Ranking Every Mana Rock with EDHREC – Part 4: I Need a Zero!

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mardu Heart-Piercer" href="#" target="_blank">Mardu Heart-Piercer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://karlkopinski.com/">Karl Kopinski</a>)</h6>
<h1>Who Would Win in a Fight...?</h1>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Welcome to <em>Historically Speaking, </em>where we examine the real-world influences that led to some of <em>Magic's </em>most inventive designs. In today's article, we're going to examine what a sustained conflict between <em>Khans of Tarkir's</em> Mardu and Temur clans might have looked like, based on the history of their historical models, the Mongol empire and the southern Siberian tribes.</span></p>
<p class="p1">According to the<strong> Planeswalker’s Guide to Tarkir</strong> none of the five clans can completely eradicate, conquer or assimilate any other. They are all well adapted to their particular niche and way of life. Additionally, the factions of Tarkir are too scattered to launch the sort of campaign required to take and hold the territory of a rival. Raid? Sure! Harass? Absolutely. But total wars of conquest? Not on your life.</p>
<div id="attachment_39991" style="width: 355px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tarkir-map-by-Dominian-Dracologist.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-39991" class=" wp-image-39991" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tarkir-map-by-Dominian-Dracologist.jpg" alt="" width="345" height="337" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-39991" class="wp-caption-text">Tarkir map by <a href="https://dominian-dracologist.tumblr.com/post/125526003950/map-of-tarkir-v1-khans-finished-with-the-first">Dominian Dracologist</a></p></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Because of this, we are going to make some assumptions through this series. For example, assuming political and logistical conditions in Tarkir that <em>would </em>allow for a total war of conquest. This will be an exercise in alternate fantasy history, with cards and planeswalker’s guides as primary sources. To do this properly, we must by nature make assumptions about the timeline of Tarkir. Lets have a look at our actors on the world stage.</span></p>
<hr />
<h3 class="p1"><span class="s1">The Mardu</span></h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Mardu Horde is famous for its prowess in horseback riding, archery, and raiding. They’ve employed these talents in search of glory, economic rewards, and settling old debts with enemies. Due to their high speed and frequent advantage of surprise, they can raid rival factions more or less at will.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mardu Banner"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Firehoof cavalry"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">However, if you don’t have any allies, and you attack targets of opportunity rather than following a coherent political or strategic plan, you’re going to spread yourself too thin. </span><span class="s1">Additionally, the Mardu are fractious and fight amongst themselves. They are uninterested in ruling or developing any territory they take; for them, the raid is its own reward. Despite their central position and high population of warriors, the Mardu are unlikely to form a true threat to any of the other clans. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But we're interested in the hypothetical. What if their leadership stabilized and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zurgo Helmsmasher" href="#" target="_blank">Zurgo Helmsmasher</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (or who ever was the pre-eminent khan) decided to consolidate power and focus the Mardu’s formidable power on conquest, one clan at a time, rather than sporadic and far-spread raiding?</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Zurgo Helmsmasher"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Then the picture becomes different. How will they fare if they pick a fight trying to grab hold of a territory in the north, such as Qal Sisma, controlled by the Temur?</span></p>
<hr />
<h3 class="p1"><span class="s1">The Temur</span></h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Well, first, who are the Temur? The Temur are a diverse and hardy bunch, living far to the north in mountainous holdfasts. They are forged by the extremities of weather that forms their world, and their shamans can see into the past. They are determined fighters who have a deep bond with nature, including the half-ton bears that occasionally join them in battle.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Temur Banner"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bear&#039;s Companion"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">More importantly, their aforementioned shamans share in something called the Wide Whisper, which allows distant clans to communicate with each other. According to the<strong> Planeswalker’s Guide to Tarkir</strong>, it also allows the pooling of shamanic resources to call up huge Elementals or attempt other such great tasks.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Temur are also nomadic, though they have no organized cavalry corps. The Temur, like the Sultai to the south, prefer to mold the land to give them an advantage in battle, and also enlist Elementals, the spirit of the lands themselves, in combat or in meditation. </span><span class="s1">The Temur will fight and raid for food and territory, but battle for battle’s sake doesn’t appeal to them, as opposed to the Mardu, who believe wholeheartedly in the glory of battle.</span></p>
