Captain Baral from Fire Logic
Lore forum
Posted on June 13, 2015, 2:47 p.m. by 2gherkins
I like this Baral, as a villain. He tells Chandra right before he is supposed to kill her that he is a MAGE. He has some serious potential the MTG universe. And lets admit it - we all know that we want to have Kaladesh be an actual plane that we visit in a block. So here's my thought.
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Baral was born on the plane of Kaladesh, premending. When he was 17, his friend discovered his secret - Baral was a necromancer, and had been for a long time. One night, Baral's friend trades him into the consuls, and try to kill Baral since being a necromancer is just as illegal as being a pyromancer. When it looks like Baral will be stabbed to death, by his own father no less, his spark ignites.
He lands on Theros, yet is uninterested and keeps traveling. He jumps from plane to plane until he creates his own, Xenos, a plane of eternal night, where the only living beings are those made of pure ther. But suddenly, the mending occurs, and he loses the power to rule his own plane. He is attacked by the ther beings and just before he dies, he planeswalks back to Kaladesh.
There, he hides his necromancy and starts to use his knowledge of the plane to invest himself deep into the ruling body of Ghirapur, the consuls. He and his new wife have a daughter, Quivas, and they are the only ones that know of his "gift". After his wife dies, he starts to build a legacy for his family. His descendants will eventually rule Kaladesh the same way that he ruled Xenos. He starts slowly corrupting the consul which he is imbedded so deep within. But he stumbles across a slight problem. He realizes that the ther is slowly being drained from the plane, and that Kaldesh will fall to ruin if he does nothing about it.
He devises an idea - he creates 7 insanely powerful, particularly unique automatons. When he is on his deathbed, Quivas will use a device to extract Baral's spark, split it into seven pieces, then give one piece to each automaton. These automatons will be able to planeswalk, and they will search the multiverse until they can find enough ther to keep Kaladesh from crumbling into an apocalypse.
But then Chandra comes along - fearing that she may be after his legacy, and that she is the only one that could rival his powers, Baral hunts her down until the final moment when he will execute her. But her spark ignites, and he is lashed and burned by Chandra's fire. As he is dying, only minutes after Chandra's spark ignited, his spark is extracted by Quivas, and she gives one piece to every automaton, and Baral's plan is finally set in motion...
~~~
The story (of the Kaladesh block) starts when Chandra hears from a fellow planeswalker, Gideon, of automatons resemble the ones from her homeplane. Chandra returns to Kaladesh and uncovers Baral's plans, and so she must protect the other planes from these automatons that are trying to steal their ther.
~~~
Who does she find on her journey to hunt down the automatons? Does she try to hunt the problem on her home plane, using undercover mages? Do the eldrazi get involved? Where should this whole story go? Any questions?
Thanks! However, what do you mean by "go that far"? to complex? not new-player friendly?
June 13, 2015 2:57 p.m.
The whole being stabbed to death by your father thing. Kinda dark. Not really PG-13 haha.
June 13, 2015 3:17 p.m.
Edited it to a more friend-betrayal type thing instead of father psychopath!
June 13, 2015 3:36 p.m.
Shit dude I was reading this thinking it was a UR plot summary. Nicely done.
June 13, 2015 3:43 p.m.
I just laughed at how he was immediately disinterested with Theros. Perfect.
June 13, 2015 3:59 p.m.
one issue is that post-mending walkers cant create planes
June 13, 2015 7:04 p.m.
No ppost-mending walker is creating planes - Baral created the plane pre-mending.
June 13, 2015 7:46 p.m.
Yeah, then you have the problem of the mending happening quite a while before Chandra was born. You remember how Lili was a pre-mending planeswalker and had to sell her soul to demons to stay young and alive? She's well over 100. How did Baral manage to stay alive so long, and how was he able to keep the fact that he wasn't aging from ruining his influence with the ruling counsel?
You also have the problem of instances of people being able to transfer a PW's spark being few and far between. And by that I mean it literally has only happened to Karn (twice).
June 14, 2015 1:43 a.m.
Karn is very similar to the automatons, and thus the spark can be transferred.
Isn't Chandra a post mending walker? Remember that baral was only seventeen when his spark ignited. If you say Chandra's sparkIgnited 33-yearsish after the mending then it does make sense.
June 14, 2015 6:54 a.m.
A quick peek at the mtgsalvation's timeline tells me that the mending occurred at 4505 AR, and the events of The Purifying Fire, which is Chandra in her twenties, happened at around 4600 AR. That means that Baral would have needed to be alive for roughly 85 years post mending.
That timeline is technically unofficial, but I don't think that wizards is going to retcon that nearly a hundred years have passed since the mending and where we are now story-wise. It would throw off too many stories.
June 14, 2015 5:43 p.m.
does it ever mention Baral's age? And couldn't you add that there is some kaladesh device to slow aging?
canterlotguardian says... #2
I don't think Magic would actually go that far, but your ideas are pretty cool.
June 13, 2015 2:56 p.m.