Discoveries of Akieva

Discoveries of Akieva is the 3rd set made by Pipsqueak. It was released on September 28, 2019.

Set Details
Discoveries of Akieva contains 193 cards (5 basic lands, 188 rares).

Each pack contains 15 rares, with 1 of those being a guaranteed nonbasic land slot. It is otherwise collated and drafted like a normal set; multiple copies of each card can appear, each card is equally likely to appear, and players draft 45 cards in total. It was partially designed as an attempt to prove that rarityless sets could have limited environments.

It is set on the plane of Akieva.

Volta
In preparation for the Multiplanar Festival of Arts, Director Sah is desperate to finish her Achievement, an enigmatic Time Golem inspired by visions of something beyond the Veil. Having run out of people on the plane who could help her, she looks for planeswalkers who might be able to assist, and concludes that Volta Hearth is her ideal pick. He agrees to assist, and begins to toil away as the deadline fast approaches.

However, Sesilius, the primary Speaker of the Banished, is not pleased by the work on this particular Achievement. While chronomancy exists on Akieva, the raw power of this particular work is on a completely different level, and misuse of it could cause a destabilization of the plane. While most Akievans would see this as an acceptable risk for progress, Sesilius believes that the threat to the plane's stability would disproportionately impact the Banished. He selects several Veilborn to stop Volta, by any means necessary.

One night, as Volta is traveling to the laboratory, he's pursued by Veilborn. After a scuffle, he successfully arrives at the Clocktower, and activates the Time Golem, which successfully stops time before launching itself and Volta several weeks into the future, after the deadline for the Multiplanar Festival of Arts. As a result, Director Sah has nothing to submit, and prepares to instead use the Time Golem as an Achievement for the following year.

Alia
Alia, a planeswalker who has visited Akieva, goes to the Spindle to talk to Lady Mari, alerting her to the presence of eldritch abominations beyond the Veil, asking her to come and intervene. After her last attempt at intervening in the business of other planes, Mari politely refuses, but offers to grant Alia some of her power if she wishes to take matters into her own hands. Alia jumps at the opportunity, with Mari warning that the power will only last her for a week.

Armed with the power of Morning, Alia returns to Akieva to wage war against Sesilius and the Banished. She convinces a small army of native Akievans that the Banished pose an existential threat to their plane and must be stopped, imbuing them with a fraction of Mari's power in turn. The group storms one of the gates that lead beyond the Veil, and attack the Banished in their home. As the fight rages on, Sesilius corners Alia, and tries to tell her that the Banished don't want a war, they just want to be able to freely travel beyond the Veil. Alia points out that the process of them traveling beyond the Veil harms Akievans, and Sesilius argues that if the positions were reversed, the same would occur.

As they argue, Sesilius uses his magic to slowly siphon away Alia's powers, draining the blessings that Mari granted her. Once he finishes, he cuts the argument short and attacks. Alia is driven to retreat, along with her forces, and the battle ends with many Banished and Akievans dead. Once they escape the Veil, Mari orders for several of the gates to be destroyed, preventing them from being used by either side.

Now, Sesilius needs to find another way to free his people from the twisted mirror world they are in, and looks towards other planes.

Siraj
Siraj smuggles several pieces of incredible technology from Kaladesh to Akieva, and begins to show them off in order to start a bidding war. This immediately gets the attention of Merana, who feels that all three pieces of artifice far exceed anything that she and her compatriots have to offer. Rather than try to bid on the artifacts, or risk Siraj submitting them to the Festival, Merana instead chooses to hire the Iken Company to look into Siraj, and potentially assassinate them if need be.

Additional Notes
First appearance of Kati Evalin and Jessica Turin (the latter unsparked).