Nicol Bolas (Post-Mending)

Nicol Bolas's History

Nicol Bolas was the last of the Elder Dragons born onto Dominaria roughly 25,000 years ago and soon set his sights on domination of the fledgling plane. This ultimately resulted in the cataclysmic Elder Dragon War that left the plane devastated, most of his siblings dead and Bolas's spark ignited. Bolas would then set out into the multiverse with his sights set on even greater power. This profile covers his story after the events of the Mending.

With his power greatly reduced after the Mending, Nicol Bolas sought out a way to bring himself back to his prime. His first target was the plane of Amonkhet due to its unique metal known as Lazotep which had a unique reaction to necromancy. During his arrival, he found himself opposed by the eight gods of the world. Despite his waning power, the Elder Dragon proved to be a formidable enemy, laying waste to the population and driving the gods before him, until they gathered in the city of Naktamun for a desperate last stand. In secret, the god Bontu conspired with Bolas to betray her brethren. When the dragon broke through the protective barrier of the city, he cast a spell that killed every single adult being on the plane, weakening the gods enough to subdue them and corrupting them to worshiping him instead. Three gods were set aside and twisted in their forms to fully serve him, while the remaining gods were simply mind-controlled. The spells that maintained the corruption would be maintained by Bontu, who hoped to be rewarded by Bolas later. Using the mummified dead of the plane to raise the children, he built himself monuments and wrote prophecies that would tell of his glorious return. Drawing on the phenomenons like the Curse of Wandering, one of these promises for when he returned, he would shatter the Hekma, the magical barrier protecting the populace of Amonkhet from the horrors of the broken lands, and call those who had passed the Trials of the Five Gods to his side to grant them a true afterlife. The remaining ones, including the gods themselves, would have to prove their worth to him just like the mortals they tested before. The theology of this religion were kept in the Accounting of Hours. Afterward, Bolas left, waiting for the time his scheme would pay off. Additionally, Bolas warped the Angels of the plane to serve as his agents.

Bolas also spread rumors that he was the one who had created Amonkhet. The people of Amonkhet found his false prophecies that he would return when the second sun was positioned between the effigy of Bolas' horns on the plane. This was highly anticipated and reflected in figures of speech.

Sometime after The Mending, a severely weakened Bolas met with a wizened Liliana Vess. She was jealous of the fact he was seemingly unaffected by the mending. He berated her, stating that he had lost more power than she could learn in a dozen lifetimes. Bolas lamented that only a few years previously, planeswalkers like them were akin to living gods who exerted their power and influence throughout the multiverse. Bolas proceeded to act as a broker for four demons to form a contract with her, to restore some of her power and youth at the cost of her soul. His price for this service was unknown at the time. However, he built in a failsafe should Liliana kill all four demons, making the contract default in ownership to Bolas instead of being dissolved.

He would eventually settle into Grixis on the Plane of Alara, which he thought could assist him in regaining his power. He claimed the necropolis of Kederekt as his own and began scheming. He prepared to take advantage of the coming Conflux to regain his power, and started to manipulate certain individuals and organizations on the multiple shards to create an environment ripe with tension and ready for war. On Bant he had the Order of the Skyward Eye and Gwafa Hazid spread xenophobia and disorder along the borderlands. In Esper, he created the Seekers of Carmot who warned Esperites about dwindling supplies of etherium, and created a fervent demand for the otherworldly red stone called sangrite. For Jund, he set Rakka Mar to stirring fervor for greater and greater "life hunts" among the warrior clans. On Naya, he set the Nacatl against each other, causing the authority of the Cloud Empire to collapse. Finally at his base on Grixis, he set Malfegor to gathering massive armies of the undead for the coming invasion of the other shards.

The full gravity of Bolas' plans came to fruition with Alara's conflux. Through the manipulation of the peoples of all five shards, his plan to trigger full-scale war erupted across Alara, awakening the obelisks of mana on each of the shards and causing the Maelstrom to grow in magnitude. Throughout the conflict, he acquired the servitude of Sarkhan Vol to help spread seeds of destruction across Naya.

Ajani's quest to find his brother's killer eventually led him into conflict with Bolas, and knowing that he could not defeat the dragon-god himself, he summoned the essence of Bolas' soul to fight for him. The ersatz dragon battled Bolas in perfect symmetry before they lunged at each other with powerful bites. Both connected simultaneously, and in a flash of light, the dragons disappeared. It is unknown how badly hurt Bolas was, having harvested the essence of most of the Maelstrom immediately before this climactic battle.

During his time on Grixis, the Esperite Tezzeret found himself in front of the great dragon. Impressed by the artificers combat prowess against the natives of Grixis, Bolas offered him power in exchange for servitude which Tezzeret accepted. This alliance would quickly come to an end, as Tezzeret managed to wrest control of the Infinite Consortium (an interplanar organization Bolas had founded) from Bolas.

