Welcome back, Lore Seekers! Six years ago, I wrote an article that launched me from an obscure Vorthos writer to someone that Wizards of the Coast staff actually followed. Who is the Raven Man was 10,000 words painstakingly researched over several years. I had been drafting and revising for two years by the time I published, adding new information as it came out and refining the argument with the help of Cary Barkett and Loreley Weisel.

This article will not be quite that long. But it doesn't have to be, since I don't have to explore a bunch of candidates anymore! So, let's talk about Lim-Dul the Necromancer, aka The Raven Man, aka Mairsil, the Pretender.

A note at the start! I'm threading a needle here, so I'm summarizing canon information and making it clear where supposition comes in. If Homecoming didn't explicitly say it, it's not canon.

DOMINARIA - THE DARK - 430 AR

Mairsil, the Pretender by Izzy

A young Jodah, Archmage Eternal learns that his new mentor, Mairsil, the Pretender, intends to kill him to open a Gate to Phyrexia beneath the Conclave of Mages. Jodah frees Ith, High Arcanist, who Mairsil had imprisoned in Barl's Cage when he usurped control of the Conclave. Ith kills Mairsil, but Mairsil's spirit survives in a magic ring. (The Gathering Dark)

DOMINARIA - ICE AGE - 2934 AR

Lim-Dul the Necromancer by Matt Cavotta

Millennia later, the ring is found by Lim-Dul, an army deserter from the kingdom of Kjeldor. With the power granted to him by the ring, he rises to become feared as the Great Necromancer across Terisiare. Mairsil influences Lim-Dul until they're almost the same being. At the bidding of his planeswalker master, the nefarious Leshrac, Lim-Dul raises a zombie army. Leshrac intends the army for his conquest of other planes, planning on escaping when the rogue plane of Shandalar draws near enough for him to escape Dominaria (which at the time was part of a shard of twelve worlds that no planeswalker could enter or leave).

Lim-Dul, however, has other ideas, and plays the nations of Kjeldor and Balduvia against one another, raising the bodies of those who die in the conflict and planting false evidence at the villages he slaughters. He is only stopped when Jodah (now archmage of the secret wizard school at Lat-Nam) and Jaya Ballard, Task Mage unite the feuding nations against him. Jodah duels Lim-Dul himself and is on the cusp of victory when Leshrac appears, furious with his minion for squandering his army, and cuts off his ring hand before transporting him to Shandalar.

In the aftermath, Lim-Dul's severed hand, adorned by Mairsil's ring, is claimed by an unknown party (hint: it's Jaya, but we don't learn that until later). Jodah and Jaya help Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury cast the Worldspell, which ends the Ice Age. Sensing an unignited planeswalker spark, Freyalise assumes it is Jodah's and places a spell on his Reflecting Mirror to ignite the spark. (The Eternal Ice)

SHANDALAR - LIM-DUL'S WAR - 2946 AR

Lim-Dul manipulates Leshrac and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools into fighting amongst themselves before fleeing Shandalar. Shandalar's planeswalker guardian, Kenan Sahrmal, is nearly killed as part of Lim-Dul's schemes and is forced into hiding to train apprentices. (Armada Comics - Shandalar #1-2)

Without anyone powerful enough to stop him, Lim-Dul sets about conquering the plane unrivaled. As his zombie horde assaults the last unconquered city on Shandalar, one of Sahrmal's apprentices, a young wizard named Azar, attempts to stop him. Azar uses a spell stolen from his master, a binding spell that will imprison Lim-Dul and use his power to fuel a barrier around the plane to protect it from planeswalkers (think The Immortal Sun in reverse). Lim-Dul casts a spell to seize control of the young wizard's body just as Azar casts the binding spell. The two spells have an unexpected outcome: Lim-Dul becomes trapped in Azar's body, their spirits locked in a battle for control. Meanwhile, their power fuels The Great Barrier. (Magic: the Gathering Microprose Game Manual)

DOMINARIA - ALLIANCES - 2954 AR

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage by Matt Cavotta

Over the two decades since the end of the Ice Age, the ring slowly creeps its way into Jaya's mind. Mairsil/Lim-Dul isn't able to take control of an unwilling host easily, and seems to have to work in secret to prepare her to be taken over completely. Jaya leads Jodah on a red-herring-filled quest to find the ring, only for Lim-Dul to assume control at the city of Soldev, betraying him to the Soldevi Adnates (the era's Phyrexian sympathizers) and he slits Jodah's throat to activate the dozens of Phyrexian War Beasts hidden under the city.

Having been unwilling to use the mirror for fear of triggering Freyalise's spell, Jodah finally relents and uses it to heal himself... at the cost of triggering the spell. To save Jaya from the evil being's possession, in a desperate play Jodah smashes his mirror against Lim-Dul, betting that the spark Freyalise sensed was Jaya's and not his own. The gambit pays off, and her spark ignites in Jaya's Immolating Inferno. As a planeswalker, Jaya travels to the Blind Eternities and purges herself from the ring's influence, destroying what was left of Lim-Dul... but the ring is unaccounted for in the aftermath. (The Shattered Alliance)

*Note: It's not worth distinguishing Mairsil and Lim-Dul by this point in time. The two were so intertwined that they were essentially the same being, and Jodah was the only person who knew the name Mairsil to begin with. They were, essentially, the same person split in two.

