Guildmember's Notes of Ravnica
Variant Guild Background Features
Introductions
"Often fellow guild colleagues or allies stray from the average guildmember, whether through their actions, the upbringing in the city of Ravnica, or the circumstances of their varying situations. Not all guildmembers are the same, nor should they be! The colorful diversity and endless resourcefulness of different guildmembers allows us to complete our common vision for a better Ravnica together. Here I've laid a few oddities and special roles that occur with in the structures of all ten guilds of Ravnica." - Razek, Golgari Socialite
Azorius Senate
Scholar of the Law
(Replaces Legal Authority)
You have extensive knowledge of the laws of Ravnica, and are able to arbitrate any legal disputes based on Azorius Law or the Guildpact. You are always able to secure any legal documentation, law-runes, or paperwork within the Azorius Senate required to settle your arguments and ensure the law is carried out after any official arbitration. Even when there are no previously recorded documents or laws, your expert knowledge and judgment garners a certain amount of respect and even fear in the populace. Your decisions are often always the conclusion to any dispute. If you abuse this trust, though, you can get in serious trouble with your superiors and even be stripped of your position.
Your DM might rule that the laws or knowledge you seek is secreted away in an almost inaccessible place, or that it simply cannot be found. Unearthing the deepest secrets of the Azorius Senate or the Guildpact can require an adventure or even a whole campaign.
Boros Legion
Legionnaire Vigilante
(Enhances or replaces Legion Station)
You operate independent of the Legion, often with or without their discretion, but your superiors appreciate your abilities. Your experience in enforcing the laws of Ravnica, and dealing with lawbreakers, gives you a feel for local criminals. You can always find a hotbed of illicit or illegal activities in any part of the city, including the Undercity, no matter how hidden. Whether you’ll be accepted or welcomed in the various hives of scum and villainy is not guaranteed.
Variant Background Option: Friends in Strange Places
Your investigations across the city have made you many friends from all walks of life, and the ire of some of your guild members. You may roll three more times on the Non-Boros Contacts table (for three allies) and once more on the Boros Contacts table (for one rival).
House Dimir
House Courier
(Replaces False Identity)
You have a reliable and trustworthy courier who acts as your liaison to House Dimir's network of field agents. You know how to get messages to and from your courier, even over great distances. You can request hard to obtain information, items or favors from them, but this information will come at a cost. If the information is unattainable, you'll be given a small consolation that may take the form of relevant information, cost reimbursement, or future aid. In turn, you can always discreetly deliver any package or message through your contact.
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Golgari Swarm
Undercity Aristocracy
(Replaces Undercity Paths)
While you are in Korozda or elsewhere in the Undercity, your faction of Golgari socialites sees to your everyday needs. Your name and guild insignia are sufficient to cover most of your expenses; the inns, clubs, and rothalls you frequent are glad to record your debt and send an accountant to your faction’s estate in Korozda to settle what you owe. Your status often means many factions or personalities will vie for your support, and consequently you have many rivals.
This advantage enables you to live a comfortable lifestyle without having to pay 2 gp a day for it, or reduces the cost of a wealthy or aristocratic lifestyle by that amount. You may not maintain a less affluent lifestyle and use the difference as income—the benefit is a line of credit, not an actual monetary reward.
Variant Background Option:
Daggers in the Dark
Your status affords you many connections. You may roll three more times on the Golgari Contacts table (for one ally and two rivals).
Gruul Clans
Gruul Emissary
(Replaces Rubblebelt Refuge)
Your accent, mannerisms, figures of speech, and perhaps even your appearance all mark you as part of the Gruul Clans. Curious glances are directed your way wherever you go, which can be a nuisance, but you also gain the friendly interest of scholars and others intrigued by far-off rubblebelts of Ravnica, to say nothing of the law enforcement who keeps close eyes on your activities in the city.
You can present your guild insignia and status as parley for access to people and places you might not otherwise have, for you and your traveling companions. Guild officials, scholars, and crime lords, to name a few, might be interested in hearing what your Clan or a Gruul Emissary has to say to them.
Gruul Mannerisms
Often guildmembers of the Gruul Clans can never fully leave their wild manners in the rubblebelt. Often they'll behave in ways that are considered strange to other denizens of the City. On the table below you can roll for a mannerism, or create your own unique mannerism.
| d6 | Gruul Mannerism |
|---|---|
| 1 | As I see more of the city, I am secretly (or not so secretly) convinced that the city needs anarchy. |
| 2 | I still worship the Old Ways in this stone and brick prison, my rites and rituals seem strange to others. |
| 3 | Silence in the face of insults is stronger than words -- just as strong as fists to faces. |
| 4 | When presented with city food and intoxicants, I overindulge to the point of passing out. |
| 5 | I often commit small acts of vandalism to stay to true to my nature. |
| 6 | Destruction is my answer to almost any challenge. |
Izzet League
Experimental Frenzy
(Replaces Urban Infrastructure)
As a member of the Izzet League, have a small amount of guild authorization to pursuit your flights of mad genius. You have access to any number of mundane scientific equipment and materials while you're in Izzet League territory. In addition, you can create five prototype inventions each day provided you take the downtime to do such a task. Each invention you create is always guaranteed to work and complete a mundane purpose such as create a cup of coffee, turn small amounts of metal into liquid mizzium, or create a harmless, but dazzling effect. However, the prototype invention always backfires - it has one use and then it breaks down.
At your DM's discretion you can invest more effort into making sure an invention doesn't backfire, but at the cost of taking longer to finish. The more status you have in the Izzet League means bigger and better prototypes!
