Guild Keeping [PDF]

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Table Of Contents

1 Introduction 2 Part one: Campaigns in Ravnica 2.1 Genres of Ravnica 2.1.1 Ravnica genres and examples 3 Ways to Structure a Ravnica Campaign 3.1 The Conspiracy 3.2 Our Slice of Ravnica 3.3 Political Games 3.4 Revolution 3.5 Using the Colours 3.6 Climbing the Ladder 4 Greater Ravnica 4.1 Alignment and the Planar System 4.1.1 Clerics in Ravnica 4.1.2 Planes and Extraplanar creatures 4.2 City Life 4.3 Festivals in Ravnica 4.4 Locations And Adventure Hooks 4.5 NPC Gallery 4.6 Subclasses by Guild, cont.

Made using The Homebrewery, which we appreciate immensely! Front cover is Shipping on the Clyde by John Atkinson Grimshaw, edited by Ebba Stuart. All images are in the public domain. GGR - used throughout - refers to the book Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Bolded creature names point to stat blocks from the Monster Manual or GGR if marked with an *. Shout out and thank yous to my wonderful party of players; Artemis, Erudite Beraal, Jarad, Lomar, Nix, Obor, and Sathei. Sorry about the stolen memories and the assassination attempts!

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, the dragon ampersand, Ravnica and all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast in the USA and other countries. This work contains material that is copyright Wizards of the Coast and/or other authors. Such material is used with permission under the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild. All other original material in this work is copyright 2019 by Ebba Stuart and published under the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild.

Introduction

I

love Ravnica. I love how there’s always something new happening, how all the guilds are bastards with complex and interlocking conflicts, I love that clash of ideas and philosophies, and I particularly love the Rakdos. To me, Ravnica is a perfect setting for a campaign. Players have a place in the world immediately from level one, things to care about, contacts, rivals, aspirations. Ten guilds might seem like a lot, but with the colour system you always have a way to organize them in your mind. Every guild has its heroes and villains and there’s limitless potential for colourful secrets and deeply hidden secrets between the ten. This is a short introduction, scraping the surface of that potential and filling in the gaps of the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica (= GGR). Read that first! It’s very good! Included here is material intended to give DM’s a roadmap to running Ravnica as an open world of intrigue, a tightly run storyline, a sprawling magical urban mystery, or anything you can imagine. It truly is a world of Anything Can Happen, and I hope to guide you, dear reader, through some ways to approach the overwhelming glorious chaos. One disclaimer: very little here is directly referencing Magic: the Gathering lore. I’ve personally gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the Ravnica plot lines, but I hold them to be decidedly Magic stories, distinct from your typical D&D stories, and I purposefully wanted the content to be accessible to players and DMs with no knowledge and interest in MtG. That being said, the worlds of MtG are endlessly inspiring, and a treasure trove for DMs, if you have the time check it all out. All my love to the Unspoken Realms Podcast. My guiding principle is also always that, when you run a setting at your table - it belongs to your table. If your players find, say, the Golgari Swarm to be too creepy to handle? No problem, have 9 guilds of Ravnica, or come up with a new one to replace them. Also, in my experience, shutting down player ideas for contradicting some canon they aren't familiar with isn't really in the spirit of You Can Just Make Things Up. The first part of the supplement gives some tools to aid you in a more structured approach to Just Making Things Up. The second contain some thoughts on the worldbuilding, and things I Just Made Up. Okay, that’s all I had to say for now. Besides, you know, everything. Enjoy!

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Part one: Campaigns in Ravnica Genres of Ravnica

Since Ravnica is a little bit all over the place aesthetic-wise, all kinds of exciting adventure genres are readily available. From one session to the next you could have your players wrapped up in a police procedural, leading to a horror show battle of the bands, culminating in a mecha vs kaiju battle. Ask your players about what genres they enjoy (playing, reading, watching), and you will likely have a solid base of inspiration to draw from. All kinds of people live in Ravnica, and unless you specifically asked your players to draw from the same guild, you are very likely to have a party of individuals from all across genre fiction. This might seem like an obstacle, but it's actually quite the asset. Ravnica welcomes all of them and delights in seeing them collide.

