The Boros LegionThe Boros Legion adhere to a set of absolute, Platonic laws. This righteous devotion to this law gives the legion their furor, their power, and the awe with which they are beheld. Led by the archangel Razia, Boros Archangel, the Boros are the premier fighters and enforcers of justice of Ravnica. Very few dare to go into head-on-head conflict with the Boros, as they are simply the most skilled and most impassioned fighters in the City of Guilds. Unlike the Azorius Senate, who also uphold the purity of the law, the Boros champion action and swift retribution, leaving legal subtlety and moral ambiguity to the bureaucrats and the politicians. Perhaps this is why part of this guild, the League of Wojek, 'jeks for short, was chosen to enforce Ravnica's laws. Their absolute belief in justice makes them swift and effective in neutralizing any conflict. To those innocent, the Boros may seem to be the upholders of righteousness and truth, to those guilty, the Boros can be tyrannical.
...a weight of strength and pride...
...a weight of strength and pride...
Also Known As: The Legion
Guild Hall: Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Values: Passionate belief in law and order, and, to a lesser extent, the cultured civilization that Ravnica represents. Depending on who is discussing them, they may be the bastions of stability or blind, close-minded zealots.
Structure: Fully military. The Boros view Razia as more of a figurehead than an actual commander-in-chief. Still, many generals revere her and would heed any command she gave. Every Boros legionnaire has a function in combat.
Goal: To sustain order using strict law enforcement.
Colors: Red and White
Signet: The signet of the Boros depicts a fist in a sun.
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The Golgari Swarm
The Golgari believe strongly in the necessity of death as a part of life. The guild is home to Ravnica's topmost necromancers and swarms of undead creatures, amongst others. The Golgari regularly annex abandoned regions of Ravnica, growing their territory like a fungus. The Golgari's role in the Guildpact is to manage waste and provide free food to Ravnica's poor, grown in massive underground farms. Food grown here is typically consumed only as a last resort (the farms are fertilized by dead creatures). The food may be of questionable origin, but the Golgari take pride in being able to clearly show that they are not exclusively devoted to death: they are, at heart, dedicated to life.
Also known as: The Swarm
Guild Hall: Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
Values: Power through growth. The Golgari grow by folding the dead into the ranks, as well as through occasional minor incursions into new territory. The Golgari have no true set gameplay due to their versatile and varied cards.
Structure: A predatory organism with many predators within it. Subgroups of the guild (dark elves known as the Devkarin, undead-plant hybrids, and various other creatures known as the Teratogens) struggle for control. The Golgari are strong believers in Darwinism, and survival of the fittest. Thus, the more powerful one is, the more influence he/she/(it) will have in the guild.
Goal: The Golgari seek to wipe Ravnica clean of weakness and strengthen what remains so that Ravnica itself becomes stronger. They execute this by unleashing plagues on Ravnica's districts. After the chaos is over, the Golgari fortify the remains of any infrastructure with plant life, reanimate the dead, and "congratulate" any survivors for passing their test.
Colors: Green and Black
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The Selesnya Conclave
The Selesnyan Conclave believes in brotherhood, unity, and peace. They believe this so much, no person in the Conclave is more important than the other. They gain new members by evangelism, or by creating new life in the form of saprolings and elementals. Exhibiting a strong dislike of individuality and technology, they believe that society should function as nature does: slowly and conservatively. To those outside the guild, however, the Conclave appears to be nothing more than a brainwashing nature-cult, adamantly refusing to realize that there is anyone who wouldn't want to join them.
...with tree supporting sun and sun feeding tree...
...with tree supporting sun and sun feeding tree...
Also Known As: The Conclave
Guild Hall: Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree. Once the greatest tree in the world. Although struck down ages ago, dryad and elf magic keeps Vitu-Ghazi alive. Its trunk houses the Selesnya's most important places.
Values: Welfare of the whole. Taking into account both white's and green's concern for the community, the Conclave is perfect at both protecting their own, and nurturing them to grow stronger creatures.
Structure: Decentralized, communal, collective. Within the Conclave, ideally all are equals regardless of individual roles.
Goal: To achieve absolute peace with everybody being equal.
Colours: Green and White
Signet: The signet is a tree, whose branches extend into sun rays.
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House Dimir
...seen only by its own members and the doomed...
...seen only by its own members and the doomed...
House Dimir doesn't exist. At least, that's what members of House Dimir want the people of Ravnica to believe. Even though their symbol sits alongside the other nine guilds, few see House Dimir as anything but a Ravnican Illuminati. House Dimir is, paradoxically, required by the Guildpact to attempt to destroy the Guildpact. Preferring indirect methods of control and knowledge acquisition, they prefer to not even be discovered.
Also known as: The Unseen
Guild Hall: Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Values: House Dimir wants utter control of Ravnica. Such absolute control requires complete invisibility so as not to arouse opposition. Therefore, the guild works very hard to ensure that Ravnicans don't believe the guild exists. As such the Dimir are never straight forward in their strategy.
