This content was originally included in Homelands #1. The original article can be accessed via Internet Archive here.

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Dominaria, the world at which dozens of planes intersect, has a long and exciting history. From the long-lived perspective of planeswalkers, however, there are several major defining events that stand out.

Because Dominaria is a world with many cultures, there is no single calendar or way of telling the year. Different lands have their own ways of marking the passage of time. As a result, the timeline below is uncertain at best, but has been assembled with the aid of the planeswalker Taysir.

After the fall of the Thran Empire, and before the Brothers War, there existed a pristine time on Dominaria. Such was the time of Legends, where Elder Dragons were worshipped, and Dakkon Blackblade made war upon the forces of Sol’kanar the Swamp King. It is said that the planeswalker Kristina was born during this period, and the lineage of clan Carthalion can be traced to this time. Much of what occurred during this age is subject to interpretation, as recorded history has thusfar been minimal. Some attribute the end of the time of Legends to the advent of the Brothers War. Others have drawn a link between the end of this epoch and the coming of the “Null” moon into Dominaria’s orbit. Still others say that many of the great heroes of Legend still exist, either somewhere on Dominaria, or on some other faraway plane.

About four thousand years ago, the Brothers War occurred on the continent of Terisiare. This terrible conflict between the artificer brothers Urza and Mishra resulted in great advances in the creation and usage of magical artifacts, but the massive devastation from their conflict resulted in severe climactic shifts. Unknown to any but the most powerful, the effects of the Brothers War reached beyond the world of Dominaria and into the multiverse of Dominia.

In time, Dominaria and eleven of its neighboring planes became locked together in a Shard that prevented both entry into and exit from this small set of worlds.

As the decades passed, the era known as the Dark Age began. The aftermath of the Brothers War was a time of ignorance, fear, and persecution. Magic in any form was opposed and eradicated, whether beneficial or not. The survivors of the magical apocalypse scattered into small communities, leaving only a few viable cities remaining. The populace turned to religion for succor, and the religions then turned against the spell-wielders, purporting them to be evil. (This same fanaticism was inflicted upon Sarpadia by zealots such as Farrel; his blind hatred for anything magical sped the Empires to their doom.) The origin of Tevesh Szat can be traced to this time in Sarpadia’s history.

Only as the Ice Age took its grip upon Dominaria did the mages return to prominence, as every resource was needed to aid in the race to survive the encroaching cold.

Two thousand years into this terrible Ice Age, the survivors of the city of Storgard, by then buried beneath a glacier, had become strong enough to have built the nation of Kjeldor. Their struggle to survive, however, was hindered by the undead forces of the necromancer Lim-Dûl and his masters Tevesh Szat and Leshrac. Late in the fighting, the forest goddess Freyalise (actually a planeswalker) magically reversed the course of the Ice Age, and the glaciers began to recede far ahead of the natural schedule.

It is now the present day on Dominaria. The Ice Age is a distant memory, and the many races continue in their struggles for dominance and survival against a backdrop of constant interference from the vastly powerful planeswalkers.