The ten guilds are the lifeblood of Ravnica, making up the foundation of its society. They are voluntary associations led by guildmasters, but that’s the extent of their resemblance to the craft and merchant guilds found on most Dungeons & Dragons worlds. They include many different kinds of organizations:
- A government body, the Azorius Senate
- A military force, the Boros Legion
- An espionage network, House Dimir
- An association of raiders, the Gruul Clans
- Two scientific research institutions, the Izzet League and the Simic Combine
- An organized crime family, the Orzhov Syndicate
- Raucous performance troupes collectively known as the Cult of Rakdos, which bends to the whims of a powerful demon
- Two widely divergent groups devoted to nature, the Golgari Swarm and the Selesnya Conclave
Citizens of Ravnica aren’t born into guilds. An individual can choose to belong to any guild—or no guild. Some guilds, such as Selesnya and Boros, actively recruit new members, while others simply accept those who seek membership. People within a family might join different guilds, which can lead to strong connections between the guilds in question or to painful animosity in families whose members follow different paths.
Even though citizens can choose their guild associations, long-standing traditions steer certain individuals toward a particular guild. For example, it would be highly unusual for a Devkarin elf (a dark elf) to join any guild other than the Golgari, and the Ordruun line of minotaurs has provided the Boros armies with generations of offspring. Members of certain races are also drawn to specific guilds, as noted in the description of each of guild.
Guild Membership
You establish your character’s membership in a guild by choosing that guild’s background from among those detailed in this chapter. This book assumes that you have chosen a guild and that you maintain your association with it throughout your life. As a result, your choice of guild can play a more significant role than most backgrounds do in shaping what your character does now, not just what you accomplished in the past.
The backgrounds associated with guilds in this chapter work like those in the Player’s Handbook, giving you proficiencies, languages, equipment, and suggested characteristics (personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws). Each guild entry also provides personal contacts; suggestions for your alignment, race, and class; and a list of spells that you can add to your spell list if you’re a member of a spellcasting class.
Guild Spells
The spellcasters of Ravnica’s guilds have a style of magic specific to their guild. A guild’s description includes a list of guild spells that epitomize the type of magic the guild favors. The Boros Legion, for example, tends to prefer using spells of fire magic and holy light, and its guild spell list reflects that emphasis.
If you play a character who has the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, your guild spells are added to the spell list for your class, thereby expanding the spell options available to you.
Bonds and Contacts
As a benefit of your guild membership, you have contacts both inside and outside the guild. Contacts are useful resources in the urban environment of Ravnica, where a friendly face can be more valuable than gold.
As stated in the Player’s Handbook, bonds represent your connections to people, places, and events in the world. Contacts are people you have a connection to, but they’re not necessarily bonds. People can be bonds if they inspire you, motivate you, or make you act against your best interests. (They can represent flaws if their existence amounts to a weakness for you.) Contacts, in comparison, are simply people you know. They might be friends, rivals, or even family members, but their relationship with you is rarely as strong as with a bond.
Although the tables of contacts in this chapter describe nonplayer characters who are members of guilds (your own and others), you are likely to acquire guildless contacts as well. NPCs such as goblin gang leaders, minotaur bartenders, and vedalken tailors all go about their lives in the shadow of the guilds but divorced from those groups' intrigue and politics.
Starting Contacts
Your character starts the game with three contacts: an ally in their guild, a rival in their guild, and an ally or rival in another guild. (House Dimir is an exception.) Tables in each guild section help you determine who these contacts are—facts that you can build on by working with your DM to add some details. The table entries for contacts are written in the first person, where “I” is your character.
You’ll roll twice on the Contacts table for your guild, unless you’re in House Dimir (as explained in that guild’s section). Your first roll gives you an ally. Your second roll gives you a rival, who might be friendly, jealous, or antagonistic. (It’s possible for these to be the same person; a single person might be generally friendly toward you and simultaneously jealous of your success, for example.) Then you’ll roll once on the table of contacts from other guilds. That contact could be either an ally or a rival, or you might instead gain a third contact from your own guild.
The Guildless
The guilds might be considered the heart and soul of Ravnica, but they aren’t all that makes up the city. Many citizens choose not to join a guild—some because they can’t be bothered, and others because they have philosophical objections to the very idea of guilds. The so-called guildless are especially common in areas that might be considered rural: places farther from the heart of the city and the larger exurban districts. But even in the city’s heart, some guildless citizens actively oppose the influence of the guilds, blaming the world’s strife and suffering on an elite hierarchy that seeks to take control, consolidate wealth, and fragment a populace against itself. The numbers of the guildless include people engaged in a wide variety of trades and services that aren’t managed and regulated by the guilds, from baking to cartography. University professors, guides, traders, and bartenders might be guildless. Criminal gangs set themselves up as rivals to the Orzhov, and even military forces operate independent of guild control, serving as neighborhood police forces or mercenaries for hire. About half of Ravnica’s population is guildless. That proportion is higher for some races than others: nearly all elves, for example, belong to the Golgari, Selesnya, or Simic guilds, but a majority of goblins are guildless. Loxodons tend to have a strong sense of community, so they readily join guilds. And when they don’t, they join groups of another sort, such as mercenary companies or cults. Simic hybrids are all created within the Simic Combine, so it’s rare for them not to be part of it.
Renown
As you advance the goals of your guild through your adventures, you become an increasingly important part of the guild’s activities. You might rise through the ranks, eventually taking up a position at the right hand of the guildmaster—or even becoming the master yourself!
Your status in your guild is measured by your renown score. As you increase that score, you gain the opportunity to advance in the ranks of the guild.
When you join a guild as a starting character, your renown score with that guild is 1. Your renown score increases by 1 when you do something to advance the guild’s interests, assuming that other members of the guild are aware of what you’ve done. Each guild’s description in this chapter includes a discussion of its goals and your role in pursuing those goals, which your DM will use to judge whether you earn an increase in your renown score.
The various ranks within the guilds describe the range of tasks you might perform, from testing experimental Izzet weaponry to leading a squad of Boros soldiers into battle. When you’re assigned a mission that involves an adventure—leaving behind your guild holdings and putting yourself in danger—and you complete that mission, your renown score with that guild increases by 2. Chapter 4 includes information for the DM about missions appropriate for your guild.
Other tasks that don’t involve adventuring can also improve your renown score. You can use the time between adventures to improve your renown within your guild by performing these tasks, as well as by socializing with prominent people in the guild. After doing so for a total number of days equal to your current renown score multiplied by 10, your renown score increases by 1.
At your DM’s discretion, you might also have a renown score in a guild you don’t belong to. You can’t ever formally advance in rank within another guild, but a high renown score can earn you additional contacts, favors, and other benefits. This option can be useful in an intrigue-heavy campaign where the adventurers spend a lot of time trying to influence the leaders of various guilds.
Benefits of Renown
As you gain renown in a guild, you gain certain benefits. Most benefits are guild-specific, but there are general benefits that apply no matter which guild you belong to:
Renown 3 or Higher. When you have a renown score of at least 3 with your own guild, you are an established and respected member of the guild. Other members of the guild have a friendly attitude toward you by default. (Individual members of the guild might have reasons to dislike you despite your renown.) They provide you with lodging and food in dire circumstances and pay for your funeral if needed. If you are accused of a crime, your guild offers legal support, as long as a good case can be made for your innocence or the crime was justifiable.
Renown 5 or Higher. When your renown score with any guild reaches 5, you gain an additional contact within the guild. This contact might be a character you met during your adventures or someone who seeks you out because of your fame. Your DM will assign you a contact or have you roll on the Contacts table for the appropriate guild.
Some guilds—notably Azorius, Orzhov, and Boros—have well-defined hierarchies that characters can ascend through as they improve their renown scores.
Other guilds have positions of honor that characters can apply for if their renown score is high enough. Not every member of the Selesnya Conclave aspires to be a sagittar (an archer assigned to guard an important guild location), but any character who meets the prerequisites can apply for the position. Ultimately, the DM decides whether a character qualifies for such a role, with a certain renown score as a minimum requirement.
Several guilds provide a salary among the benefits of renown within the guild. The salary is described as sufficient to maintain a lifestyle of a certain level. If you earn a salary, you can live at the specified lifestyle without paying the normal daily expenditure. See chapter 5 of the Player’s Handbook for more information on lifestyle expenses.
A prominent position in a guild often allows you to call on the services of lower-ranking members to assist you in your work. When you do, they are assumed to be loyal followers who help you to the best of their ability. Some of them are assigned to help you for the duration of a single task or mission, while others are under your permanent command, staffing a laboratory, workshop, or garrison where you are in charge. Depending on their role, they might help you in dangerous situations (like combat) or flee from them. You might assign them to perform tasks in your absence, which could include undertaking research, looking for witnesses to a crime, or carrying out a small-scale raid, for example, depending on their role and capabilities. You carry the responsibility for their lives and welfare, ultimately, and if the guild decides that you are abusing your authority and mistreating the members beneath you, you might lose renown, lose your rank or status in the guild, or even be cast out of the guild.
Losing Renown
If you commit a serious offense against your guild or its members, you might lose renown within the guild. The extent of the loss depends on the infraction and is left to the DM’s discretion. A character’s renown score with a guild can never drop below 0. If your renown score drops below the threshold for a rank or privilege you have attained, you lose that benefit. Even if you regain the lost renown, you might find it more difficult to again secure a position or rank you have previously lost.
Styles of Membership
As you’re playing a character associated with one of the guilds, think about your character’s relationship with the guild. Guild members can be grouped into four categories, depending on their motivations and priorities: loyalists, opportunists, rebels, and anomalies. Which one of these descriptions best fits your character?
Loyalists join a guild because they firmly believe in the guild’s ideals and want to advance its goals. Their membership in the guild is a badge of identity for them. They’re typically of the races and classes most strongly associated with the guild, and their personality traits and ideals fall in line with the suggestions in this chapter. An idealistic human or a minotaur paladin in the Boros Legion is an example of a loyalist.
Opportunists join a guild based on what they can gain from becoming members. Every guild offers its members something—whether concrete benefits such as opportunities for wealth or more subtle, intangible rewards such as social status—and getting that something is the primary motivation for this type of character. Opportunists often pay lip service to the ideals and goals of the guild, looking out for themselves first and the guild second (at best). A selfish human fighter who uses membership in the Boros Legion as an excuse to bully and steal from others would be an opportunist.
Rebels love the guilds they’re in but don’t conform to guild expectations. They might be good-hearted idealists trying to bend a shady guild toward nobler pursuits, or they might be selfish egotists hoping to direct the guild’s actions toward promoting their own interests. Most rebels are typical members of the guild in terms of race and class, but they vary from type when it comes to personalities and ideals. A Boros legionnaire with tyrannical tendencies who thinks the Boros should enforce justice with an iron fist would be a rebel.
Anomalies are individuals who join guilds contrary to all expectations. Their race or class (or both) is outside the norm for their guild, but their personalities and ideals fall perfectly in line; that’s why they joined. A vedalken paladin in the Boros Legion, or an Ordruun minotaur in the Orzhov Syndicate, would fall into this category.
Membership and Independence
Some adventurers do exactly what they’re told, spending their careers doing the bidding of their guild superiors. Most adventuring characters, though, prefer more independence. You can roll a
| d6 | Reason for Independence |
|---|---|
| 1 | I’ve been around long enough that my guild lets me do what I want. |
| 2 | I’ve been chosen for special assignments because I’m just that good. |
| 3 | I’ve been singled out for special assignments because somebody up the ranks hates me. |
| 4 | I’m moonlighting, and I’d get in trouble if my superiors knew what I was up to. |
| 5 | I’ve been put at the disposal of another guild because my superiors want to help them. |
| 6 | I’ve been put at the disposal of another guild because my superiors hope I’ll fail. |
Changing Guilds
If events in your character’s adventuring career warrant it, you can abandon membership in one guild and join a different one. Once you leave a guild, you can rarely go back.
Your DM decides what requirements you must meet to join a new guild. Some guilds welcome new recruits and make the process as simple as possible, while others require a demonstration of loyalty.
When you change guilds, you lose all the privileges of membership in your original guild, including the background feature granted to you by your original guild and any rank or position you have achieved in that guild. You also lose access to your old guild spells, unless they are already on your class’s spell list, among your spells known, or in your spellbook. Except in exceptional circumstances, your renown score with your original guild becomes 0.
Your old guild expects you to return your guild insignia, and your new guild gives you one to replace it.
You gain the privileges of membership in your new guild. These include the background feature granted by your new guild, although your DM might decide that it takes you a while to gain the full benefit. For example, a character who leaves another guild to join the Gruul Clans doesn’t immediately know the ways of the rubblebelts, but has to gain that familiarity over time. You also gain access to your new guild spells.
Your new guild doesn’t give you any benefits that assume prior knowledge or experience, including proficiencies, starting equipment (except your guild insignia), and contacts.
Azorius Senate
Officer Lavinia stood before the enormous double doors that led into the highest spire of New Prahv, the lair of the guildmaster. To look at her, nothing would seem out of place: her cape spilled elegantly from her officer’s armor, her sword shone like a decorative piece one would hang above a mantel, and her three-sided medals displayed her district-spanning rank.
- Doug Beyer
Bringing order from chaos—that is the mission of the Azorius Senate. Without the extensive legal code crafted and enforced by the Azorius, society would crumble, transforming Ravnica into a field of rubble where the Gruul and the Rakdos do whatever they please. The Azorius carry this weighty responsibility with stoic pride, and they perform their work of legislation, investigation, and enforcement with steely determination.
The first guildmaster of the Azorius Senate was a sphinx named Azor. He was the author of the original Guildpact, as well as the creator of the elaborate contingency plan that resulted in the creation of the Living Guildpact. The Azorius Senate was meant to carry on his legacy by serving as the legislative body of Ravnica.
Inside the Senate
The Azorius Senate is supported by three branches, called columns, each led by an arbiter (also called a capital). The capitals of the three columns form the Triumvirate, which advises the guildmaster, Supreme Judge Isperia, an ancient and wise sphinx.
The Sova Column consists of judges and the extensive legal apparatus surrounding them. It is tasked with adjudicating and arbitrating the effects of the law. The column employs legal aides, pages, librarians, experts on precedent, advocates for the accused, public prosecutors, and judges.
The Jelenn Column writes and enacts the laws of Ravnica, involving the efforts not just of the designated legislators but also a network of bureaucrats: aides, writers, researchers, lobbyists, clerks, and so on.
The Lyev Column enforces the law as Ravnica’s police force. The many-leveled hierarchy of the Lyev Column includes arresters, investigators, officers, and lawmages. The Lyev Column is also venturing into the work of managing surveillance and precognition. Most adventuring characters, by their nature and because of their capabilities, are associated with the active work of the Lyev Column rather than the behind-the-scenes activity of the other columns.
Goals of the Azorius
The Azorius Senate’s ultimate goal is the perfection of society. They want to protect the people of Ravnica and foster a community of peace and harmony. A society’s values, they contend, are reflected in the laws it creates. Something is good if it is lawful. To the Azorius, the highest virtue is a society built on stability and order, and the guild’s elaborate system of laws is structured to prevent wrongdoing first and foremost, even at the expense of certain liberties. The Azorius can act as a benevolent proactive force that keeps evildoers in check, but it can also act as an oppressive bureaucratic force that stifles freedom and expression.
In the absence of the Living Guildpact, the Azorius are uncertain who is supposed to maintain balance among the guilds. As a group, they are convinced that the system can’t be disrupted, but they are challenged by the reality that the one person who is meant to hold their world together never seems to be around. The Azorius Senate is invoking emergency powers with increasing frequency, and the Lyev Column’s enforcers are wielding an ever-growing amount of influence.
The Azorius guild embraces the belief that Ravnican society has come too far to succumb to chaos. Civilization can be saved only through the guidance of a strong, safety-focused government. In the mind of the Azorius, the threat of chaos is imminent. They believe it is time to face facts and do whatever is necessary to protect the people and preserve the force of law.
The Azorius, as always, see agents of disorder as their greatest enemies. They have cracked down on the Gruul Clans and imposed a variety of creatively written laws outlawing that guild’s presence in as many public places as possible. The Azorius also abhor the satirical shows of the Rakdos (in part because the Azorius are frequently ridiculed by Rakdos performers) and attempt to curb them with new decrees about public performances. In response to attempts by other guilds to edge their way around the system, the Azorius routinely create new laws to support or countermand old ones.
Azorius Characters
Alignment: Usually lawful, often neutral
Suggested Races: Human, vedalken
Suggested Classes: Bard, cleric, fighter, paladin, wizard
You might enjoy playing a character who belongs to the Azorius Senate if one or more of the following statements are true:
- You’re drawn to the idea of a hard-bitten police officer trying to impose order on a chaotic world.
- You like the idea of using magic to control enemies.
- You like playing enchanter wizards, clerics of law, or unbending paladins.
Joining the Azorius Senate
As a recruit to the Azorius Senate, you were quickly immersed in the law. You might have clerked for a judge or a legislator, been an apprentice to a practitioner of law magic, studied rhetoric with diplomats, or trained to patrol the streets and enforce the law. As your training comes to an end and your adventuring career begins, you must decide whether to focus on law enforcement or to operate primarily within the bureaucracy of the senate.
