What is Ravnica?

With the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica being released on the 20th of November lets take a look at this Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering crossover. Wizards of the Coast have released D&D MtG crossovers before in the shape of Planescape however, this is the first one that they will be printing and distributing. I used to play Magic: the Gathering and my first full cycle that I played after returning to the game was Return to Ravnica so this setting holds a special place in my heart. MtG have visited Ravnica twice and has been a firm favourite with players since it's first outing in October 2005. Now we get to explore the plane as Dungeon Masters and Players!

In MtG the overarching storyline is about powerful magic users that can travel from one plane of existence to another, they are called Planeswalkers. One of the planes that has been traveled to twice is called Ravnica. The entire plane is one giant city that is populated by ten guilds and is highly magical in flavour.  The Ten Guilds of Ravnica are: 

• The Azorius Senate (White/Blue) - Lawmakers and courts

• The Orzhov Syndicate (Black/White) - Religious organised crime

• House Dimir (Blue/Black) - Subtle assassins and dealers of secrets

• The Izzet League (Blue/Red) - Archetypal mad scientists

• The Cult of Rakdos (Red/Black) - Hedonistic demon worshipers

• The Golgari Swarm (Black/Green) - Recyclers to the extreme

• The Gruul Clans (Green/Red) - Uncivilised, strength and nature

• The Boros Legion (Red/White) - Law enforcement

• The Selesnya Conclave (White/Green) - Nature and community

• The Simic Combine (Green/Blue) - Extreme Biologists

The Guilds were stuck in a perpetual war with each other until the city became so haunted that the Guildmasters met and signed a truce. This was called the Guildpact. We first encounter the plane as they are about to celebrate the 10,000th year of peace from the Guildpact. The Guilds were happy enough to stay in their Guildgates and strengthen their positions. Unfortunately the Guildpact starts to unravel as House Dimir who only signed the pact if they could be a secret are revealed as being still in existence, the Izzet League searching of the undercity and another group rising called the Gateless who want to do away with the Guilds altogether. Once the Guildpact is broken no one wants to make the first move and the other Guilds are trying to find out what Izzet is up to. The Izzet Guild Master, a Red Dragon called Niv-Mizzet, announces that there is an ancient power source that can be accessed through an arcane maze that the Guildgates are built upon. This power source is powerful enough for the Guild who wields it to overpower and even destroy the other Guilds and rule Ravnica. Niv-Mizzet suggests each Guild puts forward a champion, or Mazerunner, to compete to see which Guild should control this power. They agree and the Mazerunners make their way through the Implicit Maze and tried to prevent the other Mazerunners from completing their task. The Planeswalker Jace Beleren also takes part in the race trying to prevent a calamity, he had been investigating the mystery at the same time as Niv-Mizzet. Jace arrives at the end of the maze to see all the champions had completed the maze and were attacking each other. Jace linked all of their minds to prevent the guilds destroying each other and unwittingly became Jace, The Living Guildpact. Jace is now the arbiter of any inter-guild dispute. As he is a Planeswalker Jace isn't always on Ravnica so it doesn't mean that everything is perfect...but it is quiet.

Going through the six Magic sets there is a lot of crossover in terms of races, professions and monster types. This is by design as MtG was brought into line with the way D&D codifies creatures. You will see Angels, Demons, Wurms, Imps, Djinn, Vampires, Hydras, Oozes etc in Ravnica but new things on this plane include Thrulls which are a type of undead but also what I like to call Simic tomfoolery! The Simic Combine are forcing biological science to it's very limit and creating hybrids of creature types like the Shambleshark (Fish/Crab) or Experiment One (Human/Ooze). 

To a lesser extent this also happens with The Golgari Swarm. They live in the undercity and they take what has been discarded and turn it into their strength. The Golgari turn most things into zombies or fungus. This hybridisation will give you some new and fun things to fight as well as slow down those players at your table that like to memorise the Monster Manual! 

For players there will be some new options; we've seen from previous Unearthed Arcana playtest materials that the Golgari inspired Circle of Spores and the Order Domain for Clerics will be finished along with the Minotaur and Centaur races. Ravnica is such a huge place that you could see most options being viable; Humans, Elves, Goblins and Merfolk (Tritons) are all explicitly in the setting. However, there are a few races that aren't catered for [Edit: they have now been released for playtesting on Unearthed Arcana]. The Loxodon are a race of bipedal elephants that are incredibly cool. Also, the Vedalken are a race of tall, hairless, blue humanoids who are very intelligent yet emotionally lacking. The Viashino are a race of red lizard humanoids and canonically have dragon blood within them.

There is so much scope with this product that it is going to be hard to be a failure. Firstly there will be in depth lore about Ravnica. Secondly the whole concept is a city and this will provide dungeon masters and players with a new challenge; so often we get a quest and then leave civilisation to get the bad guys. This campaign setting will give us political intrigue, non-combat resolution and high speed chases in urban environments. With the multiverse opening up and new worlds or planes being introduced you can have a dimension hopping jaunt like Marvel's Exiles or bleeds between the worlds in the same way that the Shadowfell overlaps with the prime material plane in Forgotten Realms. The Izzet League are always pushing the limits of science and magic and their efforts could allow them to planeswalk or suck your adventurers to Ravnica. Bored rich people tend to collect things, if there is a way of getting one of these Ravnican beasts into their collection then they will go to any lengths to one-up their fellow collectors! 

I think that this product was made for D&D players to experience a new setting but it is also a familiar touchstone for Magic players to start in a familiar place. It makes great sense for Wizards of the Coast to make this product because they have already done a lot of the hard work and already have a lot of great artwork that they can showcase and print in larger formats. I hope it brings in new players as the more people who play the better the community becomes. If you want more of the storyline then seek out the Ravnica Cycle by Cory J. Herndon and/or The Return to Ravnica Cycle by Doug Beyer.

What are you looking forward to from Ravnica? Let us know in the section below.
May you roll well!