Some guilds are more obsessed with hierarchy than others, but between those that are there's enough high society, haves and have-nots, to supply any number of awkward culture clashes and faux pas. Examples include, finding the right moment to kill a vampire with plausible deniability at an Orzhov dinner party, convincing a famous Precinct One musician to collaborate with a Rakdos band. Post-apocalypse

Ravnica genres and examples

While civilization is clearly thriving in Ravnica, there is stark contrast in the rubble belts of the city, home to the Gruul clans. For all your survivalists, whatever their reasons may be for shunning the big city, there are harsh conditions and beautiful open plains populated by beasts and ruins. Examples include, exile to the rubblebelt, missionary or charity work, growing up in the Gruul clans.

Adventure Exploration

Horror

While Ravnica might seem modern by DnD standards, the city is old. The Undercity presents a treasure trove of secrets magic and mystery. Example dungeon crawls include, Heretical Golgari priests summoning things from beyond death, lost Dimir archives of hidden artefacts, hidden necropolises/vaults of Orzhov beneficiaries. Noir and Mystery

You have a city, a gray sky, a corrupt government, crime and politics. The rest is just filling in the gaps. Examples include, infiltrating an Orzhov Casino, solving a locked-room murder in a quarantined Simic research facility, trying to find just how deep the corruption of the Senate goes Science fiction

Between the maniacal engineering of the Izzet, and the evergreen impossibilities of the Simic, there are plenty of opportunities to explore the effects of new technology and knowledge on the world. Examples include, the emergence of new surveillance magic in the hands of the Azorius and Dimir, the ethics of Simic cloning, unpredictable time travel courtesy of the Izzet League. Political Intrigue

Surviving the political landscape in Ravnica, regardless of your guild, is all about finding allies and doing favours for the right people. Examples include, rising through the ranks of the Senate without painting an Orzhov or Golgari target on your back, organizing the Gruul clans into a singular force, get close enough to the Ghost Council to end their hold over the Orzhov.

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Comedy of Manners

Many of the guilds quickly become terrifying the more you think about them. The Simic are skirting the edge of body horror, the memory manipulation of Dimir have some psychologically terrifying implications, and the Rakdos deal in shock horror. As always when running horror, be careful with your players' comfort levels. More examples include, anything dealing with the Golgari, and the ghosts and vampires of the Orzhov. The one thing that can definitely be said about the genre of Ravnica is that it is an urban setting no matter how you turn it, and your player characters, unless they shifted in from another plane, will be familiar with and entangled in the city from the get go. Exploration will therefore look a little bit different, though there's still plenty of reason to explore. The second half of this supplement contains some ideas about urban exploration and making every street corner unique.

Ways to Structure a Ravnica Campaign

T

his section includes a number of different approaches to creating a Ravnica campaign from scratch. If the idea of a boundless cityscape seems daunting, these ideas will provide some places to start.

The Conspiracy

Similar to the idea of one Big Bad Villain, a city of intrigue can be run around one central dangerous secret or conspiracy. The parties involved need not be on the same side or even be aware of each other. Who is involved? What danger does it pose to Ravnica? Who is covering it up and why? Who else is searching for the truth? Why are the PCs affected? The appeal of this structure is that it allows you to reign things in if the mysteries start to sprawl out of control. The same limited gallery of npcs are bound to stay involved, revealing pieces of information at a time, possibly at great risk to their own person. Be careful, however, not to keep the answers and secrets so far out of reach that your players get frustrated. Remember that a player who cracks the puzzle should be rewarded and that once the secret is out there's still a lot of campaign left to deal with its ramifications. Example Conspiracies d10 Conspiracy 1 The Azorius Senate are creating emergencies to prove the other guilds’ incompetence and use the catastrophes to politically leverage giving themselves power over the other guilds.

d10 Conspiracy 6 Izzet researchers have found ways to overcharge the leylines Ravnica is built upon, creating massively powerful effects affecting whole Precincts. The emergence of this technology sets off an arms race as well as a race to find the most complete maps and understandings of the city’s arcane structure. 7 An Orzhov angel is buying up swathes of the city in search of a long lost treasure vault rumoured to contain a powerful celestial artefact which could let her crown herself the rightful commander of other angels. 8 A mysterious Rakdos circus troupe which appears and disappears at different locations of Ravnica, seemingly at random, is delivering strange prophecies and granting wishes. Why is anyone's guess, though rumors say that if the troupe is looking for someone with a dark enough wish to replace Rakdos himself. 9 The Selesnya Conclave has grown big enough, and controls enough of Ravnica's resources to make demands of the other guilds. Declaring that the other guilds are either with them or against them sets off a slow chain reaction of desperate diplomacy and conflicts between and within the guilds as people pick sides. 10 A Simic fanatic has decided that the guild system isn’t a problem so much as its members. They plan to replace the guilds with bioengineered simic hybrids perfectly made to fill the function the guilds require.

