Prolouge- Nicol Bolas
So this is Ravnica, Nicol Bolas thought, as he surveyed the darkened city that lay in front of him. The tips of buildings jutted into the sky, while tiny houses floated in the air. Patchworks of grand halls lined the city, while dilapidated slums housed the less fortunate. Crumbling ruins, reminders of Ravnica's past, sat untouched.
The grand City would have awed the citizens of any other plane.
Nicol Bolas was unimpressed.
Even after all of this time, even after Azor's departure, they still haven't changed, the Elder Dragon thought amusedly. The same tricks, the same traps, the same insignificant inner-guild quarrels. It took Niv-Mizzet months to finally unite all of the guilds. Vraska, in her foolishness, undid all of his work in a matter of moments.
Suddenly, a Nicol Bolas felt a foreign power tugging at the edge of his mind. Without hesitation, he reached out, to find that the disturbance came in the form of his minion, Tezzeret. Speak, the Dragon ordered telepathically.
It is done, Master the Master of Metal reported. I have secured the Planar Bridge. Shall I travel to Amonkhet and activate it? Bolas ruminated for a moment before making his decision. Not yet, Bolas commanded. As you wish, master, Tezzeret thought back, before the Elder Dragon snapped the mental connection.
The Second Sun of Amonkhet had one more message to deliver. He scanned through the planes of the Multiverse, before finally finding the figure that he was looking for. Ready the Army, he ordered the Necromancer, our attack commences shortly.
Fine, Liliana Vess snapped back. Nicol Bolas merely chuckled, allowing the sound of his booming laughter to pierce the planeswalker's mind. Then, once again, he separated his mind from hers.
After studying the city for some time, the Elder Dragon's gaze fell upon a grand statue. It depicted a massive boar, with numerous tusks jutting out from its maw. The symbol of the guildpact was etched into the beast's hide, and a line of bright green fire ran down its back. Underneath, the beast's title was carved in, presumably with some sort of sharp blade. It read:
ILLHARG. BOAR GOD. BRINGER OF THE END RAZE.
The Elder Dragon sneered. What did these pathetic mortals know about godhood? They carelessly referred to any being with the slightest speck of power as a deity and worshipped said beings as such.
No. Those beings were not true gods.
Nicol Bolas was once one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. For millennia, he had done as he wished, reshaping planes, molding civilizations, and decimating his enemies with mere thoughts. As countless mortals lived and died, as untold planes evolved and perished, the Elder Dragon reigned high above all, as a true, living, breathing, God.
And then the mending had stolen it from him. A dozen planeswalkers, in their shortsighted foolishness, altered the very essence of the spark itself. Now, planeswalkers were no longer all-powerful. They were mortal. They were weak. They were flesh and blood.
And Nicol Bolas, who had reigned as the most powerful being of the multiverse for millennia, found his power ripped away from him. His power, which he had spent thousands upon thousands of years gathering, was torn away from him in a matter of days. His divinity was deprived; his omnipotence frayed; his godhood stripped.
But Nicol Bolas was still an Elder Dragon. A planeswalker. A being with millennia worth of knowledge. And he was still powerful. He spent the next few decades plotting, scheming, manipulating. He crafted a plan so intricate that not even the combined power of a thousand planes could stop.
Nicol Bolas had once been a God. The multiverse and its denizens were once at his whim. And very soon, they would be once again.