<hr />
<h3>Battling Politics</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">To know how the Temur would fare against the Mardu, it's important to remember that, according to the <strong>Planeswalker's Guide to Tarkir</strong>, there is division inside the Temur Clans. A pair of Ainok named Kharkel and Baihir Torn-of-Ear wish to see the khan of the Temur, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Surrak Dragonclaw" href="#" target="_blank">Surrak Dragonclaw</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, deposed. You know, the man who's famous for punching bears. </span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Savage Punch"></div></div>
<p>Importantly, Kharkel was raised by the Mardu, and though he is now Temur, he still maintains a degree of alignment with his former clan. In other words, if Kharkel splits the Temur into factions by overthrowing the sitting khan, that could be the opening Zurgo needs. The Mardu horde may not even need to kill Surrak to annex and conquer the territory. They just need the Temur divided against the Temur. Zurgo could even potentially conscript divided Temur youths; why freeze in the mountains when you could live free?</p>
<p>However, <span class="s1">even with all these advantages the Mardu possess against the Temur—higher mobility, political unity, incentives and rewards for new conscripts, increased trade routes—I find it unlikely that the Temur could be totally eradicated. Diminished, certainly, but not done away with.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> As mentioned before, each clan is well-suited to its environment, too well-suited to be overcome by brute force. Even if the Mardu committed all of their forces to fighting the Temur to the knife (which would mean ceasing raids on other clans, and thus losing out on profit and glory) the Temur would likely fight in small bands, retreating as they went. It isn’t in the fledgling Mardu’s interest or methodology to pursue. The Mardu wouldn't be fighting just the Temur, or even Elementals, but simply against the elements.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Winds of Qal Sisma"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Empires are often sustained by memories and reputation, especially for victories in the recent past. Defeats of a certain scale and magnitude can shatter coalitions and overthrow empires. Fighting the Temur in their home territory, where Mardu spellcraft, cavalry and arrows would be worse than useless, facing attrition against the climate itself... the casualties might be catastrophic, even with Temur politics or infighting.</span></p>
<p class="p1">However, before we make our final analysis, let's see what real-life history can tell us about how this type of scenario might play out.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Lessons from the Real Life</h3>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Let us examine the cultures the Mardu and Temur were based upon. The Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan (r.1206-1227) expanded slowly at first. Genghis Khan united the people of the steppe under his banner after years upon years of civil war, and was poised to invade northern China (the Jin empire). However, being him, he decided it would secure his northern border against possible trouble be sending troops to the ‘forest peoples’ of northern Mongolia and southern Siberia (the Kirghiz, Oyirad, Buriyat, Tumed, Tuvans and Barqut). </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">To do this, he sent his oldest son, Jochi, with some troops to settle the matter of tribute, troops and incorporation into the empire.</span><span class="s1"> Jochi’s mission was swift and helped add additional troops to the Mongol army eager to press against Jin China. </span><span class="s1">This secured Genghis Khan’s northern border, leaving him free to attack on Northern China without fear of rebellion or a Mongol civil war boosted or inspired by the defiance of the northern tribes. </span><span class="s1">This arrangement worked out for about a decade.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Then it all went to hell.</span></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://assets.echomtg.com/magic/cards/cropped/8395.hq.jpg" alt="Image result for mtg aggravated assault" width="292" height="236" /></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">A reminder, folks: empires deal in blood, and the human cost of them is high. This isn’t a ‘Mongols are uniquely bad’ story, this is a ‘empires are uniformly bad based on their foundations’ story.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The spark that sets the whole thing aflame is that the southern Siberians do not pay tribute, refusing to give Genghis's top adjutants, Korchi of the Ba'arin, "thirty of their most beautiful women" to have to wife. The Tumed tribe rebel and take Korchi captive. Genghis Khan, unwilling to fight two wars unless it was absolutely necessary, sends an Oirat chieftain to negotiate with the forest people. This might have worked... but the forest people decide to capture him as well.</span></p>
