Lore: Searching for the Galgothians

 "So what exactly are the Golgothians?"--My brother

"I don't know...."

--Me

From their earliest educations, the brothers had known that no human contrivance could stand against the true masters of Dominia.

It's actually funny. While talking about hate cards, I mentioned the Sylex, and how I needed one more to own my playset. A conversation came up with the versatility of the card, and how I felt it was underrated, when he asked 'so what exactly are the Golgothians?'

It was honestly something that never really crossed my mind before, but there is literally nothing on what they are.

Now the Sylex itself has a great deal of history behind it, was used by Urza to end the brothers war (in both pre-and post revisionists stories), was used by Ravindel the Battlemage to blackmail the Sages of Minorad into not interfering with his assembly of the Mox Beacon (causing the original Planeswalker war), being destroyed and thrown into the ocean. It is revealed in the current lore Karn is on Dominaria looking for it, so he can use it to blow up Mirrodin. 

Unlike it's two brothers (the Apocalypse Chime, and City in a Bottle), Golgothian Sylex has a great deal of lore behind it. Even post revisionist lore doesn't explain where it came from, just it was found, and it's written text said 'of Golgoth'.

So, to discover who, or what, were Golgoth (or the Golgothians), we must look at what's available on the card. 

My first thought, was to contact Kerstin Kaman, however, I was unfortunately informed of her untimely passing (which explained why she was in one expansion). This leaves me to study the art on it's own. The Sylex appears to have two handles, be made of brass, and has a painting of a man slaughtering another man. While others watch. There on the end are wheels, which have had a long standing religion effect of reincarnation. The Sylex sits on a table. That's everything I can gathering from the art. It tells little, other then it's very old (a brass Sylex would be). A real world reference would be, a Mesopotamian civilization.

Then we must go to the flavor text: "From their earliest educations, the brothers had known that no human contrivance could stand against the true masters of Dominia." We can gather that the Golgothians aren't a person, since it's done in plural. We also know, they were extremely powerful. However, there is one point that might be over looked. That isn't Dominaria, it's Dominia, the archaic word for the Multiverse. Now even in pre-revisionist lore, Urza was a Planeswalker, and this implies that they would be the masters of Dominia, even when factoring the might power of Elder Dragons, Cosmic Horrors, and Planeswalkers. So what are the Golgothians?

A few theories:

1). The beings of Equilor. Equilor was a plane Urza discovered 'on the edge of time'. In it, was a place that was so old, that even the mountains had eroded into light flat services. The beings there seemed to be able to inform him of everything, and told him his discovery of the plane was simply because 'they allowed it'. The being also seemed to take little not of the fact Urza was a Planeswalker, and while Urza wanted to turn it into a mechanical paradise, but was stopped (with much ease) by the locals at every turn. They were human, or at least appeared to be, but were also ageless (they started their search for enlightenment at -100,000 AR). The idea of them being the Golgothians, an extremely powerful group of people, who can make little of Urza Planeswalker, would be the perfect candidate for an answer, however, nothing says they were either. Perhaps the creation of such a destructive force inspired them to look into the enlightenment. 

Eldrazi: The colorless entities of the Blind Eternities (the space between planes). They are extremely powerful, and colorless. However, there is no evidence about them having civilization, or even Magic. 

Ascended beings: The idea of beings basically being gods, not just of planes, but of the multiverse itself, isn't exactly a revolutionary concept. While the 'origin race' of MtG is often cited as the Thran, it's possible that they had an origin race. The Thran, in lore, were an extremely advanced scientific civilization that to compare again to real world sources, would be as old as those ancient civilization in India mythology. Except with ruins littering the planet, along with extremely dangerous relics. This would propose that this would be the 'origin race' of the Thran, and taught the Thran what they know. Since nothing is written about before the Thran (except maybe the Dragon Wars), we can't be certain.

I hope you've enjoyed this little pondering about the Golgothian Sylex, and the lore behind it. Until next time.