Law Enforcement
Most Azorius adventurers belong to the guild’s police force. They are soldiers or spellcasters who patrol the city in teams or singly, preventing crimes or stopping them in progress. If you want to pursue a career in law enforcement, choose the path of the lawmage, the precognitive mage, or the arrester.
Lawmages
As a spellcaster in the Azorius Senate, you use your magic to compel or restrain malefactors and scofflaws (perhaps as a wizard specialized in the School of Enchantment). You might also use your magic to protect Azorius soldiers and innocent bystanders from harm (perhaps as a wizard specialized in the School of Abjuration or as a cleric of the Order Domain, which is described in chapter 1). In any case, you’re called a lawmage, and you can aspire to the title of justiciar and then deputy as your standing within the guild increases.
Precognitive Mages
If you are a spellcaster with some ability to glimpse the future (perhaps a wizard specialized in the School of Divination or a cleric of the Knowledge Domain), you can use this ability to try to prevent crime before it occurs, serving as a precognitive mage. These mages occupy a small niche on the periphery of the guild, and the guild hasn’t developed a bureaucratic structure to accommodate them, so they advance through the same ranks as lawmages.
Arresters
As a martial character, you can serve as an arrester in the Azorius Senate. You might be a fighter (of any martial archetype) or a paladin who has sworn the Oath of Vengeance, for example. Arresters maintain the peace by removing threats—both actual and potential—identified through regular patrols, citizen reports, and occasionally alerts from the precognitive mages. As you gain the respect of your superiors, you can be promoted to the rank of officer or imperator.
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy might seem like the opposite of adventure, but it is possible to immerse yourself in the life of a civil servant in the Azorius Senate and still live an adventurous life. You might be a mild-mannered judge’s clerk or scribe who got caught up in a whirlwind chain of events beyond your control, or you might moonlight as a vigilante in defiance of the law you are supposed to uphold. Or you could serve a diplomatic function as an elocutor.
Elocutors
As a skilled orator and diplomat (perhaps a bard of the College of Lore), you can put your talents to use in the guild as an elocutor. The Azorius are known for their measured, patient speech, and the elocutors are the primary voice through which the senate communicates with the other guilds and the people of Ravnica. Thus, you might serve as an emissary from the Azorius to another guild, working to settle trade or territorial agreements, temporary alliances, and the like. You might have the task of securing the support of key senators for a particular piece of legislation or treaty. Well-established elocutors can be rewarded with the rank of scribe or emissary.
The Azorius Functionary background is available for characters who are part of the Azorius guild.
An Azorius Party
An adventuring party made up entirely of Azorius members could be a specialized team dedicated to law enforcement. A soldier (a fighter or paladin) and a lawmage (wizard) would form the core of the party, supported by a precognitive mage (cleric) who helps direct their missions. An elocutor (bard) could round out the party, serving as the group’s negotiator and spokesperson.
Three Capitals
The heads of the three columns of the Azorius Senate are called arbiters or capitals. The arbiter of the Sova Column (the judiciary) is Leonos II, a wise and kind human judge and lawmage who takes pains to consider all perspectives before issuing a judgment—even the perspectives of the spirits of the dead, with whom he can communicate. He is patient and utterly loyal to the guild. The Jelenn Column (the legislature) is led by a vedalken lawmage named Uzana, renowned for a nearly perfect memory. She has memorized every statute of Azorius law, and much of her speech is quotations from those statutes. The hussar commander Agmand Sarv is the arbiter of the Lyev Column, the senate’s law enforcement branch. Despite the fact that he has never been in combat, he has earned a reputation as a brilliant military strategist. His tactical genius is unquestioned, but his lack of battle experience did cause some controversy among the soldiers and lawmages of the Lyev Column when he was appointed to be its head.
Rank and Renown
By gaining renown as a member of the Azorius Senate, you can advance within the guild. Promotion through the ranks requires the approval of a superior officer. Advancement is a reward for services rendered to the guild, rather than an automatic consequence of increased renown.
Rank 1: Official
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Azorius Senate
Your specific title depends on your role in the guild:
- If you are a lawmage or a precognitive mage, you assume the title of justiciar.
- If you are an arrester, you become an officer.
- If you are a bureaucrat (including an elocutor), you become a scribe.
As an Azorius official, you can call on recruits (use the soldier stat block) to perform mundane tasks and errands for you, but they will not accompany you into dangerous circumstances.
No Azorius official lives in poverty. Between adventures, you earn a salary that supports you at a modest lifestyle.
Rank 2: Authority
Prerequisite: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher in the Azorius Senate
Your new title depends on your previous role as an official in the Azorius Senate:
- If you are a justiciar, you become a deputy with a specific title, such as Deputy of Acquittals, Deputy of Indictment, Deputy of Deposition, Deputy of Arraignment, or Deputy of Arbitration.
- If you are an officer, you become an imperator.
- If you are a scribe, you become an emissary.
You are recognized as an authority in your field. You gain an
Between adventures, you earn enough money pursuing your duties to support yourself at a comfortable lifestyle.
Rank 3: Minister, Judge, or Senator
Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 25 or higher in the Azorius Senate
Your new title depends on your broader interests as they relate to one of the three columns of the Azorius Senate, not on the titles you bore as an official and an authority:
- If your interests lie in law enforcement, you become a minister within the Lyev Column. You receive a specific title, such as Minister of Impediments or Minister of Fallacies.
- If your interests concern the judiciary, you become a judge within the Sova Column.
- If you want a position on the legislative body of the Jelenn Column, you become a senator.
Regardless of your specific title, you can secure the aid of up to
Between adventures, your responsibilities to the guild—including supervising arresters, judging legal cases, or writing laws—earns you enough money to support yourself at a wealthy lifestyle.
Rank 4: Arbiter
Prerequisite: Rank 3 and renown 50 or higher in the Azorius Senate
As an arbiter (or capital), you serve as the head of your column. Only Isperia, the Supreme Judge, can appoint you to this position, and only if one of the three existing arbiters leaves her service.
As an arbiter, all the resources of your column are at your disposal, and you have the ear of Isperia as a member of her advisory Triumvirate. You also keep the salary you earned as a minister, judge, or senator, sustaining a wealthy lifestyle between adventures.
Enemies and Allies
As far as the Azorius are concerned, every other guild in Ravnica is hastening along the road to anarchy. Even other guilds that are inclined toward order (such as the Boros, Orzhov, and Selesnya) are ignoring or exploiting the law.
You participate in missions to thwart the criminals of other guilds, from overzealous Boros vigilantes to insidious Golgari assassins. Dimir spies, Orzhov extortionists, and bloodthirsty Rakdos performers keep Azorius peacekeepers busy enough, without the added complications of reckless Izzet and Simic experiments putting the citizenry in danger.
Of course, whenever the members of another guild decide to operate within the law, they are potential allies for the Azorius. Even some members of the Cult of Rakdos can be pragmatic enough to stifle their impulses for a time in order to join forces against a common enemy.
The Azorius View on Other Guilds
Because of its authoritarian, overreaching grasp, the Azorius Senate’s relationships with other guilds are rarely positive. Azorius members tend to view members of other guilds as dangerous threats to order, while other guild members see the Azorius as rigid and tyrannical.
“Their vigilantism is tremendously dangerous without a hand to control it.”
“A perennial thorn in our side. Though they were once our greatest foes, not even the masters of espionage can hide from our watchful eyes.”
“Their underground structures break numerous building regulations, but at least they fulfill their duties as garbage collectors.”
“The Gruul are dangerous anarchists with no interest in furthering the development of civilization. They serve no useful purpose.”
“Eccentric and occasionally explosive, but generally harmless, for now. In their paranoia they have enlarged their weapon stockpiles, but they lack the clarity of vision to put them to use.”
“Their brazen exploitation of our laws will be their downfall. They are an insidious threat that could tear society apart from the inside.”
“An absolute blight on Ravnica. They are clowns who know nothing of culture and exist only to torment the functioning members of society.”
“The Conclave plays by the rules and keeps to itself. Until its members become too numerous, they are of little threat to us.”
“The Simic experiment with matters that disobey the laws of nature and the laws of Ravnica. We must not let them gain influence.”
Boros Legion
A brown-bearded, broad-chested man clad in massive-shouldered plate armor led a battalion of soldiers, the symbol of the Boros Legion emblazoned on white cloth draped over their armor. Their soldiers were a variety of races, including humans, a minotaur with a permanent scowl on her face, an impatient-looking goblin, and even some kind of humanoid fire elemental, whose Boros armor floated in protective positions over its animate flame.
- Doug Beyer, Return to Ravnica: The Secretist
Clad in shining armor and fueled by righteous zeal, the soldiers of the Boros Legion take up steel against the corruption and lawlessness that gnaw at the soul of Ravnica. Combining the force of law with the military strength to back it up, the Boros work to forge Ravnica into a just society, a safe and healthy community for all. From garrisons throughout the sprawling city, disciplined, stalwart soldiers are dispatched to stand firm against Gruul raids, Dimir infiltration, Golgari corruption, and the subtle influence of more nefarious foes.
The archangel Razia was the original guildmaster of the Boros Legion, which was established to serve as Ravnica’s standing army. Razia served as its guildmaster for almost ten thousand years. Legend says that all the other angels of Ravnica were created in the image of this semidivine figure, and her death was devastating to the guild. Aurelia, the current angelic guildmaster, is the third to hold that title.
A Proud Martial Tradition
Minotaurs have a reputation for being both fierce warriors and clever strategists. Thick of muscle, stout of heart, and possessing a burning love of justice and the battlefield, they have become the steel spine of the Boros Legion. Generations of minotaurs of the Ordruun family line have served with honor and distinction, claiming more than fifteen generals to their lineage.
Inside the Legion
Angels occupy the highest tier of the Boros hierarchy, from the guildmaster Aurelia down to the hosts of holy warriors and advisors in leadership roles. Their opinions and advice are deeply respected in the guild, though the angels aren’t above engaging in the machinations of mortal politics. The angels include the wise, strategic warleaders; the holy champions and paragons of war known as firemanes; and battleforce angels, who form the bulk of the legion’s angelic warriors.
From the perspective of the average Boros soldier, the angels embody the ideals the Boros hold dear. Few mortal soldiers gain admission into the presence of the warleaders and other powerful angels, but battleforce angels fight at the forefront of the legion’s ranks, and they form strong friendships with mortals under such life-and-death circumstances. Boros paladins are the members most likely to converse with the angels and be charged with implementing their plans.
The garrison commanders who convey the angels' commands are accessible to the ordinary soldier. In addition to Sunhome, the Boros maintain smaller garrisons throughout the Tenth District, at least one in each of the six precincts.
Goals of the Boros
Wherever criminals exploit others, petty tyrants make grabs for power, or violence erupts and leaves devastation in its wake, Boros soldiers are there fighting to make things right.
The Boros Legion is defined by the tension between its goal of establishing order and harmony and the fiery zeal that drives many of its members. The guild stands for peace and justice, which can be established only through the rule of law. Its moral stance is fundamentally good, as it strives to protect the innocent and powerless from oppression and exploitation. At the same time, members of the legion are passionate about their pursuit of justice, spurred by their righteous wrath into action against evil and injustice. Ironically, this means that individual members sometimes break the rules they are charged with enforcing, cleaving to the spirit of the law when the letter no longer serves justice.
Because the Guildpact—the one force on Ravnica that can keep the guilds from destroying each other—is now embodied in a single, unreliable person who vanishes for weeks or months at a time, the legion is in a heightened state of vigilance. In this time of uncertainty, the Boros are on constant alert for military threats. They work to maintain their fortifications to ensure that they aren’t overrun by Gruul marauders. Construction proceeds on new strongholds near Gruul territories, but in general the Boros prepare for a military threat the same way they always have—by fielding the stronger army.
The angels are also bracing for a subtler threat: the danger of infiltration by House Dimir. The Boros are becoming increasingly aware of the possibility that their guild could be undermined from within. Security at garrison buildings is vigilant, with angels watching the entrances at all times for spies.
Boros Characters
Alignment: Usually good, often lawful
Suggested Races: Human, goblin, minotaur
Suggested Classes: Cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger, wizard
Consider the Boros Legion for your character if one or more of the following sentences ring true:
- You are drawn to the ideal of the knight in shining armor.
- You like playing clerics, paladins, or disciplined fighters.
- Smiting foes with holy radiance fills you with righteous joy.
- You want to protect the innocent and fight for justice.
Joining the Boros Legion
As a new recruit to the Boros Legion, you were sent to the prestigious Horizon Military Academy for training. Your life there was tempered in the forge of Boros discipline, devotion, and zeal. Your training regimen was deliberately harsh, to weed out the uncommitted. You lasted to the end, and now you begin your adventuring career ready to put everything you have learned to use in the legion’s service. Depending on whether you focused on martial training, studied magic, or pursued both courses, your path will look somewhat different.
Martial Training
The bulk of the Boros Legion consists of human, minotaur, and goblin soldiers. If you are a fighter, ranger, or even a barbarian, you’ll fit right in among the ranks, with a promising career path ahead of you—promotion through the ranks, with opportunities for special assignments.
Another option is to join the swiftblades, the vanguard of the Boros Legion. They specialize in assault and occupation, and their squads often function as commandos or guerrillas. They pick off enemy archers and mages, softening the enemy’s front lines before the rest of the legion marches in.
Magical Study
If you are spellcaster (perhaps a wizard specialized in the School of Evocation or a cleric of the Light Domain), you can find a place as a combat mage in the Boros Legion, called an embermage. These mages use spells of fire and light to clear the way for the legion’s combat troops.
If you prefer healing magic over the explosive magic of the embermages (perhaps as a cleric of the Life or the Light Domain), you can become a medic. These combat healers are an essential part of Boros operations, using a combination of magic and mundane medicine to close wounds and restore strength.
Military Magic
If you are a paladin who swears the Oath of Devotion, a fighter of the Eldritch Knight archetype, or a cleric of the War Domain, you can combine the martial training of a soldier with magic and call yourself a firefist. Fueled by a healthy dose of righteous zeal, firefists command a great deal of respect in the Boros Legion.
The Boros Legionnaire background is available for characters who are part of the Boros guild.
A Boros Party
An adventuring party drawn entirely from the ranks of the Boros Legion would be a small military strike force, probably focused on combat but also strong on social interaction. One or two soldiers (fighters), a medic (cleric), and an embermage (wizard) would form the core of that strike force. A firefist (paladin) would be a strong addition, or might replace a fighter or a cleric. A lightly armored swiftblade (ranger) could help the group in situations involving stealth or exploration.
Rank and Renown
By gaining renown as a member of the Boros Legion, you can ascend through an ordered series of ranks within the guild. Promotion always requires the approval of a superior officer. It is a reward for services rendered to the guild, rather than an automatic consequence of increased renown.
In addition, certain positions become available to you when both your renown and your character level reach certain thresholds.
Rank 1: Sergeant
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Boros Legion
At this rank, you gain some authority over lower-ranking soldiers. When you undertake a mission on the guild’s behalf that requires military strength, a squad of
Your salary at this rank is enough to maintain a modest lifestyle, including private quarters in the garrison.
Skyknight (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 5 or higher in the Boros Legion, 5th level or higher
Skyknights mounted on Skyjek rocs patrol the skies above Ravnica—a regular reminder of the Boros and their concern for justice. If you meet the prerequisites, you can become a skyknight, assuming no official objects. You are assigned a Skyjek roc to use as a mount when carrying out your guild responsibilities. Using the roc for personal matters is a significant violation of regulations.
Wojek (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 5 or higher in the Boros Legion, 5th level or higher
If you meet the prerequisites, you can apply to join the elite soldiers of the Wojek League. This special order serves as a combination of military police and military intelligence, giving it a fair degree of independence within the guild. Its members scout the activities of other guilds to assess their military strength and predict potential threats, and they sometimes activate squads to defuse threats before they grow more serious. The Wojeks also help the angels root out spies and leaks within the legion. Secondarily, the Wojek League is responsible for policing the ranks of the legion. When members get carried away by their zeal and break the law or abuse their authority, the Wojeks take on the tasks of investigating, apprehending, and punishing the malefactors. Similarly, if members of the legion disappear (involuntarily or otherwise), Wojek agents are typically the ones called to investigate.
You can be both a skyknight and a member of the Wojek League, gaining the title of Skyjek.
Rank 2: Brigadier
Prerequisite: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher in the Boros Legion
As a brigadier, you are responsible for missions and strategies that you can’t execute entirely on your own or with the aid of a handful of soldiers. After receiving goals handed down from the captain above you, it’s your job to figure out the tactics needed to accomplish those goals.
You lead a brigade that consists of six squads, each made up of four soldiers commanded by a sergeant (use the soldier stat block to represent them). If you are also a skyknight, at least one of these squads is made up of other skyknights, which are Soldier mounted on Skyjek roc. You can assign these squads to tasks of your choosing within the area of the city where you have authority. You can also lead these soldiers into battle yourself, or bring one squad and its sergeant with you on a guild mission.
