History Literature / TheBrothersWar

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: When he first arrives in the city of Kroog Urza is rejected by all the guilds for not being religious enough. After marrying the city's princess Kayla bin-Kroog and producing [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=992 healing amulets]] they do an abrupt about-face and declare him "a fine fellow, even for an Argivian".

''The Brothers' War'' by Jeff Grubb is the first post-revision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel. It is one of the earliest novels chronologically (corresponding to ''Antiquities'', the second expansion of the card game) and tells the story of the war between the brothers Urza and Mishra and how it devastated the world. It can be read as a story on its own, but it's also one of the earliest instalments chronologically of the ''[[Literature/RathAndStorm Weatherlight Saga]]''.

* RetCon: This novel supersedes the prerevisionist comics ''Antiquities War'' and ''Urza-Mishra War''.

* {{Adorkable}}: Ashnod feels this way about Tawnos, so much so that she gives him the nickname of "Duck" for what she sees as his habit of faithfully following Urza as a baby duck follows its mother.

* WildCard: Ashnod in the final chapters. She brings the sylex into the equation, the one factor Gix hadn't counted on during his decades of patiently playing the brothers against each other.

* TheManBehindTheMan: When Mishra befriend the Fallaji qadir's son and earns his trust the qadir orders Mishra killed to prevent him from becoming this. Fortunately for Mishra, the order is delayed and the qadir killed before it can be carried out. True to the warlord's fears, his son quickly becomes a ruler in name only.

* TheUnfettered: Frighteningly, most of the main characters save Tawnos. Being forced into slavery and having to adapt to the brutal Fallaji culture hardens Mishra into a ruthless warlord and years of war against his brother harden Urza likewise. But the best example by far is Ashnod, who eschews the bloodless artifice of the other characters in favor of experiments that make her a borderline EvilutionaryBiologist. As Ashnod herself says:

* MakesUsEven: Ashnod helps Tawnos escape from Fallaji custody after her allows her to escape during the sack of Kroog.

* NobleSavage: The inhabitants of Argoth.

* RagsToRoyalty: Mishra is "introduced" to the Fallaji by being captured and forced into slavery by them. He ends up their absolute ruler. Urza also undergoes this, traveling to Kroog as a humble clocksmith's apprentice and marrying his way into power.

* TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe: Gix of Phyrexia regards the inventions of the genius brothers as things aking to children's toys and can control any of them at will. In the final battle he [[spoiler:overrides all of them and pits them against their masters intending to finish Urza and Mishra both in one stroke]].

* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: Ashnods leads a life of this:

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Rusko completely vanishes from the story after the Warlord's surprise attack on the Fallaji, with only one sentence addressing his fate, revealing that he survived the events but "would not be returning to Kroog any time soon. Given what ends up happening to Kroog, this probably makes Rusko the fantasy equivalent of GenreSavvy.

* ArabianNightsDays: The Fallaji are more than a bit inspired by Arab tribes. It's the [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Watsonian]] excuse for the first expansion, ''Arabian Nights'', which was released before the makers had started putting together their own storylines starting with ''Antiquities'', and so [[{{Retcon}} Retconned]] at least part of it into Dominaria.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Literally ''everyone else'' in the story figures out the Brotherhood of Gix is bad news except Mishra. Played with in the Third Path, as the titular Third Path union members all know the Brotherhood to be shady but allow them into Terisia City anyway out of a policy of welcoming any and all knowledge seekers. This comes back to bite them ''hard'' when Mishra's army shows up at their gates and the Brotherhood betrays them.
* HowWeGotHere: The opening sequence depicts Tawnos and Ashnod on "the night before the world ended" sitting on the bodies of a dead giant that the islanders of Argoth worshipped as a deity and a mechanical humanoid. Most of the rest of the novel is the decades of conflict that led up to that point.

* LeftHanging: Was the Mishra Urza fought and killed the actual Mishra or a Phyrexian construct? The Planeshift novel features a scene where Urza encounters Mishra on Phyrexia as a prisoner of Yawgmoth, being [[FateWorseThanDeath eternally tortured]] for failing the Hidden One. Additionally, no less an authority than ''Magic's'' creative director Brady Dommeruth has stated that Mishra's fate may have been [[http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/335167-mishra-a-planeswalker?comment=10 something else entirely]], and that for the moment his fate "intentionally has some unknown elements".

* WarHawk: Kroog's ruler, who is fittingly only known as "the warlord". Despite being a decent father to Kayla and putting up with Urza his hostility for the Fallaji winds up being the spark that sets off the Brothers' War.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Rusko completely vanishes from the story with no further mentions after the Warlord's surprise attack on the Fallaji.
* WildCard: Ashnod in the last chapters. She brings the sylex into the equation, the one factor Gix hadn't counted on during his decades of patiently playing the brothers against each other.

* YouShallNotPass: When Mishra's war machines invade Terisia City Hurkyl faces them alone, using [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=1041 her magic]] to make the entire assemble army literally vanish into thin air. Unfortunately [[DyingMomentOfAwesome she has no counter for the soldiers that follow]]...

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Literally ''everyone else'' in the story figures out the Brotherhood of Gix is bad news except Mishra. Played with in the Third Path, as the titular Third Path union members all know the Brotherhood to be shady but allows them into Terisia City anyway out of a policy of welcoming any and all knowledge seekers. This comes back to bite them ''hard'' when Mishra's army shows up at their gates and the Brotherhood betrays them.