<div id="attachment_39964" style="width: 434px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Mongol-Empire-1.jpeg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-39964" class=" wp-image-39964" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Mongol-Empire-1.jpeg" alt="" width="424" height="287" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-39964" class="wp-caption-text">The fullest extent of the Mongol empire. Note the northwards boundaries stop just after Lake Baikal in Siberia.</p></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Forgiveness is not one of Genghis Khan's traits, so he sends a major force north to bring the Siberians in line and rescue Korchi. </span><span class="s1">He sends one of his ‘four steeds,’ Boroqul, to get the job done quickly.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Tumed were expecting this. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Mongols were splendidly adapted to the steppe, but </span><span class="s1">cavalry in the thick pine forests of Siberia deprives it of the key advantage of mobility. The trees hem riders in, cut off their escape, prevent horsemen from picking up speed. A man on horseback that is forced to ride in single file through a canyon or a forest path is easiest target in the world. The forest people of Siberia laid countless traps and ambushes; boulders, deadfalls, arrows, and spears rain down on the Mongols throughout their advance. The Mongols had no chance to respond. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Tumed soundly trounce the first Mongol retrieval force, and Boroqul is killed by Tumed scouts. It can scarcely be called a fight. Worse for the Mongols, with the death of Boroqul, the rebellion against them looked like it was going to spread.</span></p>
<p><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/defeat.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-40993 aligncenter" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/defeat.png" alt="" width="506" height="282" /></a></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Genghis, after receiving word of this defeat, sends another army and another commander. </span></p>
<p>This commander does manage to outfox the Tumed; he pretends to be laying his own ambush against the Tumed, in such a way the Tumed will certainly see, then branches off around, above and to the rear of the Tumed, and fell on them while they were feasting. His surprise attack wreaks quick revenge. Southern Siberia is once again made a semi-willing partner of the Mongol empire.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Applying History to Hypothesis</h3>
<p>So what's the lesson for our Mardu-Temur analysis? Does this precedent of Mongolian victory mean that the Mongolian-influenced Mardu would be able to conquer the Temur after all?</p>
<p>No, not exactly. <span class="s1">However successful and brilliant the Mongols were in empire-building, they didn’t push further north during the heyday of their conquests. They pushed in every other direction, but not north. </span><span class="s1">According to historian John Mann, the Mongols later heard about the arctic oceans from their trading contacts with the Finns, and immediately dubbed the far north ‘the sea of darkness’. </span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ambush Krotiq"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Therefore, the Mardu horde could reasonably expect to assimilate elements of the Temur clans if they consolidated their leadership. However, full conquest of the Temur is unlikely, even if most of their able-bodied members supported the Mardu empire in one way or another. </span>The Temur would slowly become tributaries/junior partners to the Mardu Empire, over generations, with the more hardcore traditional Temur being squeezed further north, into the ice-sheets and glaciers and most inhospitable mountains on the plane.</p>
<p>The Mardu, meanwhile, ensure they no longer have to deal with Temur raids at their northern border. The Mardu swell their ranks by recruiting the younger and stronger members of the Temur into the horde. <span class="s1">Shamanism becomes integrated into the Horde culture, to allow for faster communications and coordinating campaigns as well as using new types of Elementals in combat. </span></p>
<p class="p1">In summary, <span class="s1">the Temur frontier as described in the <strong>Planeswalker’s Guide to Tarkir</strong> is politically unstable, divided into distant clans, and vulnerable to partial annexation by a foreign power such as the Mardu horde. While the Mardu absolutely lack the political will and sophisticated infrastructure to fully conquer the deeply hostile Temur lands in their entirety, they are likely to succeed in other ways. Conscriptions from the southern Temur youth, along with tribute of supplies, furs and other essentials from Qal Sisma, would likely swell the Mardu coffers and give them an edge in their expansions elsewhere on Tarkir. </span>Having done this, it is likely this new Mardu empire will turn its sights across the steppe - to the Abzan.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading! If you would like to talk more about the historical influences behind <em>Khans of Tarkir, </em>or you would like to discuss who might win in a fight between any of the other clans, hit me up in the comments below!</p>
<hr />