At this rank, you gain a
Sunhome Guard (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Boros Legion, 7th level or higher
Members of the Sunhome Guard are responsible for the defense of Sunhome, the Boros guildhall in the Tenth District. Only those who have proven themselves in combat are selected to join this force. If you are accepted into the Sunhome Guard, your missions will be primarily defensive in nature. You might receive orders to find new ways to fortify the guildhall or to detect Dimir agents and other spies who try to gain access. Of course, given these chaotic times, you could end up defending Sunhome from an all-out attack by the Gruul or some other enemy force.
Rank 3: Captain
Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 25 or higher in the Boros Legion
As a captain in the Boros Legion, you gain command of a small garrison and the responsibility for maintaining order and protecting people in part of a city district. You have four brigades under your command. As described for rank 3, each brigade has six squads of five soldiers (including a sergeant) reporting to them. One additional squad of
You regularly receive communications from warleader angels who coordinate the efforts of the smaller garrisons. They keep you informed of the goals and concerns of the legion’s mortal and angelic leaders and can help you address them. You are then responsible for giving orders to your brigadiers, and you must answer to your commander for the troops' success or failure in achieving the guild’s strategic goals.
As a captain, your salary allows you to maintain a comfortable lifestyle between adventures.
Rank 4: Commander
Prerequisite: Rank 3 and renown 50 or higher in the Boros Legion
As a commander, you assume the leadership of one of the major garrisons of the Boros Legion: Kamen Fortress, Horizon Military Academy, or the great flying garrison called Parhelion II, which moves from place to place to deploy reinforcements to Boros troops around Ravnica. If you are already a member of the Sunhome Guard, you could instead be placed in command of that elite force, leading all the non-angelic forces of Sunhome.
In this role, you are advised—and ordered around—by angels. You are in regular communication with Guildmaster Aurelia, who places you in charge of a major guild initiative. You might be tasked with improving recruitment, developing a plan for dealing with Dimir infiltration, or collaborating with the Izzet to develop new weaponry for Boros soldiers.
You continue to draw a salary sufficient to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
Enemies and Allies
In general, the Boros find some common ground with other guilds that value order and structure: Azorius, Selensya, and (to a lesser extent) Orzhov. The Rakdos, Gruul, and Izzet might share the zeal and energy of the Boros, but they represent the more chaotic aspect of those qualities, which threatens the stability of all Ravnica.
The legion is dedicated to combating the influence of Dimir spies and infiltrators, containing the brutal chaos of the Rakdos, and halting the schemes of the Golgari. But any guild can become an enemy of Boros if its aims and activities lead to crime, chaos, injustice, or harm to the innocent citizens of Ravnica. Even the Azorius can become so obsessive in creating and enforcing laws that they overreach the bounds of justice.
Conversely, any guild can offer you allies in your quest for justice. Distasteful as they might be, even the Gruul and the Rakdos can play a part in curtailing threats to the city that also impede their own interests.
The Boros View on Other Guilds
The Boros are committed to justice and order, and they are convinced that virtually every other guild is just as committed to undermining both. Therefore, the Boros rely only on their comrades for support and view everyone else with suspicion or disdain.
“Legalism. Arrogance. Hot air. The law in their hands is a bludgeon, and they use it to seize more power than they deserve.”
“Snakes lurking in the shadows. They should be rooted out so they can shrivel in the light.”
“If they limited themselves to their intended purpose, repulsive as it is, they could be allowed to survive. But they are growing into a dangerous menace, and we need to flush them out of the sewers while we still can.”
“They are lost in violence and savagery. Only occasionally can their energy be channeled in directions that benefit the greater good.”
“They don’t understand the concept of limits. If they kept their spellcraft under control, they could truly benefit society.”
“The Orzhov care only about the Orzhov. If it were up to them, all of Ravnica would follow an orderly process designed to funnel wealth into their grasping hands.”
“They make destruction into a spectacle, but they’re more than blood and fire. They’re termites gnawing away at the heart and soul of Ravnica.”
“I almost envy the naiveté that leads them to retreat into their little communes and pretend they’ve built a just society.”
“They have stepped out of their place, with all their experiments, their tinkering with the nature of life. They’re a waste, a drain on Ravnica, and a danger to the public good.”
House Dimir
A vampire appeared out of the darkness, as quiet as a breeze. He was stripped to the waist despite the chill underground, and his eyes reflected light like a cat’s. He floated effortlessly down from the upper reaches of the chamber, and alighted on the chamber floor near the two of them.
- Doug Beyer
House Dimir is Ravnica’s dark secret: behind a facade of respectable messengers and reporters lurks an association of spies and assassins whose existence is barely suspected by the populace at large. Secrecy is both House Dimir’s best weapon and its best defense, and much of the guild’s work is hidden even from other members. Dimir agents leave no trace of their covert activities, warping the memories of witnesses to their crimes and even wiping their own minds to remove any evidence of their completed assignments.
The first guildmaster of House Dimir was a vampire named Szadek, whose organization agreed to serve as Ravnica’s couriers, information brokers, and librarians. But Szadek also used his guild’s expertise at gathering information to build a vast spy network, and before long, the secret operations of the guild vastly outweighed its overt ones. Eventually the guild disappeared into the shadows, and most Ravnicans came to doubt its existence. An immortal entity, Szadek ruled the guild for ten thousand years until he was arrested and killed in the turmoil of the Decamillennial Celebration.
Inside the House
House Dimir has a clandestine aspect hidden from all but its most important members. The guildmaster, Lazav, and his direct contacts guide and manipulate the covert operations of the guild. Members of House Dimir ultimately receive their orders from this source without having any idea of who issued the order or why. Messages to agents are funneled through thought strands (see “Spell:
By design, you don’t have much interaction with other members of your guild. You might never meet your primary guild contact face to face, instead receiving assignments and sending reports by way of secret message drops and codes.
Goals of the Dimir
House Dimir is all about secrets and misinformation, even where its own members are concerned. Any given Dimir agent knows of no more than a handful of alleyway contacts and dossier drop spots. One agent knows another only by a code name, or receives communications only at a particular meeting spot at a specific place and time. Every self-proclaimed expert with an opinion on the matter has a theory about the guild’s intentions, and all those guesses about Dimir’s motivations and pursuits contradict each other, frustrating any attempt to get to the truth of things. The public face of Dimir remains inscrutable, which some interpret as the best evidence that the guild’s true plans mean something dire for the Ravnican populace.
To House Dimir, knowledge is power. The guild hungers to learn everything it doesn’t already know, especially the weaknesses of its adversaries, and to exploit those weaknesses for its own gain. Conversely, the house holds its own secrets tightly, because it doesn’t want its enemies to turn the tables. The Dimir lurk in the shadows, methodically gathering the knowledge they need to remake Ravnica to their advantage.
House Dimir’s progress toward its goals depends on a web woven from meticulously gathered intelligence. Unpredictable behavior by other guilds can destabilize that web. When the Boros take sudden, forceful action inspired by an unexpected burst of zeal, the Dimir can be caught off guard. The Selesnya behave predictably on the whole, but the members of the conclave are so numerous that it can be hard for the Dimir to keep track of their activities. Of all the other guilds, the Izzet and the Gruul concern the Dimir the most; their erratic methods of decision-making, combined with their unflinching approach to danger, can quickly undermine any Dimir strategy designed to contain them.
Dimir Characters
Alignment: Usually neutral, sometimes evil
Suggested Races: Half-elf, human
Suggested Classes: Monk, rogue, wizard
If the following sentences describe you, you might enjoy playing a character who belongs to House Dimir:
- You love subterfuge, intrigue, and deception.
- You like to play rogues, spies, and assassins.
- The idea of stealing thoughts instead of treasure has a special appeal to you.
- You want to deceive your fellow players without necessarily betraying them.
Joining House Dimir
You began your career in House Dimir as part of the legion of shopkeepers, librarians, couriers, and traders who maintain the deception that the guild has become civil and tame. Without any exposure to the guild’s more covert activities, you helped to discredit those who believe that the Dimir are plotting to control the city, painting them as delusional conspiracy theorists. But at some point your gifts were recognized and you were invited into the deeper mysteries of the guild. Your training focused on stealth, espionage, and infiltration. As a Dimir spy, you might bring a variety of talents to your work.
In your guild role, you engage in surveillance, theft, sabotage, infiltration, and other kinds of espionage. You work in a pocket or sleeper cell, unaware of the identities of most other agents or the guild’s leadership. You might be a rogue of the Thief, Assassin, or Arcane Trickster archetype, a monk of the Way of Shadow, or even a cleric of the Trickery Domain.
If you are a spellcaster (perhaps a wizard specialized in the School of Divination, Enchantment, or Illusion), you have the skills needed to join the ranks of the most feared spellcasters on Ravnica: House Dimir’s mind mages. Your basic work and role is the same as any other spy’s, but you can learn to pull thoughts and memories from a person’s mind, use a target’s own thoughts against them, attack your foes' psyches directly to create delusions, or scour enemy minds clean.
The Dimir Operative background is available for characters who are part of the Dimir guild.
A Dimir Party
House Dimir might send an adventuring party on missions focused on stealth and subterfuge. Such a team might be made up mostly of rogues and perhaps monks, with a mind mage (wizard) providing magical support. Potions help to offset the group’s lack of healing ability.
Rank and Renown
As you gain renown within House Dimir, you will be rewarded with missions of increasing importance. No formal ranks exist for you to progress through, but certain thresholds of renown indicate improvements in your standing within the guild. Perhaps most important, according to the philosophy of House Dimir, higher standing brings greater knowledge of the inner workings of Ravnica and the guild.
At the start of your career, your orders include step-by-step instructions—or they consist of just a single task. You receive these instructions from your guild contact.
Independent Agent
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in House Dimir
As an independent agent, you have considerable latitude in the way you choose to implement your mission goals.
You acquire a
Collector of Secrets
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in House Dimir
By the time you reach this level of renown in House Dimir, you are amassing a significant collection of secrets about the people and places around you. You know the location of a hidden safe house where you can take shelter in case of dire need. At the DM’s discretion, you might also know (or be able to find out) a secret about a person or group who lives or operates in a neighborhood you’re familiar with. The secret is typically a person’s flaw or details about a dark episode in a group’s past. Whatever it is, the secret is a weakness that can be used to manipulate the person or group to assist you or your associates.
In addition, you gain a
Inner Circle
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in House Dimir
At this level of renown, you are responsible for coordinating the activities of several other Dimir agents. You still receive orders from the usual source, but you’re given broad goals and wide latitude in how to carry them out, including delegating specific tasks to other Dimir agents of lesser renown. You are also increasingly trusted with important secrets.
Guildmaster’s Confidant
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in House Dimir
Few members of House Dimir ever encounter Lazav, and those who do are often unaware that they are dealing with the guildmaster. You have been admitted to his circle of confidants. He has entrusted you with a wide network of Dimir agents under your command, but you also bear tremendous responsibility for the success of the missions they undertake.
Enemies and Allies
It’s hard for a guild built on stealth and secrecy to maintain a positive relationship with any other guild. All guilds are monitored with suspicion, and they assessed for their current and prospective levels of threat, as well as for their usefulness to House Dimir’s schemes. Each cell may foster its own relationships with the other guilds, but it ultimately defers to Dimir’s enigmatic leaders to steer overarching strategy.
Your missions might put you at odds with any other guild by calling on you to infiltrate that guild and gain insight into its plans, steal proprietary information from its guildhall, or subvert its leadership. For instance, you could be tasked to steal the transcript of an Azorius interrogation, the memories of Golgari spy, or the contents of an Orzhov ledger.
You might cooperate with members of other guilds, openly or in disguise, insofar as their goals don’t conflict with yours. Sometimes, the easiest way to assassinate one of your enemies is to put the forces of law on their trail, so joining forces with the Azorius and Boros, for example, can be a beneficial arrangement for everyone concerned.
The Dimir View on Other Guilds
To House Dimir, every other guild is a potential source of information, its members all potential foils and patsies.
“They can’t be allowed to monopolize the flow of knowledge. Clog their networks with misinformation. To stop someone from discerning the truth, drown them in plausible untruths.”
“Not inherently dangerous. The true danger is that they’ll drag down all we’ve worked for while chasing some romantic crusade. Continue to direct their righteous fury toward our strongest enemy—until the Boros threaten to become the strongest.”
“We once appreciated them for their ability to make a corpse disappear, but we found that too many of our victims rose up to face us again. Now we use the city’s fear of the swarm to keep them in their place. The more the Golgari try to rise from the mire of their reputation, the more we make them wallow in it.”
“They’ve always been convenient scapegoats, but their recent aggressiveness threatens to become a larger problem. We must thin their numbers—selectively and without confrontation. Catch them alone in the dark, and take them out one by one.”
“Even an overloaded, sizzled clock is still right twice a day. When Izzet experiments succeed, they can have unpredictable consequences for active missions. Their activities must be monitored at all times.”
“We’re amused at how well they’ve used their hierarchy to mask the corruption of their organization, but their need for the public’s trust gives us an edge. They can be manipulated by playing on their fear of the people discovering their ruse.”
“They’ve turned pointless activity into an art form, but their performances nevertheless make very useful distractions. Let them be bright and loud, drawing all attention, while we slip quietly through the dark.”
“Strength without guile is perhaps the most dangerous kind. One can’t bluff the player who can’t conceive of bluffing. Currently, the covert war plays to our strengths; we must ensure that the conclave never becomes conscious of the advantages they possess.”
“They are never short of intriguing surprises, so we know they are gearing up for something. Keep eyes inside their organization to see what their efforts are leading to—but don’t be tempted to partake of their enhancements.”
Golgari Swarm
A small crowd of pale elves and humans stepped into the light. Bits of bone and detritus woven into their matted hair clicked lightly. Their chitinous armor swarmed with tiny, riotous insects that moved in and out of the sheen of moss growing on their shoulders—a bed for sprouting fungi. Whether it was the Golgari themselves who had made the chittering sound or their bugs, Ral could not be sure.
- Doug Beyer
The teeming masses that compose the Golgari Swarm see themselves as pragmatic above all else, uncowed by the simple fact that death is part of the cycle of life. They believe the idea of life and death as opposing forces to be nothing more than naive sentimentality. They know everything crumbles and rots in the end, and then new life springs from that rot. Time inevitably passes, bringing both destruction and new creation to all things.
The original mandate of the Golgari Swarm under the leadership of Svogthir, its Devkarin founder, was to maintain Ravnica’s agriculture and manage its waste. But Svogthir’s interest in necromancy, and his eventual transformation into a lich, shaped the course of the guild’s activities and gave birth to its philosophy of embracing death as part of nature’s cycle.
Inside the Swarm
The leadership of the Golgari has undergone several major changes, but the nature of the swarm makes it easily adaptable to the churn of continuous cycles. Being alive isn’t a prerequisite for leadership, as demonstrated by the rule of the current guildmaster, the elf lich Jarad Vod Savo. Assassination is seen as a perfectly valid means of effecting political change, which is how Jarad’s sister, Savra, took control of the guild before him. Various groups of people and monsters coexist within the swarm, their relative power waxing and waning with the years, and through it all, the guild goes on.
The three most important power groups within the Golgari are the Devkarin elves, the medusas (also called gorgons in Ravnica), and the insectile kraul. Jarad is an undead representative of the Devkarin, so the elves claim a privileged position within the guild for the moment.
Members of the Golgari Swarm live in the shadow of Jarad and the leaders of the individual factions. The machinations among elves, medusas, kraul, and other creatures rarely bring any significant improvement to the lives of the swarm’s countless members, but often cause disruption and occasionally disaster. Most guild members believe it’s best to keep their heads down and stay out of the political conflict and to avoid attracting the disfavor of the Ochran, the guild’s order of assassins. More adventurous members might enjoy intrigue and politics, or might unwittingly become tangled up in the schemes of the guild’s leaders.
Jarad maintains a council of shamans and rogues to serve as a combination of advisory parliament and spy agency. These high chancellors rarely convene publicly, preferring to disperse themselves throughout the swarm to keep information flowing from the nucleus to every part of the organism.
Goals of the Golgari
The Golgari Swarm celebrates the growth and vibrancy of the natural world, but gives equal attention to nature’s facets of destruction, decay, and death. It finds allies and agents in the form of fungi, oozes, insects, diseases, and other unsavory aspects of nature, and it uses the power of nature actively toward the goal of advancing its own place in the world. But the Golgari have also learned patience from nature; they are content to work from the shadows, harnessing the energy that comes from decay while the civilization of Ravnica slowly erodes and destroys itself.
The teeming hordes of the Golgari Swarm believe it is finally their time to shine. They have dwelled under the streets and under the sway of the other guilds for too long. They are convinced that Ravnica’s institutions are now on the verge of collapse and that the absence of the Living Guildpact proves it. However, the Golgari are neither surprised nor panicked by this, for they believe that all things eventually rot and die, and from this decay, new life blooms. As such, the Golgari see the looming interguild conflict as a necessary final push to bring about a new era—their era.
The Golgari are preparing for upheaval. They have sealed many of the passages leading into the undercity, making their territory seem like an impregnable subterranean fortress. Within it, the Golgari domain retains its grandeur, a mysterious and wondrous kingdom. The rare visitors who stumble into it are awed by its beauty and its aura of ancient power. Palatial architecture fills cavernous sewer chambers, and luminescent spores float through the air to shed an otherworldly light on the moss-covered masonry. Entering Golgari territory feels like stepping into a secret world of dangerous beauty.