2 The Boros legion are frantically trying to cover up the fall of several angels whose contagious doubt threaten to send the standing army of Ravnica into chaos. 3 House Dimir is sharing confidential research between the Simic and Izzet which make both guilds look guilty of building superweapons. All guilds go on the defensive to protect themselves, and the Dimir step in to take advantage of the paranoia to make Ravnica dependent on their services. 4 A new faction of Erstwhile (GGR p. 184) from the depths of the Undercity have awoken, bringing with them strange, maddening beliefs. The cult promises power and attracts followers from all parts of Ravnica. 5 A Gruul druid has found an apocalyptic prophecy, which requires a number of rituals to take place before the final storm. By exploiting their short-term goals, influential people in the other guilds become unwitting, or uncaring, accomplices to the apocalypse.

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Our Slice of Ravnica

The core of this structure is creating a location, establishment, or community in which the player characters have a vested interest. Whether it's a neighborhood, a small business, a religious group, or a family, the characters have something to defend from the threats posed by various guild influences, and somewhere to return to between adventures. This structure works well with contained, episodic adventures, and gives many great opportunities to establish recurring NPCs which make Ravnica seem more like a real place. As the characters grow, their fame is likely to outgrow them, drawing people to their part of Ravnica, or drawing their attention elsewhere. Most likely their responsibilities to their guilds and the responsibilities of their community will come into conflict as the story progresses, but increased wages and influence can also be used directly to the betterment of the community.

Guild Azorius

2 Amusement park

Jelenn Column (Legislative) Lyev Column (Executive) Boros

Swiftblades Wojek (GGR p. 43) Dimir Golgari

Gorgon Erstwhile Gruul

Once you have your lineup of politically ambitious NPCs you can give all of them a general time frame for accomplishing their goals, and an MO to make them easy for the players to recognize. Give the plans a couple of steps that the players could notice and potentially stop or aid as they see fit.

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Clan interests Ilharg Worship (GGR. 59) Rubblebelt / Gruul Independence Destruction of Ravnica

Izzet

Laboratory (GGR p. 65) Firemind's personal interests Independent research

Orzhov

Treasury and bank Worship and religious services

Political Games

Instead of one central conflict, you might have more fun moving the pieces of the chessboard around several key factions, forces and interests. Keep in mind that Ravnica is more than the guilds and power players within their ranks are bound to have their own agendas. Ravnica is a city of unceasing conflict and some people are going to try very hard to come out on top. Ten guilds might be difficult to keep track of, and a guild is a fairly large group of people to mobilize, containing many different interests. To break it down, consider selecting a handful of internal interests in the guilds which interest you the most, (and especially those you suspect will be most antagonistic toward the PCs) and populate them with ambitious NPCs with clear goals. Check in with your NPCs with regular intervals to see if they have reasons to react to recent events in the campaign.

Devkarin Kraul

7 Criminal Syndicate 8 Art gallery or museum

Lazav or Vampire loyalist Independent

4 Delivery service 6 Insurance agency

Angel loyalists Tajic loyalitst (GGR p. 42)

3 Zoo or pet store 5 Used book store or pawn shop

Precog mages Sova Column (Judicial)

d8 Establishent 1 Detective agency

Sub-guild factions

Crime Influential families Newly rich social-climbers Obzedat Rakdos

Blood Witches Any troupe Rakdos himself

Selesnya

Military Religious interests

Simic

Adaptionist Utopian

Who is this NPC and what do they control? What is their end goal? What steps are required to get there? Where is this taking place? How long will it take? How are the players concerned? What are the stakes? Who is opposed to this plan? If thwarted, how will this person react? If people/creatures are working for this person what kind of people/creatures?

