Sorin Markov's History
Sorin Markov is one of the oldest living planeswalkers. He is more than 7000 years old. Unlike Ugin and Nicol Bolas, he has dedicated his existence to following his whims, and this easy life of pleasure has brought him detachment and easy confidence. Having seen hundreds of planes over thousands of years, he has become a sort of bon vivant, seeking novelty and new diversions. But despite his fundamentally hedonistic nature, Sorin does feel the pull of more lasting concerns and, over his long life, this tendency has resulted in an arcane schedule of engagements and forays to far-flung planes. As a result, Sorin is a busy man, planeswalking frequently to pursue concerns known only to him. Sorin always seems to have business elsewhere. It has been shown, however, that despite the countless number of planes he has visited, he still treasures his memories of his home plane, Innistrad, and desires to protect it from inside and outside threats. This profile only covers his history prior to the mending. For after, look
here.
Thousands of years ago, Edgar Markov, Sorin’s grandfather, was an aging alchemist noble who had been searching for a way to become immortal. Famine in the land that would become Stensia forced Edgar's hands and led him into dark experiments, areas that he eagerly explored. Making a deal with the demon Shilgengar for the secrets of sangromancy, Edgar created a blood ritual that granted agelessness and the ability to subsist on blood. Edgar and the rest of Sorin’s family held Sorin still and forced him to drink the blood of an Archangel, the trauma of the transformation and the situation caused Sorin's planeswalker spark to ignite.
Around one thousand years after his ascension, Sorin's attentions were drawn to the Eldrazi, aether-born monstrosities that consumed one plane after another. Sorin decided to ally with two other planeswalkers and trap these abominations. Nahiri, a Kor lithomancer and native of Zendikar, Sorin would use his life-leeching magic; and Ugin, an ageless spirit dragon originally from the plane of Dominaria, would use his "spirit fire" colorless magics. Using a special hedron matrix and the plane of Zendikar the Eldrazi were forced into physical form on Zendikar where the three planeswalkers imprisoned them. Unfortunately, this brought great strife to the plane and its inhabitants and ultimately doomed them, but saved the multiverse. The three agreed that if the results of their ritual were ever disturbed, all three would return to Zendikar, and they departed.
Over the centuries, as vampires spread further into human lands, Sorin spent more and more time away from his homeworld, sometimes disappearing for years at a time. Vampires became disdainful of the race from which they had spawned, hunting mortal humans more and more boldly, and Sorin became distant from his lineage. From his world-hopping perspective, he could see the changes happening within his homeworld. As the vampires gained more and more power, the humans were being driven further and further back, suffering under the boots of his grandfather's legacy, and it would only be a matter of time before the vampires wiped out their former kin. When confronting his grandfather with this newfound knowledge, Edgar brushed it aside, saying they had eternity, or close to it, to find a solution.
For humanity to survive and to keep vampires from cannibalizing each other once humanity perished, Sorin committed something that forever marked him as a traitor to his race. Borrowing from long-held beliefs about the moon and the afterlife, Sorin forged a warrior who could hold back the vampires and other threats that threatened the extinction of humanity on Innistrad. He named this creation Avacyn and tasked the angel with protecting the plane in his absence. Through her, the magic of faith would create true power to fend off the darkness. She was half of the protective measure he created to protect Innistrad. The other half was the Helvault. So, the church was born from Sorin's act, and while some of the vampires understood, most reviled him as a traitor.
Unknown to Sorin, the Eldrazi stirred on Zendikar, but Nahiri had to deal with the situation alone. When she later came to Innistrad, Sorin explained that her signal for help had been likely absorbed by The Helvault, but displayed no remorse for his oversight. When Nahiri confronted him with the gravity of his mistake, Sorin became offended and angrily reminded her of who raised her as a planeswalker and advised her to pester Ugin instead, although the dragon had been killed by his brother unbeknownst to them. Nahiri saw this as a betrayal of their bond and chose to physically threaten Sorin. This resulted in Avacyn's intervention, who felt the threat that Nahiri posed to Innistrad. The two clashed until Sorin called the battle off and banished Nahiri into the Helvault. This was the last known pre-mending appearance of Sorin.
