And Carnage Shall Follow

The Forgotten Foe

Art by Chippy

The Eldrazi were colossal predators that roamed the Æther, devouring the mana and life energy of any plane they encountered, leaving lifeless husks in their wake. Recognizing the danger to countless planes, a trio of planeswalkers of old lured the Eldrazi to the mana-rich world of Zendikar, trapping them in material form and confining them on the plane using unimaginably powerful magic.

Art by Tomasz Jedruszek

But their prison was tenuous. Several short centuries after their imprisonment, the Eldrazi came close to breaking free, rising up to feed upon the mana and lifeforce of Zendikar, nearly reducing it to a wasteland. The very presence of the colossal Eldrazi caused a host of bizarre, lesser drone-creatures to spring into existence: the brood lineages. But the Eldrazi were reimprisoned and the brood lineages along with them. Zendikar slowly recovered, but its ecosystem mutated, becoming stranger, fiercer, and more volatile in reaction to the Eldrazi predation.

The Half-Lidded Eye

Art by Eric Deschamps

And now, thousands of years since they last fed on the plane, the Eldrazi stir once more. A recent disturbance by three planeswalkers at the Eye of Ugin chamber loosened the bonds that kept the Eldrazi in torpor, and they rise to feed on the life of Zendikar again. Across the plane, the dormant stone hedrons come to life, changing or combining into bizarre superstructures, bending the laws of nature around them. A new generation of the brood lineages shudders into existence around their colossal progenitors, and the carnage is immediate.