THE HISTORY SARKHAN REMEMBERS
Tarkir: The Original Clan Lives
Before history changes, Tarkir's clans argue over strength, family and justice. Meet the lives behind their banners and the ambitions that make leadership dangerous.
Why this story matters
The route in brief
This is the Tarkir of Sarkhan's original lifetime: dragons are gone, while the clans organise their identities around the qualities they once admired in those creatures. Their absence has not brought peace. A clan's account of its own virtue rarely explains everything its neighbours experience.
The chapters move between communities rather than following one campaign. A coming-of-age encounter, a guarded monastery, a broken family and a threatened trade road reveal different ways people earn or misuse authority. Their outcomes belong to this original present, not to the later world ruled by dragonlords.
Sarkhan's return eventually enters that political landscape through Zurgo's anger. Keeping the histories separate matters: the Surrak who becomes a Temur khan and the Anafenza who takes the Abzan throne are not remembering careers they also lived under Atarka and Dromoka.
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Story Chapters
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A bear helps define Surrak's leadership
A painful wilderness challenge becomes a bond that later protects the Temur, rather than a trophy taken at the first victory.
A youthful vision drew Surrak toward the wild and a confrontation with a great bear. He survived its violence and forced it to withdraw, losing an eye in the struggle. The trophies he brought home marked his passage into adult responsibility.
Later, his hunting party faced Sultai raiders and the animated remains of its own dead. The bear returned as an ally, breaking through the enemy and helping the outnumbered Temur win.
Poisoned wounds left the creature dying. Surrak ended its suffering with the clan's rite and a final strike. Its hide became part of his investiture as leader. The relationship joins reverence and necessary violence; it is not simply the story of a man proving strength by killing an animal.
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The new khan confronts the cousin who betrayed her
Anafenza disowns Oret while recognising Gvar as her brother; blood alone does not decide who belongs.
As a child, Anafenza resented Gvar, an orc adopted after conflict with the Mardu. Her kin-tree warden challenged the idea that blood made one family member more legitimate than another. That lesson became urgent when a combined attack destroyed their travelling fortress.
Gvar helped her survive, while evidence revealed that her blood cousin Oret had arranged the betrayal. Loss made kinship a matter of action, not the right to demand loyalty from someone one had harmed.
Years later, Anafenza received the clan's houses as their new khan. She exposed Oret, severed their bond and expelled him rather than executing him in the ceremony. Calling Gvar her brother completed the answer she had been unwilling to hear as a child.
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Kuhnde protects knowledge he does not personally use
A mantis rider loses his mount defending a library, then seeks a new way to contain the surviving phoenix.
Kuhnde's training drew on several Jeskai disciplines because a mantis never became a harmless, obedient possession. Decades of experience let him read tiny movements while remaining ready for its attempt to kill him.
A concealed phoenix approached the monastery and threatened its library. Kuhnde pursued it even though scroll study had not been central to his own path. Protecting other people's knowledge was still part of his duty.
The fight brought both creatures down, leaving the mantis mortally injured. Kuhnde ended its suffering, but killing the phoenix would only renew it. He began trying to train the bird instead. The account ends with a difficult new practice, not proof that he had already mastered a safe replacement mount.
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Kela insists that an accusation receive a trial
The arbiter twins restore balance between themselves after a crowd turns suspicion into a demand for execution.
Kela and Dar were expected to deliver one harmonious verdict through separate rituals. Dar's insistence on their public image left Kela doubting herself. After a theft case, the village elder died during a meal and the crowd immediately blamed the same accused man for murder.
Kela demanded another trial. When both towers showed a flame, the villagers turned against the arbiters as well. Her disagreement with Dar exposed the weakness of performing certainty without the process justice required.
Their conflict reached the twins' formal combat, where Kela gained the advantage. She chose renewed equality rather than killing her brother. They promised the man a fair hearing. The story does not identify the poisoner or supply a final murder verdict merely because the twins reconcile.
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A former student discovers the cost of his bargain
Taigam's attempted escape from Ebirri fails; the monks' use of Narset's name does not prove that she ordered their attack.
Taigam left Jeskai respect behind for Sultai wealth and influence. Ebirri offered that advancement under a bargain which made the supposed servant Taigam's real master. Collecting from an impoverished community gave the new enforcer room to exercise cruelty.
Jeskai attackers interrupted the visit. In the confusion, Taigam tried to strike the demon instead of simply defending himself from the monks. Ebirri stopped him and crushed the attack, making ownership unmistakable.
The surviving monk invoked Narset, but would not clarify whether the khan had actually sent them. Taigam suspected zealots acting independently, without being certain. His punishment of the attackers left that question open, and his return to the collection route did not free him from the pact.
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The Salt Road turns caution into a battlefield choice
An Abzan patrol prepares a defence while a Mardu leader fears that changing his plan will cost him authority.
Riza's Abzan patrol found a ruined settlement and a larger Mardu force nearby. He understood both the duty to protect the road and the danger of spending his whole command in an unwinnable pursuit. He sought reinforcements and defensible ground.
The Mardu leader also understood risk. Yet his position depended on appearing decisive before the warriors who relied on him. Avoiding a bad engagement became harder once retreat might be read as weakness.
The Abzan reached an oasis canyon and formed their shield wall. As the Mardu attack developed, a larger Abzan force appeared. The account stops at that turning point rather than reporting a finished battle. Both sides' private fears explain their tactics without making the earlier raid on civilians morally equivalent to defending them.
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A victory becomes an excuse for private revenge
Zurgo kills a challenger but loses his horde when Varuk names the difference between obedience and allegiance.
Zurgo celebrated a victory against the Temur while silencing anger over needless deaths. News of Sarkhan's return gave him another reason to move. He presented his pursuit as punishment for Surrak, concealing a personal vendetta against the deserter.
In the mountains, the Mardu lacked knowledge of the terrain and suffered repeated ambushes. Zurgo answered doubt with new war names and violence, eventually killing Batar when the warrior challenged his leadership.
Varuk then called the horde home. Killing another opponent could not restore a relationship reduced to fear. The warriors left Zurgo behind, while he clung to the hope of bringing back Sarkhan's head. His military success had not secured the right to spend their lives on an undisclosed cause.
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