Hello, Planeswalkers! The Social Team is trying out something new, short fiction about Double-Face Cards. We hope you all enjoy this very short story about Conqueror’s Galleon/Conqueror’s Foothold (art by Emrah Elmasli).
An ancient galleon, weathered and dark, cuts through choppy waves. Black smoke trails in its wake with a storm brewing inside.
At the ship’s center rises a grand cathedral, replete with stained glass windows. Carvings of lowly humans buttress the cathedral’s walls, their mortal forms bearing the grand weight.
Adrian Adanto, the galleon’s captain, stands on a balcony in the highest tower of the cathedral. He watches intently as his crew scurries about below, readying the vessel to run aground. His armor, embossed with a black rose emblem on the breast, glimmers in the dusky light. A fanged smile cracks his alabaster face.
After the long and arduous journey, at last they arrive. At the behest of the Queen, their instructions are to track down the first and greatest of their kind, Saint Elenda, who will help the pilgrims fulfill their righteous purpose. For the promised Age of Ever-Flowing Blood is upon them. All that is left is to locate the Immortal Sun, a holy relic lost for so many centuries that no one knows for sure if it is a memory or a myth. Forging ahead through such quandaries requires faith.
The galleon groans as she nears the rocky shore, boring ahead and unable to avoid the reefs. She is a ship as large as a city, for good reason—that is her fate. She is to become their foothold in this new, untamed continent.
When the galleon can move no farther, the sound of the hull smashing and cracking upon the beach rings out. The Legion Mages waste no time and begin to cast their magic. The ship slowly and methodically transforms. The Mages tear away the galleon’s hull, flattening the planks into a grand wooden palisade. They root the walls of the cathedral into the craggy ground. The crew watches in amazement as the settlement takes shape. Revenants, beings composed of the darkness itself, pour out of the cabins to scout the shoreline and guard the perimeter. Adanto, pleased with their efforts, descends from the cathedral to survey their new domain.
In Ixalan, some might dare to call them conquerors, or thieves. But how could this be, when it is the Legion of Dusk that has been wronged? They have simply come to claim what was stolen, so that they may rise to meet their fate.
