What Happens in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt?

[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 is one of the most popular planes in all of magic from its rich pool of gothic horror-inspired creatures and characters to its present-day status as holding cell for one of the most fearsome entities in the multiverse there is a lot going on here and with the addition of midnight hunt you could spend days catching up on all of the lore but you'd rather be playing magic right so let me help you out because today we're covering what happens in innistrad midnight hunt within the set you'll find 16 cards that are marked as being story spotlights but there's also an official web fiction that's been released in weekly chapters i'll have a link to that down in the description sometimes there is a disagreement between what the cards show and what we're told in the online stories in such an event i tend to give more weight to the cards because this is a game and the playing pieces that everyone can actually see should be the ones that we trust to tell us what's really happening so let us begin the tale of midnight hunt by looking at arlen cord a planeswalker native to innistrad and the central character of our story arlen is a werewolf which makes her keenly aware of a growing problem on the plane and that is the fact that nights are getting longer and days are getting shorter in a place filled with vampires zombies spirits and other less noble werewolves the extended period of darkness is a real threat to the humans of the plane which takes us to the house of a woman who just lost her husband to a vampire and the start of arlen's involvement in the story she's traveling around the countryside trying to bring comfort to people facing the loss of friends and family and while sharing a warm cup of tea with this widow they discuss how bad things have gotten since the travails the travails seems to be shorthand for all the bad stuff that has happened recently on innistrad which i've covered in other videos so go watch those if you haven't seen them already this woman confesses to arlen that while she misses the days of avacyn there are other forms of protection available to people now and she describes a sort of witch that seems to live in a nearby forest arlen decides to investigate this further and she heads out into the woods accompanied by a handful of wolves which are her loyal pack mates eventually she finds katilda who explains she's part of the dawn heart a coven of witches that practice ancient magic which predates avacyn katilda tells arlen that they plan to fix the day and night balance by performing a ritual this introduces two complications one the ritual must happen at the celestis a supremely powerful magical artifact which must first be unlocked with something called the moon silver key two the ritual will require people like as many as they can get way out here in the dark woods because that's where the celestis is arlen really doesn't like the idea of putting so many humans together in one spot especially one as remote and unprotected as the celestis but before she can convince katilda that this might be a bad idea they are interrupted by the arrival of tovalar he's a werewolf who has embraced the unnatural moonrise that has gripped the plane and he sees this as his kind's chance to take control and feast upon well everyone else really it turns out tovalar and arlen have a history he took her under his wing when she was a young werewolf he taught her how to hunt and encouraged her to run with him and his pack obviously at some point she declined and forged her own path but now tovalar makes a display of his authority by getting the wolves from arlen's pack to follow him back into the forest and then he tries to get her to do the same she resists and tovalar offers her one last invitation to join the hunt when you're ready and then he vanishes back into the forest arlen meanwhile returns to catilda and pledges to get the key that she needs for her ritual the next morning arlen plains walks to ravnica to get help from the gatewatch many of whom she met during war of the spark to ferry chandra and kaia agree to help arlen and the four of them immediately head to innistrad right back to katilda who has spent her day gathering more supporters of the dawn heart among them is adeline a cathar who thinks that the needed moonsilver key might be held in the holy city of thraben perhaps in one of the old church vaults and so our heroes move out in that direction now you might remember thraben is currently overrun with zombies they were left behind the last time the gatewatch was here used by liliana to stand against the warped forces of emmakul upon reaching the city kaia scouts ahead and comes back with a book that shows what could be the key being handed over to a family labeled as the betzolds arlen says she knows of a war in betsold and he's probably inside the city's main cathedral so chandra lights up the night to clear a path for the group and then they make contact with the old bishop unfortunately not much of warren's mind remains he doesn't seem to recognize arlen and all he can do is say denick dennick over and over so the group asks around and finds the bets old family home which is apparently still occupied by dennick betsold warren's