Meditation Plane

Meditation Plane
Information
First seen	Legends Cycle II
Last seen	Tarkir: Dragonstorm
Status	Stable
Card art	art:"Bolass-Meditation-Realm"

The Meditation Plane (also known as Bolas's Meditation Realm and after the War of the Spark as the Prison Realm) is a plane in the Multiverse. It is a surreal, always-changing plane whose geography can mirror the thoughts and potential futures of its inhabitants.

History

Pre-Mending

Before the Mending, the Meditation Plane was a subplane of Dominaria, believed by Ugin to be artificial. Accessible by the plane's inhabitants by astral projection, it was discovered by Ugin and later visited by Bolas on their first planeswalks millennia before the Mending. Other planes were accessible from here through bubbles floating in the air.

Jace Beleren described the plane as the very substrate of reality, touching countless worlds and moldable by sheer force of will. Learning from the mind of Loot, a Fomori, he claimed that the Elder Dragons had been too arrogant to utilise the realms full potential.

Confrontation of the twins

Many, many times and adventures later, the two planeswalking brothers confronted each other. First above the wide waters of the Meditation Realm and then on a wild pummeling path through the planes, they struggled for days, years, and generations. In the end, by diverse paths, they returned to the Meditation Realm where Bolas killed Ugin. Monstrous waves rose from Ugin's fall into the water. The waves ran on and on, washing far beyond the bounds of the Meditation Realm into the web of connection that links the planes and the Blind Eternities. Bolas was flung through many planes before he fell hard back into Dominaria, onto the island chain of Madara.

After this confrontation, the plane became a wilderness of rock; barren and wrecked, all its serenity drained away into the interstices of the Blind Eternities. A long time later, it began to restore itself. A pale sheet of liquid trickled up out of nowhere, returning from the unseen and untouchable web of darkness. With eerie silence, the realm reformed with its silvery waters. When the waters ceased rising, they grew still, and in that still became a mirror waiting for the reflection of Ugin. He inhaled, pulling the waters into himself. They curled and frothed into every crevice and wrinkle and scale and indentation until his horns sparkled his claws gleamed and his eyes shone with magic. The dragon was reborn and floated above a once again dry seabed beneath the luminous sky. After his departure, the process of restoration started anew.

The seat of Bolas

Considering the Meditation Plane the site of his greatest triumph, Bolas thought it a fitting place for him to ruminate over his plans. To give himself a focal point on which to center his meditation, he chose a spot at the center of a vast span where no islands broke the surface. Here, he erected two gigantic curved horns so they emerged from the waters as if a gargantuan dragon lay sleeping beneath.

Madaran refuge

Centuries later, the Meditation Plane could only be accessed from Dominaria by skilled servants of the Madaran empire.

Tetsuo Umezawa had practiced with Ayesha Tanaka for years to discover how to physically travel to the Meditation Plane. After killing the emperor's assassin Ramses Overdark in the Imperial Shrine on Madara, the champion used this skill to flee fully into the Meditation Plane. Bolas tracked the energy that Tetsuo carried—Lord Dark's essence—and projected his mind to the realm leaving his body unprotected. In the Meditation Plane, Tetsuo revealed the full extent of his plan, having destroyed Madara's rich and constant mana flow to rob Bolas of his body and unleashing Dark's essence in a living attack on Bolas's mind. The champion cleaved the elder dragon's spirit in half and narrowly escaped to Madara, just as the destructive power released in the Planeswalker's death tore and collapsed the very boundaries of the realm.

However, as a result of his connection to the temporal rift, a ghostly remnant of Bolas' life force still lingered by the Madaran coast, trapped between the material world and the Meditation Realm. Using Venser's latent planeswalker spark, he was able to finally escape his prison and be fully reborn into the physical world, regaining his body by pulling a copy of it through the rift from an earlier point in time.

Post-Mending

After the Mending, the Meditation Plane became a pocket plane of its own, separate from Dominaria. Sarkhan Vol visited the Meditation Plane following his assignment at the Eye of Ugin. Sarkhan was debriefed by Bolas as he traveled from the Pools of Becoming to Bolas's Donjon, where he found the dragon reconstructing the unconscious body of Tezzeret.

