Magic Untapped sheds some light on an ancient, forgotten race within the Magic: The Gathering multiverse: The Fomori.

Video Transcript:

Welcome back to Who Is on Magic Untapped as we take a look at the origins and backstories of characters from across the Magic: The Gathering multiverse.

I’m Barry White.

For those of you who have been following the Outlaws of Thunder Junction storyline recently (and spoiler alert for those who haven’t)…

Jace and Vraska found a Fomori child known simply as “Loot” in suspended animation in a pod they found inside an ancient vault known as Maag Taranau on the plane.  And it’s with this Fomori child that the pair hope to make things right in the multiverse.

But, what is a Fomori?  Well, in this episode of Who Is…or rather…Who Are, we are going do find out.

The Fomori, or “Coin Empire,” as the planeswalker Quintorius Kand has named them in his studies of the race, are known as planes travelers and colonizers.

The race itself is comprised of massive humanoid giants with gray skin, horns, thick legs, and have talons at the end of each finger.  In short, they’re a bit imposing.

They hail from the plane of Ir.  Specifically from the Island of Turri – an island which the Fomori had developed into one giant fortress due to its unusually high richness of mana and to defend against repeated attacks from planeswalkers seeking the resources there.

Far, far in the past, members the Coin Empire traveled to the plane of Ixalan.  There, they arrived at the plane’s core and pleaded to the Oltec, the dominant civilization of ancient Ixilan, for refuge.  They were refused and, shortly thereafter, the Fomori turned hostile against them.

For some 320 years, war was waged against the natives of Ixalan and the Fomori invaders.  It wasn’t until a final assault by the Fomori destroyed much of the plane’s inner core and, with it, most all of the Oltec.

At some point after the Fomori’s overtaking of Ixalan, however, things went sour.  For reasons yet unknown, the civilization collapsed – all but vanishing from the multiverse, save for coin-like relics (hence the moniker “Coin Empire”) and vaults such as Maag Taranau in Thunder Junction.

While the Fomori civilization may have been lost to the multiverse, it wasn’t lost to time.

A handful of historians, explorers, and scholars kept them alive, if only in records.

One of those historians is the Kamigawan planeswalker, Tamiyo, whom had in her possession a scroll that told of an ancient Fomori vault on a remote and supposedly uninhabited plane.

Not long after the events on Ravnica that would be known as the War of the Spark, the planeswalker, Jace Beleren, met with Tamiyo inquiring about such a place.  She shared with Jace what she knew.

Years later, after the New Phyrexian invasion of the multiverse was repelled, the academic planeswalker, Quintorius Kand, rediscovered evidence of the empire by means of odd coin-life motifs that he found in his travels. But, despite his best efforts, the lost civilization was still nothing more than an enigma with more questions than answers for him.

That is, until he was contacted by Saheeli Rai whom was aware of his studies.  She informed him that similar motifs were found in the caverns beneath Orazca, the Golden City of Ixalan.  The loxodon traveled to the plain and joined an expedition into the plane’s core where he hoped to find more clues of this “Coin Empire.”

What he did find was ancient wreckage, ruins, and spirits of the Oltec.  In conversations with them, he was told the history of the invasion of the Fomori and was directed to a place the natives call “Colony’s End.”

There, he found the wreckage of a Coin Empire inter-planar ship donning the same coin-like motifs.  While he discovered little more to help him with his understanding of this mysterious, ancient race, he did encounter a giant still held in stasis within the ship.  As he drew closer to the body, however, it began to stir and Quint, perhaps wisely, make a hasty escape.

And, for now, that’s all that is known about the Fomori pretty much right up to when Vraska and Jace found the Fomori child, Loot, in a similar stasis chamber as the one Quint found in the ancient wreckage in the depths of Ixalan.

As for the Fomori in card, form, the race made its debut in 2007’s Future Sight with the card Fomori Nomad, then was seen again in Commander 2011 by way of the card Ruhan of the Fomori then, aside from a flavor text reference in the set Lost Caverns of Ixalan, won’t be seen again until Outlaws of Thunder Junction releases on April 19 with the cards Loot, the Key to Everything and Fomori Vault.

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Thank you very much for watching.