Jaya Ballard
Earning her name as a not-so-humble task mage and an acquaintance of Jodah, the pyromancer Jaya Ballard witnessed many of the momentous events on Terisiare during the Ice Age.
Earning her name as a not-so-humble task mage and an acquaintance of Jodah, the pyromancer Jaya Ballard witnessed many of the momentous events on Terisiare during the Ice Age. After she became a planeswalker, her mastery of fire magic inspired the practice of monks and mercenaries across many planes. Jaya was known as Mother Luti by the monks of Keral Keep in Regatha.
Appearance and characteristics
In her early years, Jaya Ballard was a hot-headed, sarcastic hero who played an important part in the plane's early history before disappearing for centuries. She had wide, expressive green eyes, a sharp jaw with pursed, nervous lips, and freckles. She had dark eyebrows and a long flag of red-brown hair spilling down her shoulders.
In later years, she resurfaced as an elderly woman with steel-grey hair. Although a pyromancer, she was rather thoughtful and controlled, utilizing her flames with a clear head, making her a direct contrast to her former student, Chandra, to whom she was teaching control. She was quite witty, still making sarcastic remarks about foes who found themselves on the receiving end of her flames. Jaya later learned how to use lightning magic in addition to her pyromancy.
Jaya's center was in red mana. As she planeswalked, she disappeared in a conflagration of flame. She sometimes reappeared with a flash and the smell of charcoal.
History
Early life
Jaya's childhood is shrouded in mystery, but she learned to be a thief on the streets. One day, she tried to steal something from the private chambers of Archmage Eternal Jodah but was unsuccessful. Sensing magical capabilities in her, Jodah allowed Jaya to study in the School of the Unseen at Lat-Nam, but after learning a few spells she decided to set out into the world and make a living as a task mage. During her travels, Jaya helped Kolbjörn and received an amulet capable of summoning Freyalise. She also was instrumental in defending a Kjeldoran village from a lhurgoyf.
Eternal Ice
When Jaya showed up at the School of the Unseen in Lat-Nam and found Jodah missing. No one seemed to know where he went, and a few seemed purposely not to care. She started looking and found someone who knew someone who knew something. Eventually, the trail led to Tresserhorn.
Jaya traveled to that dark keep and found Jodah there. He had been drugged with Fyndhorn pollen by Lim-Dûl and made to think he was a summoned creature. She destroyed the pollen-bearing flower and rescued him, but Jodah started becoming mad from his ancient memories resurfacing. Combined with withdrawal from the lack of pollen, this caused him to collapse with feverish rambling. Jaya summoned Freyalise, but the planeswalker wanted something in return for her aid: to use Jodah's mirror and the resources of the School of the Unseen to prepare for her World Spell. Although Jaya was in no position to offer her these tokens, she agreed on Jodah's behalf nonetheless.
Jaya was instrumental in Jodah's plans to prepare Kjeldor for the upcoming invasion by Lim-Dûl and the alliance between Kjeldor and Balduvia. During Lim-Dûl's Battle, his final assault on Kjeldor, Jaya fought against Chaeska, Lim-Dûl's right hand. Though he was warded against her red spell, Jaya tapped into blue mana and cast unsummon on the Keeper, returning him directly to Tresserhorn. Jaya was successful in her battle and later claimed Lim-Dûl's severed hand as a battle trophy, not knowing that it still bore Mairsil's ring. This ring would over the next decade make her a slave to Mairsil's will.
Shattered Alliance
During the next twenty years, Jaya was the leader of a group of mages who tried to protect the city of Kelsinko from being flooded by the rising seas without success.
Twenty years after the casting of World Spell, Jaya suddenly appeared in the School of the Unseen to see Jodah, who she had not seen since Lim-Dûl's assault. She brought Jodah an emaciated, blackened hand of Lim-Dûl with one of its fingers removed. The finger with the ruby ring - Mairsil's ring - was missing. Jodah and Jaya set out to search for the missing ring, fearing that Jodah's ancient enemy had returned.
Their journey leads them to Tresserhorn, Kjeld, Lovisa Coldeyes's Balduvian camp, and finally to Soldev. During the journey, Jodah realized that Jaya had somewhat changed since her younger years, and she often behaved strangely. When they reached Soldev and visited the vaults of the Adnates, the truth was revealed: in the aftermath of Lim-Dûl's battle against Kjeldor and Balduvia, Jaya found the finger and the ring and decided to bring them to Jodah, hoping that they would help him.
However, she donned the ruby ring, and Mairsil the Pretender's spirit infected her mind. She cut Jodah's throat, using his blood to revive the Phyrexian war beasts. Jodah miraculously saved himself from certain death with the help of his mirror. He then battled the possessed Jaya in the debris of ruined Soldev. He managed to shatter his mirror directly into her face, triggering the "reward" from Freyalise. In the blazing inferno that followed this breakpoint Jaya's planeswalker spark flared. With a thought, she erased Mairsil's tainted presence once and for all, then planeswalked to the School of the Unseen and destroyed the rampaging war beasts there. With Jodah's help, she cut and sealed the bottomless pit that Lim-Dûl relocated there from Tresserhorn with the agreement of Gerda Äagesdotter. Finally, she helped Gerda with finding a new location for the school.
As a parting gift, Jaya gave Jodah an amulet, allowing him to remain sane despite his age, and allowing him to live as long as he willed to. She then departed Dominaria for the wider multiverse.