Vraska visited the Meditation Plane following an invitation she had received on Ravnica. There, Bolas offered her leadership over the Golgari if she traveled to Ixalan and successfully located the Immortal Sun.

Baishya, through a link with Ugin, was able to scry into several of Ugin's memories of this plane. In the story "Chronicle of Bolas", she was the sleeping girl atop the sea. Bubbles that rose from the sea containing memories would burst as they reached her misty form, and a new memory was shared with her.

War of the Spark

Current appearance of the Meditation Plane, after Ugin regains the plane.

During the War of the Spark, Ugin resided in the Meditation Plane. After Bolas's defeat, where Jace Beleren had faked Bolas's death at Ugin's behest, Ugin secretly transported the now mortal Bolas back to the Realm. Ugin explained that it was his world even before Bolas became a planeswalker and that he helped Niv-Mizzet to be reborn. Ugin also revealed that the Spirit-Gem between Bolas's horns had been made from Ugin's essence and allowed the Spirit Dragon to see every step and mistake his brother made. Ugin then took away both of Bolas's names and rendered the fallen one nameless.

Ugin told his brother that he would become his jailer for eternity and expanded himself over the Meditation Realm to entrap his brother. Sealing it from all attempts to reach it per planeswalking, Ugin intended for the Meditation Realm to be the prison of his brother for the rest of his life.

Dragonstorm

The sanctity of the Meditation Realm was breached after the Phyrexian Invasion. On Tarkir, a large dragonstorm formed, with a single omenpath in its centre. This omenpath was discovered by Jace Beleren with the aid of Loot, as well as Elspeth and Narset with the aid of a whispered voice. Jace claimed to have sought the Meditation Realm to right his mistakes.

While the Realm fought them, Narset managed to navigate it thanks to the teachings of Ojutai, bringing them to the place where Ugin had imprisoned his brother. The nameless dragon claimed to recognise them, although he could not recall from where, and bid them to tell them their names. Ugin, on the other hand, warned them to flee before his brothers' talons could enter them. Berating Jace for breaking his word, Ugin refused any attempt to coerce him to leave the Meditation Realm to deal with the worsening dragonstorms, claiming that to stand guard over his brother was more important´and that the dragonstorms would be their least worry if he should escape. In that moment, Elspeth stepped forth and spoke Bolas name as she attempted to convince Ugin to return to tarkir. This caused Nicol Bolas' memory to return.

As Narset and Elspeth dealt with the Elder Dragons, Jace claimed the Spirit-Gem. Wresting control over the plane away from Ugin, Jace claimed that he would reverse everything that had happened, preventing the Phyrexian Invasion from taking place and his own and Vraskas compleation. Elspeth charged him, believing that the planeswalker had conspired with Bolas, but Jace revealed that he instead intended to use the Meditation Realm to reshape reality itself to prevent these things from ever happening in the first place. As he attempted to take over the Meditation Realm, the strain proved too powerful, Jaces body being only human after all. The realm collapsed in itself, with a tide of nothingness threatening to engulf the planeswalkers. Only barely did they manage to flee through an Omenpath, with both Nicol Bolas, now restored to his identity, and Ugin being free again.

As it had before when Ugin had died in battle against Nicol Bolas, the Meditation Realm reformed itself after the catastrophe, with a single drop of water, eventually forming a pool floating above the nothing. Beneath the water, the silhouette of a blue cloak formed.

Notable locations

• Pools of Becoming
• Bolas's Donjon

Planeswalker visitors

• Aminatou (non-canon)
• Ashiok
• Elspeth Tirel
• Isona Maive (non-canon)
• Jace Beleren
• Narset
• Nicol Bolas
• Sarkhan Vol
• Tezzeret
• Ugin
• Vraska

Non-planeswalker visitors

• Loot
• Niv-Mizzet

In-game references

Represented in:

• Pools of Becoming
• Prison Realm

Depicted in:

• Apex of Power
• Archon of Cruelty
• Ashiok, Dream Render
• Finale of Revelation
• Gem of Becoming
• Sarkhan's Catharsis
• Stillness in Motion
• Ugin, the Ineffable
• Ugin’s Conjurant