Dark Elves of the Golgari
Also called the elves of shadow, the Devkarin are one of the three branches of Ravnica’s elf race. Like other elves, the Devkarin are adept spellcasters, counting most of the Golgari’s shamans among their number.
After being cast out of the nascent Selesnya Conclave millennia ago, the Devkarin found a home amid the corrupted and overgrown places of Ravnica, and the Devkarin necromancer Svogthir became the founder of the Golgari Swarm. Since then, the Devkarin have been a major influence in the guild, even during the times when they didn’t hold absolute power. Regardless of who rules the guild, the Devkarin follow the guidance of a high priest, called the matka. The matka’s spiritual leadership usually aligns with the guildmaster’s temporal commands, but during times when the guild is ruled by a non-elf faction, the matka can be a significant dissenting voice.
Golgari Characters
Alignment: Usually neutral, often evil
Suggested Races: Human, elf (dark)
Suggested Classes: Druid, fighter, ranger, rogue, wizard
The Golgari Swarm might suit your character if one or more of the following statements are true:
- You’re drawn to the darker side of nature or the greener side of necromancy.
- You are drawn to sinister, creepy, or grim characters.
- You like elves and druids but want to explore an unusual direction.
Joining the Golgari Swarm
Similar to a swarm of insects, the Golgari collectively behave more like a single organism than a scattering of individuals. New members aren’t recruited or initiated into the Golgari Swarm; you have been absorbed and incorporated, and the biological system of the swarm funneled you to where your talents are most needed to contribute to the health of the guild. Your position within the guild is defined by your capabilities.
You might act as a shaman of the Golgari if you are a spellcaster—perhaps a wizard specialized in the School of Necromancy, a druid of the Circle of the Land, or a druid of the Circle of Spores (described in chapter 1). In this revered position, you teach and advise other members of the swarm, keeping them attuned to the natural cycle of death and regrowth. You might manipulate that natural cycle by wielding the magic of death, snuffing out life and reanimating the dead. Or you might wield your magic to spread fungal rot and noxious gases, preparing parts of the city for annexation.
If you aren’t adept at magic, the swarm still needs you. Golgari warriors both defend the guild’s territory and, when necessary, take offensive action. If you are a fighter (typically of the Champion archetype), you can serve as a shock trooper, perhaps fighting alongside kraul and trolls on behalf of the swarm. If you are a ranger (likely of the Beast Master archetype) or a rogue (of the Thief or Assassin archetype), you are more of a skirmisher. Golgari rangers favor insects and reptiles as companions.
The Golgari Agent background is available for characters who are part of the Golgari guild.
A Golgari Party
An adventuring party drawn from the teeming ranks of the Golgari Swarm might focus on traversing the undercity or on stealthy missions in the streets above. A pair of shamans (a druid and a wizard) would form the core leadership of the group, supported by a warrior (fighter or ranger) and a stealthy member of the Ochran (rogue).
Rank and Renown
Every member of the Golgari Swarm has its place, and every role is important to the proper functioning of the guild. Aside from a few leadership positions, the swarm doesn’t consider different functions to be more or less important than others. The idea of progressing up the ranks is foreign to the Golgari way of thinking. That said, your renown within the Golgari is a direct measure of the guildmaster’s knowledge of you, his confidence in your abilities, and his interest in your activities.
At the start of your career with the Golgari, the guildmaster and his chancellors have no way to distinguish you from the masses of others who perform a similar function. If you receive instructions from the high chancellors, the orders are directed toward you as part of a larger group: for example, “Reclaimers, keep your eyes open for an
Agent
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Golgari Swarm
You have distinguished yourself from the mass of your peers. Guildmaster Jarad might not know your name, but he knows that a member of your group is reliable and effective, and his high chancellors single you out for specific missions. The guild provides you with supplies you need to complete those missions (within reason).
Monstrous Favors
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Golgari Swarm
When you reach this level of renown in the Golgari Swarm, Jarad knows your name and appreciates that you can be relied on to help fulfill the guild’s objectives. Thanks to this prominence, you can get away with begging a favor from the guild’s more monstrous members. You can ask an undercity medusa, a troll, or a kraul death priest to help you with a task that benefits the Golgari Swarm. The creature is not obligated to help you, but it holds you in enough esteem to at least consider it—in exchange for the promise of a favor in return.
In addition, you receive a
Ochran (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Golgari Swarm
Having achieved considerable renown within the guild, you can choose to become a member of the Ochran. The Ochran often serve as stealthy bodyguards, lurking out of sight until some danger threatens their wards. The Ochran are also sent out as assassins or burglars to further the guild’s goals.
Advisor
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in the Golgari Swarm
Although you aren’t yet one of Jarad’s personal counselors, your value to the guild is clear. The high chancellors regularly call on you to perform tasks for the guild and to share your insights. You can be sure that anything you say to a high chancellor will pass quickly to the ears of the guildmaster.
High Chancellor
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in the Golgari Swarm
Jarad seeks out the most powerful, effective, and loyal members of the Golgari Swarm to serve as his high chancellors. At this point, you certainly qualify. The amorphous nature of Jarad’s council means that you don’t need to wait for a vacancy to open up; Jarad summons you to his presence, and you are expected to appear and accept the new position offered to you.
As a high chancellor, you advise Jarad in his decision-making, keep him informed of happenings throughout the guild, and convey his instructions to the various parts of the guild’s “body.”
Matka (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in the Golgari Swarm, elf (dark), spellcasting ability
You are eligible to fill the role of matka, the high priest of the Golgari elves. You can attain this position only if the previous matka has died or stepped down. Becoming matka requires you to claim the position and maintain your title against any challengers. It isn’t unusual for competing claims among would-be matkas to be resolved by combat… or assassination.
As matka, your status among the Devkarin is comparable to that of the guildmaster’s. Even high chancellors who are Devkarin attempt to balance their loyalty to Jarad with their loyalty to you.
Enemies and Allies
The Golgari Swarm shares a general philosophical approach with the other nature-oriented guilds—Simic, Gruul, and Selesnya—in its concern for the forces of life and growth. Under the right circumstances, a member of the Golgari can work well with agents of those organizations. But the Golgari’s emphasis on death as part of the life cycle is foreign to those other guilds.
The Golgari prefer to erode their enemies' strength through a process of attrition rather than by launching frontal attacks. If you are called on to take direct action against another guild, it is probably a matter of self-preservation against a guild that is threatening the life and livelihood of the Golgari. You might oppose the Azorius as they attempt to extend their jurisdiction into the undercity or strike back at the Boros to dissuade them from launching more attacks into Golgari territory. Occasionally, you might be assigned to assault the enemies of the Golgari more directly, especially if you are a member of the Ochran. If the death of a particular person or the theft of a key treasure will contribute to the decline and downfall of an enemy guild, even the typically patient Golgari will try to seize that opportunity.
You might ally with members of another guild if they are working—even unwittingly—toward goals you share. The Gruul, for example, are adept at hastening the decay of both humanoid populations and physical structures, even if they remain unaware of their full role in the natural cycle. If some event threatens to upset the balance of nature, such as a necromantic blight that kills all growth or a magical wildfire rampaging through the city, you might join other nature-oriented guilds in an attempt to curtail it and preserve the balance.
The Golgari View on Other Guilds
To the Golgari, the other guilds of Ravnica are shortsighted and inevitably doomed to collapse.
“Such hubris! As if all their laws could shore up this crumbling society. Their regulations and institutions are just detritus in the making.”
“The Boros speak a language we will never understand. Their militant dedication to empty concepts like ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’ is both confusing and disturbing.”
“They collect information like trinkets, so how can they ever grasp the deeper truths we possess? But their presence in the undercity is an all-too-real threat to our dominion beneath the streets.”
“The clans serve as effective instruments of the natural cycle, though in their anger, they are blind to the extent of the role they play.”
“Perplexing. They are attracted to whatever flashes brightest and booms loudest. Their fascination with their toys will only hasten their own end.”
“They flout the natural order and use their knowledge of death to resist its pull. While their bodies rot, their spirits persist, clinging to the fiction of material wealth.”
“They understand the inevitability of death but seek to hasten its arrival for their petty ends. What the demon destroys, we nurse back to life again.”
“Their reverence for nature is the mark of immaturity and naiveté. They fear death, so they can’t understand life. They can be dangerous when they fervently cling to their narrow-minded and inadequate view of life.”
“They seek patterns in the natural world, which is commendable enough, but they believe the search will lead them to find perfection through all of its flaws. They strive to move forward but fail to see that the path they tread is cyclical.”
Gruul Clans
Jace had never seen, or for that matter smelled, a Gruul war party at all. Their armor was made from animal hides and bones, and their weaponry was heavy pieces of scavenged city rubbish. Their skin was alive with tattoos, etched with a combination of magic, ink, and, Jace supposed, a considerable amount of pain. Each of them was a hulk of muscle, and Ruric Thar was the largest and mightiest of them all.
- Doug Beyer
The Gruul Clans are a wild people in a civilized land, a loose affiliation of bands that squat on the fringes of Ravnican society. They shun the centers of civilization, which they see as a source of oppression and weakness, and instead haunt Ravnica’s alleyways, abandoned zones, and ruins. They want to see the edifice of civilization torn down so the world can revert to the pure wilderness that thrived before the city grew to cover everything. Then the true order of nature can be restored—an unbridled and brutal state in which only the strong survive and the strongest rule.
In a world covered with city streets and towering buildings, the Gruul are the most out of place, the most ill at ease, and the most eager to topple it all and start fresh. Constant ritualistic warfare reverberates among the clans, every skirmish reinforcing their doctrine of the survival of the fittest. They frequently send sorties into civilized areas to secure goods—and to wreak havoc.
The first leader of the Gruul was Cisarzim, a cyclops who was purportedly the ancestor of Borborygmos, the current guildmaster. Cisarzim was called the Lord of Chaos, and his guild’s original function as maintainers of Ravnica’s natural places meant keeping his faction as remote as possible from the civilized parts of the world. The gradual expansion of the city, however, has driven the Gruul into smaller and smaller refuges.
Itching for a Fight
Gruul goblins live in colonies scattered at the edges of Gruul territory and civilized neighborhoods. They fight fiercely when threatened, punctuating their attacks with hisses and growls. When battle fury takes hold of a Gruul raiding group, it typically starts with the goblins, and after the battle, the surviving goblins are still frothing at the mouth and looking for someone to hit.
Inside the Clans
As a collection of disparate clans, the Gruul have no single leader and no headquarters. But the Gruul respect strength and are willing to follow a strong individual who points them in a direction they want to go anyway. For several decades, that position has been held by the mighty cyclops Borborygmos, chief of the Burning Tree clan. His nihilistic anger inspires the rest of the Gruul, so when he calls on the other clans to join a raid, they usually agree. Even the fractious Gruul can see the benefit of banding together. The clans sometimes gather at Skarrg, a ruined palace in the rubblebelt adjoining the Tenth District. Here are descriptions of the clans:
Burning Tree Clan. The Burning Tree clan is the most fearsome of the Gruul Clans, as well as the largest and most diverse, with branches in several districts of Ravnica. The fear and awe inspired by Borborygmos unifies its diverse membership. The Ravnican populace regards the symbol of the Burning Tree clan as the symbol for the entire Gruul guild.
Ghor Clan. The Ghor clan is led by an ettin named Ruric Thar (or, perhaps more properly, Ruric and Thar, since the heads claim separate names). Of all the clans, the Ghor carry out the most frequent and savage assaults on Ravnica’s citizenry. The clan is known for its audacity in forging encampments close to heavily populated districts.
Scab Clan. Members of the Scab clan display scars and body modifications, which they view as expressions of the powerful rage they harbor within themselves. The clan has grown in influence by engulfing or destroying several smaller clans in recent years, but the leader of the Scabs, a corpulent giant known as Narbulg Nine Fingers, has not gone so far as to challenge the Burning Tree clan.
Slizt Clan. The Slizt clan is a clutch of sly, skittish warriors, consisting largely of reptilian humanoids called viashino (use the lizardfolk stat block in the Monster Manual to represent them), along with a few wily humans. This clan survives in the rubblebelts by taking up hiding places in high ground and ambushing its enemies with ranged attacks from above. Other Gruul regard the Slizt as skulkers and cowards, but nonetheless all are cautious when entering areas with elevated ruins. The home ground of the Slizt clan is the Husk, an area at the center of a vast rubblebelt featuring many large, ancient structures that have remained standing for generations.
Gravel Hide Clan. The Gravel Hide clan believes that resilience is the truest measure of strength. Though a relatively new group, its members have already earned a reputation (almost certainly exaggerated) for shrugging off devastating attacks. The clan’s leader, a hot-tempered goblin named Skorik Boulder Tooth, adorns himself with the shattered remnants of weapons that he has rent to bits with his own jaws.
Zhur-Taa Clan. The Zhur-Taa clan advocates an extreme interpretation of the Old Ways. Central to this view is its belief in the imminent awakening of an ancient boar god—Ilharg, the Raze-Boar—who will lay waste to the overcivilized world. Led by a centaur druid called Nikya of the Old Ways, the Zhur-Taa pile up skulls as offerings to this god, and their druids perform guttural chants before and during battle that are said to be in the language of the old gods.
Zhur-Taa druids are adept at summoning and training beasts as war-companions and mounts, and the clan’s warriors wade into battle alongside giant boars, other beasts, and even wurms or hydras.
Bolrac Clan. The most selective of all the Gruul Clans, the Bolrac clan denies membership to the smaller races. Its members are all enormous, lumbering brutes, primarily cyclopes, ogres, and giants. The clan’s leadership changes frequently—sometimes daily, since battles for supremacy are as common as meals. The Bolrac clan specializes in bringing down massive structures using mauls and battering rams. The only thing the Bolrac love more than destroying something smaller than them is toppling, overrunning, and destroying something larger than them.
Trogs. Some wandering hermits, known as trogs, find even the company of a clan to be too suffocating, so they spend their days alone in the wild places of Ravnica. These individuals are fierce, independent warriors who traverse the rubblebelts as apex predators. Trogs are notoriously short-tempered and impatient around others. Occasionally, they heed the call of the guildmaster to join in riots or festivals, but more often they conduct their own ceremonies and celebrations in private.
Goals of the Gruul
So far as any philosophy can be said to underlie the Gruul way of life, it is about living in the now, with little concern for forethought, planning, or speculation. Impulse drives the actions of the Gruul Clans. They want to live their lives unimpeded, and they lash out when something tries to stand in their way. Emotion and impulsiveness drive them as they seek to do what they want, take what they want, and smash what they want.
Gruul Characters
Alignment: Usually chaotic, often neutral
Suggested Races: Human, centaur, goblin, minotaur
Suggested Classes: Barbarian, cleric, druid, fighter, ranger
You might enjoy playing a character who belongs to the Gruul Clans if one or more of the following sentences are true:
- You enjoy playing rage-mad barbarians and savage druids.
- You want to throw off the shackles of civilization and indulge your inner beast.
- You like being a force of chaos who keeps things moving in your adventures.
Joining the Gruul Clans
You might have been born and raised among the Gruul, like many of the guild’s members. Or you could be an outcast, a refugee, or a fugitive from civilized society, shunned for your violent ways or for fleeing the hand of justice. As long as you are strong enough to survive among the Gruul, you are welcome, no matter what secrets haunt your past.
The Gruul “guild” is actually a collection of different, independent clans loosely united under one powerful leader. When you decide to join the Gruul, you join a specific clan, not the guild as a whole. You can roll a
Gruul Clan Options
| d8 | Clan |
|---|---|
| 1 | Burning Tree clan |
| 2 | Ghor clan |
| 3 | Scab clan |
| 4 | Slizt clan |
| 5 | Gravel Hide clan |
| 6 | Zhur-Taa clan |
| 7 | Minor or new clan |
| 8 | Trog |
The rites of becoming Gruul, whether you have come from outside the guild or are marking your entrance into adulthood, center around being buried alive. When you enter the shallow grave, the person you were before is dead. Your past wrongs and errors are forgotten, but so are your past accomplishments. No matter how well you proved yourself in battle before, when you rise from the earth you are untested. The clan leaders recognize you only when you earn glory in battle as a Gruul.
Most of the Gruul find their place among the fierce warriors of their clans. If you are a fighter, ranger, or barbarian, this is your natural role. Gruul fighters tend to adopt the Champion archetype, Gruul rangers usually adopt the Hunter or the Beast Master archetype, and Gruul barbarians follow either the Path of the Totem Warrior or the Path of the Berserker. Whatever your class, as a Gruul warrior you are devoted to tearing down the edifices of civilization, both physical and institutional. You lash out at a system that you believe is the root of corruption and weakness.
If you are spellcaster, such as a druid (usually of the Circle of the Moon) or a cleric of the Tempest Domain, you might adopt a more spiritual role in your clan. You practice what the Gruul call the Old Ways, a discipline that predates the foundation of civilization on Ravnica, to channel the primal energy that still pulses through the wild places of the world.
The Gruul Anarch background is available for characters who are part of the Gruul guild.
