who is the oldest living planeswalker?
Lore forum
Posted on Dec. 14, 2013, 8:59 a.m. by somensjev
i was bored one day, so i started wondering about this, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is a very old elder dragon and Sorin Markov is a vampire(?)
i assume one of those two is the oldest, but i'm not sure who?
is sorin actually a vampire, or does he just show traits that are reminiscent of a vampire?
December 14, 2013 9:15 a.m.
Sorin IS a vampire, but he is technically not a villain, as one would assume.
December 14, 2013 9:35 a.m.
i knew that much (or at least, i hoped that one of the three people who sealed away the eldrazi wasn't a villain)
December 14, 2013 9:55 a.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #6
Walkers usually aren't heroes or villains- they're usually just out for their own interests. There are exceptions, of course: Nicol Bolas, Tezzeret, Leshrac, Tibalt, Xenegos, and possibly Ashiok are all villains. Gideon, Ajani, Venser, and Elspeth are all walkers that will answer any call for help. This is just off the top of my head; there are more that fit in these two categories.
Also, if my Innistrad lore doesn't fail me, I'm pretty sure Sorin was the first vampire on Innistrad. His grandfather was a dick and did some experiments.
Hey, if Sorin is older than all the non-Nicol Bolas Planeswalkers combined, does that mean he was alive before and during the Mending?
December 14, 2013 9:56 a.m.
i'm about to show how little lore i actually know (i only really looked at the eldrazi stuff, not even in depth) but what exactly is the mending?
December 14, 2013 10:12 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #8
somensjev, you don't mend? Psssssh.
Actually, I don't even know what it is either. Lol. And I have been playing since 95!
December 14, 2013 10:38 a.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #9
The Mending was a collaborative effort by a bunch of Planeswalkers (and an unwilling Leshrac, who Bolas defeated) to seal the time rifts that had appeared above Dominaria. This happened during the Time Spiral block. Here's an explanation from Wikipedia about the plot of Time Spiral:
Teferi, a planeswalker, abandoned Urza during the Phyrexian Invasion by "phasing" (temporarily removing from reality) two landmasses known as Shiv and Zhalfir out. He returns to Dominaria to find it in a state of ruin. In addition to having been almost totally devastated by the Apocalypse, mysterious "time rifts" have opened in the skies across the plane, making planeswalking and spellcasting more difficult. Teferi wants to ensure that Zhalfir and Shiv return to Dominaria safely - however, the time rifts, and the considerably deteriorated state of the plane itself, mean that the two continents no longer "fit." Should Zhalfir and Shiv land, Dominaria and the entire Multiverse would be destroyed.
Basically, Teferi brought a bunch of Planeswalkers together to close the rifts, which resulted in the loss of the individual's Planeswalker spark. This forum has a lot of writing and posts, but it explains what happened better than I ever could.
December 14, 2013 10:49 a.m.
MagnorCriol says... #10
The out-of-flavor explanation for the Mending is that before Time Spiral, all the planeswalkers they had were INSANELY powerful. The flavor set them up to be nigh-godlike. Some of the fights you can read about between some of the Old Walkers are basically DBZ battles on crack. Most of them could shift forms at will. A number of them created their own planes. Etc etc etc.
All of this was WAY too powerful for Wizards to show on a card and keep true to the lore, but they really wanted to bring PWs in to the actual physical game as cards. Plus having these god-beings running around their reality hampers interesting storytelling - it's hard to challenge a character who can snap their fingers and rewrite things to their whim. So the Time Spiral story invented the Mending, which divested PWs of their powers (and killed a lot of them, apparently) and nerfed new ones, so they could be put on cards and have stories told about them.
This is part of why Nicol Bolas is as power-hungry as he is; he WAS pre-mending, he HAD all the power, and now he aches for it again. The entire Alara story was him crashing the Shards into each other in an attempt to bleed the resultant Maelstrom of its power so he could return to his former incredible height of power.
Qivine says... #2
You are correct in your guesses Sorin Markov is second oldest to Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
December 14, 2013 9:03 a.m.