What Happens in Innistrad: Crimson Vow?

[Music] [Applause] welcome to magic arcanum i'm ryan gomez behind the scenes is nicole burdick and we're so glad you're here because it's story time innistrad crimson vow continues the plot started with midnight hunt which makes this an awkward time to join the game because it is assumed you already know what's going on but it's okay if you don't that's why i'm here we're gonna cover what's happening in magic's newest set crimson vow just like we already looked at what happened in midnight hunt which i strongly suggest you watch if you haven't already as is often the case there is some degree of mismatch between the story spotlight cards found within the set and the text of these story chapters published online in those cases i usually refer to the cards as being the final word because those are something most players will actually see either way we're going to open up with blood tithe harvester which sets the stage for everything that follows in crimson vow olivia valderran has issued a decree each citizen of stensia must fill a small bowl with their own blood every night from now until the festivities anyone who doesn't will face grave consequences and i can't help it guys it's innistrad the puns just write themselves the event she's stocking up for is actually her own wedding for which invitations are also being sent out across the plain she plans to marry edgar markov the grandfather of sorin and the first vampire of innistrad this would greatly increase olivia's political power and status which doesn't bode well for the humans who are already suffering under the eternal night still rebellion grows in that darkness and the heroes of our story are making their own plans for olivia's big day to ferry chandra kaia arlen and their assembled allies realize they need help from the plane's true guardian sorin if they are going to have any hope of reclaiming the moon silver key and unlocking the power of the celestis so they head back over to markov manor to make their case just as sauron gets his invitation to the wedding and realizes he does still care about the plane and certainly doesn't want olivia to be the one in charge of it collectively they all decide to crash this wedding we then get a scene set within the halls of the valderran estate where the party is now in full swing present are members of all the vampire houses including henrikh domnathy who kills another vampire named relio for implying that the domnathy don't deserve to be mingling with the vulderans so yeah it's a bloody and somewhat chaotic affair and that's before olivia herself enters dressed in her wedding gown accompanied by servants carrying edgar's coffin back outside soren and the others reach the front gates and discover they won't all be able to pass through the event is by invitation only which is another story spotlight card magical barriers protect the grounds around the vulderan estate and so only sorin himself is able to approach leaving the rest to wait outside for the impatient and impulsive chandra this is especially annoying anyway we follow soren inside where his internal monologue does a great job showing us how hard he's working to restrain himself more than once he thinks about killing the closest party guest just to make his displeasure known but he realizes he's too old and tired to go making scenes like that anymore and brother i can relate so instead he approaches olivia and watches as she slits her own wrist to dribble blood into edgar's coffin we then learn a little bit about how this all works edgar is known to slumber in his coffin and over the years soren has woken him up periodically for advice or discussion about events on the plane however awakening from this slumber requires fresh blood and that blood will carry some of the emotions and energies of the donor soren was always careful about his emotional state when providing his own blood to awaken his grandfather but now olivia is pouring her own let's say ambitious blood right into edgar's mouth sorin realizes this is going to immediately affect his grandfather's mind olivia will have some degree of influence over edgar before he can even understand he's been dragged into a wedding as the intended groom so sure enough edgar wakes up and soren tries to talk to him but he's immediately smitten with olivia and scold soren for attempting to ruin the festivities all right being reasonable isn't going to work maybe violence nope the overwhelming number of guards present are able to hold soren down even after he kills a bunch of them olivia then continues to humiliate sorin by waking other members of his family all stolen from the lower levels of his home and transported here to the volderan estate in a supreme display of her power it gets worse olivia reveals the centerpiece of her ceremonial decorations and her gift to edgar suspended up in the rafters is sagarda the angel tightly bound and already showing wounds from her struggle sorin realizes olivia's plan is to drain the angel's blood and in doing so she will gain control over all of the angels of innistrad the stolen moon silver key which is bowl shaped is going to be a crucial part of the exsanguination ritual a ritual soren has witnessed before actually we learned that edgar drained an angel like this centuries ago and used her blood to create the first line of vampires on the plane soarin among them so as olivia and edgar recite their crimson vows soarin decides enough is enough and in a masterful display of his own sanguine powers he turns the collected blood into a blade and uses it to free himself from the guards he takes one of these slain guards ceremonial swords and heads straight for olivia but his grandfather gets in the way and before soren can act katilda's spirit comes streaming out of the moonsilver key olivia is furious and asks who invited you to which katilda calmly replies you did which is actually true and therefore hilarious anyway qatilda surveys the scene and notices the bound sagarda sorin attacks olivia again to keep her away from katilda which gives her time to free the angel sagarda wastes no time in declaring every present vampire guilty and then even sorin is like super impressed with how well she's filling the shoes of avacyn he's even glad he didn't make sagarta because he admits he wouldn't have thought to fill her with so much righteous fury so sagarta goes off which immediately shatters the magical barriers on the outside of the vuldaranas state and sends broken glass flying throughout the inside making pin cushions out of several unlucky vampires of course still waiting outside are chandra to fairy kaya arlen and an assortment of soldiers peasants witches and warlocks when the barrier goes down they all rush the estate leaving the vampire guards dead in their wake they get inside and kaya tells arlen they're not alone she can feel the presence of a whole lot of angry ghosts in here so she gets to work trying to free them from their tortured existence trapped in the twisted halls of the volderan estate arlen meanwhile presses forward seeking olivia and more importantly the moon silver key first she finds sagarda still fighting most of the vampires herself which appears to be a deviation from the spotlight card sagartas summons she doesn't have any other angels there to help her in the official story she is tanking those vampires all on her own anyway ireland does come up against olivia just as the spirits begin to materialize and enter the fray thanks to kaia the humans now supported by the geists continue their assault