* AntiVillain: Ashnod. She does some nasty things, but she does try to justify them with some semblance of morality (claiming that she "saved" prisoners of Urza's forces who were slated for execution by turning them into Transmogrants and only torturing Tawnos because her torture is far less worse than the Fallaji's) and leaves Mishra when it's clear that he's gone completely overboard. She's also the one character to contribute the most to stopping (or at least slowing) the Phyrexians.

** The Priests of Gix replace body parts with machines [[spoiler: and eventually convince Mishra to do the same.]]

* ChekhovsGun: Tawnos's Coffin, which [[spoiler:ends up allowing him to survive the final battle of the war]].

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: [[spoiler:Mishra, if the construct Urza faces in the final battle is in fact him]].

* FantasticNuke: The sylex.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Literally ''everyone else'' in the story figures out the Priests of Gix are bad news except Mishra.

* HumanResources: With Mishra's permission, Ashnod starts using Fallaji criminals and prisoners as guinea pigs in her experiments. The end result is the [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159110 transmogrants]], which she briefly and unsuccessfully attempts to use to position herself as a power equal to Mishra's Fallaji lieutenants.

* MacGuffin: Two, Urza's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202453 Mightstone]] and Mishra's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202419 Weakstone]]. They are two halves of a split powerstone but each has power far beyond most whole powerstones.
* MachineWorship: The Priests of Gix feature this as the cornerstone belief of their cult.

* MechanicalLifeforms: Mishra encounters these on Phyrexia and somehow manages to summon one of them, a dragon engine, back with him. It quickly becomes a cornerstone of his power, though as the war goes on it is eventually damaged beyond repair and he has to make do with inferior replicas.

* TreacherousAdvisor: The Priests of Gix are collectively this to Mishra.
* TrojanHorse: The Priests of Gix act as this to Terisia City, opening the gates from inside after Mishra's army rolls up.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: The Priests of Gix manipulate Mishra into having Ashnod banished after she refuses to share her research with them.

* WasASweetKid: Young Mishra is noted to be more friendly and gregarious than Urza, who is distinctly aloof even as a youth. He ends up becoming a merciless warlord.

* MacGuffin: Two, Urza's Mightstone and Mishra's Weakstone. They are two halves of a split powerstone but each has power far beyond most whole powerstones.

* NotEvenHuman: [[spoiler:The Mishra that Urza faces in the final battle is revealed to be some sort of construct after Urza blasts him with a fireball]].

* HumanResources: With Mishra's permission, Ashnod starts using Fallaji criminals and prisoners as guinea pigs in her experiments. The end result is the [[SlaveMooks transmogrants]], which she briefly and unsuccessfully attempts to use to position herself as a power equal to Mishra's Fallaji lieutenants.

* BeamOWar: Young Urza and Mishra have a BeamOWar battle between the green magical laser beams of Mishra's [[http://magiccards.info/aq/en/43.html Weakstone]] and the red magical laser beams of Urza's [[http://magiccards.info/aq/en/20.html Mightstone]]. When Tocasia tries to break it up, [[spoiler:the resulting explosion leads to her death]].

* CainAndAbel: Well, obviously.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Most of the characters are sceptical about Hurkyl claiming to have developed a technique that allows one to channel magical energy by concentrating on a certain land....

* MentorOccupationalHazard: [[spoiler:Tocasia]]
* NotEvenHuman: [[spoiler:Mishra, in the end.]]

* ArabianNightsDays: The Fallaji are more than a bit inspired by Arab tribes.

-> ''The Myth. The Magic. Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titantic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies. The saga of the Brothers' War.''

'''''The Brothers' War''''' by Jeff Grubb is the first post-revision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel. It is one of the earliest novels chronologically (corresponding to ''Antiquities'', the second expansion of the card game) and tells the story of the war between the brothers Urza and Mishra and how it devastated the world. It can be read as a story on its own, but it's also one of the earliest instalments chronologically of the ''[[Literature/RathAndStorm Weatherlight Saga]]''.

'''''The Brothers' War''''', by Jeff Grubb, is the first post-revision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel. It is one of the earliest novels chronologically (corresponding to ''Antiquities'', the second expansion of the card game) and tells the story of the war between the brothers Urza and Mishra and how it devastated the world. It can be read as a story on its own, but it's also one of the earliest instalments chronologically of the ''Weatherlight saga''.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/_War_cover_1272.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Left: [[http://magiccards.info/extra/other/vanguard/urza.html Urza]]. Right: [[http://magiccards.info/extra/other/vanguard/mishra.html Mishra]].]]

* RetCon: This novel supercedes the prerevisionist comics ''Antiquities War'' and ''Urza-Mishra War''.

'''''The Brothers' War''''', by Jeff Grubb, is the first post-revision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel. It is one of the earliest novels chronologically (corresponding to ''Antiquities'', the second expansion of the card game) and tells the story of the war between the brothers Urza and Mishra and how it devastated the world. It can be read as a story on its own, but it's also one of he earliest instalments chronologically of the ''Weatherlight saga''.

'''''The Brothers' War''''', by Jeff Grubb, is the first post-revision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel. It is one of the earliest novels chronologically (corresponding to the ''Antiquities'' expansion in the card game) and tells the story of the war between the brothers Urza and Mishra and how it devastated the world.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Most of the characters are sceptical about Hurkyl claiming to have developed a technique that allows one to channel magical energy by concentrating on a certain land....

* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler:Urza wins. Technically. Except his brother is dead, Argoth has been vaporized, and most of the world is devastated, causing an ice age. In fact, the planescape is so thoroughly shattered by the end of the war that its total effects wouldn't be fixed until the events of the ''Time Spiral'' block, several ''hundreds of millenia'' later.]]

* FoeYay: Tawnos and Ashnod.