Dominaria Geography: The Weatherlight Events

Welcome back to the series of articles describing Dominarian history.  This article will describe the path of the Weatherlight's adventures, up to the Phyrexian Invasion.  The Weatherlight saga was a multi-block series across sets to show the story leading up to the invasion by the Phyrexians into the plane of Dominaria from which they were exiled millennia ago.  The Weatherlight is a flying ship able to travel between planes of existence with its crew, and the story follows that crew on their first mission together to save their captain...

The weatherlight crew finds a map of Dominaria.
You can clearly see Terisiare on the left with Aerona on the right. 
The Spice Isles are in the center, with a line leading to them shaped like an "S".

To tell a bit more of the invasion, the Phyrexians had planned for millennia to invade their original homeworld of Dominaria- they had been displaced when building the world of Phyrexia, and cut off through the portal at Koilos by Rebbec.

To accomplish this invasion of a planetary scale, the Phyrexians had a two-fold plan; use planar portals open at specific locations to send initial waves of forces through, and secure important Dominarian sites, and use the artificial plane Rath to overlay on top of Dominaria to bring the main force of their army to the plane.  The first map shows Dominiaria just before the invasion, at 4205AR, with specific countries and lands on the map. The first part of the invasion targeted Aerona, Jamuraa, and Shiv.  There were other plans for Terisiare later.

This map shows the specific color and coalition affiliations for each area of Aerona and Jamuraa. 
The top map shows a more natural drawn map of this part of the world.

The second map, using the same spatial area, shows this part of Dominaria from the Phyrexian perspective.  Notice, that this is part-way through the invasion, as Zhalfir is already missing.  Each location is a primary target for the Phyrexians to invade, usually where a planar portal arrived.

During the invasion, the planeswalker Teferi had become skilled with the magic of phasing, and found a way to phase out entire landmasses.  To protect his land and people, he phased out both Zhalfir and Shiv.  Urza was furious at him for abandoning the plane's defenses, but Teferi had made his choice.  The Coalition and Urza eventually defeated Phyrexia, but there was still much damage to the plane.

Battled with Phyrexians raged in all the continents, even places that weren't mentioned in the story, like Otaria, had their own battles.  To win the Phyrexian Invasion, many Dominarians took creative strategies- Multani the Maro sorcerer found his battles won in Yavimaya forest on Terisiare, but used almost all his power in order to move the entire forest to the edge of Urborg in Aerona.  Many planeswalkers (some of whom were only known in the comics), such as Kristina of the Woods, Taysir, Commodore Guff, or Bo Levar lost their lives battling alongside Urza fighting Phyrexians or altering and Protecting Dominaria. 

The plane survived not only massive plagues released by Phyrexians, but also invasion through the portals noted by the rectangles, and an eventual overlay of an entire plane (Rath), as well as the full body of Yawgmoth entering Dominaria. The two surviving planeswalkers, Freyalise and Lord Windgrace set about protecting their world, and errected the Heroes' Monument, to commemorate the loss of life against the Phyrexians. 

This map shows Jamuraa without Zhalfir,
how it will stay for infinity, as the time rift was closed
without restoring the country, 4500 AR, 300 years after the Invasion

Three hundred years later, Teferi returned to restore both landmasses, finding however, the time rifts were destroying the plane.  Time and space were out of balance, and it was changing the multiverse forever.  He managed to restore Shiv by sacrificing his planeswalker spark, however, when the planeswalker Jeska found a better means to close time rifts through channeling another walker, she closed the rift without returning Zhalfir to its proper place, causing Zhalfir to be phased out forever. 


The time spiral events were a quest to close time rifts above all the major areas of Dominaria where a massive world changing event had occurred.  The goal was to heal the world; the time rifts would not only destroy Dominaria but all magic itself if not fixed.  With the help and sacrifice of multiple planeswalkers (even Nicol Bolas), the world and multiverse was saved, despite many planeswalkers perishing in these events also.  We haven't seen Dominaria since this time, so the world is set to heal, and somewhere between 60-80 years have passed since the time spiral events on Dominaria.


The final article of the set will show us the maps and changes of Terisiare, and how it changed from the Brother's War, the Ice Age, and beyond.