Artifice had always been used as tools of destruction and warfare. From the Su-Chi warriors and ornithopters of the Thran, The apocalypse chime of Ravi Sengir, the legendary dragon engines of the Brother’s War, and now, the levelers of Mirrodin, they have all been used throughout history to cause widespread ruin and devastation. Even Urza’s Legacy, a collection of artifacts designed to protect the world from the dark god Yawgmoth, resulted in the destruction of Urborg and the deaths of thousands. However, none of those artifacts are as dangerous and fickle as the Mirari, an orb of legendary power that grants almost unlimited power and wishes to its beholder.

The Mirari is a small metallic orb about the size of a fist. It was created by the planewalker Karn, in the metal plane of Argentum as a probe to observe the doings of Dominaria. Either by choice of Karn or by accident, the Mirari was unable to control the amount of power that constantly radiated from its metallic insides and ironically that was the reason it became the most wanted artifact on the Dominarian continent of Otaria.

For its first few years in Dominaria, the Mirari sat harmlessly in the depths of a mansion near the swamps of Cabal City. Years soon passed and the mansion fell into decay. During those years, the Mirari continued to wait for an owner. One day, a young dementia summoner named Chainer wandered into the depths of the mansion and there, he found the Mirari. The orb started to show him visions of glory and power and soon, Chainer took it to present to his leader, the Cabal Patriarch. On that day, the course of history in Dominaria would be changed forever.

Chainer brought the Mirari to Cabal City but on the way, he was hassled by an Order Patrol who wanted to search him for contraband. Knowing that the Mirari would be confiscated if the patrol found it, Chainer used the power of the Mirari to could escape and present it to his leader, the Cabal Patriarch. Eventually Chainer managed to escape the patrol and reach his leader. The Cabal Patriarch was delighted with the Mirari and he decided that it should be presented as a prize to the winner of the next pit fight tournament. Meanwhile, it would be stowed away safely in the Cabal Vaults among the thousands of other prizes.

The Mirari soon switched hands and it fell into those of the Leader of the Northern Order, Lieutenant Kirtar. Kirtar disliked the way the order was being led by his rival Captain Pianna. The aven was proud and ambitious and he believed that the Order was filled with unworthy rabble like Pianna that did not fight for justice. Using the power of the Mirari, Kirtar unleashed a spell that crystallized the unworthy of the order. Little did he realize that he was also one of the unworthy and he perished. The Mirari had claimed its first victims.

The Mirari was retrieved by the mer-man Laquatus and it passed on to the Cephalid Emperor Aboshan, who ruled the seas with an iron fist. The greedy Cephalid had been attempting to drown the land with water so that he could expand his territory and control to all over the continent. Aboshan decided to use the Mirari to fulfil his dreams. The Mirari set off an explosion that sent part of Otaria into the depths of the sea. Unfortunately for Aboshan, the force of the explosion was too much and he died in the blast.

The toll of deaths from the Mirari was rising and before long, the Cabalist; Braids brought it back to Cabal City, where it once again, landed in the vaults. During the next few weeks, several order Patrols started to raid the vaults but each time, Chainer used the powers of the nearby Mirari to fend them off, increasing his own powers in the process.

With Aboshan dead, the Mer Empire fell into civil disarray and Aboshan’s ambassador, Laquatus saw this as an opportunity to seize power. He traveled to Cabal City to obtain the help of the Cabal in his upcoming grab for power. The Cabal Patriarch allowed Chainer to use the Mirari to create Laquatus’s familiar. Chainer used a mixture his imagination, and the Mirari to produce Burke, a creature made of a gel that regenerates itself when damaged.

Eventually, Chainer managed to exile the Cabal Patriarch from Cabal City by using the Patriarch’s secret name that he found in the Royal Library with the help of Ambassador Laquatus. With the Cabal Patriarch gone, Chainer intended to keep the Mirari for himself and he summoned numerous Nightmare monsters to attack the spectators and competitors in the arena. Chainer’s friend, Kamahl, attempted to wrest him away from the madness of the Mirari but his efforts were futile.

In a fit of madness, Chainer tried to unsummon every single one of his nightmare creatures so that he could kill his friend in silence. Unfortunately, the effect of the spell obliterated Cabal City and Chainer was turned into a puddle of black slime by the Mirari. In his dying breaths, Chainer finally broke free of the madness and he gave the orb to Kamahl. The Mirari had claimed another victim.

Kamahl had seen the dangers of the Mirari and he was determined not to fall victim as Kirtar, Aboshan and Chainer had before him. Nevertheless, he kept the Mirari and vowed to use its powers for good, but slowly, the Mirari pulled him into madness. The Mirari magically attached to the end of his giant sword, which was forged from the staff of the dead planewalker, Urza, after the Phyrexian invasion.