Spark of Genius
Izzet guildmembers are often prone to wild or ill-planned experimentation that is reckless to the city, themselves, and others. You are one of those Izzet members. Roll on the prototype invention table to see what inventions you create, or make a unique invention instead!
| d4 | Prototype Invention |
|---|---|
| 1 | You tried to make an espresso machine. It makes coffee & small bursts of gravatonic-elemental energy. |
| 2 | You were making a ontological-transmuter. You can transform metal into mizzium Niv-Mizzet figures. |
| 3 | This attempt at a water-filter became watery-fireworks. |
| 4 | Your metal detector can't detect metal, but can detect small traces of magic and mysteriously lost clothing. |
Orzhov Syndicate
Vizkopa Expense Account
(Replaces Leverage)
You have access to an account maintained at the banks of the Orzhov Syndicate. You can use this account to pay your daily living expenses, as well as for purchasing anything you need for completing tasks related to guild business—equipment, transportation, bribes, and so on. Your normal spending limit is 5 pp per month (five platinum coins worth 10-zinos; the equivalent of 50 gold zino coins). If you exceed that, your agency asks you to account for the month’s expenses, and they might require you to pay back the excess if you can’t justify it (at the DM’s discretion). You can’t carry over an unused amount from one month to the next, and your access to this account can be cut off at any time if you abuse it, fall out of the Syndicate’s good graces, or leave the guild. The guild is aware of every time you access the account and where you are when you do so.
If you lend any of your expense account to another sentient, intelligent humanoid, you can require them to pay back the loan. This doesn’t guarantee they’ll pay you back.
At the DM’s discretion, the spending limit can be risen as you obtain more status in the Orzhov Syndicate.
Variant Background Option:
Gilded Pauper
(Alters Vizkopa Expense Account)
As a DM, if you feel like platinum pieces per month are too much starting out, you can alternatively have the account filled with 5,000 copper alms-coins (the equivalent of 50 gold zino coins). Copper alms-coins are only accepted by Orzhov Syndicate businesses, are often thought of as “IOUs” or the “money of debtors” and are considered worthless in various locations. As the character rises in status, they may be given more valuable currency to use.
Cult of Rakdos
Infamous Reputation
(Replaces Fearsome Reputation)
People recognize you as a member of the Cult of Rakdos, and as such are too timid to stop your wanton debauchery. You can get away with minor criminal offenses in public venues, circuses, clubs or inns, such demand free lodging and food of a modest or comfortable standard (depending on the quality of the establishment), harass civilians, or destroy any kind of property, as long as you perform each night in the same place or area. The more often you do this, the more rumors of your irreverent ways and performances spread. When strangers recognize you in a part of the city where you have performed, they are typically daunted or fearful of you.
Variant Background Option: Spectacle
(Enhances Infamous Reputation)
You, or a patron you convinced, can choose to moderately fund your performances, you can maintain a comfortable or wealthy lifestyle.
In addition, your reputation always precedes you and have some small celebrity status.
Selesnya Conclave
Attuned to the Worldsoul
(Replaces Conclave's Shelter)
You are guided by the Worldsoul, Mat’Selesnya, and you can feel the choir of the conclave in your soul. Mat’Selesnya will often give you guidance in your dreams, visions, messages that appear in your environment, or rarely as an ethereal avatar. This advice usually comes to you in your rest or moments of reprieve, but in dire occasions Mat’Selesnya may answer a plea for advice, council, or help concerning the immediate nature of your situation. When you rest you can always find sanctuary.
Simic Combine
Simic Laboratory Access
(Replaces Researcher)
Though others must often endure extensive interviews and significant fees to gain access to even the most common archives in your clade or project laboratory, you have free and easy access to the majority of the archive, though it might also have repositories of lore or materials that are too valuable, magical, or secret to permit anyone immediate access. You can easily obtain simple biological materials, basic anatomical research, simple medical supplies, or simple krasis lore and information as long as you’re in the laboratory.
You have a working knowledge of your clade or project’s personnel and bureaucracy, and you know how to navigate those connections with some ease.
Additionally, you are likely to gain preferential treatment at other clades and projects across Ravnica, as a professional courtesy to a fellow scholar.
Why should I use these variants?
You shouldn't! Or at least not without your Dungeon Master's permission. These features were made to give more variety to multiple roles and social classes present within Ravnica.
For the Azorius, they can be more scholarly than officer while retaining the fantasy of being a lawful official. Boros Legionnaires can be a hardboiled investigator. Dimir Operatives no longer need to hide and can pretend to be a humble librarian or courier, representing their guild as it's innocent face. From Kraul Death-Priests to Erstwhile aristocrats, Golgari characters no longer just urchins, but rulers of the decay in the Undercity. Gruul aren't just for smashing the system, but smashing decorum in diplomacy. Rakdos aren't just pirates!
This was meant as a small endeavor and was inspired by collaboration with /u/MeepofFaith. Although we may not agree with everything I've presented here, I hope we can keep working together to help other DMs adventuring in Ravnica build a world that is alive with excitement, danger, and mystery.
Art Credits:
“Lavinia”; "Vannifar". WOTC 2018 - 2019. Unknown Artist. Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance.
Lucas Graciano. WOTC 2018. Art for Magic The Gathering's set "Guilds of Ravnica". Dimir Informant.
Livia Prima; AD: Cynthia Sheppard. WOTC 2018. Art for Magic the Gathering, Guilds of Ravnica: Mythic Edition. Vraska, Golgari Queen.
Izzy Medrano. WOTC 2013. Art for Magic The Gathering's set "Gatecrash". Burning-Tree Emissary.
Dan Scott. WOTC 2013. Art for Magic The Gathering's set "Gatecrash". Alms-Beast.
Winona Nelson. WOTC 2019. Art for Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance. Vizkopa Vampire.