SHANDALAR - WIZARDS' WAR - Sometime between 2954 AR and 3560 AR

Screen Capture from Magic: The Gathering Microprose video game

Elsewhere, the other aspect of Lim-Dul wins control of Azar's body, but finds the plane prepared for his return. The Guardian, Kenan Sahrmal's successor, has trained five powerful wizards and established five guilds of magic to defend the plane. Lim-Dul succeeds in slaying the Black-aligned wizard, but is defeated by the combined power of the Guardian and the other wizards. Realizing that the Great Barrier would fall without Lim-Dul powering it, the Guardian imprisons him in a magic artifact, hiding it in a secret location known only to himself. The lingering necromantic power in Azar's corpse reanimates it, and it becomes the Lichlord Scavius Slan, who takes the place of the wizard killed by Lim-Dul. The artifact continues to power the Great Barrier protecting the plane. (Magic: the Gathering Microprose Game Manual)

SHANDALAR - THE SPELL OF DOMINION - Sometime between 2954 AR and 3560 AR

Screen Capture from Magic: The Gathering Microprose video game

When the planeswalker Arzakon sets his sights on Shandalar, he realizes he can't get past the Great Barrier. Influencing the five wizards from outside the plane, he gifts them the Spell of Dominion, which he promises will give them control of Shandalar if only they can gain the power needed to cast it. The wizards turn on the Guardian and each other, and race to cast the spell. In truth, the spell would seek out and destroy the source of the barrier. Arzakon's ambitions are thwarted when a young mage (the player character) defeats the five wizards and what influence Arzakon himself has on the plane. (Magic: The Gathering Microprose video game)

SHANDALAR - ONAKKE EXTINCTION - Between 2954 AR and 3560 AR

Onakke Catacomb by Nic Klein

The Onakke civilization is wiped out one terrible night, and their souls imprisoned in The Chain Veil. The Raven Man tells Liliana of this night as if he witnessed it. How or why this happened is unclear. (Veil of Deceit) Liliana later sees a vision of a piece of Lim-Dul's fractured soul stirring in a vessel stated to be The Chain Veil. (Homecoming)

The implication here is that the Veil and the artifact that imprisoned Lim-Dul are one and the same. There are lots of possible reasons as to how he was freed and the Onakke imprisoned, and I suggest some likely ones in my original article. I should be clear, however, that those are not canon.

SHANDALAR - OB NIXILIS'S CURSE - Before 3560 AR

By this point, the Great Barrier has fallen, and Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath attempts to claim the Chain Veil but is cursed to a demonic form instead. (Ob Nixilis Profile)

DOMINARIA - THE SECRET OF THE CALIGO - Before 4370 AR

An ancestor of Liliana Vess acquires Mairsil's ring. They bury it on the Vess Estate to keep it out of the wrong hands. (Homecoming)

DOMINARIA - THE RAVEN'S EYE - Approximately 4370 AR

The Raven Man by Chris Rahn

A young Liliana, Heretical Healer dabbles with necromancy among her other studies. When her brother, Josu, is wounded in battle, Liliana sets out to find an ingredient called Esis Root to save him. Only problem is, the grove has been burned. Lim-Dul appears to her in the guise of one of her father's allies, and suggests that she use her necromancy to revive the root. The resulting potion transforms her brother into a Lich, and Liliana's spark ignites in horror. She dubs Lim-Dul the Raven Man, unaware of his true identity. (The Raven's Eye/Liliana's Origin: The Fourth Pact) In a later vision, Liliana sees her necromantic dabblings near the ring called to Lim-Dul from across the planes. He is still metaphysically connected to the ring, but the exact mechanisms of how he moved between planes is unclear. (Homecoming)

DOMINARIA - THE CURSE OF THE CHAIN VEIL - 4556 AR

The Chain Veil by Volkan Baga

Years later, Liliana Vess is forced to repay a demonic debt to Kothophed, Soul Hoarder by recovering the Chain Veil. The Veil sees her as a worthy vessel, but Garruk interrupts and is cursed by its power. (The Hunter and the Veil)

As she experiments with the Veil, she hunts down the Raven Man for answers over the next few years. (The Raven's Eye)

DOMINARIA - DOMINARIA UNITED - 4562 AR

After being freed of the Veil's influence, when the Raven Man reappears to Liliana again, she vows to get to the bottom of his identity. Researching at Strixhaven's expansive library, she realizes who she is dealing with. Returning to Dominaria, she discovers Phyrexians at her estate, searching for a relic, only to discover it Is the magic ring to which the Raven Man is still somehow connected. She defeats the Phyrexians and buries the ring deeper in the earth, finally having leverage over the being that has manipulated her. (Homecoming)

DISCUSSION

I skipped over a lot of Raven Man appearances that I lay out in my longer article, mostly because this is meant to explain how Lim-Dul became the Raven Man, not what he has been up to as the Raven Man or why he has done everything he has done (that would involve speculation I can't do at this point). The exact metaphysics or extent of the Raven Man's powers aren't fully explained.

Whatever influence he may have had over her, Liliana's decisions were her own. The Raven Man is clearly trying to get her to join him willingly, implying he's not capable of controlling her directly. It's also not clear if he's a sort of psychic parasite, anchored to her (or the veil, or now just the ring) or is capable of movement on his own. Personally, I'm happy to have the longest running mystery in Magic: The Gathering answered. Although I joked about becoming a freelancer for WotC just to make this happen, the truth is that outside of making my opinions known, the decision to do this reveal wasn't mine.