The Mirari journeyed with Kamahl to his village of Auror in the Pardic Mountains. There, it started to shorten Kamahl’s temper and caused him to have temporary bursts of madness. The Mirari also influenced Kamahl to hold a bloodthirsty contest, in which the champions of several barbarian tribes fought to decide who would rule over the entire barbarian faction. However, it was only a ploy to fuel the Mirari’s bloodlust. With the Mirari sword, Kamahl was nearly undefeatable and several champions had already fallen to Kamahl’s rage and anger.

Only Kamahl’s sister, Jeska, realized the Mirari was the reason behind Kamahl's bloodlust. The accursed orb drew off Kamahl’s rage and when Jeska tried to reason with him that the Mirari was slowly changing him, he lashed out and wounded her. Only when he regained his senses and reason, did he realize what he had just done and he tried to heal his sister by taking her to Krosa.

Kamahl journeyed to Krosa with his dwarven Mentor Balthor, a survivor of the Phyrexian Invasion. Unknown to them, Laquatus had rallied together the Northern Order, merfolk rebels and the Cabal. With the combined might of the three armies, he hopes to plunder the Mirari from Kamahl and use it to gain control of the Mer Empire from Cephalid Empress Llawan.

As the two approached the forest, they were ambushed by Laquatus’s force. They managed to sneak past the massive force but were soon tracked down. Kamahl carried the Mirari sword and he fled into the forest while Balthor held off the bulk of the forces. However, before long, Laquatus caught up with Kamahl and he demanded the Mirari. Kamahl had no intentions of handing it over and the result was fierce combat.

Laquatus was a skilled warrior and he proved to be a worthy opponent of Kamahl and his Mirari sword. However, about halfway through the fight, a strangely mutated zombie Balthor burst from the clearings and tried to charge Laquatus. Laquatus managed to gain control of the zombie and he forced it to attack Kamahl. With the mighty sword, Kamahl destroyed the zombie and after an intense fight, he also impaled the Ambassador.

Kamahl thought it was all over and the cycle of violence that surrounded the Mirari had ended, but he was wrong. The Krosan forest now claimed the Mirari and the forest itself became sentient. The land drank power from the artifact, which it used to grow and expand. The mysterious powers of the Mirari also increased the size and ferocity of the forest denizens. Soon, the centaurs and druids of Krosa fled, leaving only giant beasts, mutated insects and sentient vegetation. Eventually, the power of the Mirari also spilled out from the forest, mutating the other life forms on Otaria.

Months later, the Mirari once again exchanged hands and Kamahl took his second chance of possessing it. As Kamahl took the sword, the strange effects of the Mirari managed to bring back Balthor’s spirit so that he could assist Kamahl in mastering the Mirari sword. However, it wasn’t long before Kamahl was once again under the influence of the Mirari and when Balthor tried to teach Kamahl to safely use the Mirari, the barbarian went into a spasm of rage and destroyed the spirit of his mentor. After his mentor’s second death, Kamahl finally learnt that to master the Mirari, he had to put aside his aggression.

Finally, after much training, Kamahl achieved what the previous owners of the Mirari didn’t and he had mastered the Mirari sword. He then set off to use his newfound weapon to destroy Karona, a near-omnipotent false god who had caused thousands of deaths in Otaria.

Kamahl reunited the three Numena, powerful mages who had derived their powers from the legendary Primevals. The four had many adventures and they managed to banish Karona from Dominaria for a little while. Eventually, Karona returned and there was a fierce battle. In the resulting fight, the three Numena were slain and Kamahl was almost killed, but not before Karona’s two disciples, Sash and Waistcoat, picked up the fallen Mirari sword and plunged the weapon into her back.

After the battle, the planeswalker, Karn planewalked to Dominaria and transported the body of Karona and the Mirari sword back to Argentum. With his magical touch, Karn transformed the Mirari into a living golem named Memnarch. He then left the plane, and thus, the Mirari’s cycle of violence was finally brought to an end.

Or was it? Several years later, Memnarch was corrupted by a black slime and he slowly transformed Argentum into the plane of Mirrodin. From the centre of the plane, he sent out levelers and metallic beasts to plague the world that he ruled. Slowly, he was driven mad and he wished to ascend into planeswalkerhood. The cycle of violence continues . . .

"Karn was wrong to omit the influence of Dominaria on this world. I shall name this world after myself. After my previous life as well as my new life. I shall name it Mirrodin"