The Dragons of Magic

The Dragons of Magic is a Magic: The Gathering anthology of stories published in August 2001. It was edited by J. Robert King.
==Overview==
Title 	Author 	Publishing date	Setting (plane)	Featuring
The Dragons of Magic	J. Robert King and various	August 2001 	Dominaria 	Eagyn, Pianna, Kort, Qalhata, Majaliwa, Gazali, Mitrokin, Pizoondertanx, Rokin, Jamar, Varuna, Macumba, Heptane, Siliq, Urza, Barrin, Mg'razzgh, Eadyyr, Tanaan, Maraavis, Atadon, Riand, Roas, Nequeel, Toraix, Helbi, Moragh, Jarod, Vaerix, Phys, Xenporo, Zulakan, Shinka, Kezel, Xentala, Muhish, Tochicha, Tilan, Agrippa, Lyssius, Pari, Strnak, Frankle, Timorae, Feemwlort, Fhedusil, Deadalus, Mulago, Rot, Ruin, Death, Destruction, Chloridon, Snap, Strother, Borg, and Elam, Adamkin, Dirk, Astor, Ysenga, Tajamin (mentioned), Kavalex, Skouras, Olvresk (mentioned), Felal, Knarr, Bullag
==Featured characters==
Pianna.png|Pianna
Pizoondertanx.jpg|Pizoondertanx
Heptane.jpg|Heptane
Urza3.png|Urza
Barrin.jpg|Barrin
Astor.jpg|Astor
==Blurb==
What beasts rule our dreams?
Ancient Primevals enslaved our ancestors, and modern dragon engines enslave us. Plains dragons defend humans, and undead dragons destroy them. And all dragons hold mysteries deep within.
Uncover the secrets of the dragons of Dominaria.
==List of stories==
*Dragon Lord, by Vance Moore
** 4290 AR, Otaria - Eagyn, a white dragon, leads the people of the Northern Order of Otaria. As the plains are under threat of invasion by northern barbarians, Eagyn decides to fight them head-on rather than risk the lives of more soldiers. He saves a little girl called Pianna, healing and bringing her to safety. Then he attacks the barbarians' leader, the Kidring, and manages to kill him but perishes. Afterward, the raypen Sergeant Kort swears he will protect Pianna and induct her into the Order.
*Dragon of Jamuraa, by A. L. Lassieur
** 3850 AR, Jamuraa - The wizard Majaliwa is aiding Commander Qalhata, descendant of Gazali, in fighting for Zhalfir in a war against Femeref. Majaliwa summons a powerful wind dragon, which decimates the Femeref army. It is revealed that it was originally summoned by Qalhata's ancestor Gazali, who possessed Majaliwa's body, expelling the wizard's spirit into the void between planes.
*Hero of the People, by Jess Lebow
** -17,000 AR, the Obsidian Well - Rokin is sacrificed to the village's dragon lords during the reign of the Primevals. He is kept as a slave until the Primevals fall, breaking the dragon lords' magic and allowing him and his fellow slaves to overthrow their masters.
*Dragon's Paw, by Edward Bolme
** 3305 AR, Tolaria - Urza summons a dragon based on the Shivan dragon Mg'razzgh to act as a model for the artificial dragon he wants to build to defend Tolaria. The dragon does not want to be dispelled and tricks Urza into granting him enough strength to free himself from his summoning binding.
*Of Protectors & Pride, by Steven E. Schend
** 3370 AR, Cosiman Reefs - Urza sends Riand, one of his students, to steal an egg of the aquatic blue dragon Maraavis. Urza needs the material in the egg to create the Metathran. The aquatic dragon's genetic makeup allows Urza to make the Metathran able to breathe underwater, an important advantage, but it requires that the unhatched dragon, Toraix, is killed. On his mission, Riand also kills several merfolk while trying to recover the egg. A vengeful Maraavis traces Riand's portal spell and crosses leagues of sea to Tolaria. She reads Riand's mind and wants to find the true culprit - Urza. Maraavis confronts Urza and tries to kill him, but he reveals his planeswalker status to her and shunts away her spell, though it destroys his laboratory first. Urza shares with Maraavis the purpose for using Toraix's genetic make-up - to help defend the plane from the Phyrexians. Realizing she is outmatched, Maraaivis tells Urza that Toraix was supposed to grow up to become a protector of the Cosiman merfolk. She then makes a deal with Urza - she will get to punish Riand as she sees fit, and once the Metathran are done in their mission, Urza will send a squadron of them to defend the Cosiman merfolk. Urza agrees, and Maraavis then enchants Riand to experience an illusion of falling to his death on jagged reefs on-loop for 1000 days. Urza keeps his second promise too, and after the invasion, 49 Metathran show up to become guardians of Cosiman, 7 Metathran for each of the seven reefs. 
*Familiar, by Denise R. Graham
** 4290 AR, unnamed location - The elderly druid Moragh tells the 14-year-old white dragon Jarod, whom she raised since he was an egg dropped in her garden, that the white dragons soon will be migrating over their house again and that he should rejoin them. He is hesitant to do so, enjoying life in the druid's garden. But at night, an outcast merfolk wizard named Vaerix abducts Jarod, keeping him in an electrified cage. Vaerix brings Jarod to a village, where Jarod uses his garden magic to grow vines that break open his cage. The villagers come to Vaerix's rescue and chase Jarod off, and while he is flying home, he encounters the migrating white dragons. After the leading couple chases him through the forest, Jarod spots a lone female carrying an egg. Attacked by the lead female for disrupting the migration pattern, she drops her egg, and Jarod saves it using his plant magic. Thus earning respect from his peers, he is invited to join their migration. Before he does though, returns a final time to this druidic mother Moragh and thanks her for raising him, and then rejoins his new flock.
