#hedrons

Nicol Bolas: *Holds up the full art forest card.* Doesn't this look kinda like Tarkir?

GamerDragon: ......

Nicol Bolas: *Points to the pyramids.* Look at the hedrons like structures on pyramids! Don't they remind you of the hedrons on Zendikar?

GamerDragon: ......

Nicol Bolas: Look at Rhonas's spear! Doesn't it look like Avacyn's?

https://www.modaonlinemagazalari.com/moda-markas/hedrons/

https://www.modaonlinemagazalari.com/moda-markas/hedrons/

The Eldrazi have recently risen, but their presence has affected Zendikar in subtle ways for thousands of years. Tendrils of their incomprehensible energies have slunk into certain dark crannies of the world, making the plane even more dangerous than the savage tales would have you believe. Long before they blotted out the sky with their mighty forms, the Eldrazi cast a shadow that spread upward from below.

Eldrazi Ruins and Tainted Hedrons

 Zendikar is scattered with ruins, many of which have become tainted by the slumbering Eldrazi. Dark catacombs twist under the earth, leading down into realms never touched by light. Vaults rimmed with jagged stairs spiral down into maddening, song-whispering depths. Diamond-shaped hedrons, the magical "bars" of the Eldrazi's planebound prison, pepper the plane in Roil-flung disarray.

Before the rise of the Eldrazi, few of the denizens of Zendikar had managed to learn much about the mysterious hedrons. Tomb robbers looted and sold them as treasure. Goblins chipped away at them, trying to crack open the purported goodies inside (but usually finding Runeflare Traps instead). Even lowly crabs gathered them to decorate their shells.

Although the hedrons were created to trap the Eldrazi, over the millennia a peculiar bond developed between monstrosity and stone. As the Eldrazi tested the bars of their prison, the hedrons took on some of the dread energies of the Eldrazi themselves, like statues worn bright by oily hands. Today, many hedrons have an intimate connection with the Eldrazi monstrosities and their brood lineages of Eldrazi drones and spawn. Sometimes hedrons deep in underground ruins resonate so strongly with Eldrazi magic that some sensitive souls report hearing cryptic whispers from the stones.

One of these sensitive souls was a goblin called Tuktuk.

The Tale of Tuktuk

 Zendikar's three main goblin warrens are the Grotag, the Lavastep, and the Tuktuk. The Tuktuk are a young tribe, having formed around fifty years ago when their leader returned, in a manner of speaking, from a life-altering expedition.

Thing is, the Tuktuk tribe's leader is not exactly a goblin. For the goblin who was called Tuktuk is long dead.

... Sort of.

Tuktuk the Explorer was an adventurous goblin, brave for his kind and curious, always willing to venture deep into the vaults and chasms where Zendikar kept its best shinies. He wasn't a particularly remarkable fighter or a particularly charismatic leader, but his curiosity burned like pure flame. He was also very, very dumb.

Tuktuk knew the only way he would earn respect in his tribe was to capture a treasure like no other ever found. Vowing to return with the most amazing artifact goblinkind had ever seen, he ventured into an unknown, famously dangerous ruin—because remember, he was very, very dumb.

The ruin Tuktuk chose had been polluted by thousands of years of Eldrazi influence. The walls were crusted with unnatural rock formations that mimicked the carvings of hedrons, and the air was sodden with the soundless utterances of ancient monstrosities. Tuktuk was afraid, but he trundled on, his bravery reinforced by his tragic stupidness.

As soon as he found his prize, Tuktuk was promptly killed. He discovered a massive, profoundly powerful hedron fused into the cavern wall (unluckily), touched it (stupidly), and triggered an ancient rune-trap (inevitably). The trap exploded with dark energies, rupturing his skin and fragmenting his bones—but also setting free a measure of Eldrazi magic. And what happened next was most strange.

The mystical hedron trap, designed to protect the integrity of the ruins, struggled to replace what had just been lost. The Eldrazi-soaked magic drew stone from the walls of the ancient chamber, fusing it together and forming it into a roughly humanoid shape. What resulted was massive and powerful like a stone golem, but bore a strange resemblance to the dead goblin interloper. Although Tuktuk's guts were splattered around the cavern, his mind and memories became trapped within the stone, giving it goblinoid form—and mingling Tuktuk's mind with ancient Eldrazi magic.

The stone creature that resulted was not Tuktuk. But in a way, somehow, it was.