Pattern Recognition #262 - The Rise of Mishra

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

10 November 2022

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Good day everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut's longest running article series. I am something of an Old Fogey and a definite Smart Ass, and I have been around the block quite a few times. My experience is quite broad and deep, and so I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. Be it deck design, card construction, mechanics or in-universe characters and the history of the game. Or whatever happens to catch my attention each week. Which happens far more often than I care to admit. Please, feel free to talk about my subject matter in the comments at the bottom of the page, add suggestions or just plain correct me.

And so he fled. Into the night. Into the darkness. The only things he had on him were the clothes on his back, and the Weakstone in his hands. He was good with the Desert, but as he traveled, pulled by the dark thoughts of Koilos and the monsters in his head, some part of him knew that he would never make it. Perhaps, some part of him didn't want him to make it either, for what he had done.

He never made it to Koilos. One of the groups of tribes of the Fallaji, known as the Suwwardi, found him. They were a group that were far more wary of Artifacts than most of their fellow tribes, and set themselves the task of watching the excavations that went on with an eye towards making sure that no one found something that they could use against the Fallaji. With the implication that they had ... dealt with archaeologists that found something far too dangerous.

It was this group that trailed Mishra as he fled the camp, waiting and watching to see what he was doing and why. Once they were satisfied that he wasn't a threat, they set upon him, and his stone, taking both prisoner. But the Suwwardi didn't see him as someone special; they just saw a young man, barely out of boyhood, running from killing another in the heat of the moment. The details... they did not know, and this caused them to treat Mishra as a slave.

For a moment, I would like everyone out there who hasn't already, to go read Bret Bret Devereaux's milti-part series about the Mirage of Strength of 'uncivilized' groups. It will help put some later actions into context, and one of his other series, about the battle of Helm's Deep, is what brought him to my attention in the first place.

Anyway, Mishra was taken captive and forced to to the scut-work of the camp. The Weakstone was taken from him, and while Mishra did make efforts to retrieve it, he failed to do so repeatedly. He was like this for some time, a slave to the Fallaji before his fortunes changed. Another Fallaji, not of the Suwwardi, came to the camp on other business, and recognized Mishra. This man was Hajar, and he convinced the leader of the Suwwardi camp, the man with the title of Quadir, that Mishra wasn't just some random putz, a worker for the camps. No, Mishra was Educated. And that meant that Mishra could teach the son of the Quadir the language of Argive and the ways of their people to better facilitate diplomacy and negotiations in the future. Mishra proved this point fluently.

So convinced, the Quadir raised Mishra from slave to scholar, given the rank of Rakiq, and Mishra taught the Quadir's son all that was asked of him. And by all accounts, he was a damned good teacher, often finding himself mimicking the methods of the deceased Tocasia to get the point across.

But the Quadir, and this pulls back to that work I linked above, and you really should read it, the Quadir didn't like this after a few years. You see, in their culture, for a man to be dependent on another man shows nothing but weakness. And the Quadir feared that his some was loving Mishra more than him, which was a threat to him. So the Quadir ordered that Mishra be confined as he debated what to do. For even the Quadir couldn't kill a man for such a cause; if it could be said, as Hajar, who was present for his friend, argued, the man helped everyone around him and not just a single boy, but the whole tribe with his knowledge. And if they were to kill Mishra for raising them all up, could the same not be said of any leader? Would they slay the Quadir for leading his tribe?

The Quadir retired for the night to think all this over, and by the words, it was likely that he could not justify killing Mishra, but expelling him from the Suwwardi was definitely an option. But all these plans were for naught. Stressed out by the recent events, Mishra again had Visions of Phyrexia, for it had never really left him. As he tossed and turned, under the sands of the desert, something also tossed and turned. Mishra awoke from the nightmare, and the nightmare awoke into reality as well. A great Dragon Engine awoke from the sands. But this was no ordinary thing, not one of the rare Fallaji Dragon Engines that the Suwwardi did not have. No, this was a Phyrexian Dragon Engine  ^Meld, something that had never been seen before.