Structure: Isolated cells. Each Dimir agent works in almost complete isolation. Often, any operative within the guild has just one contact, so that none have too wide a view of its dealings. Only the leader knows the guild's entire scope of operations. Dimir leaders issue commands through messenger spirits known as Necrosages or other magical means to preserve anonymity.
Goal: To control and learn every aspect of reality.
Colours: Blue and Black
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The Orzhov Syndicate
...If it's tattooed on the body, its bearer is a slave....
...If it's tattooed on the body, its bearer is a slave....
Under the facade of an organized religion, the Orzhov hold the economic reins of Ravnica. No matter how poor a person is, the Orzhov will benevolently offer whatever that person needs to survive. They remember who owes them, however, and every person who makes a deal with a member of this guild will have to repay that debt some day, even after death. Like some form of magical Mafia, the Orzhov use the resources taken from their debtors to finance whatever interests the Guild requires, but making sure that none of their "cattle" becomes too be free from their grip.
Just as death is no barrier to those who owe the Orzhov favors, it has no sway over the Guild's leaders. Profitable leaders survive after death to run the "businesses" of the guild.
Also known as: The Church of Deals
Guild Hall: Orzhova, the Church of Deals, central cathedral of the entire religion/syndicate. It’s not clear even to the guild faithful whether Orzhova is a cathedral with financial interests or a bank with religious ones.
Values: The Orzhov use their oppressive social order as a means to ensure power-the entire guild is set up to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. The guild’s rites and rituals, its laws and structures, exist to maintain the status quo.
Structure: Oligarchic, with a sharp division between the privileged and the indentured. The guild is practically two guilds; one for the 'haves', one for the 'have nots'.
Goal: Creating a peace (with itself as ruler) that nobody, except itself, can destroy.
Colours: Black and White
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The Izzet League
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.
...each time becoming closer to a vanity portrait of Niv-Mizzet...
...each time becoming closer to a vanity portrait of Niv-Mizzet...
While each Ravnican guild attempts to rule the plane - by money, force of arms, or magical skill - the Izzet are content with pure, unfettered research. As long as something exists, the Izzet will stop at nothing to identify, experiment, understand, and replicate it. Because of the Izzet, there are no natural disasters in the entire plane -- they have figured out how to prevent them.
Because of their obsessive passion for knowledge, however, the Izzet aren't methodical researchers. Excited to begin work on the Next Big Project and clouded by their inflated egos, Izzet mages will often take shortcuts in their work. This has lead to all sorts of unnatural disasters.
Also known as: The Magewrights
Guild Hall: Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind. This impossibly tall spire is said to be protected by the most sophisticated sigils ever devised. Within its uppermost chamber, Niv-Mizzet holds court with his most intelligent magewrights, eating those who displease him.
Structure: The Izzet are an association of like-minded passionate philosophers, all of whom idolize Niv-Mizzet’s genius and caprice. Fiery competition and the drive for knowledge keep the guild’s alchemical labs and colleges humming.
Values: The Izzet are great believers in passionate study. Often this manifests in random experiments and strange revisions to reflect their ever changing minds. They combine blue's need to learn more about the world with red's impulse, making a guild which learns through emotion, hence the earlier mention of Seuss (an individual who's stories are very well thought out but still very emotional). When an Izzet scholar finds something that it wants to study, they'll start studying it with unbridled relentlessness, until they find a new thing, usually a very short time afterwards, in which case they'll drop whatever they're doing and start on the new thing. This tendency to be easily distracted is the reason many Izzet experiments never get finished, but those that do tend to be grandiose and bombastic.
Goal: To learn and understand everything they desire to know.
Colours: Blue and Red
Signet: The signet is a stylized dragon, modeled after Niv-Mizzet.
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The Gruul Clans
...The blood, snot, and muck used to smear them are unmistakably Gruul...
...The blood, snot, and muck used to smear them are unmistakably Gruul...
When the magical ink on the Guildpact was still drying, the Gruul were intended to represent the wild, unpredictable facets of the natural world. After all, much of Ravnica was still natural and pristine, and the wild animals in the world had to be part of the future of the plane.
As time went by, however, the Gruul's power began to wane. With more and more of the wilds of Ravnica replaced with concrete and homes, there was less for the Gruul to represent. The Selesnya and Simic began to make the non-sentient their charges, and the less passionate guilds (the Azorius and Orzhov) began to see the Gruul as less and less relevant.
By the opening of the Ravnica set, the Gruul guild has shattered into multiple clans, with little or no connections between each other. A 'beggar's guild', Gruul clans raid abandoned areas, live off the resources, and move on when things run dry.
Many different clans exist. Some of them are descendants of the Gruul guild, some are escaped slaves, but all of them consider themselves Gruul.
Also known as: The Clans
Guild Hall: None. The Gruul guildhall was supposed to be a lodge-style guildhall, but it was destroyed long ago and its location has been lost to time. Now, the only thing the Gruul have that even comes close to a guildhall is Skarrg, the Rage Pits, the closest thing to natural landscape left on Ravnica and the center of Borborygmos's power.
