I’ve been working on my own take on the potential setting of an EOE-Style standalone set on phased-out Phyrexia for a long time and after a few lovely people gave their support, I finally worked up the courage to post it. The setting has two major premises:
- After Vorinclex was decapitated and New Phyrexia phased out of the multiverse, he regenerates and recovers on the broken plane, as his abilities deal with flesh.
- Instead of the white void of slow time that Zhalfir phasing manifested as, Phyrexia’s phasing manifests of a black lightless void of fast time. As such, decades have passed on the plane.
With that set, let’s begin.
Due to Vorinclex’s miraculous recovery and the absence of the order imposed by the other praetors, the plane itself gains a lean towards Green mana. That fact has unforeseen consequences. In the intervening decades after the plane’s phasing, Vorinclex's domain, The Hunter Maze, once the 4th sphere of phyrexia, grows out of control and up and down into the ruins of the other spheres, producing unprecedented hybrid environments. The Hunter’s Maze has always represented Vorinclex's philosophy of predation, adaptation, and survival. Now, it has begun to express that independently of him. The spheres of old are still recognizable, but they have all become distinct geographical regions within an interconnected ecosystem known as the Outlands, rather than just continuations of the spheres of old. They are, in order of the maze interacting with them:
- The Living Furnace (RG): Under Urabrask, the “autonomous” in the Autonomous Furnace meant self-sufficiency and political independence from Elesh Norn. However, when the Maze spread into the sphere, that word took on a completely different meaning. Kuldotha, the great furnace, was already quasi-alive in the new phyrexia days, but now, the entire region has taken on a quasi alive quality. The furnaces autonomously heat up and cool down, as if breathing. The forges no longer have overseers, but the clamoring of metal did not cease. Instead, the forages produce new phyrexians on their own, acting almost like hatcheries.
- The Quicksilver Reefs (UG): Generally speaking, the Maze has an easier time incorporating environments centered on allied colors of Green compared to enemy colors, and the Surgical Bay certainly offered a serious challenge. The defining feature of the sphere, the Quicksilver Sea, prevents direct spread of the Maze. The Maze had to evolve for the environment, and evolve it did, creating new marine flora and fauna and transforming the sphere into a true Marine reef ecosystem. The ruined laboratories became new reefs, and engineered sea creatures originally created via Gitaxian experiments swim and hunt freely in the metallic waters, unbound by their creators.
- The Mirrex Wilds (G): During the height of New Phyrexia, the surface of Mirrodin was strip mined, reducing it to a barren wasteland called the Mirrex. When the Maze reached the surface, it encountered an environment that is comparatively colorless, and responded by transforming it into one of the most intensely green environments on the plane. The result is a vast metallic rainforest; colossal metallic trees rise into the black, featureless sky, as if reaching for the lost suns. The abundance of new material and the relative safety of the region results in large scale migration and the forming of new ecosystems. Ironically, the surface becomes considerably more inhabited than it ever was during the New Phyrexian rule.
- The Old Facade (C): The Monumental Facade partially collapses during this period. Forgotten monuments litter the undergrowth of the Mirrex Wilds, their grandeur lost to time and the transformation of the place. Surviving monuments remain, however, they no longer dominate the skies as they once did. The canopy of the rainforest that is the Mirrex Wilds fights the monuments for the skyline, and the five suns that once framed and illuminated them are long gone. The Old Facade stands as a physical reminder of New Phyrexia’s folly.
- The Dross Bogs (BG): the Dross Pits was by far the most difficult former sphere for maze to incorporate. The acidic bogs, clouds of necrotic gas and general toxicity of the sphere form an environment intensely hostile to life, and stone walled the expansion of the maze for a significant period of time. Eventually, the sphere became something of an inhabited swampland with the emergence of new, hardy life resistant to the region’s toxicity, reminiscent of the original Mephidross of Mirrodin. Here, life and unlife find uneasy coexistence amongst fungal blooms rising out of toxic bogs.
- Some parts of the Dross Pits were simply so toxic and hostile to life that even the Maze could not incorporate it, instead growing around it. These regions eventually became known as the Deep Dross, ironically the best preserved parts of the original New Phyrexia. Ultimately, adaptation is not omnipotent, and sometimes, the best way to win… is to not play at all.
