Magic Untapped takes a look at the story of Kaervek, a warlock from Urborg.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Magic Untapped as we take a look at the lore of characters from throughout the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. I’m Barry White.
Back in the late 1990s there was a Magic villain who was a major player in the Mirage War. At the end of the war, he essentially disappeared from Magic lore only to show up yet again in the main Magic: The Gathering storyline some 30 years later.
In this video, we’ll take a look at just who is Kaervek.
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Hailing from the dark continent of Urborg, the ambitious Kaervek became talented with magic at an early age. He desired, some day, to be the ruler of a vast kingdom.
Life on the burning isles, however, was harsh and there were already dozens of warlords and would-be rulers to contend with.
At some point, Kaervek noticed a huge surge of magical energy from the nearby Chaza Isles off of the coast of northwestern Jamuraa. He set sail in the direction of where he felt the surge to not only find its cause but (more importantly) see if it’s something he could use to his advantage.
What the warlock didn’t know, however, was that this energy surge was the result of a temporal experiment the Tolarian Academy-educated time mage and planeswalker, Teferi, has performed that wound up accidentally temporarily removing the entire atoll from the time stream. Thus, when Kaervek arrived at where the energy was the strongest, all he found was a barren large rock surrounded by seawater.
He did, however, also encounter two others whom had also arrived to investigate the energy surge: Mangara of the White Woods, a diplomat-mage from the nearby continent of Corondor, and Jolrael, a mage from the Mwondvuli jungles on mainland Jamuraa.
The three made one another’s acquaintance and the trio decided to venture to Jamuraa together.
Once there, Kaervek made the decision to ally himself with Jolrael as the two would travel around the continent together. Mangara, ever the politician, ventured to the capital of the nearby kingdom of Zhalfir where he brokered peace between warring factions and made quite the name for himself while doing so.
Kaervek, upon learning that Mangara had (at least from the warlock’s point of view) taken control of Zhalfir, while he and Jolrael were traveling, convinced the Mwondvuli mage that Mangara means to take over all of Jamuraa. Together, the warlock and jungle mage planned their next move.
War began slowly at first with increased aggression from wild animals and attacks from minor spirits. These proved as good distractions for Kaervek as he infiltrated the Council of Voices in the Femeref capitol within the borders of Zhalfir. There, he summoned a terrible nightstalker from Urborg known as the Spirit of the Night which quickly and quietly wiped out the entire ruling council and spirited away Mangara, whom Kaervek then trapped within a prison of amber back in Mwondvuli.
Mangara now no longer a threat to him, the warlock called upon even more forces from Urborg including his longtime ally and right-hand general, Purraj, as Jolrael allied herself with the lizard-men known as Viashino along with the terrible dragons they commanded.
With these forces, Kaervek and Jolreal waged war against the kingdoms of Zhalfir, Suq-Ata, and Femeref. It was a war that the allied Jamuraan kingdoms were losing.
Then, the enormous energy surge that had originally lured the warlock out towards Jamuraa to begin with returned. Once again drawn to its origin, Kaervek led a small armada back to its source and prepared to attack Teferi’s isle.
Jolrael, however, had grown weary of Kaervek’s ambitions and obsessions. While his fleet was out in the Kukemssa Sea near Teferi’s isle, Jolreal ambushed him and severely injured him. The warlock then fled to the nearby Uuserk Marshes as Teferi, in defense of the atoll he called home, scuttled his fleet.
At the same time, the sidar, or general, of the Zhalfir forces, Asmira, led a rescue effort to free Mangara. The rescue effort was a success, though it cost Asmira her life as both she and Kaervek’s main general, Purraj, were lost in a flash of light upon the freeing of the diplomat-mage from his amber prison.
Not too long after, Mangara was able to locate the injured Kaervek, trapping him in the very prison of amber in which the warlock had him imprisoned.
Mangara then took the amber prison to the floating fortress city of Aku for safe keeping.
Roughly a decade later, when the plane of Phyrexia made their invasion of Dominaria as a whole, Teferi phased out the entirety of Zhalfir (Aku included) as a means of protecting the land and its people.
And that was that. Or, at least, it was for nearly 450 years, when, during New Phyrexia’s simultaneous multi-plane invasion of the bulk of the multiverse, a connection was made courtesy of the dryad planeswalker Wrenn after she bonded with the Realmbreaker – the plane-connecting tree the New Phyrexians were using as a bridge, or “omenpath,” between worlds for their invasion.
With her help, she and Teferi, whom had found his way back to Zhalfir after himself becoming lost in the time stream, allowed Zhalfir to become a plane in its own right, supplanting New Phyrexia upon it losing the war. Kaervek, freed from the amber prison thanks to the effects of the war, took the opportunity to slip away from Zhalfir through one of the new omenpaths that the Realmbreaker had opened up between planes.
The warlock found himself on a rather lawless plane known simply as Thunder Junction. There, he is recruited by the mischievous fae planeswalker, Oko, to take part in a heist on a mysterious vault known as Maag Taranau. The vault, as Kaervek would determine, was ancient – perhaps even more so than the artifacts of the Thran, the oldest-known and extinct civilization on his home plane of Dominaria.
Once at the vault, Kaervek was tasked with using his centuries-old magic to disable the wards off of the vault’s entrance, but a trap was set off by the heist’s benefactor, whom it would be discovered was the planeswalker Jace Beleren. He got what he came for – a mysterious infant creature whom had been lying in suspended animation – and left along with Vraska, his mole within the outlaw troupe.
After fighting their way out of the collapsing vault, the bandits regrouped at Oko’s hideout where the fae planeswalker admitted that he had no way of paying them for the job.
Insulted and enraged, Kaervek warned Oko that if he did not find Jace and Vraska, the consequences would be dire.
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And that’s where the story of Kaervek ends. Well, for now anyway. With the current Magic story arc still having two more entries before moving on to the next one, there’s a chance that we might see Kaervek again. After all, Jace and Vraska are still out there, so who knows?
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See you next time.
