Arlinn Kord's History
Arlinn Kord is a tormented werewolf planeswalker from the Kessig province of the plane of Innistrad. She is the protector of the Ulvenwald.
Arlinn is the daughter of a blacksmith and a baker. She grew up with brothers. Arlinn was a teenager from Avabruck when the howls of Tovolar's Mondronen werewolf pack summoned her into the forest and she completed her First Hunt. For two years she stayed with the pack, though despite Tovolar's mentorship, she never fully embraced the violence of her werewolf nature. At one point, Tovolar urged Arlinn to join in the slaughter of a group of foresters in order to prove her mettle as a werewolf. Arlinn rejected that idea and fought Tovolar, leaving lasting scars on them both. After this confrontation, Arlinn abandoned Tovolar and his pack. Thereafter, she always fought against the change and used Avacynian charms, prayers, and fasting to ward it off as much as possible. She even studied magic in the Church of Avacyn, while successfully hiding her curse from her teachers and mentors. The same day that she became an Archmage of Goldnight she and her peers were confronted by a horde of devils at Havengul. While fighting, she couldn't contain the change any longer and she killed devils, several hierarchs and an angel alike before her spark ignited and she found herself rampaging through the woods of another plane.
To her horror, she regained her senses in the morning—but not her human form. For better or worse, the experience of retaining her human mind in wolf form gave her a new appreciation for the wild spirit that shared her body. The only way she could return to her human form was to planeswalk back to Innistrad, but afterwards she found that she could control the transformation, in both directions, with relative ease. Upon her return to Avabruck years later, she found that her parents had been killed in a fire at her father's forge.
Above all else, Arlinn was desperate to ensure the survival of her kind. She had come to think of herself as part of the pack. And in a world where Avacyn either had cursemuted or killed hundreds of werewolves, and where the angel's church had launched a new inquisition more terrifying than anything they've done before, Arlinn feared that the lycanthropes of Innistrad could meet a very real and permanent end very soon.
After the death of Avacyn she reunited with the mages and cathars of Goldnight to fight evil together. Later, she was seen helping Thalia and her cathars during the Battle of Thraben against Emrakul's hordes.
Some toime after the battle with Emrakul, Arlinn was lured to Ravnica by the Interplanar Beacon, and immediately became trapped there due to Bolas's use of the Immortal Sun. Alongside many other planeswalkers and Ravnicans, she fought against the Eternals of Bolas' Dreadhorde.[9]
During the invasion, the trapped planeswalkers (including Arlinn) got together with Ravnican leaders to strategize. She was one of the few planeswalkers who chose to remain on Ravnica after Chandra disabled the Immortal Sun, helping the Gatewatch in their fight against Bolas. After the dragon's defeat. she returned to Innistrad.
Due to the presence of Emrakul (sealed) in the Moon of Innistrad, the plane had been undergoing changes in its cycle of night and day. With the length of the nights getting longer and longer, Arlinn was concerned for the safety of the humans in Innistrad. After hunting with her pack of dire wolves (Redtooth, Streak, Patience, and Boulder) she set out to find Katilda, the leader of the Dawnhart Coven.
Tovolar invited Arlinn to join him and other werewolves in a massive human hunt in Kessig. Upon seeing the "army" gathered by Tovolar and listening to his proposal, she refused and tried to attack him, but the wolves of her pack came between her and Tovolar. Arlinn said goodbye to her wolves, who were now with Tovolar's pack, and returned to Katilda and agreed to help the warlock find the the Moonsilver Key. Arlinn went to Ravnica to ask The Gatewatch for help in finding the Moonsilver Key. She found them and explained Innistrad's situation to Teferi, Kaya, and Chandra. The three planeswalkers agreed to help Arlinn and left for Innistrad. Together with the cathar Adeline they decided to go to Thraben to investigate.
Arlinn, Teferi, Chandra, Kaya, Adeline and a group of Cathars searched Thraben for clues to the whereabouts of the Moonsilver Key. Among the rubble, Kaya found an old book showing that the Key was given to an ancestor of the Betzold family by a warlock. Arlinn and Adeline knew a bishop named Worrin Betzold and surmised it must belong to his family. They ended up finding him among the zombie army that Liliana Vess had left in the midst of the ruins of Thraben (after the sealing of Emrakul). Bishop Worrin Betzold had become a zombie during the events of The Travails and had taken up "preaching" in the ruins of a church. The party pushed their way through the undead until they reached Worrin. Even dead, Worrin seemed to recognize his old friend Arlinn, who interrogated him about the Key, but she could only get the name Dennick. In an act of mercy she killed her friend so he could finally rest in peace. After that, the group headed to Gavony, the birthplace of the Betzold family. There they got information that the bishop's son, Dennick Betzold, was in the family mansion, but that the place was haunted. Arriving at the mansion, Kaya entered alone and dispatched the ghosts that haunted the place, so that her companions could enter the mansion. After conversing with the spirit of the late Dennick, they discovered that the Key was given by the boy's great-grandfather to a vampire, Sorin Markov, as a way to protect it. With this knowledge, the group head edto Markov Manor and questioned Sorin about the whereabouts of the Key. Arlinn inquired that the humans needed protection as darkness grew once more over Innistrad, but Sorin wasn't worried about this issue. Upon mentioning Avacyn, Sorin grew enraged and attacked Arlinn, who in her werewolf form managed to stop the attack with only some damage to her. Again she mentioned Avacyn and was attacked again, but this time Sigarda appeared to stop the attack. The angel appeared in answer to a prayer made by Arlinn before the group entered the Manor. Sigarda told Arlinn and her group to look for the Key in Sorin's quarters as she confronted the vampire planeswalker, giving the group time to go foo the Key. In Sorin's quarters they found the Key over a statue of Avacyn, beheaded by Sorin, beneath a painting of Sorin with his grandfather Edgar Markov. Arlinn took the Key.