against the vampires and olivia retreats through a passageway with arlen giving chase the story then cuts over to soarin who is in the middle of his own battle with edgar they're in the sanguitorium a room filled with barrels of blood in storage and edgar keeps flinging sauron into the barrels and then soren drinks their blood to recover his strength which makes for a very interesting fight edgar's not trying to kill sorin yet he's mostly expressing his anger that sorin has squandered his gifts he says the vampires should be ruling innistrad and sorin knows nothing of the sacrifices necessary to be strong enough to hold such power which is funny given everything we know about sauron in his history so of course sorin isn't really hearing it but he's also still losing this fight despite the constant influx of new blood which should give you some idea of how strong edgar really is just as sorin gets knocked down again we flip back over to arlen who has finally cornered olivia in an aptly named dead end hallway guys i tried to warn you now so far arlen has been doing everything in her human form she has resisted the temptation to embrace her inner wolf partly because she feels guilty about the damage tovalar and the others caused at the harvest tide festival unfortunately olivia grabs a sword off of a nearby decorative suit of armor and uses it to overpower arlen in desperation and encouraged by olivia's taunts arlen transforms but olivia is still able to best her and things start to look grim for the planeswalker fortunately help is on the way down in the lower levels of the estate werewolves have shown up adding their strength to the humans and geists already holding their own against the remaining vampires with the extra might of their furry allies they're able to finally pull ahead in the battle marking the true end of the festivities among those werewolves is in fact tovalar here now to help arlen so he bounds off in her direction after the path is pointed out by kaya but first we need to wrap up things with soren who has consumed the last of the blood around him and he has gone after his grandfather who has returned to the ballroom and is holding off to fairy and chandra that is until sorin joins the fight and quickly overwhelms edgar soarin considers killing him outright but feels compelled to stop just short internally he thinks maybe it's the unseen hand of a long gone angel that holds him back perhaps a nod to the lasting influence of abison nevertheless edgar flees and the gatewatch members offer their support and sympathy to soarin for once in his thousands of years life soarin just kinda accepts it and even says thank you the story then moves back to arlen who was knocked out on the floor until tovalar comes and wakes her up they form an uneasy truce agreeing that tonight they will fight together against the vampires and then they can settle their own issues with one another later that's good enough for arlen for now anyway who goes back on the hunt for olivia now with her former mentor at her side in just a short time olivia is located along with edgar and the two are bickering like they're already actually married the wolves make it clear that this all ends right now and olivia drops the moon silver key before flying out a nearby window with edgar right at her heels arlen tells tovalar she'll deal with him later and takes the key back to her friends who then all take the key back to the kessig forest to reunite it with the sun gold lock at the base of the celestis with all of the necessary parts the dawn heart coven are able to finish the ritual started back in midnight hunt and the supremely powerful magical artifacts are able to bring forth the glorious sunrise and literally save the day for innistrad and that's it that's what happens in crimson vow as told by the official story and most of the story spotlight cards found within the set but if you're a fan of the show you know we're not stopping here because we've still got the mustache minute so get ready because here we go there's one more scene after the celestis fires up and that's all of the planeswalkers saying goodbye and preparing to go their own way to ferry takes the moonsilver key with him noting that it has interesting temporal properties and he confesses to arlen that they have been having trouble around the multiverse he even drops the name phyrexians and warns arlen to be cautious he promises to bring the key back and catilda says yeah that's fine whatever we don't really need it again for like a thousand years which implies something like the eternal night is a recurring event and predates emrakul's entanglement with the plane's moon so apparently the eldrazi weren't behind all of this it's kind of unclear to me but i'd love to hear your interpretations in the comments among these story spotlight cards sure strike doesn't really happen in the story arlen does adopt her werewolf form but like i said it was more because olivia had the upper hand and she desperately needed some extra strength just to survive their fight the art on sure strike makes it look like arlen was in control here or caught olivia unprepared which was not how it went down i am a little annoyed with sigardus summons because it takes away from the bravery of the humans i think that whole ballroom fight feels a lot different if you add a bunch of angels overhead i prefer the way it was written where it's just sagarda and the wedding crashers until they get some help from the geists i will point out we don't know how sagarda got captured by the vampires and we don't know what happened to her at the end of this story presumably she's fine and continuing to grow in her role of avacyn's replacement i will also take a moment to confirm any of the named legendary creatures from this set that i didn't talk about did not appear in this main story but there are four side stories this time around which i may cover in a future video overall i really liked this story it was one of the best written in recent memory with sorin being a surprisingly compelling character who shows a lot of growth in how he deals with his feelings towards his own grandfather and his acceptance of the gatewatch to be clear he's not a member of the gatewatch he just acknowledges that teferi is also old and wise and maybe has seen some stuff soren hasn't and he even finds chandra's compassion to be tolerable after giving up on the rest of his own real family plus there's this part where he picks up the guard's ceremonial sword and he's like what this is a terrible weapon it's unbalanced it's covered in gold and jewels it's so gaudy it's hideous it's perfect for killing olivia in the end though olivia and edgar are still alive although without the resources of the vulderan estate that might factor into events for our next visit to the plane or maybe we'll see a multiverse wide war with the phyrexians crimson vow left a lot of doors open and i'm excited to see where we go from here but i also want to hear what you think will the phyrexians invade the plane will soarin take some time away from brooding and get back to exploring the multiverse will sagarta start wearing black eyeliner let me know down in the comments then make sure you like this video and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the great stories you'll only find here on 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Channel: Magic Arcanum

Views: 119,069

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Id: Z2TvWx6SU3s

Length: 17min 33sec (1053 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021