<p class="p1"><strong><span class="s2">Sources:</span></strong></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Mongol Conquest of Siberia, 1207 (Historynomics, May 2019): </span><span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLLJJSQi3Tg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLLJJSQi3Tg</a></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">McLynn, Frank - "</span><span class="s2">Genghis Khan: His Life, Conquests and Legacy." </span><span class="s1">De Capo Press, 2015</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Naumov, Igor V. </span><span class="s1">"The History of Siberia." Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe. Translated by Collins, David Norman.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Mongol Conquest of Siberia and First Battle with the Khwarezmians, 1216-1219 (The Jackmeister: Mongol History, Aug, 2018): </span><span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJTnCCBcsE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJTnCCBcsE</a></span></p>
<p>Fan Map of Tarkir, 2015, courtesy of Dominian Dracologist: <span class="s2"><a href="https://dominian-dracologist.tumblr.com/post/125512414745/a-mockup-of-the-map-of-tarkir-im-making-aka-me">https://dominian-dracologist.tumblr.com/post/125512414745/a-mockup-of-the-map-of-tarkir-im-making-aka-me</a><br />
</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s2">The Planeswalker's Guide to Tarkir 2: <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/planeswalkers-guide-khans-tarkir-part-2-2014-09-10">https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/planeswalkers-guide-khans-tarkir-part-2-2014-09-10</a></span></p>


Historically Speaking - The Mardu vs. The Temur

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Temur Banner" href="#" target="_blank">Temur Banner</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by Daniel Ljunggren</h6>
<h1>On the Frontier</h1>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Tarkir’s Temur Frontier takes a lot of inspiration from Siberia’s past and present—from the use of mammoths and mammoth ivory, to the adaptation of indigenous shamanic practices, to</span><span class="s1"> the indigenous people. In this installment of <em>Historically Speaking, </em>we're going to look at the ways real-world Siberia helped inform the lore, setting, lifestyle, and overall character of Tarkir's Temur clan, and end with their assimilation into the Atarka Brood in the present timeline.</span></p>
<p>It's the final frontier... bivouac!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Frontier Bivouac"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">A brief qualifier: Siberia is a big place. When we say things like ‘Siberian natives’ or ‘Siberia’, those are, by nature, non-specific terms. It would be like using the term African or European to describe a small subset of the populations of these continents. When I say ‘Siberia’ going forward, I’ll do my best to qualify who and where in Siberia we’re talking about. For exmaple, the Chukchi are different from the Mongolia-adjacent Buryats, who differ from the Yakutsk and the Kirghiz tribes, and so forth. Even the word, Siberia, from the Tartar '<em>sibir</em>' conveys an air of mystery: translated, it means, 'the sleeping land'.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">According to historian Benson Bobrick, Siberia is a truly colossal bit of land, taking up a significant part of the Eurasian continent that could easily contain the continental US and what we call Europe inside its borders, and still have room left over. Thus, when making general statements about Siberia—from the arctic northern expanses to the inland sea that is Lake Baikal in the border of Mongolia—we are, of course, generalizing.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Bobrick continues:<br />
<strong>“The overall topography of Siberia divided rather neatly into three broad horizontal zones. To the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>north lay a great treeless tundra, extending along the whole Arctic coast from Novaya Zemla to Bering Strait; through the middle stretched a belt of broad forest from the Ural Mountains to the Okhotsk Sea; and to the south, arable land that shaded into semi-arid desert steppes from the southern Urals to beyond the Mongolian Frontier.”</strong></span></p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="http://go.grolier.com/map?id=mh00112&amp;pid=go&amp;spid=spot005336" alt="Russia, 1533-1914, expansion in Asia" /></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The frozen land of the Temur Frontier requires hardy people to survive its many perils: bears, mammoths, shrieking winds that pierce through skin, avalanches, yetis, and of course other tribes. </span><span class="s1">Small wonder that <em>Wizards of the Coast</em> based the frost-bitten and tough Temur on traditional Siberian culture and geography!</span></p>
<p>(Also, they punch bears. We're not here to talk about bears, but about mammoths, shamanism, and survivalism, but still, bear punching is rad.)</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Surrak Dragonclaw"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Savage Punch"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Mammoths have quite a presence in Siberian history and economy. Long ago, as the mammoths wandered up from the newly fused Indian subcontinent, they made their home in Siberia, and even crossed the Bering Strait into North America. They eventually died out, but the permafrost kept their bodies perfectly preserved—even down to the contents of their stomachs.</span></p>