Revolution

While many campaigns involve protecting and defending the Status Quo of a stable setting in need of saving from a given threat, you might find it more interesting to flip that on its head. It is not unlikely your characters will have some disagreements with the way Ravnica is run, be it within their own guild or the larger system. Ravnica is a dangerous and often violent place, and if your players are so inclined you may well structure a campaign around the question “well, what are you going to do about it?” This doesn't necessarily mean aligning with the Gruul Clans to wreck Ravnica in the most literal sense, though it might. Running a campaign around this theme gives the PCS something long term to strive for. Over the course of the game you can reward them by letting them see the change they bring about and the NPCs they inspire. Antagonists can easily be played by pushing back the way the system naturally would, which lets you react to the players rather than the other way around, a lot of the time. This approach opens up to a lot of free problem solving, though you might need to run a few more contained sessions at first to introduce the setting and it's problems at ground level before the players are ready to change the world. Running this sort of campaign requires that everyone is on board. A campaign that has frustration about the world as a core component, will have a different emotional toll than other campaigns. Check your hard and soft limits, and ensure your players have a way to opt out of scenes and discussions that they don't feel up for.

Red. A pair of Izzet sorcerer-liches with a burning mutual hatred, whose phylacteries nonetheless are each other. Green. A disgraced Selesnyan druid-lich, whose phylactery is a nature spirit, which can inhabit and possess other creatures, especially animals. Sidebar: Colours of Magic The five colours of magic in Magic: the Gathering represent both mechanical features and strategies of the game, and related philosophical concepts. There are a plethora of guides to this system and what it means out there to be found, both in terms of game play and the more philosophical symbolic interpretations of the color wheel. If you are absolutely new to MtG colour theory, here are the basics: The five colours are: White, order, community, structure, celestials Blue, logic, knowledge, progress, vedalken and merfolk Black, death, ambition, individualism undead Red, passion, destruction, chaos, minotaurs and goblins Green, nature, growth, centaurs and elves

Using the Colours

If you can’t decide on one thing you want to pursue, if your own perfectionism gets in the way, one thing I personally like to do is start from a set number of things and let the completionist part of the brain get to work. Your mileage may vary, but sometimes it's just easier to come up with a few different things and tie them together rather than coming up with the whole thing at once. The five colours of magic (see sidebar) is an incredibly versatile inspirational tool. Whenever there is need for a group of locations, murder suspects, magic items, problems, or whatever the situation may call for, having a set of themes can speed up the processes immensely. (If you don't feel particularly compelled by these colours, any set of items will do for this approach; four seasons, five senses, seven types of chess pieces, eight schools of magic, and so on.) As an example, here are five Ravnican liches one could conceivably use in a campaign: White. An Orzhov cleric-lich in eternal penitence whose phylactery is an unwilling angel, who fell as part of the process of becoming a phylactery. Blue. A scholar-lich of Prims University in Precinct Five whose phylactery is a piece of information, such as a memory, somewhere in the maze-like university library. Black. An ancient merchant lich whose phylactery is enchanted in such a way as to make it seem impossibly valuable to anyone who owns it. It has been killed for, and passed between the vaults of Ravnican vampires for millennia.

Colours on opposite side of the wheel are more likely to be in direct conflict, while neighboring colours tend to have some overlapping interests Each guild of Ravnica represent a unique combination of these five colours

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Sidebar: Tone

Climbing the Ladder

Ravnica is varied enough to present opportunities for a great range of tones: from light workplace comedy, absurdism, and slapstick to tragedy, drama, and dystopia. It is up to you to decide what to include, to which degree, and with what kind of framing. When creating stories about societies we unavoidably touch on our experiences and opinions about our world, which can lead to the themes of the game sometimes hitting a bit close to home for players. These themes are things you might want to think about with regards to how they will appear in play. For some groups they are no-go's, for others they are the most exciting themes to explore, oppose or subvert. Have it be an ongoing conversation.

Similar to the tier system presented in the DMG, with Renown you can structure the adventure around the characters becoming people of some importance within their respective guild, and all the responsibility that entails. The following list covers some responsibilities your characters might grow into using the renown system. TIER ONE (2 renown)

Common hard or soft limits

TIER TWO (10 renown)

Azorius: police brutality, dehumanisation by a legal system, corruption Boros: military propaganda, military violence Dimir: amnesia, mind control, manipulation Golgari: existential horror, cults, decay, insects Gruul: “survival of the fittest” ideology Izzet: disregard for human life Orzhov: financial extortion, religious hypocrisy, social control Rakdos: torture, sadism, mental illness associated with violence Selesnya: proselytization, conformity Simic: medical/scientific dehumanisation, body horror Ravnica can be bitterly dystopian, and all the guilds have the potential to be cruel villains, but for the sake of your players’ comfort and safety be ready to pull back if the content of the game ever becomes detrimental to their enjoyment of the game.

