My predecessor, Commodore Guff, includes this passage in his History of the Rabiahs:

" The last of the Rabiahs, known throughout the multiverse as simply The Dark or The Black Rabiah, is both its most fearsome and its least understood manifestation. The plane has been largely inaccessible for several centuries due to the endlessly patrolling forces of the dread queen Rishima, a sphinx of unparalleled beauty and fury. According to legend, she sits upon a throne of marble, lapis lazuli, and the bones of her countless defeated foes. Her castle, the former City of Brass present in the countless other refractions of the plane, glitters in the darkness of her long shadow. To enter the city is to risk a hideous fate at the hand of this endlessly inventive torturer. Dark Rabiah is thus one of the Multiverse's most dangerous locales, rivalling even the fallen Vithia or Phyrexia in its hostility and dread pall."

There is a little more said about the plane itself, but little on Rishima. At the time in which Guff composed his volumes the plane was, apparently, largely closed to outsiders. We might conjecture this to be the early days of Rishima's reign, when threats to her power were greater. For a number of reasons this ban was later lifted, but the plane was still largely avoided due to its fearsome reputation. It is also worth noting the loquaciousness of the passage, pegging this as one of Guff's earlier works before he adopted his later brusque tone.

Obviously, this is a text that needs updating. What has changed since Guff's time? Well, Dark Rabiah itself has become far more accessible to study. To understand why, and to understand the nature of the plane itself, we should start at the beginning of the story, with Rishima of the Black Sands.

The Creation of Dark Rabiah

Once Dark Rabiah was much like the others, a world of mysticism, magic, and camels. The appearence of Rishima out of the blue on day changed all of that. She deposed the current queen and established herself as the new God Queen, demanding worship, sacrifice, and the construction of a series of refining engines deep beneath the plane's desert. This last demand, paired with the others, has created a strange paradox: Rishima's version of the City of Brass is a truly industrial city, perhaps one of the most advanced across the multiverse. However, the culture is one of the least developed. If we compare the difference in population between the more typical Rabiahs with the modern Dark Rabiah we see that, even with major differences between refractions, Rishima's city is far more densely populated than any of the others. This seems to be the result of the vast majority of Rabiah's artisans and artificers relocating--whether freely or forcefully we can never know--to this central city. We can gather from this that even at the outset of her reign Rishima commanded great power and greater foresight. She had already given up on her basic humanity, however, if such a quality ever existed within her: the City of Brass is horrifically hot, even with the clouds of smoke that now cover it, and for an unacclimated human it is torture.

From those early days, information becomes patchy and speculative. As Guff points out, Dark Rabiah was largely cut off from Dominia for a time by safeguards within the plane and traps set on the plane's border. During this time Rishima seems to have been building and consolidating her power within her theocratic fortress city. After a time, she opened up the plane once more to audiences from other worlds. The passageways from Wildfire were less jealously guarded, and although Planeswalkers were still forced to hold an audience with the now quite formidable queen they were typically ultimately allowed to leave unmolested.

I suspect that this change in attitude is due to a number of factors. Most prominently, the several decade long industrialization plan that she embarked upon came to its completion around this time. The depths of the sea of sand around her fortress city had been filled with a series of artificial tunnels connecting massive refineries that converted the fallow mana of the desert into caustically black mana by way of Fatima's brass engines. The city acts as a locus for Rishima's improvements, and is overrun with djinn and efreets who worship her in return for gifts of raw magical power. Those who did not worship her were poisoned by her assassins in a particularly cruel way: they were poisoned with nectar from the Island of Wak-Wak and stripped of their powers, making them an easy target for other sorcerers or djinn. Thus, by the time Rishima had opened her borders, her enemies had largely destroyed one another or come to her side, the City of Brass had been converted into a torturous fortress, and the sphinx could feel confident that her position was unassailable.

The Boredom of a Goddess

I suspect that the other great reason for the opening of her borders, however, was the simple fact that Rishima was bored. The machinations of her djinn and courtiers could occupy her for only so long. The act of opening the borders of Dark Rabiah might be seen as a challenge to other 'walkers. It was a challenge that none met; not, at least, until the intrusion of a strange creature from Kamigawa known as the Myojin of Night's Reach. For a number of years this creature worked in secret to create a cult of her own on the plane, out in the desert. As I mentioned before, much of the population of the plane had gathered into the City of Brass, and into locations such as Cairo and Alexandria, resulting in a total destruction of much of the native nomadic culture. Night's Reach played upon the still burning resentment that remained even after centuries, coopting the dormant traditions and making them her own.

Rishima's discovery of the Night's Reach cult prompted dramatic action. After purging the deserts of the cult (and nearly annihilating the native culture for a second time) she left the plane in search of her foe, abandoning her fortress city.

Rishima Planeswalker

Since abandoning the safety of her fortress city (although not completely--her remaining connection to the City of Brass provides her with a staggering amount of black mana, even when she is on distant worlds) Rishima has wandered the Multiverse, sometimes covertly but often followed by a large summoned retinue of her Djinn and Brass Men. Although she is still searching for Night's Reach it has been many decades since she left the plane and more and more the sphinx seems occupied with other interests. It seems that the Queen of the Black Sands is dealing with her boredom like every feline, everywhere in the multiverse: by causing trouble.

The most up to date accounts of her movements describe Rishima as olive skinned, with a dark brown coat and jet black hair, gathered in a mane of long braids upon her head. Her wings are similarly a mix of black and brown, decorated frequently with a dusting of gold and precious sacramental oils. She is a beautiful creature, with high cheek bones, strong features, and a regal bearing. Her presence has been noted on a number of worlds of late, but her movements have been difficult to track, as, like a number of other Planeswalkers in my files, her deeds are often unsavory and hidden from the overly curious. I have not pressed my luck; I fear that drawing her attention might result in severe damage to the Library.

The Mending seems to have done little to her age and health--sphinxes are naturally long lived--and her connection with dark forces on her dark plane ensures that her power will endure for many more years. Proceed with caution.

---Raleris, Keeper of the Infinite Library



I wrote this ages ago for Barinellos and for some reason it never got into the archives. He's still checking it over for incongruities but we figured there was no sense in keeping it to ourselves.

Okay, getting around to this now so we can sort out the information that has since come to light in Shadows.

Just very very minor wording changes here.


Most of the changes in this section revolve around Dark Rabiah before her arrival. This is mostly just as an effort to maintain SOME segregation of her contributions vs the canon.


The only real change here is the idea that on Dark Rabiah, The Library had been destroyed. A tragedy which sadly mirrors the real world, though surely not to the extent here.



BOOM! NEW INFO up in this mutha'!
That's right, I went there and divulged a little something to expect from the next chapter of her story.
Aside from that, adjusted the time scale for most accuracy since she definitely hasn't been trawling for decades.

Color me intrigued.

Do you think this is about ready to be put up for vote?

Well, it works for me and if it works for you, I'd say probably.

Color me interested. It is rare to see Rabiah fanmade anything.

There are already 2 stories associated with Rishima actually.
One is already in the archives, the other hasn't been voted yet, so it's still in this section.