For Gold & Glory: Card of the Week: Basalt Monolith

Basalt Monolith has long been one of my favorite illustrations from Magic. I mean, look at it!

A Find in the Jungles

It was long ago when I first came across the monolith. My search for ley lines had brought me to a remote island in the tropical seas far from my homeland of Alsoor. After weeks on the boat, surrounded by uncouth sailors whose mere tolerance of my passage cost me more gold than I care to admit, it was a relief merely to stand on solid ground again. In my eagerness, I had leapt from the landing boat into the crashing surf and slogged my way onto the dry land before collapsing to the sand. Content merely to feel the cool sand beneath my face and to not feel the boat pitching underneath me, it was some time before I rose.

I've always imagined that the Basalt Monolith was somewhere on the Tropical Island—the palm trees on both look the same. Of course, this might be because Jesper Myrfors painted both.

Though the beach stretched as far as I could see to either side of me, it ended a mere dozen yards or so in front of me. As soon as they were safe from the tides, the palm trees seized the land and made it their own. Though the sun was bright, few rays dared intrude on the darkness beneath the canopy. Even from where I stood, I could see that exploring the land would be difficult—the trees crowded close to each other, and the scant space between them was choked with vines and other undergrowth.

As I stared at the forbidding thicket, the captain of the ship came up behind me, followed by several of her crew. My gold had bought me not only passage, but guidance as well. I did not like the idea of them intruding on my as I communed with the land, but I liked the idea of clawing my way through the jungle without their machetes even less. While others set a camp on the beach, I allowed them to lead me into the trees.

The ley lines of the island were easy to follow, and after a few hours of laborious progress I had already found several places to stop. At some I drank from the springs or ate the fruit I found, at others I burned candles or shed blood into the black soil. At each, my actions bound the ley line to me ever more tightly. It would take more exploration and study for me to call upon it even from elsewhere on Dominaria, much less from another plane, but the sun was sinking towards the horizon and it was nearing time to return to the camp.

But instead of turning back, several members of the crew were excitedly talking and pointing further into the trees. While I had been submerged in my rituals, they had scouted ahead and found something other than more forest. I conferred with their foreman and decided to see for myself, and they led me to it.

I could feel it as we drew nearer in how it warped the ley lines. Before we had gone even a hundred paces, the palm trees fell away like a sail cut loose from the mast. It stood in the clearing before us like a great fist thrust up from the ground, a great tower of black rock silhouetted against the yellow skies and blood-red clouds of dusk. I knew that I had to study it. Sending the crew back to the camp without me, I made a camp of my own in its shadow. I studied it by firelight throughout the night, and by the morning had learned its secrets.

Lore

Another time, another land, another monolith.

In my studies, I have found little about the origins of these Basalt Monoliths or how they function. Most of what little I found seems fanciful to me—that these structures were standing at the dawn of humanity and that they were even responsible for its eventual civilization. I have found nothing in my own study of them that even hints at such a purpose; these accounts are likely to be mere ghost stories and superstition.

Use and Application

The obvious use of the Basalt Monoliths is to store and release mana. In ordinary usage, this is an equal transaction: a mage can place a quantity of three mana in the monolith and later reclaim it, presumably at a time when the mana set aside can be used alongside whatever mana the mage can gather on his or her own to fuel greater spells. This method of use, while potentially powerful, is slow. In sorcerous combat, where time is often short, this delay often negates whatever advantage the additional mana provides.

The key that unlocks the Monolith.

In the great conflict between the brother artificiers of ancient Terisiare, the mages and artificiers of the time discovered a spell to ease the use of artifacts. With the spell they developed, they could empower their war machines with less mana than they normally required. As knowledge of their Power Artifact spell spread, other mages began using it on other artifacts and found that it worked just as well on them as on the war machines. It was probably not long before some enterprising mage cast it upon a Basalt Monolith and discovered a most powerful interaction. With the spell in effect, it became easier to store mana in the Monolith while the effort to withdraw it remained the same. In short, an empowered Monolith could produce limitless mana!

This discovery spread like wildfire among the battlemages of the multiverse, who quickly honed it into a potent weapon. By using the limitless mana to power spells that, like Fireball, scaled in power according to how much mana was used to cast them, these mages became capable of defeating any rival in the blink of an eye...as long as they managed to set up the interaction properly, oftentimes easier said than done.

Putting it All Together

While the use of the Power Artifact spell on Basalt Monoliths is an extremely powerful weapon, it is also a fragile one that can be difficult to assemble. To counter this weakness, a mage looking to rely on it takes great care to ensure its creation and survival. Most mages rely on the maximum number of Basalt Monoliths and Power Artifact spells to make themselves more likely to be able to bring both into battle, and seek to better the odds further by relying on Transmute Artifact to twist other artifacts into Monoliths. Those able to draw upon black mana tend to rely on the Demonic Tutors to do the same.

Casting Power Artifact on a Basalt Monolith is only the beginning, though. Once an opponent is aware of the threat, he or she is likely to do everything possible to disrupt it. All it takes is one Disenchant or the like to bring it to ruin. The Power Monolith-using mage must protect both the enchantment and the artifact long enough to put them to use, and thus relies on Counterspell and other countermagic to negate his or her opponent's threats. Physical damage from creatures is also a threat to the mage, and spells such as The Abyss, Moat, and Arborea are often used to prevent them from getting close enough to do harm.

When a mage finally has the Power Artifact-enchanted Basalt Monolith ready and has successfully protected it, he or she must channel its endless mana to overpower his or her foe. Fireball is the traditional choice—a raging torrent of fire potentially large enough to swallow an entire plane is certainly one way to defeat an opponent. But a Braingeyser to flood his or her mind to the breaking point is just as deadly, if more subtle. A Rocket Launcher also works, but is slower than the other options.