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Solve minor problems for higher ups Provide guild presence on the street Deliver messages Run dangerous experiments for other researchers Stand guard Serve as foot soldiers and scouts Stand in for and represent more important people Organize guild presence in the streets Send and receive messages Oversee experiments Teach and instruct Solve local problems Special deployment

TIER THREE (25 renown)

Speak on behalf of the guild in negotiations Conduct experiments Run guild offices like outposts, cells, and new laboratories Handle and collect confidential and sensitive information

TIER FOUR (50 renown)

Run and strategize a subset of the guild Meet with guildmasters Allocate resources and personnel Command guild forces Solve major crises Work directly with the guildaster

Greater Ravnica

R

avnica is, from a very dry mechanical perspective, a conflict engine. No surprises there since it's made for a card game about opposing forces. But to get at what those conflicts are really about you have to look at the everyday, the people, and the life in Ravnica. This section includes some thoughts on the world building of Ravnica, and how to best include it in a D&D campaign.

Alignment and the Planar System

The cosmic planar system constructed around morality and alignment, doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Ravnica. Gods exist in a spiritual and cultural sense, but not necessarily in the literal sense, and the extra planar creatures you're most likely to encounter are planeswalker who are simply people from other material planes. Alignment doesn't have to matter in your campaign at all unless you want it to, but the things that carry more mechanical weight like creature type, planar travel, and gods are featured here.

Clerics in Ravnica You may of course choose to include clerics as a staple part of your version of the setting, or even an uncommon but not unheard of phenomenon among the worshippers of Mat'Selesnya or Ilharg. Another suggestion is this: Building on the section about clerics in Ravnica in the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, and the Order domain in particular; one way to incorporate clerics is to use another set of cosmic forces which are more readily available for the setting: the various types of magic that exists as different colours. After all, adherence and attunement to an ideal (and therefore colour) makes perfect sense in a setting structured around commitment.

Domain

Colour

Arcana

Blue

Death

Black

Forge

White, Blue, Red

Grave

White, Black

Knowledge

Blue

Life

White, Green

Light

White, Red

Nature

Green

Order

White

Peace

White

Tempest

Red

Trickery

Black

Twilight

White, Black

War

White, Black, Red

Planes and Extraplanar creatures Creature types can largely be shrugged off, even though they do confer some mechanical effects. If you do want to get deep in the weeds about the implications of celestials and fiends being present in Ravnica, this section is for you. Some questions posed by the inclusion of extraplanar creatures are, where do they come from? Are they created and if so by who and for what purpose? Do fiends imply the existence of hells? It's perfectly fine to leave these questions to the in-universe philosophers and religious scholars to ponder, but it might help you to understand the esoterica of your setting to think about these things. To give just two suggestions, if you prefer these creatures can simply be magical beings of the world. They don't have to be reflections of some larger cosmic truths as long as they retain most of their recognizable traits. For example: fey make sense as nature spirits even without a Feywild; celestials may simply be embodiment of different specific virtues, sometimes taken to the extreme, which inform how they act; and fiends are born from some vice. Another option is making your own set of planes. If you want your players to be able to use spells like planeshift or contact other plane, you could come up with planes as the plot requires. My personal Ravnica has five "Outer planes" reflecting the five colours of magic, presented below.

Suggested Outer Planes Colour

Equivalent

White

Arcadia

Blue

The Astral Sea

Black

The Shadowfell an ashen, lifeless landscape, from where the forces which create undead and undying things originate.

Red

The Elemental Chaos

Green

The Feywild

Description a city of absolute order, where angelic celestial Principles like Justice, exist as physical entities a swirling sea of stars and ideas, with a library maze containing magical copies of all information ever recorded.

a volcanic land caught in a constant destructive lightning storm, where primordial Giant-like people roam. an enchantingly beautiful forest, home to nature spirits and fey courts.

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City Life

Six principles to keep in mind, when exploring the urban terrain of Ravnica. The City is layered.