*Deathwings, by Paul B. Thompson
** 4290 AR, Ru-nora - The Benalian mariner Phys is shipwrecked on the island of Ru-nora, where a lost tribe of Thran descendants is plagued by the mating rituals of blue dragons every 150 years. The local tribespeople give Phys a collar that allows him to speak their language, and he helps them defend against the dragons by fighting them high up in the air in a kite-mounted cage. Phys is set in his cage together with Tilan, the descendant of the over 300-year-old magistrate Zulakan. During the battle against the dragons, a small dragon gets tangled in their rope, and bites it off, sending the kite soaring high over the clouds. On a long journey on the wind currents, they both pass out and wake only when the kite is about to crash on Benalish shores. The magic of the language collar that Phys had worn no longer works due to the distance from Ru-nora, but Phys resolves for the two of them to learn each others' languages the normal way.
*The Fog, by Tim Ryan
** 100 AR, Pari's Golden Beach - Agrippa The Wayfinder is marooned on an island filled with sea dragons. He discovers that the island holds the beach his great-grandfather Pari had discovered in his youth - dubbed the golden beach because it is littered with golden jetsam, items that the sea dragons collect from shipwrecks they cause. Agrippa spends a month on the island and slowly learns to manipulate the dragons with fire. They seek warmth, and he gives it to them, and in return they let him live. He builds a boat in secret and then escapes with some of the gold from the beach, as well as a story to clear his great-grandfather's name.
*Dreamwings, by Tom Dupree
** 4100 AR, Basiphem - The shapeshifting green dragon Strnak flees an attack on Yavimaya and ends up magically transported to Llanowar. He takes on the guidance of a mute elf, and two local elves, Frankle and Timorae take him into their home and give him food. Unable to keep the illusion for long, Strnak is forced to reveal his draconic self, but the two elves accept that he is not their enemy, though Frankle feels forced to report the strange circumstance of Strnak's teleportation to the Order of the Steel Leaf. The Steel Leaf company, led by Feemwlort, shows up at their house to investigate. Strak shapeshifts into a tray to avoid detection but is bothered by the crumbling cookies held by the elves and sneezes, giving himself away. Fighting is about the break out when suddenly the red dragon that attacked Yavimaya now shows up outside the elves' house. Strak aids the elves in fighting it until a torrential rainfall dispels it. Then the nature spirit of Llanowar manifests itself in the tree carrying Frankle and Timorae's house and reveals that some type of evil sorcery was responsible for creating the red dragon. The nature spirit sends a portal spell to bring Strnak back to his family in Yavimaya, but he keeps visiting the two elves in their dreams. 
*The Blood of a Dragon, by Edo van Belkom
** 4290 AR, Nakaya and Vintara - The Nakayan lich Deadalus kills four Vintaran green dragons using magical black arrows, and drags then back to Vintara. Buried overnight, the four dragons rise as undead black dragons, and are named Rot, Ruin, Death, and Destruction. Then he sends them after the most powerful green dragon in the forest, Chloridon, to collect his blood, which undead beings can drink to gain power. In his lair, Chloridon easily kills Ruin, Death, and Rot, but spares Destruction, the largest of the four. He allows Destruction to leave, but not without battle. Wounded and bloodied, Destruction flies back and realizes he has enough of Chloridon's blood on himself to fill Deadalus's vial. A clue given to him by Chloridon makes him realize he can drink the blood himself and gain power and independence. With these tools at his disposal, Destruction finally returns to Deadalus and kills him.
*Because of a Twig . . ., by Brian M. Thomsen
** 4100 AR, Shiv - Somewhere in Shiv there is an oasis called Cometia, located in a deep meteor crater. The edges of the crater are so high the elves and druids living inside the oasis have no idea about what lies beyond it, until the tiny twig dragon called Snap finds a little crack and sees the outside world. Unfortunately three mercenaries from the outside, Strother, Borg, and Elam, have also found the crack, as well as a <c>serpent generator</c>. They flood Cometia with snakes, which kill many of its defenders, until Snap goes into the crack and then into the generator, destroying it and saving Cometia.
*Keldon Staredown, by Scott McGough
**4203 AR, Keld - The Keldon Warlord Astor goes of to parley with the dragon Kavalex with whom the Keldons have made a pact. But when Astor gets to her lair, he discovers that Kavalex has been killed and replaced by the blue dragon Skouras, a dragon who is uninterested in forming any pact with humans, and just wants to rule. Skouras has the power to invade his enemies' minds, slowing them to a crawl or paralyzing them entirely. The dragon kills most of Astor's crew, and the warlord is forced to call a retreat. Besides Astor himself, only his translator Ysenga, and six of his warriors, including Bullag and Knarr, survive the onslaught of Skouras. They are forced to regroup in Letha, a village of outcasts who were deemed unfit to take part in Keld's martial society. After some initial resistance forcing Astor to kill the town's Vosok enforcer, Astor manages to whip the Lethans into a makeshift warband, teaching them a specific type of fire magic. When Skouras returns and tries to control Astor's mind, he channels all of the Lethans' fury into a mighty blast directly into the dragon's mind, burning the dragon's brain out. The Lethans hail him as the new doyen of Keld, although Astor reserves that particular honor for the future.
==References==
Category:Anthologies