son the catch though is that the house is full of ghosts which lets kaya show off her skills at dispatching the supernatural in thraben exorcism finally they reach dennick who is also a ghost and he tells them his family doesn't have the key anymore they gave it to one of the vampire families for safe keeping when pressed for a name dennick replies with markov much to everyone's dismay naturally the group heads to markov manor which is still a mess from nahiri's attack in shadows over innistrad it seems sorin has done a lot of moping around but you know what they say if you've got time to be a lean gothic edgelord you've got time to clean anyway they ask sorin for the key and he becomes confrontational he says he already did everything he could for this plane and at this point he's resigned to letting the eternal night happen because that seems to be what everyone really wants arlen insists that is not what everyone wants and soren comes at her with his sword after she dares to invoke avacyn's name right in front of him before he can get a good hit him though his own sword is knocked away by sigarda who has flown into the scene through a convenient hole in the ceiling sagarda tells everyone that the key is in soren's personal chambers up on the third floor and she invites them to go retrieve it while she talks to sauron about his old creation sorin attacks sagarda because he's never in the mood to talk and arlen tries to stay in help but the angel tells her to leave if only as an expression of her faith arlen and the others find the key in the hands of a broken statue of avacyn and then they head out eager to get back to catilda and the rest of the dawn heart the story then cuts over to a scene with olivia vulderan who doesn't have her own card in this set but we have seen her before olivia is informed by one of her underlings that the humans are attempting to perform a ritual that will push back the knight while she's getting this news she's wearing the face of a dead woman like one might wear a mask at a spa the blood helps olivia keep her youthful glow it's one of the more creepy and delightful parts of the whole story really anyway olivia decides to let the humans continue with their festival for the moment saying you shouldn't interrupt someone when they're doing your work for you while we're left to consider that things jump back over to arlen and the gang they've arrived at the harvest tide festival where thousands of humans are gathered to carve pumpkins paint masks drink cider and have an all-around good time that is until the screaming starts yeah yeah the werewolves arrive right on the heels of our heroes and it's about to get messy the sunset revelry is thrown into chaos as the werewolves storm the festival which forces teferi to take drastic action impossibly the second best scene in the story he tells arlen he's going to give her a long sunset and then he slams his staff into the ground sending waves of magic in every direction that is borrowed time which arlen does not want to waste she needs to protect the humans from the attacking werewolves while katilda and the dawn heart start the ritual now that kaia is about to deliver them the key arlen seeks out tovalar and begs him to call off the attack to which he flatly replies no so they decide to resolve their differences with a lively debate and no i'm kidding i'm kidding they fight arlen does her best but tovalar eventually gets the upper hand and once again tells her it's not too late to join him and embrace the hunt now we can debate the ethics of what happens next but arlen offers up her hand to tovalar as if she's agreeing with him he picks her up and once she's on her feet she sticks her claws right into tovalar and tells him to call off the attack he is shocked at her betrayal of his trust but he manages to give the signal to the other werewolves and they all pretty much up and leave including tovalar arlen is relieved but they still have work to do so she catches up to katilda and the others who are in the middle of the ritual under the arms of the celestis there's lots of chanting and katilda asks arlen for blood and fang as symbols of her willingness to protect innistrad fortunately she's already got an open wound from her earlier fight so she smears some of her blood inside this golden ceremonial bowl and then bites a nearby herb and tosses that into the mix as well katilda continues the ritual stating that the coven offers root and soul she picks up an ancient looking piece of root and it dissolves into the bowl then as arlen is wondering where the soul is supposed to come from katilda's own essence starts to stream out of her open mouth and eyes so you know things are going well until kaya notices a shadow above them all which turns out to be olivia she dives at the ceremonial table and arlen decides to protect the key with her own body that forces olivia to grab katilda and fly back up into the air with her olivia then taunts the group saying she wants the key and not this shriveled old witch she proposes that they trade arlen tries to quickly confer with the other members of the dawn heart and they tell her they cannot complete the ceremony without katilda kaia meanwhile says she was watching katilda's spirit leave her body but then when olivia attacked she lost track of it olivia grows