Structure: Loose, disconnected gangs. The Gruul are sometimes called "the guild which is not one," because they eschew any structure at all. Inside large cities, the beggars' guilds are often loyal to the Gruul. Outside the cities, the raiding gangs carve out swaths of smoldering ruin and rubble in which to subsist.
Values: The absolute breakdown of society. The Gruul believe that society has no place in the natural order. Call it instinct or impulse, the Gruul preach it just the same. They show an unrivaled bloodthirst, and that is represented well in the keyword of the same name.
Goal: The only law that matters in the world is the law of nature. Instinct should always overpower logic.
Colours: Green and Red
Signet: Their signet is a burning tree with a single eye in the middle, not actually the symbol for the entire guild, but simply the sign of the most prominent group: the Burning-Tree clan, led by Borborygmos.
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The Azorius Senate
...strict structure designed to test wills and stall change...
...strict structure designed to test wills and stall change...
The Azorius Senate hates action. Action, they believe, leads to crime and disorder. By developing Ravnica's legal system to be so complex and incomprehensible to anyone but themselves, they hope to create a system where everything, anywhere, is illegal. From the legal to military to magical, Azorius members use tactics of delay, distraction, and prevention.
Also known as: The High Judges
Guild Hall: Prahv, Spires of Order. It is a veritable city of marble and alabaster, a maze of long, echoing corridors and domed chambers. Tight rows of soldiers, spotlessly outfitted, guard the whole campus. But it is the guild's powerful law-magic, not the swords of its standing guard, what protects Prahv.
Values: The Azorius believe that their laws and the preservation of those laws are responsible for maintaining the Guildpact. In fact, they believe their rigid system of governance is responsible for keeping nearly everything on Ravnica running smoothly. Justice is blind, as the saying goes, and that includes the guild's blindness to dissent, chaos, and crime.
Goal: Creating absolute order by placing countless laws and rules to hinder any change of the status quo.
Colours: White and Blue
Structure: Absolutely hierarchical. Most Azorius functionaries report to one superior and have two guild members that report to them, creating a pyramidal command structure.
Signet: Their signet is a labyrinth within a triangle.
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The Cult of Rakdos
...not considered finished until it has been used as a murder weapon...
...not considered finished until it has been used as a murder weapon...
Formed by the followers of the demonlord Rakdos, if someone in Ravnica needs warriors, mercenaries, or assassins, this murder-happy guild is the only place to turn to. Their whole philosophy is wanton destruction, for the sheer pleasure of destroying things. They're too chaotic to have a long-term goal, though they're playing right into the Gruul desires.
Also known as: The Thrill-killers
Guild Hall: Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace. A grotesque palace in the dank part of the Undercity. Very few guild members have seen the inside of the palace. Many who manage to emerge are too incoherent to describe it. If Prahv is the coldest place on Ravnica, Rix Maadi is the hottest.
Structure: Like an out-of-control party. The guild's only structure is determined by those powerful enough to hold leadership. Such beings tend to have short lifespans.
Goal: To do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, no matter what.
Values and Gameplay: Instant gratification. The Rakdos don't just want their way, they want it RIGHT NOW. How this translates gameplay-wise is an all out suicide strategy. Combine Red's recklessness with Black's masochistic tendencies, and you find yourself in front of a determined enemy who will go to any length to achieve the goal as quickly as possible.
Colours: Red and Black
Signet: The signet is a crumbling skull on fire.
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The Simic Combine
...superb craftsmanship, ingenious innovation, and higher cost...
...superb craftsmanship, ingenious innovation, and higher cost...
The Simic's original role in Ravnica was to protect and preserve what was left of Ravnica's natural ecosystems. They failed, and there is no place on Ravnica that is left to nurture. Now, the Simic Combine spends their resources "improving" the already existing life in Ravnica - whether or not the life in question wants to be improved at all. The rest of their time is spent creating new - and often frightening - species of creatures that not only survive in the concrete jungles of Ravnica, but thrive. As improving nature requires understanding it first, the Simic are also researchers second only to the Izzet, and they are also responsible for most of Ravnica's medical advances.
Also known as: The Biomancers
Guild Hall: Novijen, Heart of Progress. A bizarre hybrid of living matter and chiseled stone, it is held in place by thick, umbilical cables that keep it isolated from the surrounding buildings. Here, the Combine design and perfect their most secret biological projects.
Structure: A cross between a college, a laboratory, and a zoo. Hundreds of years ago, a sharp line existed between the guild's experimental subjects and the researchers studying and protecting them. Since Vig's ascension, however, that line has blurred.
Goal: Make every living thing "better" than it already is. This cannot be completed until they have created the "perfect" living organism.
Values and Gameplay: Nurturing evolution. The Simic see evolution as a great thing. If they can influence evolution to produce better results, they feel satisfied in their work.
Colours: Green and Blue
Signet: Their guild symbol is a tree that grows out and to one side, its branches twisting like a tidal wave.