Fearful of his position, Tezzeret would hire Jace Beleren to protect himself from Bolas's powerful telepathic abilities during an upcoming summit. This ended in disaster as Bolas easily overwhelmed both planeswalkers mentally, and the pair barely escaped with their lives, fleeing from Bolas's hired barbarian horde.

At the end of Jace's struggles, after he defeated Tezzeret in a duel and crushed the artificer's mind, it was revealed that this was all a plan Bolas agreed to regain his consortium. Liliana Vess was the original architect of this plot and had approached Bolas with her plan. Bolas did not regain the organization, but he had obtained Tezzeret's still living but mindless and crippled body.

With the resurgence of the Phyrexians on Mirrodin, Bolas demonstrated great interest in this development. He sent a rebuilt Tezzeret to observe and assess the rise of the New Phyrexians on the plane, and to serve as Bolas's eyes and ears in the Phyrexian hierarchy. Ultimately, the artificer's mission was to delay the rise of a central leader for as long as possible, a task that was doomed to fail with Elesh Norn's ascension.

At some point, Nicol Bolas took notice of the volatile nature of Zendikar. He investigated the Eye of Ugin and left after studying it. Long afterward, Bolas sent Vol to guard the Eye, to make sure nothing disturbed it.

Sarkhan was, however, misled. When Bolas had sought out and killed Ugin (although this would be reversed by Sarkhan's time travel adventure), he had extracted a great deal of information about the Eldrazi and the lock that kept them contained. Knowing of the titans and what it would take to unleash them, Bolas sent Sarkhan to the Eye and manipulated the pyromancer Chandra Nalaar into arriving at the same time. Unfortunately, that only solved two-thirds of the problem, and so Bolas gambled that Jace would show up if prodded in that direction. The purpose of his manipulations was clear—the release of the Eldrazi. He had hoped that the event would lure a horde of planeswalkers to harvest their sparks, although this did not yield the desired result.

After Emrakul's defeat on Innistrad, Bolas would dispatch Tezzeret to Kaladesh to retrieve the planar bridge technology. Although this scheme would be interrupted and seemingly foiled by the Gatewatch, Tezzeret was able to learn how to make his own planar bridge and the Vedalken planeswalker Dovin Baan would come into Bolas's service willingly.

Decades after initiating his scheme. Bolas returned to Amonkhet. Bolas's plan worked as intended, with tens of thousands of the Worthy Dead being converted into his Eternal army. When he came to the plane and materialized above his throne in Naktamun, he found the city in ruins, the gods felled, and its population under assault from his minions. Pleased, he turned to the treacherous Bontu, commanding her to kill the last of the gods, Hazoret. When Bontu managed to defeat her sister, Bolas instead rewarded her with death, forcing numerous undead empowered by him to tear her apart.

Seeing his plans come to fruition, Nicol Bolas now turned his attention on the Gatewatch, a meddlesome group of planeswalkers that had come together to stop the Eldrazi Titans on Zendikar. Asking himself if they were suitable for what he required, Bolas waited for them to form their strategy. As each of them attacked him with their methods, the dragon proved resilient and even condescending. Using his tail, he kept the invulnerable Gideon Jura at a distance by whacking him against the structures of Naktamun and simply ignored Chandra's flames, Nissa's vines, and Liliana's zombies. Focusing on Jace, Bolas let him briefly enter into his mind before crushing that of the telepath. Unknown to either Jace or Bolas, this attempt triggered a failsafe placed in Jace's mind by Ugin, to protect the secret of the latter's survival from Bolas, by temporarily wiping the mind mage's memory and forcing him to planeswalk to Ixalan, thus saving Jace's life (as well as Ugin's secrets). Turning to the rest of the Gatewatch, Bolas addressed Liliana and offered her a chance to survive the confrontation. Offering to tutor her in the use of the Chain Veil, the dragon demanded her to retreat to another plane where he would later contact her. The necromancer took the offer, even asking her teammates to join her, if in vain. Bolas now turned his attention to the rest, taking Chandra into one of his claws and breaking several of her ribs with brute force while lecturing her on the futility of using fire against a dragon. As the pyromancer planeswalked away to save her own life, Bolas turned to Nissa. Using his command over the corrupted world, he turned her link to the land against her to attack her with necrotic magic, forcing her to flee as well. Now facing Gideon, the sole remaining member of the Gatewatch, Bolas took him into one of his claws and used magic to pierce his invulnerability, giving him a choice: stay and die or live and betray the oath he had sworn at Sea Gate. Eventually, Gideon fled too, leaving Bolas victorious. Only a few minutes later, Tezzeret appeared and was sent by Bolas to check on the progress of Ral Zarek (who Bolas had recruited under the guise of Master Venati). Reveling in his victory, Bolas celebrated the first steps in his plan for reclaiming his stolen power.

On Ixalan, Bolas had sent the Gorgon planeswalker Vraska to retrieve the Immortal Sun. She would do so for her Draconic overlord, although she had received aid from an amnesiac Jace Beleren. The two devised a plan and Vraska's memories of it were safely repressed until she would be in a position to fight back against the ancient Planeswalker.