<div id="attachment_32022" style="width: 675px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32022" class=" wp-image-32022" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/woolly-mammoth-revive-restore-org.png" alt="" width="665" height="171" /><p id="caption-attachment-32022" class="wp-caption-text">Credit to Revive and Restore.org</p></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">This has raised some debates about the utility/morality about raising the extinct mammoths from the grave via cloning and using them to combat climate change and change the Siberian biome, which as of this writing are unresolved issues. In pre-industrial times, mammoth tusks were used as sacred items or scrimshawed upon by the indigenous Siberians, who eventually hunted them to extinction.</span></p>
<p>However, the marker that mammoths have left upon the Siberian land has proved indelible, both in history and in the present.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mammoth bones lie thick upon the central plain of Siberia—where rivers cut through the permafrost, their bones blend with dried and bleaching wood—indistinguishable till examined closely. Bones that would have corroded away inside of a decade last ten thousand years inside the embrace of permafrost.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Author Benson Bobrick recounts the significance, economically, of the mammoth to Siberia after the Russian conquest:<br />
<b>“Under the Russians, digging up mammoths became a kind of heavy industry and between 1650 and 1900 the tusks of an estimated 40,750 mammoths (each tusk weighing between 150 and 200 pounds) were taken out of Siberia. Between 1825 and 1831, the annual shipments exceeded 60,000 pounds was great quantities of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>fossil ivory were collected with each summer’s thaw from crumbling embankments along the Arctic coast…on the international market, Russian ivory, as it was called, competed successfully with that from Africa, India and Ceylon.”</b></span></p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ft0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcSn_hQYu5u166wbgxTHtjtIsFMaw4v0mPnlLhDE7B-uEtFeZFiD0Q&amp;sp=efbc2f20460a6f8d6a12d1dc80aa3278&amp;anticache=144343" alt="Mammoth tusks are serving as a cover for illegal traffic in modern ..." /></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">This fact has not gone unnoticed by adventurous and unscrupulous ivory traders even into the modern day. Responding to pressure banning African elephant ivory in china, ‘tuskers’ have swarmed the central areas of Siberia near Yakutsk to dig up ivory from the mammoths. Where once they used sharp sticks to locate the ivory in peaty ground, they now use firehoses to blast away the earth to get at the precious stuff. Naturally, this is all wildly illegal. </span><span class="s1">Even in death, a mammoth has value.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Frontier Mastodon"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mammoths are alive in well in the Temur clan of Tarkir. However, unlike in our world, they aren’t just confined to their tusks. The Temur use them as weapons of war and use their skins and tusks to keep warm or ornament their shaman’s hoods or even to keep records of clan skirmishes or genealogies. A huge amount of Temur art feature's mammoth ivory--as building materiel, as landscape decoration, or even simply aesthetic appeal for their shamans (whom we will get to in due time).</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Temur Charm"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Temur Ascendancy"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Temur Banner"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">For the Temur, like the Paleosiberian people they are based on, life is difficult. Historically, the Yakutsk, Chuchki, and Tungus tribes fought the Mongol incursions into southern Siberia as viciously as they did the Russians who arrived hundreds of years later. The land itself, unless you specifically adapt to it - and sometimes even if you have - is punishing. Sub-zero temperatures are common in winter along with brutal storms, driving winds and icefalls.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> In summer, the invaders baked in the sun, wallowed in thick mud, and swore at thick black clouds of flies. The tribes of the Paleosiberians were small and not united—things that served them well in sustainability and mobility through this land, but made successfully repulsing first the Mongol and then the Russians much more difficult. The land is tremendously varied; even housing an inland sea, Lake Baikal, with its own species of freshwater seals and giant sturgeons that swim through waters nearly a mile deep.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Feed the Clan"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Barrage of Boulders"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bear&#039;s Companion"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Temur seem to favor similar tactics and lifestyle choices to the Paleosiberian tribes. They excel at ambushes, using the terrain to their advantage through avalanches or rock falls, and operating in small clan units. I can find no historical account of Siberian tribesmen strapping as many swords or spears to their sleds and charging downhill on them, as the Temur do, according to the Planeswalker’s Guide to Tarkir. However, they are a tough people, well suited to their environment in a specialized way. They were of the land in a very significant way, because to be out of touch with the Siberian environment was to join it - you know, by dying. Even for the native Siberians (and later the Russian diaspora that married into them or displaced them en masse), life is never easy. </span></p>