A Gruul Party
A group of Gruul adventurers can serve as a raiding party to pursue the goals of one clan or the guild as a whole. The combination of anarchs and berserkers (fighters, rangers, and barbarians) with druids of the Old Ways (druids or clerics) creates a powerful mix of muscle and magic. Such a party lacks the capacity for subtlety or stealth, but Gruul missions rarely require such abilities. (A ranger can provide them, in the rare case where they are necessary.)
Rank and Renown
Renown among the Gruul could also be called glory—when you prove yourself in battle, you earn the respect of your fellows. With glory comes acceptance of your leadership and warriors willing to follow you into battle. The Gruul have no formal holders of titles aside from the chieftains of clans and the guildmaster, but relative status within one’s clan is still important.
Proven
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in your clan
With several battles under your belt, you have demonstrated service to your clan and earned the recognition of your peers. You have the right to tattoo your body to commemorate your triumphs in battle and demonstrate your loyalty to the Gruul. You don’t yet have authority over others, but when you go into battle with your clan, your fellow warriors fight near you, acknowledging your prowess. Your clan chieftain knows your name and might decide to single you out, offering you an opportunity to prove yourself by performing a special task. Depending on the nature of the task, the chieftain might send
Beast-Friend
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in your clan
When you reach this level of renown, you develop a rapport with the beasts that haunt the rubblebelts. When you are in a rubblebelt area, you can summon one beast to be your mount: a batterboar (a giant boar as described in the Monster Manual), a ceratok (using the stat block of a rhinoceros), or a raktusk (equivalent to a giant elk). It doesn’t fight for you unless you have magic or another ability that can control a beast.
In addition, when you carry out a raid on the guild’s behalf, a druid of your clan gives you a
Celebrated
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in your clan
You are a hero in your clan, and your reputation extends to other clans as well. You can count on the aid of your clan in most situations. Your clan’s druids cast spells for you, and you lead a warband that consists of
Your chieftain keeps an eye on you, aware that you’re a potential challenger for leadership of the clan.
Chieftain
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in your clan
You can now rightfully challenge your chieftain in single combat for leadership of the clan or take the warriors loyal to you and form a new clan.
Enemies and Allies
By standing in opposition to the civilized ways of the other guilds, the Gruul Clans have made it practically impossible to establish alliances with those guilds.
Similar to the Golgari, Selesnya, and Simic, the Gruul respect nature and maintain a close relationship with animals—in the Gruul’s case, the monstrous beasts that stalk the rubble and ruins. But the Gruul would just as soon smash the sewers, gardens, and laboratories of those other guilds than cooperate with them in an effort to establish nature as a larger presence within the city.
Because they see all of the remaining guilds as cogs in the vast machine of civilization, the Gruul tailor their tactics toward breaking the machine, rather than directing their attacks at any particular guild. Any guild can be the target of Gruul aggression, as the opportunity arises. The fiercest assaults often come against the guilds that take it upon themselves to combat the Gruul, primarily the Boros and Azorius.
In certain circumstances, such as when some nightmarish horror rears its head in the heart of a rubblebelt, you and your clan could accept the help of members of another guild in putting an end to the danger. Or, when the schemes of other guilds pit one clan against another, there might be some benefit to you and your clan in cooperating with those efforts. But your truest allies are other members of your clan.
The Gruul View on Other Guilds
Since every other guild participates to some extent in the establishment and sustenance of the civilization that the Gruul despise, the Gruul look down on all other guilds as soft, corrupt, or downright abhorrent.
“Civilization is a disease, and the Azorius are its plague bearers. Once they are destroyed, Ravnica will reclaim its primal essence.”
“Puppets who are all too eager to kneel at the feet of their angel handlers.”
“Skulkers, whisperers, and back-stabbers! They are an infestation of roaches. If they remain in the shadows, they will be crushed beneath the rubble of a city that we bring down on their heads. If they face us in open battle, well, then we’ll have a good laugh.”
“Hermits and under-dwellers. They see that civilization must be brought to its knees, but they just want to replace it with another of their design.”
“Like us, they respect the powerful. But they seek it in their gadgets and try to contain it in jars.”
“The schemers of the Orzhov are the festering wound on a limb that must be hacked away. They amass their power by preying on the weak, so how powerful can they be?”
“The guild of fools. They waste their potential on acts of mockery while the real work of razing the city remains undone.”
“The Selesnya would coddle a wolf, teach it to fetch sticks, and call it a dog. We prefer to starve the wolf, let it hunt for its food, and make it a stronger wolf.”
“The Simic enjoy twisting nature, but they will not enjoy it when nature twists back.”
Izzet League
The Izzet mages weren’t hard to find. After a couple of days of observation, Jace heard an explosion and saw a startled flight of birds from across the district. The plume of blue smoke was a telltale sign of one of the Izzet’s pyrotechnic experiments. Jace tracked the source of the blast and spied two mages, a human and a goblin, outfitted with alchemical gadgetry and mizzium gauntlets. They emerged from a disused tunnel, leaving behind charred bricks and a haze of smoke, and their instruments crackled with energy. From what Jace had gathered, this was the Izzet style of research: keep adding energy until something blows up, then observe the results.
- Doug Beyer
The Izzet are obsessive experimenters, combining a keen creative intellect with a short attention span. The original mandate of the Izzet guild was to provide solutions for public works projects (sewers, boilers, and roadways), but their increasingly far-fetched experiments satisfy only their insatiable curiosity. Sometimes their experiments yield useful technological advancements; other times they produce unintended mana geysers, spatial rifts, arcane portals, or huge explosions—all of which can be useful in their own way.
The league’s most grandiose experiments typically concern public works projects and elemental experimentation. These efforts use a methodology that relies on unexpected outcomes: all results are informative, even if they completely defy expectations. For example, an experiment that begins as the creation of a “hypermana focusing lens” might be renamed a “scram-range teleportal” once the researchers discover more properties of what they have fashioned. Then, after a few goblin volunteers vanish inside it, the apparatus gains the designation of “universal refuse disintegrator”—until the goblin volunteers are discovered alive, having been teleported far from the workshop. This sort of adjustment is par for the course in Izzet experiments; the “fiddle and find out” method is favored over any process of systematic scientific research.
The Izzet League is one of the few guilds whose founder, the dragon Niv-Mizzet, remains its guildmaster, just as the guild continues to fulfill its original mission (even as its experiments go far beyond the guild’s original mandate).
Inside the League
Niv-Mizzet, the original and current guildmaster of the Izzet League, is a fifteen-thousand-year-old, vain, temperamental, super-intelligent dragon. As he directs experiments throughout the guild, he values results over success, accepting and even anticipating that Izzet experiments will end in gloriously unpredictable ways. However, the dragon rarely concerns himself with the day-to-day running of the guild, preferring to craft long-range plans and let underlings implement the details.
Overseeing the daily operations of the guild is the purview of the Izmundi, a board of directors that assembles teams from among the rank and file of the Izzet League to carry out research according to Niv-Mizzet’s directions. The Izmagnus is a smaller board with five to seven members (some members' identities remain secret) who serve as Niv-Mizzet’s closest advisors.
The Izzet League is organized into units designated as laboratories that specialize in certain fields of research. Though they all operate under the general guidance of the Izmundi, each laboratory is typically left alone to conduct its research. New fields of study emerge all the time, but the more established laboratories—each populated by hundreds of mages and their attendants—include the following:
The Laboratory of Pyrology has a prominent facility in the guildhall, Nivix. Its emphasis is on heat, fire, and explosion.
The Laboratory of Storms and Electricity focuses on controlling the weather as well as containing and conducting electrical energy. Its headquarters is in a spire atop Nivix, known as the Lightning Rod.
Research into smelting and forging, most often using the magical metal known as mizzium, is conducted at the Laboratory of Metallurgy, which has a small outpost in the Tenth District’s Smelting Quarter.
The magical science of transmuting one substance to another is the study of the Laboratory of Alchemy.
The Laboratory of Orientation, concerned with teleportation and spatial recombination, has multiple workshops that seem to appear and disappear at random.
The Laboratory of Mimeography studies means of duplication.
The Laboratory of Continuism emphasizes the study of temporal manipulation.
Research into counter-magic and redirection takes place in the Laboratory of Arcane Geometry, which has a small presence in Prism University in the Tenth District.
The Laboratory of Gravitational Inversion conducts research on means of flight and maintains a workshop near Augustin Station in the Tenth District.
The Laboratory of Plasma-Dermatology places emphasis on the combining of opposing elements, with the purpose of creating creatures called weirds.
Izzet laboratories function in a constant state of high energy that propels researchers from one experiment to the next. Some grand-scale experiments draw on the resources of an entire laboratory, while others are a lone visionary’s labor of love.
In the Name of Magical Science!
Izzet laboratories buzz with creative and often destructive energy, as countless researchers go about their business pushing the boundaries of knowledge. But the lure of discovery is anything but monolithic across the Izzet League.
Humans, who make up the majority of the guild’s mages, are fueled by limitless curiosity and sustained by their ability to approach any problem from a multitude of different angles.
Goblins embody the Izzet’s unrestrained enthusiasm for their endeavors. They epitomize the recklessness of Izzet mages, and some participate as subjects in hazardous experiments—even ones of their own devising. More often, they thrive in their role as attendants to researchers.
Vedalken tend to be more focused, organized, and astute compared to their Izzet compatriots, and thus they often serve as leaders of projects in the guild’s laboratories. Some vedalken are so obsessive about their work that they like to see to every detail themselves, rather than delegating any task to underlings or assistants. This attitude can irritate and alienate their guild mates—and put the vedalken in harm’s way when an experiment goes awry.
Goals of the Izzet
The Izzet League thirsts for knowledge, cherishes intellect, and speculates about the secrets of the multiverse. It brings to its scientific pursuits a flaming passion that turns its search for knowledge into an insatiable hunger, makes its cold intellect brilliantly fruitful, and widens its speculation into a search for connections between wildly disparate objects or concepts. It is manic in its expressions of creative energy, shifting from careful analysis to intuitive leap seemingly for no reason, always thinking outside the proverbial box. As the Izzet see it, unpredictable action, far from being antithetical to methodical research, has experimental value. In the words of one researcher, “The only action worth taking is one with an unknown outcome.”
As Ravnica descends into increasing turmoil, the Izzet have further intensified their frenetic research, though now their efforts are mainly directed toward one outcome: the development of super-weapons. The suspicion that festers in the mind of the Izzet guildmaster, the ancient dragon Niv-Mizzet, urges him to push his guild’s research toward increasingly dangerous and volatile experimentation.
For the rest of the guild members, the search for bigger and better weapons is mainly an opportunity to engage in all sorts of wild research while abandoning all outward pretense of safety or reason. Much of the guild’s laboratory space has been converted into testing grounds that are capable of withstanding great discharges of magical energy.
Izzet Characters
Alignment: Usually chaotic, often neutral
Suggested Races: Human, goblin, vedalken
Suggested Classes: Fighter, sorcerer, wizard
You might enjoy playing a character who belongs to the Izzet League for any of the following reasons:
- You like to make things happen and don’t care about the consequences.
- You’re drawn to wild magic and dangerous explosions.
- You want to be an innovative genius.
- You relish the madcap high jinks of goblins.
Joining the Izzet League
Most Izzet recruits begin their careers as attendants. In the service of a more powerful mage, a crew of up to forty attendants engages in tasks such as recording and organizing information (sometimes under dangerous circumstances), acquiring rare items or elements (usually under dangerous circumstances), or completing experiments (always under dangerous circumstances). Goblins relish this sort of work, while other folk seek promotion into a new position as quickly as possible.
If you are a spellcaster, such as a sorcerer or a wizard, the easiest way up and out of your position is by proving your skill with magic. Most Izzet sorcerers get their magic from the Wild Magic origin, but a few claim a Draconic Bloodline. Izzet wizards tend to specialize in the School of Conjuration, Evocation, or Transmutation. As an Izzet spellcaster, you are probably connected to a particular laboratory, either one described in the “Inside the Izzet” section or a less prominent one focused on a narrower topic. You could be an independent researcher, a functionary devoted to carrying out errands for the guild’s leadership, or a coordinator charged with synchronizing the efforts of different laboratories.
Even though the work of the Izzet League is largely focused on magic and research, if you are a more martial-minded character you still have a role to play in the guild. Fighters with the Eldritch Knight archetype often serve as guards, protecting laboratories and the inventions contained within them, or you can aspire to the elite role of scorchbringer (which comes with a flame-throwing magic device called a
The Izzet Engineer background is available for characters who are part of the Izzet guild.
An Izzet Party
A party made up entirely of Izzet members might be a mage (wizard or sorcerer) accompanied by guards (fighters) and attendants (any class). The structure of the guild generally assumes that the mage is in charge of steering the group, but it’s possible for any of the other characters to be the true brains of the operation. This party lacks healing ability, but alchemist-crafted healing potions can help sustain the party in the absence of a dedicated healer.
Rank and Renown
Renown within the Izzet League brings with it more responsibility in your chosen field of study, as well as an increasing ability to choose the activities that interest you. This greater responsibility and independence is reflected in a progression of ranks, from that of a mere attendant to a coveted position on the Izmagnus.
Rank 1: Researcher
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Izzet League, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
When you have advanced the guild’s interests and survived a few magical experiments, you graduate into a position where you can conduct experiments yourself. Only a spellcaster can craft and operate the laboratory equipment involved in Izzet experiments.
As a researcher, you can request equipment for use in your experiments and during adventures. You can secure the aid of
When you achieve this rank, you can help create your own
Scorchbringer (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Izzet League
Scorchbringers are soldiers assigned to protect Izzet laboratories. As a scorchbringer, you are given a
Rank 2: Supervisor
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Izzet League
Whether you’re an accomplished researcher, a committed soldier, or even a dedicated (and skilled) attendant, you are eligible for promotion to a supervisor position. As a supervisor, you oversee your former peers. Your role is primarily to translate the instructions of the director above you into concrete tasks that the people who report to you can accomplish.
If your director sends you on a mission outside the laboratory, you receive an
As a supervisor, you earn a salary sufficient to maintain a modest lifestyle.
Independent Researcher (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher in the Izzet League, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
Not every researcher chooses to advance through the ranks of management to become a supervisor. As an independent researcher, you can use the resources of your laboratory to conduct any kind of experiment. Assisting you in your research are
In addition, you can create your own
Rank 3: Director
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in the Izzet League
You oversee a laboratory and all its personnel. In addition, as a director, you are eligible to join the Izmundi, the Izzet board of directors, as a representative of your laboratory. You must have the approval of Niv-Mizzet, and a position on this board usually becomes available only if a vacancy opens up. If you assemble your own laboratory, you can be added to the board as an additional member.
It’s up to the Izmundi to assemble the correct team to carry out the guildmaster’s directives. The Izmundi decides which laboratory should have primary responsibility for any given project, and the director of that laboratory is responsible for assigning people to the team.
Within the bounds of Niv-Mizzet’s directives, you have wide latitude in directing the activities of your laboratory. That means you can steer the researchers of your laboratory toward the creation of particular items or effects.
Between adventures, you can maintain yourself at a comfortable lifestyle as a member of the Izmundi.
Rank 4: Advisor
Prerequisite: Rank 3 and renown 50 or higher in the Izzet League
As one of the most famous members of the guild, you are eligible to join the ranks of the Izmagnus. The decision to include you on this board is solely Niv-Mizzet’s. The number of members on the board isn’t fixed, so you don’t need to wait for a vacancy.
As a member of the Izmagnus, you have the ear of the dragon guildmaster. You can never be fully aware of the scope of his plans, but you know more about them than anyone aside from the other members of the board. The guildmaster listens to your opinion, even though you’re not an ancient dragon with thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. Ultimately, Niv-Mizzet tells you what to do—and you (along with your peers) tell the rest of the guild how to do it.
As a member of the Izmagnus, you can maintain yourself at a wealthy lifestyle between adventures.
Enemies and Allies
The Izzet have difficulty relating to the concerns of other guilds. The closest affinity they feel for another guild is their respect for the scientific minds of the Simic—but from the Izzet viewpoint, the Simic efforts lack passion. Conversely, the Izzet can appreciate the passion of the Boros, Gruul, and Rakdos, but they don’t agree with the goals those passions are directed toward.
The Izzet have a reputation for unprovoked aggression, spurred by the ambition of Niv-Mizzet. From your perspective as a guild member, the ancient dragon has a good reason for everything he does. If you are sent to test a new weapon against a suspected Dimir safe house, a Gruul camp, or a deceptively peaceful Selesnya enclave, those must surely be dangerous foes of the Izzet. You are also bound to oppose the Dimir when they steal the secrets of your laboratory’s research, the Gruul when they smash the delicate equipment that supports your life’s work, and the Boros and the Azorius if they decide that your work presents a danger to the city or breaks some obscure law.
Sometimes members of other guilds can help advance your research, intentionally or otherwise. The Izzet are intelligent enough to recognize their weaknesses, and adventuresome souls from other guilds can offset those weaknesses. The healing spells of Boros clerics can be an invaluable aid, and if a cyclops isn’t available to lend its brute strength to your work, a Boros minotaur or a Selesnya centaur can fill the need nicely.
The Izzet View on Other Guilds
To the lively intellect of the Izzet, the members of Ravnica’s other guilds seem slow, dull, and utterly lacking in the spirit of scientific inquiry and experimentation.
