative and purportedly contagious disease induced by powerstone radiation.
Word of the diagnosis was met with skepticism by the elite, many of whom appeared to possess an innate resistance to the disease. In particular, Glacian himself refused to trust Yawgmoth. However, phthisis was already widespread among the rest of the population. This was especially true of the lowest class, labeled "Untouchables," who were crowded into a series of caves below the city, and, critically, below the machinery responsible for producing powerstones. Their forced exposure to heavy powerstone radiation helped incite outrage against the ruling class and led to a series of further riots. Throughout the unrest, Yawgmoth expanded his influence through a combination of political maneuvering and genuine Thran artifice.
Phyrexia
The arrival of the planeswalker Dyfed 4 years before the Thran-Phyrexian War set off a series of events that would lead to the downfall of the Thran Empire and the creation of an interplanar threat. Dyfed sought an audience with Glacian, who possessed a latent spark, and who had recognized a theory by which an entire plane could be mapped to the interior of a powerstone. However, he rejected her presence as a charade staged by Yawgmoth, who in turn enlisted her help in locating an unpopulated plane for his designs.
Dyfed eventually discovered a wholly artificial plane, covered in mechanical life and composed of nine nested spheres. The creator of the plane had recently died of unknown causes in the innermost sphere, leaving it without a controlling will, and Dyfed proposed that Yawgmoth attempt to assume psychic control of the plane before it succumbed to slow decay. He successfully did so and named the plane Phyrexia.
Downfall
While Dyfed was searching the multiverse, the Thran Alliance formed on Dominaria. The Alliance was comprised of peoples claiming grievances against Yawgmoth, including the city-states of Chignon, Losanon, and Wington. Yawgmoth was accused of masterminding several suspicious plagues that broke out during his exile, and the Alliance threatened war against Halcyon if he was not removed from power. When the ultimatum was presented to the ruling council, it passed through two split votes, with Halcyon's eldest siding with the Alliance, before reaching the leader's council, where Rebbec and Yawgmoth himself narrowly defeated the motion. Immediately thereafter, Yawgmoth overthrew the council entirely and declared martial law.
2 years before the war, Yawgmoth called upon Dyfed to exile the council to Mercadia, on the pretense of protecting them from the upcoming Thran-Phyrexian War. Then, with her further assistance, and insights into powerstone physics from an increasingly delusional Glacian, he opened an interplanar portal between Phyrexia and the caves below Halcyon and offered it to the Thran as a refuge from powerstone radiation. Shortly afterward, he slaughtered the Halcite population for raw parts from which to construct Phyrexian horrors.
The Thran-Phyrexian War opened on the Thran Alliance capturing Phoenon and Orleason, which had supported Yawgmoth, without great resistance. At the Battle of Megheddon Defile, the Thran Alliance army was decimated by Yawgmoth's artificial and hybridized Phyrexian troops, and the Null Sphere, which Yawgmoth had captured in the Battle of the Null Sphere, was used to unleash a killing mana cloud across the defile. During the last batle, the Battle of Halcyon, Halcyon itself was enveloped in the death clouds. Almost all the Thran was either killed or fled to Phyrexia, and the portal to that plane was then closed in a final defiant act by Rebbec. The remaining Thran cities were then all similarly bombed with death clouds on standing orders from Yawgmoth.
It is unknown how long the remains of the Thran Empire existed as a cohesive unit past that date, but it is known that just a very few Thran descendants still survive into modern times in remote places like the island of Ru-Nora.
Gallery
-
The Thran symbol -
"We have inherited the mysteries of the Thran, but few of the answers." - Jhoira
In-game references
- Represented in:
- Associated cards:
- Referred to:
- Artillery Blast (Dominaria United)
- The Brothers' War
- Cathodion
- Damping Sphere
- Door to Nothingness (Retro Artifacts, #77)
- Evra, Halcyon Witness
- Fallaji Excavation
- Fractured Powerstone
- Hall of Tagsin
- Heat Ray (Urza's Saga)
- Henge Guardian
- Jalum Tome (Retro Artifacts, #87)
- Mesmeric Orb (Retro Artifacts, #94)
- Ornithopter (Tenth Edition)
- Perilous Vault (Retro Artifacts, #101)
- Phyrexian Vivisector
- Steam Vents
- Su-Chi
- Sulfur Falls (Dominaria)
- Urza's Tower (Double Masters, #331)
References
- ↑ a b c James Wyatt. (2018.) The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria, VIZ Media.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (April 6, 2018). "How do you pronounce "Thran"?". The Official Magic: The Gathering Tumblr. Tumblr.
- ↑ Magic Arcana (January 20, 2004). "The Thran symbol". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2019-02-01.
- ↑ a b c Ethan Fleischer (September 10, 2022). "The New Argive Megathread". Twitter.
- ↑ The names of the city-states, save for Halcyon, were derived from those of American major cities: New York, Seattle, Phoenix, New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington.
- ↑ Squirle (June 11, 2018). "Legends of Dominaria & Magic Story Podcasts". Multiverse in Review. Tumblr.
- ↑ Doug Beyer (December 11, 2006). "Magic: A Gathering of Easter Eggs". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2019-03-21.