Ravnica has skyships, tall towers, bridges over bridges, labyrinthian streets, and underneath it all the many layers of the Undercity. At any given time the players are likely to have some thing or other towering over them. Places are either inhabited or haunted.

There are people everywhere in Ravnica, leaving their own marks on the city. Introducing a new part of the city, be it a small church or a city park, should include some sense of the people who regularly use the space. If a place is truly abandoned it's probably for a good reason. The city has a temper.

Ravnica's gothic architecture doesn't have to be the entirety of its gothic charm. An ever shifting environment gives you more tools to work with to set a mood than the weather: stubborn plants clinging to facades, a streetlight frustratedly overheating, a park bench having rotted through, not to mention graffiti, public art, birds, and crowds of people. If all else fails: have a Rakdos perform scream out the intended emotion of the scene from a nearby rooftop. Guildless doesn't mean indifferent.

A lot of NPCS won't have guild membership, but that doesn't mean they won't have opinions about the guilds. Your regular folks, who deal with the guilds on a day to day, are probably going to have a lot to say based on their latest interaction with guild members, recent events, or the news they read.

Festivals in Ravnica

A classic trick to combine plot hooks, an interesting backdrop, and setting a tone, is having a festival take place in your campaign. City-wide festivals break up the monotony of life, and may present obstacles and opportunities both for your PCs. Since PCs are, presumably, natives of Ravnica, any festival occurring in Ravnica on a regular basis, is not going to be their first time there, with the exception of guild-membersonly events, take this into account and make sure to ask your players to add their own details and traditions. Ravnican Festivals Tastiness

The characters’ hometurf.

The characters are familiar with Ravnica, at least the places they have had reason to visit in their lives, while the players are most likely not. One way to bridge the gap of familiarity is to put a lot of the power to establish everyday things in the hands of the players.

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Season

Ravnican A sports competition or Winter, Championships tournament, nominally guildless Summer in its organization, but the guild affiliation of popular athletes tend to play into the politics of the competition anyway. Festival of A celebration of the light of the Winter Living Lights Worldsoul and the magical glow of spirits and life force, held by the Selesnya Conclave in the darkest time of year. Saints’ Days Any number of Orzhov holidays, Any where gift giving, especially giving donations to the Church, takes place and generosity is encouraged. The Safety Course

Someone is watching.

Between the spy networks of the Dimir, Orzhov and Golgari, the public, and the watchful arresters of the Azorius and their precog mages, odds are someone is keeping an eye out on any given situation. Sometimes this makes it harder for PC’s to do what they need to do, sometimes it works to their advantage. After all, anything that goes on in the city that they need to know about, someone has observed and may be willing to divulge for a price.

Cookie Type

Rotfest

A tradition born of the Izzet’s yearly crash testing of new vehicles, which the Rakdos encouraged to make a competition, and the Boros stepped in to make some rules and safety regulations for.

Spring

An intricate Golgari tradition, Autumn with a less macabre version having spread to the surface, of eating various delicacies that have been left to ferment since last year's Rotfest and searching for hidden gifts left in the tombs of the dead.

Locations And Adventure Hooks Vampire Hunter’s Workshop A handful of minor Orzhov oligarchs have been found dead with stakes through their hearts. The trace leads you to an abandoned warehouse in Precinct Six; the place filled with marked and annotated maps of the city interspersed with countless weapons, strange gadgets and different disguises. The whole place is also heavily boobytrapped, apparent after the first bolt fired from a hidden crossbow after you moved the first book to get a better look at the map on the cluttered table. A disgraced Boros officer has disappeared into the night with a personal vendetta against the undead denizens of Ravnica. Their workshop contains any number of useful holy artefacts, information about specific vampires, and evidence of the many crimes committed and questionable deals made by the hunter in order to get to their prey. By all acounts, visitors are violently discouraged.

Horror Nursery There are only so many nights of nightmares a city block can endure before it starts to fall apart. Blame is passed around, it must be a curse, but asking the children about the monsters under the beds paints an unnervingly clear picture: the things skitter up from below and they bring the darkness of that place with them.