“The Azorius create regulations for everything, including freedom. What dull, shackled lives they lead.”
“All too often when we’re on the verge of setting off a little explosion or a spell that tears a hole in reality, the Boros show up to spoil the fun.”
“The less we see of the Dimir, the more we know they are monitoring us.”
“They keep to themselves and clean up our messes. As long as they stay out of sight, it’s hard to view them as a threat.”
“They’re even better at wrecking our laboratories than we are!”
“Progress means taking risks. But when you gamble with the Orzhov, you always wager more than coin.”
“Steer clear of these senseless riot-fiends. Their enthusiasm is best appreciated from a distance.”
“These zealots run with beasts and worship figments of the past. They would be wiser to embrace the wonders of the future.”
“The Simic are inventive, but their creations are bereft of soul and fire. They tinker with life but lack the inspiration to breathe true spirit into their inventions.”
Orzhov Syndicate
Representing the Orzhov was a tall, well-dressed noblewoman Jace didn’t recognize. The identities of the Orzhov knights around her were concealed by full helmets; instead of faces they bore only the Orzhov’s black sunburst symbol. Small, ugly, gray-skinned servant creatures attended to their black capes.
- Doug Beyer
Wealth is power, and you absolutely can take it with you if you’re an undying spirit living in decadent luxury on the ruling council of the Orzhov Syndicate. Built on the crushed dreams and broken bodies of citizens deeply indebted to the syndicate’s banks and loan sharks, Orzhov’s elaborate hierarchy of syndics, priests, and oligarchs exists for the single purpose of funneling wealth to the top. Beneath the twin facades of religious hierarchy and banking operation, Orzhov is an organized crime syndicate with its fingers in businesses across the city.
The Orzhov’s original function was both religious and financial, with the two functions closely related. As Ravnica’s dominant church, the Orzhov continues to preach an oppressive message that equates sin with debt and promises forgiveness to those who make tithes and donations. As Ravnica’s principal bank, it stores and secures the riches of the city, collecting interest at high rates to expand its own wealth. Its members truly believe that their work is necessary to the proper functioning of Ravnica. Although most other Ravnicans see the Orzhov for the corrupt organization it is, many people are still dazzled by the syndicate’s promises of wealth, prestige, and longevity.
The Ghost Council, also called the Obzedat, that leads the Orzhov founded the guild and signed the Guildpact, but it isn’t clear which members of the original Obzedat might have faded from existence since then and which current members have joined since.
Inside the Syndicate
The Orzhov are ruled by the iron-fisted Obzedat, a council consisting of the oldest and most powerful undead oligarchs. A vast hierarchy stretches out beneath them, so most of your interactions with the leadership of the guild are with people (or spirits) who occupy the rank just above yours. This hierarchy has corruption in it at every level, and at any time your superiors might be passing instructions down from on high or just using you to pursue their own agendas of greed and ambition.
Orzhov churches and basilicas are scattered across the city, each one led by a ministrant with a staff of knights and syndics. These sites are centers of commerce clothed in the trappings of religion, where lowly borrowers come to seek atonement for their sins—atonement that is given in the form of debt and obligation.
Orzhov attorneys and advokists maintain offices near New Prahv and other Azorius courts. Despite their proximity to law enforcement, these offices are centers of operation for Orzhov protection rackets and other criminal activities.
Goals of the Orzhov
The Orzhov Syndicate is dedicated to the quest for power. It sees the value in an organized, structured, law-abiding community, because it is adept at exploiting laws and structures for its own gain. It sees itself, in a perfect world, as the arbiter and enforcer of a social order that keeps everyone in their place and the Orzhov in the highest place.
Increasing tensions in Ravnica have led to an atmosphere of instability, and to counter this, the Orzhov Syndicate promises the trappings of a stable, ordered life amid the chaos—for a price. The Orzhov believe that adherence to hierarchy is the key to success, and they find great comfort in the rigid structure of their guild.
To boost their declining profits in a vacillating economy, the Orzhov have begun offering protection services, promising to shield their “customers” from both physical harm and fiscal disaster. These operations amount to racketeering, bringing with them the underlying threat that those who refuse to pay for protection become targets of the Orzhov’s thugs and enforcers.
The Azorius are the greatest threat to Orzhov’s operations. In times past, the Orzhov danced along the edges of the law and presented an appearance of legality, but the combination of an ever-expanding legal code and the guild’s move into racketeering and other explicitly illegal activities has made it vulnerable to Azorius enforcement. So far, the Azorius have demonstrated more interest in cracking down on the chaotic activity of the Gruul and the Rakdos, but Azorius arresters also routinely shut down Orzhov protection rackets and take enforcers into custody. To make matters worse, the Azorius Senate’s increasing use of precognitive magic is proving difficult for the Orzhov to work around.
So far, the syndicate’s most effective tactic has been to increase the layers of separation between the day-to-day criminal operations of the guild and the leadership, ensuring that no matter how many street-level thugs and syndics are apprehended to fill the Azorius prisons, the guild’s leadership remains intact. Contact between the oligarchs and lower-ranking members of the guild is increasingly rare in this situation, and even the pontiffs find it ever more difficult to arrange a hearing with their superiors.
Orzhov Characters
Alignment: Usually lawful, often evil
Suggested Races: Human
Suggested Classes: Cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard
You might enjoy playing a character who belongs to the Orzhov Syndicate if any of the following sentences are true:
- You want to move through the corrupt underbelly of society and make respectable people squirm in your presence.
- You enjoy playing fearsome or decadent characters.
- You want to strive for wealth, lavish beauty, or both.
Joining the Orzhov Syndicate
At the beginning of your association with the Orzhov, you are regarded as a borrower. Whether you are the wealthy scion of an oligarch family or a penniless citizen deep in debt to the guild, your status is functionally equivalent: you owe everything you have, even your life, to the Orzhov. Your only hope of improving your status is through your service to the guild. As you acquire renown, you can rise above this debased position in the guild hierarchy. Choose one of three parallel tracks of advancement, depending on your capabilities: advokist, enforcer, or priest.
Advokist
If you are a spellcaster (perhaps a wizard specialized in the School of Abjuration, Divination, or Enchantment), you can aspire to be an advokist—one of the syndicate’s lawyers, with duties that include overseeing contracts, representing clients in Azorius courts, and prosecuting those who fail to pay their debts. Some clerics of the Order Domain also choose to pursue this path.
Many advokists draw on the power of law magic to enforce regulations and contracts to the advantage of the guild. They use their magic to draw out the truth from debtors and those who dare to break their contracts with the guild, to ensure that petitioners approach with the proper humility, and to punish those who offend them or violate their contracts. Some advokists (particularly specialists in the School of Abjuration) also deal in encrypting texts, warding vaults and secret meeting rooms, fortifying structures, and cloaking important personages in magical protections.
Enforcer
Enforcers guard Orzhov property and protect the guild’s bureaucrats, administrators, and aristocrats. You might be the muscle who collects protection money and debt payments from the syndicate’s clients, or an assassin (euphemistically called a euthanist) who brings speedy ends to lives deemed to have gone on too long. Most Orzhov enforcers are fighters. Rogue enforcers typically emulate the Thief or Assassin archetype.
Priest
If you are cleric (most likely of the Order Domain), you can aspire to serve an important function in the Orzhov Syndicate, which continues to maintain the outward appearance of a religious institution. Once you earn a position of respect in the syndicate, you will hear confessions and dole out penance (which is always of a financial nature). Your “calling” centers on collecting monetary tithes and offerings in a wide range of forms. Your spellcasting ability comes from the collective power of the spirits that rule the guild, not from a god.
You might even be a most unusual priest for the syndicate—one who thinks the guild’s wealth should be used to ease the suffering of the downtrodden. You might also believe in the inspiration and delight that beautiful pageantry can offer to the world. If you seek to distribute wealth and share beauty, rather than hoard them, you must do so discreetly to avoid the ire of the Obzedat.
The Orzhov Representative background is available for characters who are part of the Orzhov guild.
An Orzhov Party
An Orzhov adventuring party might be assembled in one of two ways. If its primary purpose is the application of brute force, some number of hulking enforcers (fighters) form the core of the ground, perhaps supported by a stealthy “euthanist” (rogue) and a knight (paladin). A priest (cleric) could provide additional magical support.
If the group is more focused on the political scheming of the Orzhov, involving the use of persuasion and coercion rather than outright force, a priest (cleric) and an advokist (wizard) will probably lead the group, accompanied by more sophisticated bodyguards (fighters or rogues).
Rank and Renown
The Orzhov adhere to a very strict power structure. Positions open only at the bottom of the organization, and rising through the ranks requires utmost devotion. With increasing rank comes a greater degree of leverage over those who occupy the ranks below you.
Rank 1: Syndic
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Orzhov Syndicate
Syndics are low-ranking functionaries. At this level of the hierarchy, you can expect deference from borrowers, who will perform small favors that require no significant risk, effort, or cost. The bulk of your work for the guild, in turn, involves doing favors for those above you.
As a priest of this rank, you can perform minor tasks in an Orzhov church: collecting tithes at the door, scheduling appointments for the senior priests, keeping ledgers, and the like. As an advokist, you copy documents, research legal precedent, depose witnesses, and otherwise assist more senior guild members. As an enforcer, you flex your muscle to collect minor debts that are of little importance to the guild as a whole.
Rank 2: Knight
Prerequisite: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher in the Orzhov Syndicate
Each knight carries a title that expresses a quality of character, such as Knight of Penance or Knight of Despair. As a knight, you have authority over syndics, and you are trusted—so far as anyone in the Orzhov Syndicate trusts anyone else—to transport large sums of money. You also have access to sufficient funds to maintain a comfortable lifestyle between adventures.
As a priest of this rank, you hear confessions and collect penance, lead rites (and take offerings), perform ceremonies, and offer counsel to your superiors when asked. As an advokist, you represent clients in court, draw up contracts, and put your magic to use in a variety of ways. As an enforcer, you are entrusted with collecting larger sums and interacting with powerful clients.
When you’re sent on a mission that poses a potential threat, your superior bestows on you an
Rank 3: Ministrant
Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 25 or higher in the Orzhov Syndicate
The rank of ministrant is the highest position anyone can hope to attain without being born into the guild. As a ministrant, you study finance, while managing the syndics and knights under your control. Between adventures, you can now maintain a wealthy lifestyle.
You are given a servitor thrull that is yours to command. If it is killed, your pontiff gives you a new one at their discretion, possibly up to
Rank 4: Pontiff
Prerequisite: Rank 3 and renown 50 or higher in the Orzhov Syndicate, Orzhov birth
As a pontiff, you are one of the executive managers in charge of enacting the will of the Ghost Council. For that purpose, you have a staff of
Enemies and Allies
A syndicate built on a foundation of exploitation and extortion can’t rely on alliances. The Orzhov appreciate certain aspects of other guilds' work and missions, but they treat other guilds as resources to be plundered. In general, the Orzhov view guilds that promote order and stability (Azorius, Boros, and Selesnya) more kindly than guilds that sow chaos and destruction (such as Golgari and Rakdos).
Sometimes adherence to order can get in the way of an efficient crime operation, though, and that’s when the Orzhov part ways with the other law-and-order guilds—especially the Azorius. Any guild that obstructs the Orzhov from amassing more wealth is an enemy, whether the disruption comes from horning in on Orzhov operations or enforcing laws against racketeering.
The best way to secure individual allies from other guilds is to make them owe you something. Borrowers seldom make friendly or especially loyal allies, but they can be useful pawns. You might form a genuine alliance with members of other guilds if you share a common enemy: the overreaching Azorius or Boros, the spies of the Dimir or assassins of the Golgari, or the rampages and excesses of the Gruul and Rakdos. Alternatively, you might team up with members of a chaotic guild to bring down an opponent that is causing too much trouble for Orzhov operations.
The Orzhov View on Other Guilds
In the eyes of the Orzhov Syndicate, the other guilds primarily represent either opportunities for exploitation or dangerous threats to its way of life.
“Their new laws challenge everything we know Ravnica stands for. If they will not protect the people, then we will do it for them.”
“Though their structure is reasonable, they are naive in their outlook on justice. What glory is there in risking one’s life when work continues in the afterlife?”
“It’s hard to begrudge them their love of secrets. As long as they stay out of our business, we will leave them be.”
“Admirably resourceful and elegant, but tragically unhygienic. The swarmers may persist, as long as they don’t try to force their aesthetic sensibilities on us.”
“They know nothing of order and dignity, and therefore they serve little purpose as an organization.”
“Combative and obnoxious. Their allegiance lies with no one, and their naiveté isn’t worth our time.”
“A necessary source of creativity and satire. Wit is a dangerous weapon, and their critiques speak to the people more than fear and surveillance ever will.”
“The Selesnya are idealistic fools. Looking toward nature ignores the problems at hand in the civilized world.”
“Their preoccupation with life disregards the might that death can provide.”
Cult of Rakdos
Jace walked into the Rakdos club, pushing into a wall of scents and sounds. The ceilings were surprisingly high inside, draped with banners and spiked chains. An impish creature hooted as it dangled from a high wire while a man in leather chaps swallowed orbs of fire and breathed them back out through his snaggly teeth. Scarred, black-scaled drakes fought viciously in cages that swung from the ceiling, and the stink of sweat and singed flesh wafted from adjoining alcoves. Against the wall stood an enormous sentry, somewhere along the spectrum between rotund man and compact giant, dressed in what looked like the motley of a harlequin jester crossed with barbed wire.
- Doug Beyer
Tomorrow is an illusion; everything is ridiculous. Members of the Cult of Rakdos have witnessed the grandiose speeches and self-important plans of other guilds and concluded that their rivals take themselves far too seriously. Since death comes for everyone, and since order tends inevitably toward chaos, the Rakdos believe that unrestrained, moment-to-moment hedonism is the only sane way to live. Of course, few other Ravnicans would describe the Rakdos as sane.
The Cult of Rakdos bears the name of the demon lord who founded it. As laid out in the Guildpact, the guild was intended to fill roles concerning entertainment, mining, and manual labor. Some argue that any effort to give a demonic cult a respectable role in society was doomed to failure, but the cult remains part of Ravnica’s social fabric nevertheless. The Guildpact prohibits the cult’s extermination, and its entertainments—even as dark and destructive as they are—hold broad appeal. From rowdy mobs who love to see the Rakdos skewer the powerful elites to decadent socialites who come to the Rakdos for illicit amusements, most of Ravnica’s people don’t really want the Rakdos to go away, as much as they might publicly protest otherwise.
Inside the Cult
As one of Ravnica’s original guild founders, the demon Rakdos has been part of Ravnica for millennia. Members of other guilds know Rakdos through his reputation for capricious cruelty and megalomania, but those who join the guild idolize him for his magnetic presence, which inspires art and encourages utter wantonness. Because Rakdos finds destruction entertaining, his cultists incorporate deadly acts into their performances in hopes of catching his eye and earning his favor.
Stages for Rakdos performances appear on streets and plazas throughout Ravnica every night, and they’re gone by morning—carried to and from on the backs of giants. Permanent establishments that cater to dark desires are tucked away in the seediest neighborhoods of the city, such as the Smelting Quarter in Precinct Six of the Tenth District.
Goals of the Rakdos
The Cult of Rakdos is centered on a demon lord who exemplifies the concepts of chaos and evil. At its worst, the cult is driven by a lust for power, extreme selfishness, and a lack of compassion. Cultists take delight in causing pain to others to make sure they know their place, which is subservient to the powerful adherents of this self-centered philosophy.
The cult’s chaotic nature fuels its passion, impulsiveness, and obsession with freedom. A guild of unbridled hedonism, it does what it wants, driven by base desires and a strong streak of cruelty.
The Cult of Rakdos was originally recognized as a guild as part of an effort to channel the impulses of demons, giants, ogres, and humans into an acceptable direction. That effort has never been completely successful. Now, as tension builds in Ravnica and several guilds attempt to crack down on chaos and criminal activity, the Rakdos cult reacts to this building pressure with increasing violence.
The Cult of Rakdos already serves a megalomaniacal demon of chaos, so its members have no interest in seeing any other ambitious figure achieve supreme rulership over Ravnica. They fear that any other guild might gain enough power to overwhelm all the others and impose its own values on everyone. For this reason, they focus their efforts on subverting other guilds' schemes, by undermining popular and powerful leaders and interfering—often violently—with any effort to build a centralized concentration of authority.
The Azorius Senate currently stands as the greatest threat to the Rakdos way of life. The cult targets Azorius senators and arresters for ridicule, harassment, and occasionally assassination. The Boros Legion’s zealous pursuit of order and justice poses a similar threat. Although Boros’s attention is focused on the Gruul at the moment, Rakdos cultists are well aware that any sufficiently disruptive performance with a high enough body count could bring the wrath of the legion down on their heads. The overreaching of the Azorius and the self-righteous wrath of the Boros engender true fear in the anarchic Rakdos cultists, and the Rakdos respond to fear with bloodshed.
Rakdos Characters
Alignment: Usually chaotic, often evil
Suggested Races: Human, goblin
Suggested Classes: Barbarian, bard, fighter, warlock
You might enjoy playing a Rakdos character if any of the following sentences describe you:
- You enjoy mayhem.