Presumed death
Jodah later stated that Jaya had died in the period between the end of the Ice Age and the Mending, the cause being her recklessness and impetuousness, which "eventually cost her her life." There is some speculation that the Jodah who said this came from an alternate reality and thus was referring to "another" Jaya.
Regatha
Before the Mending, Jaya visited the plane of Regatha, imparting her wisdom and performing pyromancy. Returning two hundred years later, and having aged for nearly sixty years, she found that religion had sprung up based around her teachings, and chose to stay and nurture the community, posing as the elder Mother Luti, the matriarch of Keral Keep. A few years after Jaya's return, Chandra Nalaar arrived on the plane and began studying under her and the abbot Serenok.
Meeting the Gatewatch
When Jace Beleren traveled to Dominaria to meet his friends of the Gatewatch, he found Gideon traveling on a skyship with the old pyromancer. After she helped defeat Belzenlok, Jaya agreed to help the Gatewatch in the fight against Nicol Bolas. She didn't take the oath, jokingly stating that she was "not a joiner".
War of the Spark
Jaya traveled with the Gatewatch to Ravnica for the final confrontation with Bolas 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.
During the invasion, the trapped planeswalkers got together with Ravnican leaders to strategize. At Jace's recommendation, they decided to split up into teams to focus on specific tasks. Jace, Jaya, Teferi, and Vivien volunteered to assassinate Liliana. When they found her, Teferi warped time around her, slowing her ability to react, defend herself, or strike back at her attackers. This allowed Jaya and Vivien to badly wound her with fire, arrows, and animal spirits, although the Onakke spirits in Liliana's Chain Veil protected her. Nonetheless, they almost succeeded, but Bolas stepped in and saved Liliana by destroying the buildings they were standing on. Fortunately, Teferi saved himself and the other three planeswalkers by slowing their falls.
Jaya survived the battle and was present during the Planewide Celebration that followed. At the behest of Samut, she and Chandra cremated the bodies of the now-inactive Eternals.
Forsaken
To protect Chandra from more grief in a confrontation with her former friend Liliana, Jaya secretly tracked Liliana to Dominaria and agreed to escort Kaya, Teyo and Rat to the necromancer's exact location.
Dominaria United
In 4562 AR, Jaya attended a peace summit between the Keldons and New Benalia at Oyster Bay to end hostilities in the Ice Rime Hills. The summit was interrupted when the planeswalkers Karn and Teferi revealed the threat of a New Phyrexian invasion and several of the Benalish knights were revealed as Phyrexian sleeper agents. After travelling with the other planeswalkers and Stenn to Argivia, she helped fight off the Phyrexians.
Jaya traveled to Aerona, where she met with Ajani and Danitha Capashen to ask Llanowar and Benalia for help. She fought a compleated Ertai and Aron Capashen before Radha arrived to rescue the fighters from a Phyrexian dreadnought. She was killed by a compleated Ajani Goldmane at the Battle of the Mana Rig.
Legacy
Chandra Nalaar is known to have quoted Jaya before they met. Chandra learned at the Keral Keep monastery, a fire mage training academy that was originally founded around Jaya's teachings on the plane of Regatha. The academy values, above all other things, personal freedom and individual choice. To make sure that her message and portrayal would not be misinterpreted and distorted, Jaya kept a close eye on Keral Keep under the guise of Mother Luti.
After her death, Jaya was memorialized on Shiv with four white pyramids, each containing the memories of those close to her, and an ever-burning flame.
Trivia
- Jaya Ballard was created by John Tynes, who wrote the flavor text for Ice Age.
- In prerevisionist storylines, Jaya was little more than a supporting character in the Ice Age, who accompanied Kaysa, Jaeuhl Carthalion, Laina, Taaveti, the Fyndhorn elves and some Knights of Kjeldor into Yavimaya as their guide and hired protector a decade after Freyalise cast her World Spell. She defended the elvish settlement when it was attacked by sentient gorillas, and later aided in cleansing the Heart of Yavimaya, and helped to birth Kaysa and Jaeuhl's child.
- Jaya's surname is from Ballard, a neighborhood of Seattle.
- After Jaya's death in Dominaria United, Wizards of the Coast opened an In Memoriam page on Jayaballard.com and released a dedicated Secret Lair.
- Jaya was renowned among her friends as a poor cook, notably of quiches. After one unsuccessful attempt, the monks of Keral Keep banned eggs within five miles and paid a priest from Zinara to cast a ward to keep chickens away.
- In the video game Magic: The Gathering Arena, Jaya is voiced by April Stewart.
Artifacts acquired
Planeswalkers met
Planes visited
Gallery
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Young Jaya planeswalker. -
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“We have visitors? Well, it’d be rude not to give them a traditional Keral Keep welcome.” -
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As Mother Luti, Jaya taught pyromancy to many students at Keral Keep.
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"Tyrants will always suffer consequences. My favorite are the fiery ones."
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She participates in the dominarian coalition against the second Phyrexian invasion.
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Jaya and Jodah have been friends for centuries.
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In addition to pyromancy Jaya knows how to use lightning magic.
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Stained glass memorial of Jaya in the Phyrexian Arc trailer.
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Magic: The Gathering Arena avatar.
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Jaya, Fiery Negotiator Arena avatar.