After putting together some of Bolas' machinations on Ixalan and Amonkhet, Jace and Vraska theorized on Ixalan that something on the plane of Ravnica was of extreme interest to Bolas. It seemed to be part of his plan to reclaim his lost power. To reach this goal, they reasoned that he planned to invade the plane with an interplanar army of immortals, while trapping the resident planeswalkers. Nicol Bolas had turned five planeswalkers onto his side and has given them each control over a guild. Vraska, after having her memories of plotting against the dragon taken away, was under Bolas's influence and became the leader of the Golgari. Other pawns included the likes of Dovin Baan for the Azorius and presumably Ral Zarek for the Izzet. Bolas later send a Dimir agent to plant a thought in the mind of Niv-Mizzet who ordered Ral to turn Project Lightning Bug into a beacon to call other planeswalkers to Ravnica. In addition Kaya was hired to assassinate the Ghost Council, and was placed in control of the Orzhov Syndicate. Domri Rade had taken control of the Gruul, and was counted upon to choose Bolas' side. Bolas also tried to divide the Selesnya Conclave, by controlling glademaster Garo. Meanwhile, Tezzeret prepared to deploy the Planar Bridge for the approaching battle.

When Bolas arrived on Ravnica, he was confronted by Niv-Mizzet. They engaged each other in epic combat that destroyed large portions of the city. The two dragons fought using a staggering array of magical, physical, and aerial attacks in which both drew blood. Bolas was even surprised when his mind-shattering touch could not penetrate the Firemind's mental barriers. As the fight wore on, Niv sensed his eventual defeat. After Niv collapsed a huge chunk of the city onto Bolas at a Simic zonot, Bolas emerged in a dark sphere of death and destruction, finally ready to get serious. This caused Niv to experience fear for the first time in his life and he leaped toward his impending death. In the end, Niv-Mizzet's skull and charred bones were all that remained.

After luring dozens of planeswalkers to Ravnica with the Interplanar Beacon, Bolas trapped them there through the use of the Immortal Sun. He claimed dominion over Ravnica and cast the Elderspell that harvested sparks and would grant him "ultimate power" and godhood.

Bolas installed Liliana as his Dreadhorde's general. While leading the Eternals, she witnessed a young girl shield her younger brother from a collapsing wall, only for both of them to be crushed by the falling debris. Pausing to take the scene in, and possibly being reminded of her failings in saving her brother Josu, Liliana then turned the Dreadhorde on Nicol Bolas, stopping their attack on Gideon (but not before one harvested Dack Fayden's spark). Bolas saw this and immediately made good on his prior warning to Liliana. He invoked the contract's magic, and Liliana started to disintegrate. Bolas' roar of anger was matched by Liliana's scream of defiance. Gideon then sacrificed himself to save Liliana from the contract.

Liliana commanded Oketra and Bontu to attack Bolas. Unexpectedly, Niv-Mizzet, now the Living Guildpact, impaled Nicol Bolas through the back with Hazoret's spear. Bolas was the one who gave Hazoret her spear in the first place and it contained a little of his essence, which is why it was able to damage him in his god-like state. Bolas managed to obliterate Oketra, but the distraction allowed Bontu to bite Bolas and harvest all of the elder dragon's sparks, including Bolas's own. Bontu was not able to contain all the sparks and quickly ruptured into shards.

As the gathered planeswalkers charged at the weakened and desparked Bolas, Ugin telepathically reached out to Jace, explaining that he needed Bolas alive instead of dead. Citing how Bolas had cheated his death at the hands of Tetsuo Umezawa, and how Ugin himself cheated death by becoming a Spirit Dragon, Ugin determined that the surest way to neutralize Bolas as a threat was to imprison him while tricking the multiverse into thinking he perished since Bolas' arrogance would have prevented him from having precautions in the case of his imprisonment instead of his death. To this end, he requested that Jace conjure an illusion of Bolas dying and disintegrating into ashes. Jace reluctantly complied, fooling the other planeswalkers long enough for Ugin to planeswalk into Ravnica undetected and then planeswalk out with Bolas in tow.

Ugin wrapped Bolas in his wings while traveling through the Blind Eternities, taking him to the Meditation Realm. Because Bolas had lost his spark, he was grievously wounded even with Ugin's protection, and it took him weeks before he regained consciousness and months to start recovering. Ugin told him that it was his world even before Bolas became a planeswalker and that he had helped Niv-Mizzet to be reborn. Ugin also revealed that the gem in the middle of Bolas's horns was part of Ugin's soul and he saw every step and mistake of his brother. Ugin then informed Bolas that he had lost the use of both his names, so that he couldn't be summoned by another being ever again.

Ugin told his brother that he'll become his jailer for the remainder of Bolas's mortal life and expanded himself all over the Meditation Realm. It was now a prison for Ugin and Bolas, alike - they cannot leave it. But just to be certain that Bolas would never plague the multiverse again, Ugin would keep watch over his brother until Bolas' natural death in tens of thousands of years.