- You like playing showy, dramatic characters who are often the center of attention.
- You’re drawn to bards or warlocks.
- The idea of finding a heroic way to participate in a demonic cult sounds like a fun challenge.
Joining the Cult of Rakdos
The Cult of Rakdos attracts misfits and malcontents, who can’t abide the civilized norms of Ravnica, as well as wayward souls eager to idolize an ancient demon lord and partake in riots. However, what Ravnicans like most about the guild is that it has evolved into a roving circus that attracts hedonistic, anything-goes performers who really know how to put on a show.
By the time you start your adventuring career, you no doubt have a great act ready to go, and you’re champing at the spike-studded bit to get out there and show the world what you’ve got. But you must earn a place on the stage or in the ring, and that means first doing your part backstage to keep the show running. “Backstage” can also mean “out in the city,” carrying out a variety of errands for people who have more pull than you. And with the Rakdos, such errands tend to look more like adventures than like shopping trips.
What does your chosen form of performance look like? What skills do you aspire to learn? Spikewheel acrobats, lampooners, fire jugglers, puppeteers, pain artists, noise musicians, and hellbeast riders form the heart of the cult’s bizarre entertainments, putting on shows in guild-owned dark speakeasies and on portable stages in the streets. Performers called uncagers tend—and unleash—the variety of beasts and horrors used in Rakdos shows.
Other Rakdos performers are spellcasters of spectacular sort, using expressive, free-wheeling, and dangerous magic. These mages find inspiration in the responses expressed by witnesses of their magic. They can be equally gratified by howls of laughter or howls of horror—any attention, in their minds, is good attention.
Most Rakdos performers are fighters of the Champion or Eldritch Knight archetype, barbarians of the Path of the Berserker, or rogues of the Thief or Assassin archetype. Spellcasting performers are often bards of the College of Valor or warlocks of the fiend (the demon lord Rakdos).
The Rakdos Cultist background is available for characters who are part of the Rakdos guild.
A Rakdos Party
A Rakdos adventuring party could operate as a performance troupe, performing a variety of activities under the cover of its nighttime shows. The master of ceremonies (bard) is the public face of the troupe, with a number of performers (fighters, barbarians, rogues, or warlocks) doing their own unique acts. A blood witch (warlock) might take the place of a spellcasting performer or assume the role of the master of ceremonies.
Rank and Renown
The anarchic nature of the Cult of Rakdos—aside from the absolute rulership of Rakdos himself—makes rank a meaningless concept to the members of the guild. Nevertheless, renown matters: performers who are well known within the guild also tend to be well known outside the guild, which means larger audiences. Renown in the Cult of Rakdos is the difference between being a bit player in someone else’s performance and being the ringmaster of your own show.
Extra
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Cult of Rakdos
You have proven yourself both useful and talented and have earned a place on stage. It’s a small place, and a dangerous one—bit players like you are as likely to suffer injury or death during a Rakdos performance as audience members are. But that’s the thrill of live theater!
Sideshow Act
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Cult of Rakdos
You have gained a reputation both within the Cult of Rakdos and (to some extent) outside it, though you are still a long way from achieving top billing. You might stage performances in back alleys and abandoned warehouses, with a handful of other performers helping to bring your vision to life.
When you go on an adventure, you can call on
Your status also means that you can venture into the depths of Rix Maadi, the lair of Rakdos, to petition for a
Blood Witch (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Cult of Rakdos, the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
The aggressive tormentors known as blood witches are the closest thing the Cult of Rakdos has to ranking officials. You can’t personally mobilize large numbers of guild members, but individual performers, ogres, giants, and even demons are quick to obey your commands as long as they don’t contradict the ethos of the guild or the will of Rakdos himself.
When you become a blood witch, you are assigned to torment a particular enemy of the guild. This enemy can be an individual, a family, an organization, or even an abstract concept. Examples of blood witches include the Judge of the Judges, who targets the Azorius guildmaster; the Tormentor of the Wojek, who confounds Boros military intelligence efforts; and the Disintegrator of Law and Order, who undermines all efforts to uphold law.
Star Performer
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in the Cult of Rakdos
At last, you have the opportunity to display your genius to the masses. When you perform, you’re the star of the show, the climax of a night of revelry. The rest of the guild regards you with admiration and more than a little envy, since crowds pack whatever venues you choose for your shows. Rakdos himself might even come to watch. You can count on the support of your ringmaster, and you can call on the aid of other performers in your troupe—just be careful not to turn your back on the ones who would kill in return for a moment in your spotlight.
You can bring
Ringmaster
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in the Cult of Rakdos
The show is yours to command. You determine what performers take center stage and when, and you design the exciting and bloody final act of the show—meaning that you decide who lives and who dies. You might adopt an ominous or overwrought title, such as Choreographer of Flame or the Dramaturge. A troupe of
Enemies and Allies
A cult of demon worshipers doesn’t make a lot of friends. Ideologically, the Rakdos have the most in common with the Gruul and the Golgari; all three guilds have a desire to topple the structures of power in Ravnica. Of course, the guilds disagree about what (or who) should replace the existing structures.
Making the powerful look ridiculous lies at the heart of the Rakdos performance philosophy. The bulk of the guild’s aggression is directed toward guilds that have power and abuse it or guilds that make blatant bids for power. That’s particularly true when powerful guilds—especially the Azorius—try to use their power to suppress the Rakdos.
Making the ridiculous powerful is the flip side of the Rakdos philosophy. Usually, this means elevating the status of the Rakdos—and yourself—at the expense of others, but circumstances might lead you to cooperate with members of other guilds in pursuit of a common goal. For example, a power struggle in another guild can be an opportunity for you to install a sympathetic (or ineffectual) leader in that guild. Beyond that, other chaotic guilds have grudges against the law-enforcing guilds and would be happy to join your efforts to strike a blow against them.
The Rakdos View on Other Guilds
The Cult of Rakdos serves a demon lord who is feared, if not respected, by most citizens of Ravnica. Its cultists express their zeal through riotous, bloody, and deadly performances and revels. To other guilds, they are a fearsome threat to the city. To the Rakdos, the other guilds invest too much effort in a vain search for meaning and might.
“Insufferable killjoys, and every artist’s eternal enemy. Everyone thinks we are the guild of ultimate evil, but we’re not the ones who want to monitor, legislate, and control your every move.”
“We love a parade, but their demonstrations always come across as stiff. They’re the deserving straight man for our every punch line.”
“They crave secrets, but there’s nothing they can get by eavesdropping that we won’t freely scream at the top of our lungs. They lurk in the shadows trying to look mysterious, practically inviting our mischief.”
“We know they’re tired of being the downtrodden, misunderstood misfits. If they’re truly ready to anger the powers that be rather than lick boot soles, we invite them to run away and join our circus.”
“Our well-meaning cousins in chaos! We want to take society down a peg, and they want to raze civilization to the dirt. That’s practically common ground!”
“Every performance benefits from prop masters and pyrotechnicians. They can be useful backstage, but they lack the charisma for the spotlight.”
“The more the Orzhov try to coerce free people to act against their desires, the easier it is for Rakdos to gain recruits.”
“Such crowds! They would scarcely notice if they were missing a few by night’s end. They’d make the perfect audience, if only they had a better appreciation for bleeding-edge art.”
“Imaginative creators who nevertheless fail to appreciate the meaning of their living creations—nor do they appreciate the tragic irony of not knowing how funny that is.”
Selesnya Conclave
Selesnya troops poured into the streets, emptying the nature temples, wildlife preserves, and other green spaces controlled by the conclave. The centaurs' hooves clattered on the cobblestones and the wolf-riders bounded over stone bridges. Human and elf infantry flooded through the arteries of the district, streaming past intersections and flowing around buildings. Griffons and their riders swooped down out of a blanket of low clouds, strafing past the spires. Emmara rode on the shoulder of a massive creature made of a snarl of marble, wood, and vines, her hand resting on its great head. Two more of the nature behemoths strode ahead of her, swinging their limbs in slow motion, indenting the streets with their footfalls as the other Selesnya troops ran between their legs. Below her, Captain Calomir led the Selesnya army. He rode his white war rhino, driving the Selesnya ranks forward, guiding them through the streets toward the Rakdos horde.
- Doug Beyer
Like a thriving garden, carefully tended and abundantly fertile, the communities of the Selesnya Conclave are a harmonious union of nature and civilization. The members of the conclave dream of embracing all of Ravnica in their peaceful union. In the meantime, they are growing an army, preparing to resist the ambition and destructive impulses of the other guilds and fight to defend their way of life.
At the heart of the Selesnya faith and philosophy is the Worldsoul, called Mat’Selesnya, which its devotees believe to be a manifestation of nature itself. At the signing of the original Guildpact, Mat’Selesnya was embodied in an elemental form and acted as the guild’s first guildmaster. The current guildmaster, Trostani—three dryads fused together with Mat’Selesnya into a single being—is said to embody the will of the Worldsoul in a similar way. The original mission of the conclave involved conservation and charity, but its focus has long been on expanding its community, in which all members are cared for and nature is preserved in harmony with civilization.
Inside the Conclave
The Selesnya Conclave is organized into enclaves called vernadi, which are communes built around central trees. The vernadi are smaller versions of the guildhall, the great city-tree Vitu-Ghazi. A dryad, called a voda, is called forth from that central tree to be the leader of the community, connecting the vernadi and its devotees to the Worldsoul and uniting them with the will of the entire conclave.
A voda is accessible to all the guild members in her care. You have regular contact with your voda, who knows your name and has a good idea of your interests, goals, and strengths. And since your voda is mystically linked to the guildmaster, Trostani, through communion with the Worldsoul, it’s safe to assume that Trostani knows who you are as well.
In addition to the voda, military and religious leaders in each vernadi regularly communicate with its members. Ordinary members of the conclave spend a few hours every day training with a military instructor and studying with a religious teacher.
Goals of the Selesnya
Despite the growing tensions that now grip the world, in the long view of the Selesnya Conclave, not much has changed. Ravnica is troubled, but Ravnica has always been troubled. The Living Guildpact is absent, but the Guildpact comes and goes. The Worldsoul has not changed, nor has the will of Mat’Selesnya: the conclave’s main goal is to grow, as it has always been. Its strength lies in its numbers.
The conclave clings to the ideal of a peaceful collective in which individual desires are subordinate to the good of the whole group. The guild wants to see this beloved community grow, flourish, and thrive in peace. But as much as it values peace within the community, it displays incredible ferocity when that harmony is threatened.
Selesnya’s vision is centered on the idea of harmony between civilization and nature. To advance the cause of civilized society, the conclave believes in the need for an ordered structure that orients the group toward the pursuit of the common good. At the same time, the guild’s connection with the natural world gives the conclave a fervent appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. Selesnya doesn’t tolerate selfishness or ambition, instead urging its members to put the needs of others ahead of their own desires and to use the power of nature—including nature’s wrath—to drive away those whose selfishness threatens the coherence of the group.
The greatest danger that Selesnya faces lies in the ambitions of other guilds, which are flourishing in the absence of the Guildpact. Selesnya’s way of curbing this grasping selfishness has always been to outnumber the other guilds. Its members aren’t naive; they fully realize that the ambitions of other guilds will lead to violence. And they aim to be prepared for that violence when it erupts.
“For my seedlings to survive,” Mat’Selesnya says, “we must grow an army capable of overwhelming such ambitions.” Some of that army is literally grown, in the case of plant creatures and elementals. A great many members grow up in the guild from childhood and learn their martial skills at the guild’s training grounds. And still more join the guild through recruitment—especially in these troubling times, when rumors of war and a sense of imminent doom make Selesnya’s message of harmonious community sound ever more appealing.
Selesnya Characters
Alignment: Usually good, often neutral
Suggested Races: Human, centaur, elf (wood), half-elf, loxodon
Suggested Classes: Bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, warlock
You might enjoy playing a Selesnya Conclave character if one or more of the following statements are true:
- You like the idea of being part of a huge, peaceful community.
- You like playing druids, rangers, or spiritual monks.
- You believe in victory through respectful teamwork, overwhelming numbers, or both.
- You want a spiritual connection to something bigger than just your character.
Joining the Selesnya Conclave
New initiates come to the Selesnya Conclave as children, to be brought up by the guild’s members, or as recruits drawn from the guildless or the membership of other guilds. Regardless of the path you took to get here, you start out in the role of initiate. As an initiate, you must subsume your desires to the needs of the guild while finding a way (under the guidance of your enclave’s leader) to put your talents to use in service to Mat’Selesnya. This effort isn’t so much a process of carrying out orders, but of gradually discerning the will of the Worldsoul and finding your place in it.
In your search for communion with the Worldsoul, you are part of a worldwide community, but you are also part of a smaller local community—an enclave called a vernadi, which is led by a dryad called a voda. Your role in the conclave is specifically oriented toward your vernadi, at least at the start of your career. Your voda helps you in your process of discerning the will of Mat’Selesnya and your place in relation to it.
The Selesnya Conclave is both a community of worshipers and a militia, and thus its leadership includes both military and religious figures.
Military Roles
Selesnya looks from the outside like a peaceful community, but it is also an army. If you are a fighter, a ranger, or a paladin (usually having sworn the Oath of the Ancients), your place in the guild is a military one. Unlike in the Boros Legion, though, the conclave’s military ranks aren’t highly structured; each enclave has its own forces, with a single commander and one other layer of command (at most) above the troops. A variety of special military roles become available to you as you prove yourself useful to your vernadi and the conclave. You might aspire to be a votary standing watch over the temple gardens, a sagittar archer, a pegasus-riding equenaut, or a wolf-riding Ledev guardian.
Religious Roles
If you are a druid (perhaps of the Circle of the Land), a cleric (of the Life or the Nature Domain), a warlock with the Archfey (Mat’Selesnya) as a patron, or a devout monk (who might follow the Way of the Open Hand), you might be drawn to a role of religious leadership. These leaders mediate the relationship between the members of the conclave and the voice of Mat’Selesnya. A number of special roles will be available to you as you establish your place. You might hope to carry the message of the conclave out into the world as an evangel, and great religious leaders are honored with the title of hierarch.
The Selesnya Initiate background is available for characters who are part of the Selesnya guild.
A Selesnya Party
An adventuring party is a community in itself, a symbiotic group in which each individual contributes to the success of the whole. A fighter, a ranger, or a paladin provides a starting point of martial might. A druid or a cleric offers support and healing. A bard or a warlock gives additional spell support. A monk, a bard, or a ranger can add some measure of stealth and skill specialties. Such a group is well equipped to help Selesnya grow—and to smite the guild’s enemies.
Rank and Renown
The Selesnya Conclave doesn’t classify its members in a rigid hierarchy, because doing that would encourage individuals to seek to rise above the rest of the community and put their desires above the good of the whole. Thus, aside from the leadership of Trostani over the whole guild, and each voda over her vernadi, the members of the conclave are distinguished mainly by the diverse roles they fill instead of by rank or status.
Indeed, many Selesnya initiates never leave that basic role. They have discerned their purpose, and it is to live a proper life in support of the conclave, without pursuing any kind of prestigious role. But if you achieve greater renown in the guild, a variety of special roles become available to you.
Regardless of renown and role, members of the conclave don’t earn salaries. The guild cares for its own, however, and every member can live in a vernadi at the equivalent of a modest lifestyle.
Evangel (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave
Evangels extend their hands to potential converts and welcome new initiates into the life of the Selesnya Conclave. They include fervent preachers who speak the will of the Worldsoul in the promenades and marketplaces, humble missionaries who serve among the poor in the darkest districts of the city, and even centaur warriors who evangelize in Gruul territories where words of war speak louder than prayers of peace.
When you become an evangel, you gain one additional contact from a guild other than the Selesnya Conclave, which can be someone you have met in your adventures or chosen from the Non-Selesnya Contacts table earlier in this section. In your new role, you belong to a vernadi and can expect help and support from that community, but you spend your time away from it, operating with a great deal of independence. When you return to your vernadi, you teach and train new initiates.
Votary (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave, proficiency with martial weapons
Votaries are soldiers who protect the vernadi gardens in the area immediately around its central tree. As a votary, you are usually assigned to guard duty, but your voda might also assign you to special missions that require strength of arms.
While you are in the garden you’re sworn to protect, the plants obey your word, allowing you to transform the foliage into
Sagittar (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave, proficiency with the longbow
Sagittars are archers who defend key guild locations, including the guildhall at Vitu-Ghazi. Their range and accuracy are so great that a common saying has arisen among Ravnicans: “Sagittars aim their bows using maps.” If a conclave mission would benefit from the support of disciplined archers, Trostani herself might call on sagittars to render aid.
As a sagittar, you never have to want for arrows; the guild provides arrows to you at no cost.
Selesnya Charm
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave
You can request that the voda of your vernadi bestow a
Equenaut (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave, proficiency in
Equenauts are knights who ride pegasi and serve as warriors and scouts. In addition to surveilling enemy forces and terrain, they are also on the lookout for places where a new vernadi can take root. As an equenaut, you are sometimes called on to take part in military activity, but you are free to pursue your vision of how to serve Mat’Selesnya—from the back of your pegasus mount (see the stat block in the Monster Manual).
