D&D: The Guilds of Ravnica
With the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica around the corner, one of the creative minds and narrative designers of the setting talks Guilds. Whether you’re Gruul or Not Gruul (then die), come learn the lore of the Guilds of Ravnica.
Ari Levitch is a narrative designer for Wizards of the Coast. Originally working in Worldbuilding for them on Magic the Gathering, Ari has since moved on to the Dungeons and Dragons team. The Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica is the perfect opportunity to mash these two worlds together and makes him a perfect subject for this week’s edition of Lore You Should Know, which takes us inside the Gilded City.
via Wizards of the Coast
There are four guilds up for discussion today. The Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya Conclave, the Izzet League, and the Simic Combine. What exactly is a Guild? One of ten powerful organizations that represent different philosophies, ways of life, or almost religious organizations that connect like-minded people with a purpose. These can take wildly different forms, which you can find in the dichotomies between the guilds. Take the Selesnya Conclave and the Golgari Swarm.
Both are ostensibly about protecting nature. Selesnya is all about the idea that civilization and nature can live together in harmony, and their Guild exists to see society shepherd nature.
They serve the common good–and more specifically a Dryad that grows into three different sorts of trunks and personalities and can sometimes disagree.
The Golgari, on the other hand, occupy the spaces underneath the city–they represent nature taking root in the forgotten places of the world. In the sewers and the ditches and in the places that surface life doesn’t really acknowledge, you’ll find a beautiful kingdom of fungi that protect the natural cycle of life and death, recycling and decomposing and creating anew with the cast-off parts of the city.
And those are just two of the Guilds discussed in the video. You can find out more about the Guilds on Lore You Should Know and, of course, we’ll take a look at more Ravnica as the release date gets closer.
Happy Adventuring!
