Rabiah
Rabiah is a plane from Magic: The Gathering, featured in the Arabian Nights expansion, Magic's first ever expansion. Well, actually it's technically 1001 completely identical planes that are all somewhat similar, and thus it is sometimes referred to as the Infinite Plane for that very reason. Needless to say, Rabiah is big, and touches other planes like Dominaria, where creatures occasionally drizzle out. If you haven't guessed from the name of the expansion, and the 1001 micro-planes thing, Rabiah is heavily inspired by One Thousand and One Nights. In fact, entire tales were lifted wholesale and put onto cards to make the expansion. It is for this reason that WoTC will never, ever go back to Rabiah, as it is technically not their IP and they would rather make stuff on their own. Thus, Rabiah is used to note the Rabiah Scale, a 1-10 scale measuring how likely it is that any particular plane will be revisited.
Originally, Arabian Nights was going to be a separate game from regular Magic, as a stand-alone product. It even got a unique card back in prototyping, with bright pink colors and Arabian Nights written on the back. This was scrapped, and thus the cards were folded into the regular game. According to legend, all of the flavor text was written in one day by one person. As the first expansion to Magic, there were many notable cards with new trodden ground that for the most part, have been abandoned in later expansions as they figured out that a lot of what they made was kinda bad for the game in general. Coin flipping, set hosers, and cumulative upkeep all made a splash here, and most of them are gone because they are a pain. One of the most infamous cards ever made in the set is Shahrazad, which has you play a microgame of Magic separate from the main game, and whoever lost would lose half of their life total. It sounds like a cool idea on paper, but it is so easy to abuse this to create an infinite loop of microgames that would be a nightmare to resolve. Richard Garfield has said that this was his favorite card for kitchen table play, but it has no place in competitive magic. Several riffs on this card have been made in Un-sets, Enter the Dungeon and The Countdown Is at One.
As for the plane itself... there isn't really much to note. If you have read One Thousand and One Nights, then you've got the gist of it. It touches Dominaria, and for the major reason stated above, we'll almost never see anyone travel to it anytime soon. There's also a "Dark Rabiah" that is super evil, potentially even eviler than Phyrexia. It's a good thing for the Magic multiverse then, that we'll never have to worry about what unspeakable horrors lurk there.
| Settings of Magic: The Gathering | |
|---|---|
| Pre-revisionist: | First Magic Sets - First Urza Block - Arabian Nights Legends - Homelands - Ice Age - Mirage |
| Weatherlight Saga: | Portal Starter Sets - Second Urza Block Tempest Block - Masques Block - Invasion Block |
| Post-Weatherlight: | Otaria Block - Mirrodin - Kamigawa - Ravnica - Time Spiral |
| After the Mending: | Lorwyn - Alara - Zendikar - New Phyrexia Innistrad - Return to Ravnica - Theros - Tarkir - Eldraine - Ikoria |
| Two-Block Paradigm: | Kaladesh - Amonkhet - Ixalan |
| Post Two-Block Paradigm: | Eldraine - Ikoria - Kaldheim - Strixhaven |
| Never in a standard set: | Fiora (Where the Conspiracy sets take place) - Kylem (Battlebond) |