Your mount effectively belongs to you, entrusted to your care. If it comes to harm through your negligence or mistreatment, you might be punished—perhaps to the extent of losing your position as an equenaut.
Hierarch (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
The ranks of the Selesnya clergy aren’t hierarchical, yet you are honored with the title of hierarch. Hierarchs lead rites that invoke the blessing of Mat’Selesnya, bringing Selesnya’s initiates into closer communion with the Worldsoul and with each other. They are assisted in these rites by less experienced clergy.
As a hierarch, you can call on the aid of
You have an important voice in decision-making for your vernadi, and you are expected to offer advice and opinions to your voda when requested.
Your position within the guild and your vernadi gives you access to superior food and lodging, the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.
Ledev Guardian (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave, 10th level or higher
The Ledev guardians are knights who were originally protectors of Ravnica’s roadways but now serve the Selesnya as champions. Their ranks include a number of centaurs. The humanoids among them ride dire wolves, which they raise from pups to forge close bonds between rider and mount. If you have a dire wolf mount, it effectively belongs to you (see the Monster Manual for the stat block).
Dignitary (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in the Selesnya Conclave
Chosen by Trostani herself, dignitaries act as emissaries in dealing with other guilds. As a dignitary, you must be available when Trostani has need of your service, but you have great latitude to pursue your vision of the guild’s goals. You can call on
Your position gives you access to the best food and lodging, the equivalent of a wealthy lifestyle.
Enemies and Allies
The Selesnya philosophy is one that embraces all of Ravnica. Everyone is a potential ally, until the moment they demonstrate their hostility to the conclave or the will of the Worldsoul. The Selesnya have difficulty with the riotous Rakdos, the sinister Dimir, and the chaotic Izzet, but their focus on ordered community and verdant nature gives them some amount of common ground with every other guild.
Any guild can become an enemy of the conclave, though, if its guildmaster’s ambitions—or rogue agents within the guild—upset the balance of power on Ravnica. From the other side, many other guilds see the Selesnya as a quiet threat and seek to diminish its strength before its numbers grow out of control, so as a member of the conclave you are duty-bound to oppose their operations of sabotage. The wanton plunder of Ravnica’s natural resources can also provoke the Selesnya to take action.
When members of other guilds pursue noble aims—promoting peace, strengthening community, and opposing other guilds' efforts to expand—they act as allies of the conclave and thus your allies. Furthermore, they are potential recruits into the fold, since they have demonstrated their sympathy for Selesnya’s goals and their value to the community.
The Selesnya View on Other Guilds
In the Selesnya vision of a perfect Ravnica, the guilds would be abolished and all people would live in harmony with nature and each other. Until such a vision comes to pass, the conclave judges the other guilds against that standard of perfection.
“All their laws are meant to create a semblance of the unity that binds us already. If they would only be still and listen to the voice of Mat’Selesnya.”
“Sooner or later they will tire of their fighting, and when they do, the gentle embrace of the Selesnya will be waiting for them.”
“Just as they hide from the light and cling to the shadows, they hide from life and cling to secrets. They see everything as a scheme, everyone a tool, instead of recognizing the power of unity and mutual growth.”
“They wallow in filth and rot, too preoccupied with death to appreciate the bliss of life’s connections.”
“They are a desperate echo of what they should be, reaching blindly toward something greater. Such a waste. And a smelly, unreasonable, destructive one at that.”
“The path to unity doesn’t lie in the oppressive control of a massive ego like the dragon’s. The Izzet can tinker and meddle all they like, but they are doomed to failure.”
“An endless stream of grasping hands, reaching for more and more, pursuing their individual ambitions at all costs—even from beyond the grave.”
“They laugh at tragedy and wallow in pain. Eventually, they will submit to Mat’Selesnya. Until then, they must be contained.”
“They chart a twisted course of warping and mangling life and nature. Yes, we must grow and adapt, but nature will take its own time in completing that task.”
Simic Combine
The Simic representative was a stern-looking mage whose parentage appeared to be partly human and partly aquatic, possibly merfolk; he rode astride a creature that seemed the offspring of a giant, blue-carapaced crab and an irate squid. The Simic squad was rounded out by a host of mages clad in scale armor, and improbable hybrid fusions of scaled, finned, and shelled creatures.
- Doug Beyer
The secrets of life are revealed in the laboratories of the Simic, and their research notes plumb and catalog nature’s wonders. Their original mission was to oversee issues of public health, but the Simic came to believe that complete health—of individuals and of society as a whole—depends on the mutual adaptation of nature and civilization to one another. Thus, biological experimentation has always been among its primary concerns.
Historically, the guild’s approach to its mission has been one of incremental progress toward a utopian ideal of thriving biology, and it remains more aloof from politics than other guilds. Its fundamental mission remains unchanged by the current political instability, and the isolation of its laboratories protects most Simic guild members from immediate harm.
Little is known about the combine’s founder, except that this individual’s first or family name was Simic.
Inside the Combine
Vast sinkholes called zonots are the primary geographic divisions among the Simic. Each zonot pierces layer upon layer of crumbled city as it descends deep below the surface and connects to ancient, long-forgotten ocean waters. A zonot is a distinct Simic habitat with its own culture and ecosystem, as well as a leader called a Speaker. The Speakers of all nine zonots form the Speakers' Chamber, and they elect a Prime Speaker from among them to serve as the Simic guildmaster. Zegana, the current Prime Speaker, is the Speaker of Zonot One, which is located in a remote, sparsely inhabited part of Ravnica far from the political activity of the Tenth District.
The Simic guildhall, Zameck, is located in Zonot Seven within Precinct Five of Ravnica’s Tenth District. A huge chamber just below the street serves as the gathering place for all the Speakers, as well as a location where non-Simic visitors can meet with the Prime Speaker or other combine emissaries.
Goals of the Simic
Two philosophical principles, in tension with each other, combine to give the Simic Combine its unique approach to science and nature. In traditional Simic thought, these principles are called the Holdfast and the Upwelling.
The Holdfast principle, named for the biological mechanism that keeps kelp and sponges anchored to the sea floor, advises members of the Simic Combine never to stray so far from nature that they become “adrift.” It espouses the idea that nature left undisturbed will evolve toward adaptive traits and increased strength. Nature will flourish and grow, and every creature will find its proper niche in the ecosystem where it can thrive.
The Upwelling principle, named for the phenomenon of nutrient-rich water rising to the ocean surface, advocates that the new and enlivened should replace the old and depleted in an unending cycle, bringing constant refreshment and renewal. This principle accounts for the combine’s analytical bent and its emphasis on knowledge as a means of transformation. Learning the secrets of the universe lets you shape the world as you desire. The Upwelling encourages every creature to discover its full potential.
The Holdfast encourages the Simic to promote nature; the Upwelling urges them to perfect nature. The end result is the same: a hastened system of evolution that brings out the best in every creature’s nature. But different factions within the Simic Combine interpret these principles in their own ways.
The leadership of the Simic Combine represents the traditional philosophy of the Utopians. Their vision is of an ideal world in which nature and civilization exist in balance, in which natural life adapts to life in the midst of modern civilization and the civilized world adapts to accommodate these creatures. Utopians generally interpret the Holdfast principle as being about staying rooted in nature, and the Upwelling as concerned with slow, predictable, cyclical improvement. So they remain hidden in their subaquatic laboratories, pursuing their research while isolated from the volatile interrelationships among the other guilds. Prime Speaker Zegana encourages that isolationist attitude.
At the same time, a growing faction within the Simic believes that an all-out war among the guilds is inevitable, given the growing unrest in the city. These members, the Adaptationists, believe that the guilds exist in a fragile ecosystem in which the slightest imbalance can have cascading effects. With an absent Living Guildpact failing to maintain the balance, only catastrophe can result. The Simic must change in order to survive, and slow, small steps in pursuit of an ideal vision aren’t enough. The future of the guild is in imminent danger, and the Simic need to focus on survival. Adaptationists tend to interpret the Holdfast as being about defense and security, and the Upwelling as a call for sudden, disruptive growth.
As befits members of a guild of scientists, the Adaptationists' preparations for war include the creation of soldiers that are magically and biologically adapted. The Guardian Project has yielded hybrids that combine human, elf, or vedalken stock with the characteristics of crabs, fish, jellyfish, and a variety of other creatures to give them natural armor and weapons, gills, venomous stings, and other combat-focused adaptations.
Simic Characters
Alignment: Usually neutral
Suggested Races: Human, elf (high), Simic hybrid, vedalken
Suggested Classes: Druid, fighter, monk, wizard
You might enjoy playing a character who belongs to the Simic Combine if one or more of the following statements are true:
- You are drawn to the image of the mad scientist tinkering with the fundamental forces of life.
- You like playing curious wizards, druids, or mutants.
- Prying into secrets and mysteries inspires your curiosity.
- You want to make the world a better place through research.
Joining the Simic Combine
Many paths lead people to the Simic Combine, all of them guided by the notion that tomorrow can be made better than today. All of the guild’s efforts strive to achieve a utopian future that they believe is within reach. When you join the Simic, choose one of the following roles for your character.
Scientist
If you are a spellcaster such as a wizard or a druid, you can find a natural home among the Simic as a scientist, magically manipulating the forces of life and nature to shift the world toward the guild’s utopian ideal. Most Simic wizards specialize in the School of Transmutation, using their magic to alter living creatures or alter the natural environment. Simic druids often choose the Circle of the Land, putting similar magic to the guild’s service. Those who focus on manipulating life forms are known as biomancers, while those who focus on water, weather, and atmospheric conditions are called terraformers, but you can choose your own path of research.
Guardian
If you are playing a Simic hybrid, you initially became involved in Simic research as a test subject in the Guardian Project. You volunteered to participate, but it’s possible there was some pressure on you, or you viewed it as the only way to be accepted in the guild. Your biological modifications make you ideally suited to specific tasks, and you might come to operate as a spy, an infiltrator, or brute muscle. Good class options include fighter or rogue (of any archetype), or a monk of the Way of the Open Hand.
Deepsage
You might instead choose an ascetic, contemplative life as a deepsage (perhaps as a wizard or monk). You would devote yourself to meditating on the philosophical principles of the Holdfast and the Upwelling, a pair of complementary ideas that describe the Simic approach to nature and the city. Deepsages inscribe short philosophical riddles, bordering on paradoxes, into shells, exoskeletons, and stones, and Simic guild members reflect on these sayings to advance their understanding of the combine’s role in the world. Deepsage wizards typically specialize in the School of Conjuration, and deepsage monks follow the Way of the Four Elements (focusing on air and water over the other two elements).
The Simic Scientist background is available for characters who are part of the Simic guild.
A Simic Party
An adventuring party drawn from the ranks of the Simic is typically formed around the nucleus of one or two mages, perhaps a biomancer (wizard) or a terraformer (druid). They might be accompanied by a soldier (probably a Simic hybrid fighter) and a deepsage (monk).
Rank and Renown
Tiers of responsibility and importance—functional ranks—create a hierarchy among the scientists of the Simic Combine. A scientist’s course of advancement is the path of increasing responsibility within a clade or project. Guardians and deepsages have more limited opportunities for advancement, though they still gain the benefits of high renown scores.
Rank 1: Technician
Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Simic Combine, Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
As a technician, you can begin performing experiments, following the instructions of a researcher as you operate instruments, care for experimental subjects, extract samples of bodily fluids, and run errands up and down the zonot and out into the city. Such errands can bring you into contact with members of other guilds and lead to adventures.
If you have any kind of pet, familiar, mount, or animal companion, you can add one random adaptation to it from the Minor Adaptations table. Doing so requires
Rank 2: Researcher
Prerequisite: Rank 1 and renown 10 or higher in the Simic Combine
After doing your time as a technician, you are eligible to lead your own experiments. You must be associated with a clade or a project, and must work on experiments related to its primary focus under the general guidance of the clade or project leader. Project leaders are more hands-on, ensuring that your research contributes to reaching the immediate objective. Clade leaders check in from time to time, but they give you wide latitude to pursue your own experiments under the general aegis of the clade’s interests.
If your research requires it, your project leader or clade leader can equip you with a
Luminary (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the Simic Combine
As a guardian, deepsage, or other non-scientist within the Simic, you don’t progress through ranks, but as a luminary you might be entrusted with the leadership of guerrilla or espionage missions, with other Simic hybrid agents under your command. Or you might be respected as a wise and enlightened teacher.
If your work for the guild requires it, a project leader, clade leader, or other superior can equip you with a
In addition, when you’re on guild business, you can call on the following Simic hybrid agents to assist you: one hybrid brute or hybrid flier, up to two Hybrid Poisoner or Hybrid Shocker, or
Rank 3: Project Leader
Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 25 or higher in the Simic Combine
A proven researcher, you are eligible to oversee your own project, directing the efforts of other researchers toward the solution of some problem facing the guild. The Speaker of your zonot gives you laboratory space, and you have a staff of
Hosting the work of a successful and important project reflects well on the Speaker of a zonot, so your Speaker keeps a close eye on your work. On the positive side, you can count on access to the considerable resources of the zonot as long as your research is going well. On the other hand, you can expect your Speaker to try to meddle in your work to ensure that your efforts remain relevant to the overall goals of the Simic Combine.
Rank 4: Clade Leader
Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 50 or higher in the Simic Combine
As a famous researcher or a successful project leader, you stand ready to take on a supervisory role for an entire clade. New clades rarely form, so you must wait for your clade leader to retire (one way or another) before a position exists for you to fill, except in truly exceptional circumstances. Similar to a project leader, you are responsible for directing the efforts of researchers exploring a wide variety of projects related to the focus of your clade. Unless an experiment turns out to be especially interesting, these efforts can carry on without your supervision. If you need to, you can enlist the aid of
Because most clades span multiple zonots, you have status equal to the Speakers of the zonots. You have no voice on the Speakers' Chamber, unless you can persuade one or more of its members to speak on your behalf.
Speaker (Special Role)
Prerequisite: Renown 50 or higher in the Simic Combine
You are eligible to become the Speaker of a zonot. The selection of a new Speaker (in the event of an existing Speaker’s retiring, dying, or otherwise leaving the position) takes place through a combination of popular election and the input of the other eight Speakers, with the current Prime Speaker having the final word. If you emerge as the victor after this rigorous process, you assume the leadership of your zonot and are empowered to bring its concerns before the Speakers' Chamber.
You are a political leader rather than a scientific one, so you have authority over other members of the combine only if they live and work in your zonot. If a clade has a laboratory in your zonot, you have the right (and responsibility) to supervise its activities to ensure compliance with laws and regulations, but not to interfere in its research beyond that point. And if the clade leader lives in a different zonot, you have no authority whatsoever over that person.
Enemies and Allies
The Simic Combine has an affinity for guilds that care for the forces of nature, and as such it has worked alongside the Selesnya, Gruul, and Golgari in the past. To a lesser extent, the combine also has a rapport with the other scientific guild, the Izzet. But overall, the Simic attitude toward other guilds is one of healthy caution bolstered by a general tendency toward isolation.
Any guild could break the peace and send the entire world spiraling into war, so all the guilds are potential enemies—particularly if they direct their aggression at the Simic Combine. The Golgari Swarm has launched a direct attack against Zonot Four (located in the Sixth District), and they could expand that attack to other zonots at any time. Azorius arresters are prying into all the zonots, looking for evidence of wrongdoing. Thus, the Simic efforts at preparing for war are in danger, and the need for those efforts to be brought to fruition could arise at any time.
Your most obvious allies are those who seek to restrain the ambition of other guilds and maintain the balance of power. At various times, that category could include members of any other guild, particularly the Selesnya Conclave. Everyone (with the possible exception of the chaotic Rakdos and Gruul) has an occasional interest in maintaining the status quo, no matter how revolutionary that notion might seem at other times.
The Simic View on Other Guilds
The most insular members of the Simic Combine avoid interacting with other guilds entirely. No one but another Simic scientist could ever fully grasp or appreciate the work of the guild, and too many of the other guilds react with fear to what they don’t understand.
“An absurd and inelegant construct, forever trapped in a maze of their own making. They would outlaw evolution if they could. And if any of them truly seek utopia, the rest are far too busy shuffling papers to notice. Avoid their attention at all costs.”
“They style themselves the agents of ‘justice.’ But the law is no better excuse for aggression than any other.”
“We need not compete. Let them be, and they will let us be—but observe them closely.”
“Less an organization than an infestation. They are nearly as adaptable as we are, and they seem intent on competition. More than any other guild, they pressure us to improve.”
“The Gruul conceive of nature only in terms of savagery and privation. But their ways are no less a response to civilization than our own. They will survive, barely, and perhaps one day they will understand.”
“The Izzet have spent ten thousand years mimicking the appearance of research, producing more pyrotechnics than progress. Surely that is a performance to rival the Rakdos.”
“They hoard their treasure throughout their pointless lives and lengthy afterlives. With such riches, we could swiftly bring about a future in which gold is as irrelevant as death.”
“Camouflage, mimicry, resilience, and versatility. If the guilds were species, we would count the Rakdos among the most impressive. But they aren’t, and that makes the Rakdos far more erratic—and dangerous.”
“Like us, they seek a synthesis between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ systems. Unlike us, they wish to achieve it by unconditional surrender. They are adequate partners in stable times, but in the present climate they have little to offer.”