Dominaria Geography: Terisiare Through the Ages

Welcome to the fifth article on Dominaria Geography!

This article is to help people get an understanding of the geography and places of Terisiare, one of the largest continents on the plane of Dominaria.  There are many sets of Magic: The Gathering that have taken place on Terisiare specifically, and with images and links, we'll go over what is most relevant for the plane's events and sets.

The basic events we know of:

Around 0AR, near the birth of Urza and Mishra.

The Brother's War - A time of conquest, not much changing until the climax of the war and golgothian explosion. The battles between Urza and Mishra can be found in the novel, "The Brother's War, by Jeff Grubb.

Time ~30AR, notice Urza's Tower and Mishra's Fortress on the map. Copyright Wizards of the Coast, 1993-1999.

Around 30-33AR, near the end of the Brother's War

From West to East, on Terisiare, we see Lat-Nam, the island where the school of Wizards began practicing magic (later the School of the Unseen, cut off by glaciers).  Several cities took place of conflicts between Urza and Mishra, such as Terisiare City, Penregon, and Kroog.  The city of Kroog was destroyed by Mishra's forces after a trade conference, when Mishra's forces arrived from the great desert to negotiate talks of excavation of Thran artifacts.

Between them lie Urza's Tower and Mishra's Fortress.  To the north is the Monastery of Gix, and looking at the map far above, we see the Caves of Koilos, where a portal to Phyrexia exists.    The caves of Koilos was where much of the Thran civilization existed, and was destroyed by Yawgmoth's bombs.  The portal to Phyrexia was held closed by the powerstone that became the eyes of Urza, but was split into the Mightstone and the Weakstone.  Combined, they contained Glacian's spark, who was a Thran artificer in the time of Yawgmoth.  


The Dark Age - The Brother's War came to an end when Urza activated the Golgothian Cylex;  Mishra and Urza had arrived in Argoth to fight to exploit the resources the forests.   The plane was shattered, and isolated from the rest of the multiverse along with 11 other worlds (only 2 others were ever mentioned, as Azoria and the Nether Void).  Dominaria began to get colder, and lots of upheaval occurred over Terisiare.  The church of Tal began to form an inquisition, and hunted any magic users while goblins began more raids on human settlements.  The City of Shadows (on Lat Nam) and Conclave of Mages (location unknown) found sanctuary on the West side of the continent. 

We have no recorded map of Terisiare at this time period.  The world grew colder and darker, and many of the cities known in the time of the Brothers were abandoned for new settlements, especially in the goblin raids.  

The Ice Age - The isolation from the rest of the multiverse from the Golgolthian explosion caused an ice age for thousands of years.  New civilizations survived the ice, and old ones fell.  The glaciers came down across Terisiare, and we see them splitting much of the landscape of the continent.  Ronam Glacier is the glacier in the center of the continent.  The entire plane was covered in an ice age, but Terisiare, being more northward than many continents, began to be covered by glaciers and ice continuously.  The necromancer Lim-Dul rose to power in the Ice Age, and threatened the two human civilizations: the Balduvians and Kjeldorans.  The task mage Jaya Ballard and archmage of the School of the Unseen, Jodah, both aided the formation of an alliance between Balduvia and Kjeld, and helped the planeswalker Freyalise end the ice age with the 'World Spell', reuniting the shard of the 12 worlds with the rest of the Multiverse. 

AR 2934

The flood ages- The glaciers of the ice age melted, and caused the people of Terisiare to have to form new alliances to survive the age.  They eventually united the forces of Kjeldor (containing three cities of Krov, Kjeld, and Soldev) with Balduvia (made primarily of barbarian clans) to form the country of New Argive, and watched as the continent was cut into three.  The forest of Fyndhorn and Yavimaya are to the south, with much of the forests together eventually surviving as a single forest of Yavimaya for at least lore.   There were some that disliked the ending of the ice age, and the final battles with Lim Dul were over Soldev, excavating Phyrexian artifacts.  The flooding was also increased by help of northerly moving Homarids, coming north from the continent of Sarpadia. 

An unknown amount of time later, the continent can be seen as three islands, as seen below.

A globe image posted around 2004, Copyright Wizards of the Coast.

 Finallly, we see the full map of Dominaria, with Terisiare to the left.  It has broken up into Gulmany (North Terisiare), Almaaz (South Terisiare), and New Argive.  This map is around 4000AR.  Yavimaya is also now an island off the coast of New Argive, which is a fully forested island. 

After the time of the Ice Age and Flood ages, not much story occured on the continent of Terisiare.  Mirage block was focused on Jamuraa, Tempest and the Weatherlight Saga occured mostly in Aerona, Shiv, and Jamuraa.   And very little of the Time Spiral stories occurred in Terisiare.