impatient as arlen tries to come up with a plan and so she rakes her claws across gatilda's chest and lets the blood flow down onto everyone below that is enough to prompt arlen to agree to the exchange she tosses up the key and olivia throws katilda down hard arlen tries to catch katilda as she falls but she still ends up hitting the ground with a bone-splitting crunch olivia flies away taking the key with her and the group realizes knight has fallen on innistrad and it will now remain night from here to eternity and that's it that's what happens in midnight hunt as told by both the story spotlight cards and the official web fiction to recap the plane of innistrad is experiencing longer and longer nights arlen teams up with the dawn heart a coven of witches familiar with ancient magic hoping to bring balance back to the plane she is supported by members of the gatewatch including teferi kaya and chandra and together they retrieve a key that unlocks the celestis which will serve as the focal point of the ritual to restore the sun the ritual is interrupted by werewolves led by arlen's former mentor tovalar and then by olivia valderran who has her own reasons for wanting endless knight the story ends with innistrad seemingly locked in eternal darkness at least until things pick up again with crimson vow still to come later this year now normally i'd wrap up an episode like this with a little segment we like to call mustache minute but since that was my entire shadows over innistrad video i still need some time to recharge there are a few things i'd like to point out regarding the cards of midnight hunt however first fateful absence it's marked as a story spotlight card but nothing like it happens within the story it appears to be leftover connective tissue from when we were only going to get a single innistrad set and now i think it serves to bridge the story of midnight hunt to that of crimson val second in the flavor text for secrets of the key it tells us that they find the item in question within the markov catacombs but in the story itself sagarta very clearly says it's in soren's personal chambers on the third floor it's a minor thing and i know we can all just agree to overlook it but it would also be super easy to fix just edit the online story to match the card it's not like any major action happened there they just pick up the key and leave which could just as easily happen in the catacombs third dire strain rampage is also a spotlight card that doesn't quite fit anywhere within the story i mean yes werewolves are getting more aggressive across the plane and they do eventually attack the festival but that's in a remote area of forest rampage shows a city in the background which doesn't really match the setting of anything but the thraben scene and that was dominated by zombies the story itself is told using flashbacks quite a lot actually and this is to flesh out the relationship between arlen and tovalar but we also learn about how arlen grew up as a part of the church this provides her with some internal conflict because the church is very anti-werewolf and she had to hide that part of herself from them while tovalar was encouraging her to embrace it so now she sees herself as a guardian of innistrad largely thanks to the morals and viewpoints explored through her time at the church but she does still feel the pull of the wilds which makes it hard for her to repeatedly turn down tovalar's offer to join him the only real reference to this we can find within the set though is on the special full art version of arlen which shows her as a member of the church in her younger days there's been one other big outstanding mystery since our last visit to the plane and that is how did sorin get out of the wall at the conclusion of eldritch moon the planeswalker nihiri stuck sauron within one of the walls of markov manor after that his famously powerful sword called the parasite blade was taken from him by olivia soren's appearance in war of the spark made it clear he had gotten out of the wall but never explained how and the story for midnight hunt doesn't really help us here either there is that scene when our heroes visit soren at home and as they walk through the manor they note a section of wall surrounded by scratches and bite marks and dried blood the implication is that sauron chewed his own way out but it stopped short of actually saying that it's also possible someone else found him and released him but lacking any tools maybe they had to use their own teeth or claws sorin also has his parasite blade back when fighting arlen and then sagarda the author of the story even confirmed this on twitter but gave no explanation for how he obtained it saying only that he was able to scheme it back into possession this could be further explored in crimson valley i hope this is further explored in crimson valley because it's been on my mind for years at this point and i don't want it to just be hand waved away what do you think did the events of midnight hunt live up to your expectations let me know down in the comments and 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 magic arcanum we'll see [Music] you

Channel: Magic Arcanum

Views: 139,714

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Id: vDZmfpAEW_E

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021