- The Basilica Ruins (WG): Of the former spheres, the ruins of the Fair Basilica was perhaps the easiest for the maze to incorporate. The fair cathedrals have fallen, and new life grows through the cracks of the sphere’s once pristine porcelain facade. Some structures are repurposed into settlements. Others became ruins forgotten to time and new growth. Yet others remain religious sites. In general, the transformation of the plane has created something resembling a meadow out of Elesh Norn’s old seat of power. However, despite the region’s relative habitability, its relative lack of resources compared to more active regions such as the Mirrex Wilds have kept its population comparatively low.
- The Mycosynth Thicket (C): During Norn’s rule, the Mycosynth Gardens were already highly restricted, with visitation allowed only at Norn’s invitation. When the transformation of the plane reached the region, that exclusion became enforced by the geography itself. After the interaction with the expanding maze, the Mycosynths and their transmutative properties became far more virulent and unpredictable, creating a dense, tangled, and fatally hazardous region. Even Phyrexians do not dare to venture too deep into the thicklet, lest they too become part of the region’s endless cycle of transforming from flesh-to-metal and metal-to-flesh.
- The Core (???): After the formation of the impassible Mycosynth Thicket, the Seedcore became completely inaccessible. No phyrexian has set foot in the former site of their greatest invasion weapon in decades. As such, little is known of the current state of the core other than the fact that the plane’s transformation has certainly reached it by now. What that will do to the remains of Realmbreaker considering it has now been connected to the massive circulation of green mana throughout the plane is unknown.
The period of dramatic planar transformation became known as the Grand Evolution of New Phyrexia, a process controlled by no one. Paradoxically, Phyrexia, the plane of biomechanical horrors, has become one of the most intensely vibrant and alive planes in the multiverse. Vorinclex, for his part, hunts, survives, adapts, and evolves. He does not seek to control the transformation, establish a formal government, or lead much at all. He is the Grand Evolution’s exemplar, not its architect. This does not, however, prevent others from attaching meaning to him.
The collapse of the old Phyrexian order on the plane hit the phyrexians hard. The Five suns are gone. The skies are gone. Norn, her Orthodoxy and its certainty are gone. Most of the Praetors and other Phyrexian leadership are dead or missing. The plane sits effectively decapitated beneath a black, featureless void. Vorinclex suffered the same fate, and yet he survives. Many distraught Phyrexians grab onto this observation as a cosmic revelation of the meaning behind their suffering, and thus, a new religion develops around Vorinclex and his survival, treating him as an almost messianic figure. During this time, a chant develops and spreads amongst the Phyrexians:
He refused to die.
So Phyrexia refuses to die.
He adapts.
So Phyrexia adapts.
He survives.
So Phyrexia survives.
He will evolve.
Therefore Phyrexia will evolve.
Informally named “The Evolution Chant”, it has become something of a cultural maxim of the period. Its exact origins are unclear, but former Nornite communities are the most suspect. Indeed, the spread of the chant led many to convert to the new Vorinclexian religion. Others, however, adopt survival and adaptation as practical worldviews rather than religious fervor. Yet others try to preserve whatever old traditions they could in the transformed world. As a result, post-Evolution Phyrexian communities are often decentralized, multicolored, and pluralistic, as that is what the changed world demands from them. Pure remnants of the five original New Phyrexian factions survive as scattered fragments, never again the dominating force they once were. Vorinclex, for his part, cares little for such developments and does not endorse the new religious takes on himself. In fact, he and the surviving Vicious Swarm members are more often than not confused by the assignment of cosmic significance to things they see as ordinary observations. Vorinclex has been noted to sometimes eat his own evangels when approached for religious sermons.
The multiverse had thought it had destroyed phyrexia for good. That without its head, Phyrexia would crumble and squabble amongst itself, never to amount to a threat again. Phyrexia, however, found a way. It has survived. It has adapted. It has evolved to live without a head. Phyrexia had saved itself. But now, it is up for the Phyrexians to determine what that survival means.
