Dominaria Then and Now: Planar Gates

Planar connections to Dominaria:

Rabiah the Infinite

The Assassins of Suq'Ata
by Scott Hungerford, originally published in the Duelist.

The Suq'Ata originally came from the plane of Rabiah the Infinite, an Arabesque world connected to the plane of Dominaria through a series of huge, magical cyclone gates. In the distant past, when the gates between Dominaria and Rabiah were secure, many people crossed through the gates to make their home in the magic-rich environment of Jamuraa.

A number of these people, who would eventually become known as the Suq'Ata, settled and built cities reminiscent of their distant home. They began to build a trading empire, and soon had caravans traversing the huge continent of Jamuraa in search of valuables and profit. While this mercantile society was well-versed in spells, treasure, and artifice, with them also came one of the oldest arts on Rabiah--the way of the assassin.

Within the modern cities of the Suq'Ata there exists a network of secret guilds wholly devoted to murder. Using spells of summoning, fear, and mind-numbing cold, the assassins of Suq'Ata seek not to defeat their opponents outright, but to poison them over time in a variety of insidious ways--perhaps a cobra trained to remain still until it strikes, or food tainted with a tasteless poison, delivered by an unseen hand.

The Suq'Ata assassins have a variety of spells and charms that generate an aura of fear, allowing them to pass through the most well-guarded halls and chambers. Even the most vigilant of guards will flee from the smallest swampfly if the fear-aura spell is woven well by an assassin. Suq'Ata assassins have been known to walk through the heart of a crowded banquet hall to deliver their poisonous gift, either by knife or vial, no matter how many guards are present.

One of the oldest folktales in Suq'Ata society is about an assassin that trained a venomous serpent to hold itself in an upright position for endless hours. Then a simple illusion would be cast across it, so that the serpent appeared as nothing more than a simple wax candle. Once set into place on a noble's bedside, the snake would strike repeatedly at anyone who tried to put a match to its deadly head.

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