After Arlinn and her party returned to the Celestus with the Key, Tovolar and his army launched an attack on the Harvesttide festival. Protection spells briefly prevented the werewolves from entering the Celestus. Meanwhile Arlinn told Kaya to take the key to Katilda and her witches. After the magical protections fell, Teferi cast a spell to delay the sunset, which also stopped the werewolves' transformations into their wolf forms. Cathars, witches and planeswalkers fought the werewolves to protect the humans within. Arlinn confronted Tovolar by hitting him several times with weapons and her hands. Tovolar called Arlinn's wolves, which caused her to get distracted and knocked down. Tovolar told her he wasn't going to kill her. When Teferi's spell could no longer delay the sunset, the werewolves completed their transformation, including Arlinn.
Arlinn and Tovolar fought and both sustained severe injuries. Arlinn's wolf pack joined Tovolar, except for Patience who stayed apart. During the fight, the alpha kept trying to seduce the planeswalker into abandoning the humans and joining his pack. Arlinn feigned surrender, but then overpowered the unsuspecting Tovolar with a deathgrip in his chest. Crushed by her final betrayal, Tovolar surrendered and retreated with the rest of the pack. The survivors of the Harvesttide Massacre stayed behind. After the fight against Tovolar, Chandra and Adeline led Arlinn to the center of the Celestus. There, the witches were performing the ritual and asked Arlinn to complete it with them. Just as Katilda was about to complete the ritual, Olivia Voldaren appeared and caught the witch in the air. Olivia threatened to kill Katilda if Arlinn did not deliver the Key that Katilda dropped. The other witches despaired, as only Katilda could complete the ritual. Deciding quickly, Arlinn threw the Key to the vampire, and Olivia hurled Katilda's body to the ground. To prevent Katilda from getting hurt, Arlinn threw herself in front of the witch, breaking her fall and watched Olivia leave with the Key. Thus, the Eternal Night began.
After the Harvesttide festival ritual failed, Arlinn, along with a group of people from Innistrad and Adeline, the planeswalkers Kaya, Chandra Nalaar, and Teferi decide to help humans in distress across Innistrad. That was until Arlinn decided to return to Markov Manor and ask Sorin Markov for help. In the crypt of the Manor, the group encountered Sorin who said that Olivia Voldaren "stole" his grandfather. They formed a pact with Sorin and travelled together to the wedding of Olivia and Edgar Markov at the Voldaren estate. When they arrived, all but Sorin were forbidden entrance.
When the invitation wards were dispelled, she charged into the Voldaren Estate, along with the rest of the Gatewatch. Confronting Olivia Voldaren for the Key, she found herself outmatched by the vampire's bladework and suffered multiple deep injuries. Goaded by Olivia, she transformed into her wolf form and managed to overpower her, but was consumed by the wolf's instinctual rage. Distracted by this destructive, she was impaled from behind by Olivia's hand.
Having lost consciousness, Arlinn began to dream of being with her pack before realizing that she was now alone. As if called to return, she awoke to find that Tovolar and her packmates had arrived to help. Although she made clear to Tovolar that nothing had changed between them, Arlinn accepted his help in tracking down Olivia. They found her talking with Edgar Markov who was pleading with her to end their plans. Tovolar lashed out at Edgar but was restrained by Arlinn, and Olivia was given an opportunity to make things right. Olivia dropped the Moonsilver Key and left with Edgar through one of the broken windows, barely escaping from the jaws of Tovolar. With Teferi’s assistance, Arlinn and the Gatewatch hastened their return to the Celestus to complete the ritual. Along the way, Arlinn reluctantly talked with Katilda about Tovolar and understood that a reckoning would one day come. After the balance between night and day was restored, Arlinn followed up with her friends to say goodbye. Before Teferi’s departure, he urged Arlinn to be on guard against the return of an old enemy, the Phyrexians. As the Kessig woods called to her, Arlinn was once again happy in the company of her pack.