The monstrous thing attacked, raging across the sands and the camp as the people there tried to flee and defend themselves. In the confusion, Hajar helped Mishra, and while the former wanted them to flee, Mishra had something more important to get. He went and rushed for the Quadir's tent, and the Weakstone within. Hajar followed, and was confused when Mishra emerged with the broken power stone in his hand. Mishra then made his friend worry that he had lost his mind as Mishra approached the raging Dragon Engine with just the stone in his hand. He tried to get Mishra to back off, but something had possessed him. Mishra held the green stone aloft, hoping to turn the power of the Stone to weakening the Dragon Engine to the point where it could be driven away.

He did not expect it to bow to him. Mishra's Domination affected the ancient artifact and brought it to heel before him. Before the Suwwardi, before the Fallaji, before everyone but most importantly himself, Mishra controlled the uncontrollable. With this control, he sent the Dragon Engine away, back to rest in the sands. Hajar bowed to him as well, becoming a life-long friend and servant to Mishra, Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard

With his mastery over the Dragon Engine, he returned to his camp. In the battle, the Quadir had been killed, and his son was raised to the position of Quadir in his stead. In thanks for his work, and how he didn't use his power to raze the whole tribe to the bedrock, Mishra was given the rank of Raki or Court Wizard, and made him effectively second in command of the Suwwardi. Under the command of the Quadir, Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa used his now-named Dragon Engine to conquer and consolidate the other tribes of the Fallaji under the banner of the Suwwardi.

The results of this was were so far beyond inevitable that it just happened. The Suwwardi soon took control over all the Fallaji, and they formed a unified political block that had other nations start to look to each other for mutual assistance should the Fallaji seek to expand their borders even more. Mishra, with his power and position, returned to his love of Archaeology. He set about digging up artifice as he had done in his youth, and rather than be satisfied with simple reclamation, he also turned his mind to the creation of more artifacts, new designs, fresh from the forge.

Thus, the first blows of what would become the Brothers War were struck without either Brother noticing. The Fallaji were always fairly semi-nomadic, and some tribes had a large raiding culture to them, one that was only gladly helped by the Suwwari, who saw the conflict as good for them. And one of the targets of their raids was Yotia, a coastal nation, part of a three-part alliance that included Argive and Korlis. The later has no relation to the Kor, a people that came to Dominaria and migrated to New Argive in the aftermath of the Planar Overlay. That was several thousand years later.

Yotia fought back against the Fallaji, and twice had pushed them back through the region known as the Sword Marshes over the course of ten years, two wars under the overall leadership of the Quadir of the Suwwardi. But after the second major pushback, the Warlord of Kroog, the capital of Yotia, pushed for a peace treaty to firmly determine who would control the Marshes between them, to try and limit attacks on his people - perhaps they could turn their attention to some other people over there instead?

The Quadir agreed, seeing that the attacks on Yotia were tapped out in terms of what they could get from them, was willing to negotiate, if only to see what he could get out of Yotia in terms of concessions. They agreed to meet on the outskirts of Korlinda, a region on the border of Korlis that was relatively close to both. And as he's going officially, he summoned his Raki to attend him. Mishra bowed to the Quadir, and met up with him on the way to Korlinda, where the Quadir informed him of what concessions he intended to get from Yotia, and what he expected Mishra to attempt. Mishra, for his part, was more than willing to play his part.

They arrived, and met with the delegation from Kroog. It was led by the Warlord of Kroog, and he introduced himself and his second, a man just as uninterested in being there as Mishra. Urza, Prince of Kroog. The two brothers, having met for the first time in years, didn't know how to react to this sudden development, and they quickly became cold to each other. Mishra stayed with his Quadir as Urza stayed with the Warlord for the most part, but when the two of them were forced to interact, their arguments were heated, hot and ready to break into violence. This was no Cathartic Reunion, this was a Bitter Reunion for the two brothers.

But they were just the side-show, a historical oddity. Who would have guessed that two brothers from Argive would rise to be the second-in-command of their respective factions years later, and that they would face each other across the table? Surely, some historian would look at that record and laugh at the absurdity of it. And that would be that.

No. That's not what happened. During the negotiations, the Quadir and the Warlord got into another heated argument over something or another. Urza and Mishra were ignoring each other, and the yelling was pretty much background music to everyone else at this point.

But when the yelling stopped, and everyone turned to see what had happened.

The Warlord was dead, murdered by the Quadir.

The Brother's War? No one knew it, but it had just started, and it had started without them. But they would end it.

Join me next week when I continue to talk about Mishra, and his role in the Brothers War. Something that didn't get as much focus on in the story as Urza hogged the spotlight.

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!