Every so often an Izzet engineer finds their way to Rakdosland to marvel at the ancient, still operational machinery of rollercoasters, merry-go-rounds, and ferris wheels; some of them even come back. No one else, save the Rakdos themselves, set foot in the premises unless absolutely necessary. They say that half the curses in Ravnica can be traced back to the one week, before the horrors revealed themselves, when the park was open and the unsuspecting public came to enjoy themselves. At least one coven of blood witches frequent the park for their own reasons, presumably to tend to the curses and keep the dark memories of the place.

Zonot Zero It’s rare, but sometimes a prolific Simic researcher goes too far, or angers the rest of the guild, but their work is too important to be terminated outright. These researchers are exiled to Zonot Zero to continue their work, far away from where the prying eyes of other guilds, where they cannot be accused of disgracing the rest of the Combine. Untouched wilderness is uncommon in Ravnica, but Zonot Zero is absolutely brimming with it. Filled with overflowing jungles and the descendants of feral Simic experiments, many a Gruul clan could make a happy life for themselves in the Zonot’s unrestrained natural world. But first they would have to find it. Zonot Zero might have been the first prototype of a Simic Zonot, or existed long before the guild, you may hear differing accounts depending on which of the many myths and rumours you are listening to. In any case, the Zonot seem to always contain two things: great monsters and great promise.

Wherever Horrors (GGR, p. 203 ) come from it is a well kept secret that even the Dimir might not fully know. Somewhere under Precinct Five, a Kraul Death Priest* has formed a kinship with the nightmares, using a system of tombs to keep a study where fears are cared for and nurtured into terrors. The Death Priest might be mad, but might also well be the foremost expert on aberrations in Ravnica.

Rakdosland Even on nights when the dreadful circus music isn’t being screamed out of the darkest corners, the amusement park is loud with creaks and iron straining against the wind and its own weight. It’s a flaking colourful behemoth of gaudy smiles and things that spin, tower, twist, jump out of the dark, and distort, and only the personal blessing, or curse, of Rakdos is keeping this place from being demolished several times over. No one in their right mind would choose to meet here, but then doesn’t that exactly describe the mess you’ve gotten yourself into?

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NPC Gallery Mercutio Amontari

(human Lawmage*) is a newly appointment Senator and a man of ambition and innovation. With an extensive social network spanning most of the guilds, and a firm belief in communication, transparency and understanding, Mercutio could well be the one saving Ravnica from civil war. Or the one who kicks it off by biting off more than he can chew. Zera

(Battleforce Angel*, AC 15 and without flying speed or flyby) is known in the Azorius case files as Flashpoint; a dangerous incendiary vigilante. Whatever made her leave her wings and her place in the legion behind is a mystery. But even without the grace of the boros, an angel is compelled to smite evil wherever it can be found. Levira

(human Assassin) is so obviously a dimir spy, it's a wonder the guild hasn't gotten rid of her by now. Some say Lazav takes pity on her for the holes in her memory left by more thought stealing magic can handles. Other say she's the lynchpin of a very long con. Reev

(Devkarin Scout) is more than a connoisseur of Undercity curiousities, they are an explorer. Mostly, the ancient layers of forgotten civilization under Ravnica are long dead, but the Golgari have never been too concerned with separating dead and alive. And maybe, there is something down there, stirring, that is quite a way beyond death. The signs seem to point that way. Keet-Un

(Lizardfolk) Even the biggest viashino will have trouble making themselves heard in clan debates between giants and minotaurs, and Keet-Un is far from the biggest. He has something else working for him, however; friends in some high places. It has taken some coaxing buy,a ny day now his companions in the Izzet league and Simic Combine will be ready to execute Keet-Un's vision of magical transformation. Just a little bit more and Ravnica will have its second dragon. Mexxine

(goblin Flux Blastseeker*) has an eye for patterns that has helped her immensely as an Izzet researcher. The patterns don't stop outside of the laboratory, however. All of Ravnica is a magic maze, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's enough secret patterns and strange coincidences in the architecture and history of the city to drive a lesser scientist mad. Simone Bell, the White Widow

(human Knight) carries the Orzhov title of Knight of Grief, has a semi mythical position within the Orzhov syndicate. Married into power four times, she could easily rise above her position, many see her as an appropriate replacement for Teysa Karlov, but she has little interest in repeating Karlov's mistakes. If she's going to have to take on the Obzedat, she will bring an army.