<p>The Temur Frontier, in many ways, is worse, because at least Siberia doesn't have yetis. That is at least one good thing you can say about Russia: low yeti population.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hungering Yeti"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Frontier Bivouac"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Temur Charger"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Shamanism was/is a key way of interacting with/understanding not only the Siberian environment but also its wildly disparate indigenous cultures. </span><span class="s1">Shamanism is too wide a term to be defined, but from our primary sources we know of several common<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>themes, including invoking spirits, astral projection, and making oneself immune to various types of harm. </span><span class="s1">Historian Benson Bobrick chronicles the words of a 16th century explorer who met with a group of Samoyed tribesmen and was given a taste of shamanic power:</span></p>
<p class="p1"><strong><span class="s1">“Then he [the Samoyed] took a sword of a cubit and a span long [a cubit is the length between the longest finger and the elbow, or thereabouts] and he put it into his belly halfway and sometime less, but no wound was to be seen. Then he put the sword into the fire until it was warm, and so thrust it into the slit of his shirt and thrust it through his body, as I thought, in at his navel and out at his fundament; the point being out of his shirt behind. I laid my finger upon it, then he pulled out the sword and sat down.”</span></strong></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Roar of Challenge"></div></div>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Siberian shamanism is also replete with claims of the spirit existing outside of the body and being able to travel about. </span>The Pleistocene Manifesto says of Siberia::</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>"The visit to Duvanii made the idea of the “mammoth steppe” extremely real. There was something elemental about being surrounded by Pleistocene bones in a melting tundra landscape. You could close your eyes and feel how rich this ecosystem was before it was hunted into extinction."</b></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">This evokes similar language to the Temur shamanic experience. It is clear that <em>Wizards of the Coast</em> borrowed this idea and expanded upon it to create the Temur-shaman network called the Wide Whisper. Using the Wide Whisper, Temur shamans could travel and communicate in spirit over vast distances, similar to the concept of the . Clad in the bones of animals that are extinct in our world, the Temur shamans enter a trance and traverse the spirit realm, visiting the past, the present, and future.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rattleclaw Mystic"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Whisperer of the Wilds"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Shamanic Revelation"></div></div>
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<h2><strong>Dragon to an End</strong></h2>
<p class="p1">The Temur's shamanistic spiritual network has been driven underground in Tarkir's present timeline. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dragonlord Atarka" href="#" target="_blank">Dragonlord Atarka</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, the head of the Dragon Brood that overthrew the Temur Clans, fears the shamans and their links to the past and future as much as any of the other Dragonlords. The Temur even take on her name and are forced to range ever farther afield on hunting parties to keep the great beast fed. The mammoths have been hunted out to please Atarka, and there are precious few of the bears left - Atarka's fires melted the glaciers and flooded the land. In a fit of irony, the faction once most closely associated with the stewardship of nature on Tarkir has become one of the largest threats to the natural order on the plane.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Berserker&#039;s Onslaught"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Atarka Monument"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragon-scarred Bear"></div></div>
<p>In this current Tarkir, like Siberia over the last few centuries, we see great and nearly irrevocable changes. The Russian civil war, World War Two, Stalin and his successor's gulags - this vast and beautiful land does not lack for horror in its past. Siberia, a land of hidden treasures and near-infinite natural resources has added the bones of countless men and women to the those of the mammoths and sabertooths in the ground while technology and lack of regulation foul the waters and sky.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragonlord Silumgar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragonlord Ojutai"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dragonlord Atarka"></div></div>
<p>It is tempting to see Tarkir's Dragonlords as literal avatars of late-stage capitalism or imperialism: an endless, rapacious hunger that is dedicated to stamping out all traces or interests in a world before their reign while consuming far more than their share. Indeed, I may explore this metaphor in a future essay.</p>
<p>For now, though, I leave you on the image of a land where the bones of the past can be glimpsed in a riverbank and the land sleeps fitfully.</p>


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