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Cosmic Spider © Spitzer

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Comet Nishimura Grows © Peter Kennett

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Duskmourn- The Living Horror Plane Theory

Art by Antonio José Manzanedo

Hello, this is me making another big post, but this time related to an upcoming set we know almost nothing about other than its loose themes. Duskmourn, a set themed around modern horror, or more accurately horror from the 70’s and 80’s, is extremely unique in that it takes place on the plane of Duskmourn. Why is that unique? You see, Duskmourn, the plane, is not like other planes at all. Even the most corrupted of Magic’s natural worlds, like Innistrad and Amonkhet, have a natural appearance to them. They have wildlife, a difference between civilization and nature, and overall are just standard worlds with differing cultures and ecosystems.

Duskmourn is extremely different from that.

Duskmourn is just one, absolutely gigantic, haunted mansion. As far as we know, this plane has very little in terms of an actual “world” and is just this massive house of horrors, hence the name of the set “Duskmourn: House of Horrors”. What is so interesting about this is the potential implications of this. As said, Magic’s planes almost universally follow the basic blueprint of being an actual world not unlike our own aside from the magical aspects of them, like Kamigawa’s Spirit Realm and similar.

The only plane that comes close to not being an actual “world” is Mirrodin, now better known as New Phyrexia. Even New Phyrexia, a world molded to its core by Elesh Norn and the other praetors of New Phyrexia, loosely imitates a natural world with its various spheres each having their own… ecosystem if they can be called that.

Duskmourn, until it is shown further and they say otherwise, has none of this to our understanding. It’s ONLY this big mansion. This leads me to my main theory I have today:

Duskmourn is an unnatural world.

And I don’t just mean this by how different it is. I mean to imply either this plane was created, similar to Mirrodin, by an extremely powerful entity, OR has been so heavily corrupted/modified/etc by a similar entity that it can no longer be called a “natural plane”.

The first possibility is interesting, but there isn’t much to further analyze with that possibility. We don’t know of any characters currently that can CREATE planes that aren’t just some random oldwalker we probably haven’t met yet or some all powerful demon potentially.

The second possibility, that the plane was corrupted and shaped into its current form by an extremely powerful entity, does have more interesting implications, as there are hilariously several beings in Magic’s modern lore capable of doing so. This is mainly because it seems to take much less effort to corrupt an individual plane, especially if you have a lot of help, than it is to create a full plane. Not that it still isn’t world breaking power at play, but its possible. We saw the New Phyrexians do it to Mirrodin, and they probably could have done it to other worlds if they weren’t met with heavy pushback.

Let’s revisit the image that I posted above and has basically been WotC’s chosen image to showcase the plane in its little time slot on their release timeline.

This is an extremely large, very eldritch and/or demonic looking entity that dwells on Duskmourn… or perhaps more. If you study this art, its “body” naturally flows into what can be called doors, staircases, pillars, and windows. The sheer size of this thing is awe inspiring, and it is extremely eldritch in appearance. Its really only a little different in appearance to another cast of very eldritch entities in Magic’s lore that I also made big posts about.

Art by Eli Minaya

The Eldrazi Titans. Very similar bone-like appearance to Ulamog, very similar “multiple limb” design of Kozilek, and a similar “glowing eldritch hole(s)” design to Emrakul. You might see where I am going with this, which is:

Duskmourn is a giant, living plane, who’s World Soul has been supplanted by an Eldrazi Titan.

Now, you might say, “But Colin, Eldrazi’s do not do that. They eat worlds.” But how do we know that? Emrakul, in Eldritch Moon, was fully capable of taking over Innistrad. She had the entire plane in her grasp and there were no signs of her losing. She was delayed by the Gatewatch, but by the end all of them had been mentally overwhelmed by her powers. Emrakul sealed herself into Innistrad’s moon at the end of it all, clearly with a larger, more complex goal in mind that has haunted us to this day.

Duskmourn, I believe, is a world that has been completely corrupted by an Eldrazi not unlike Emrakul.

The inhabitants, who I don’t even know how they survive in such a world, are constantly bombarded by mental attacks from the world itself. This is not unlike what happened when Emrakul fought the Gatewatch. Every inhabitant of Duskmourn is a captive in Duskmourn’s corrupting grasp, and that will be central to the plane I believe. This is an unnatural world run by an eldritch entity, and the nature of it could be the key to learning more about the Eldrazi and/or how the World Souls of planes function.

I am very excited to see what Duskmourn has in store, and I hope it does not disappoint.