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Isaque

(human Rakdos Lampooner*) is a talented satirist and impressionist in service of the Rakdos. Off stage, he's found a calling talking to other drop-outs and black sheep in the Rakdos Cult, offering empathy to the hurting and outcasts and elevating the voices of those desparate for self-expression and freedom. He might never become Rakdos' favourite, but he'll gladly settle for encouraging just one or two performer to trade their iron spikes for slightly healthier coping mechanisms. Kaymaron

(loxodon, Horncaller*) is a hierarch of the Selesnya who believes, above all else, in the strength of overwhelming numbers. A proponent for building up the Selesnyan armed forces, and if needed, take the fighting to the enemy, Kaymaron does not always get along with the other hiearchs, but nonetheless has a sizeable following in the Conclave. Especially in times of Gruul attacks and uncertainty, Kaymaron gives voice to a solution others in the guild leadership would not like to voice aloud. Seaon

(Hybrid Shocker*) has no memory of consenting to be part of the Guardian Project. He didn't mind the changes to his physical self, but his instincts are not entirely his own and that scares him. He's become convinced that there is some sort of sleeper cell activation code hidden inside his psyche, and he intends to get to the bottom of the Guardian Project and make the people responsible pay.

Bard SIDEBAR: Can I play a Planeswalker? “Planes” have a different meaning in Magic the Gathering lore and a planeswalking is a very rare and powerful gift. Planeshift as a spell is likely to be completely unheard of in these settings, and a character with this ability is likely to draw them away from the rest of the party, unless they are also planeswalkers. There are valid arguments for simply disallowing planeswalker PCs in your game if you are not feeling up for the challenge of preparing a campaign for one, but if you are open to the idea here are some ways to approach it. I, personally, recommend against trying to mechanically justify planeswalking. Dealing with it narratively depends on what your player is hoping to get out of the experience of playing a planeswalker. Ask your player what about planeswalking most intrigues them. If they are excited about playing a fish out of water, you could narratively allow them to have planeswalked onto Ravnica, but something is keeping them on this plane that they will have to figure out before they can leave. If they want to play as a leonin or some other character option that does not exist on Ravnica (besides the occasional planeswalker), Ravnica can be adjusted to include those. If they are mostly interested in the fear and confusion of a newly awakened spark and finding a group of people like them, suggest that there are some limits to planeswalking before you've really gotten the hang of it. Alternatively, another story, for example a suddenly empowered sorcerer, might hit a couple of the same character themes. If they want the epic story lines of MtG, spanning many planes, you could try to work out a reason their character is tied to Ravnica for the moment, and keep the planeswalking to allusions to their backstory and a potential future epic destiny. Getting out of trouble is a powerful gift but most planeswalkers tend to end up drawing unwanted attention and finding themselves in trouble one way or another anyway

College of Creation

Rakdos, Selesnya

College of Eloquence

Azorius, Orzhov, Rakdos

Cleric Peace Domain

Azorius, Orzhov, Selesnya

Twilight Domain

Orzhov

Druid Circle of Stars

Selesnya

Circle of Wildfire

Gruul

Fighter Psi Warrior

Dimir

Rune Knight

Boros, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov

Monk Way of Mercy

Orzhov, Golgari

Paladin Oath of Glory

Boros, Gruul

Ranger Fey Wanderer

Selesnya

Swarm Keeper

Golgari, Gruul, Selesnya, Simic

Rogue Phantom

Dimir, Golgari, Orzhov

Soul Knife

Dimir

Sorcerer Aberrant Mind

Dimir

Clockwork Soul

Azorius, Izzet

Warlock

Subclasses by Guild, cont.

To account for the new subclasses from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, here are suggestions for including most of these in Ravnica.. Artificer Alchemist

Izzet, Simic

Armorer

Boros, Izzet

Artillerist

Izzet

Battle Smith

Izzet

Barbarian Path of the Beast

Gruul

Path of Wild Magic

Izzet

The Fathomless The Genie

Simic see note

Wizard Bladesinging

Boros, Selesnya

Order of Scribes

Azorius, Dimir

Note: Genies don't exist on Ravnica (unless you want them to), but you could substitute the genie types for other creatures. For example: instead of a Dao, use an Elemental spirit of the Rubblebelt; instead of a Djinn, use an Arclight Phoenix*; instead of an Efreet, use an elder Firemane Angel*; and as for Marids, maybe they exist somewhere in the oceans deep beneath Ravnica.

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