Ravnica Table of Contents & More

Thank you.

 

[gyor]

But why fail at an impossible task, when they can succeed at a useful task...?



Again, they do detail all of the story-related geography: six novels and various web short fiction are almost entirely Tenth Disctrict centric. The Millions of square miles of Megacity are not detailed, and billions of sentient beings not named in the fiction, why expect that here? The important elements are the Guilds and the Guildpact which binds the world.



In between Sky Kings Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation, they published a book that had Against the Giants and Tomb of Horrors to acclaim and financial success. I doubt they are that concerned with repeating a theme from 5+ years earlier (at the time of any potential DL book) as you suspect.

In terms of what they do plan for settings, we do have big clues. The DMsGuild used to have all of the D&D Settings listed, now they have a smaller list that is identical to the shortlist from the recent marketing survey: Ravenloft, Dark Sn, Eberron, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Dragonland, "Plane Shift" (M:tG material) and "Search Settings" (Which includes Mystarra, Spelljammer, Nentir Vale and Birthright material).

An argument can be made for all of the named settings they are mentioning on a frequent basis as being a unique genre style (Mearls intermittently tweets about how Greyhawk his favorite setting, has unique genre elements, like he is making a case to somebody).



I doubt it. They have probably been thinking about doing a M:tG crossover officially for a while, given the success of the free booklets. Still plenty of room for Cosmic fantasy as a unique genre, with need for other Races, Subclasses, tables, monsters, etc.



I think Keith Baker has other ideas. I take it as a given that a DM will need to invent more content than supplied, for any setting.

Actually it's more like 1 trilogy of novels, 1 lone novel that isn't billed as a Ravnica novel, but very much is, and a trilogy of novellas. And a bunch of short stories on their website.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually it's more like 1 trilogy of novels, 1 lone novel that isn't billed as a Ravnica novel, but very much is, and a trilogy of novellas. And a bunch of short stories on their website.

I stand corrected, though the point stands: as far as I can tell (not having read the novels, looking around the Magic info out there), 99%+ of the stories are Tenth District centered, and the Tenth District is itself a huge city within a city. Is that correct?

 

[Rossbert]

The whole place is urban sprawl, much of it abandoned and overgrown, with 10th being the capital and headquarters.

 

[gyor]

I stand corrected, though the point stands: as far as I can tell (not having read the novels, looking around the Magic info out there), 99%+ of the stories are Tenth District centered, and the Tenth District is itself a huge city within a city. Is that correct?

Partly. Yes the 10th district would be like say Toronto surrounded by a planet sized Greater Toronto Area, but the rubble belts would be a mix of Detroit and Flint Michigan.

It goes like this, the Ecumenopolis of Ravnica, City (Capital of Ravnica) is also called Ravnica, and within that huge city is the 10 district and within the tenth district is 6 precincts. So yeah it's big.

But only part of the novels take place in the tenth, it's one of the most important parts, but other districts do get mentions and visited. Utava is a condemned rubble belt area that is owned by the Orzhov with a small town in the centre, it's an important location as well, and in fact Teysa is the Baroness of Utava.

There is also the Ghost District which acts kind of like Ravnica's Shadowfell and Ethereal Plane.

There is Old Ravnica, basically Ravnica's underdark.

The World Soul sort of functions as maybe the Ravnica feywild sort of, maybe, but more spiritual.

Then there are a whole bunch of Zonuts run by the Simic and even a District that is partial submerged.

Even the polar regions get mention which where a lot of the fresh water comes from.

So just doing the 10 District is like justing doing Waterdeep and saying here is the Forgotten Realms, ignoring the existance dozen of cities, nations, cultures, and so on.

Ravnica also has two moons. It will be interesting comparing fan made Ravnica Planeshift articles and Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.

 

[Parmandur]

Partly. Yes the 10th district would be like say Toronto surrounded by a planet sized Greater Toronto Area, but the rubble belts would be a mix of Detroit and Flint Michigan.

It goes like this, the Ecumenopolis of Ravnica, City (Capital of Ravnica) is also called Ravnica, and within that huge city is the 10 district and within the tenth district is 6 precincts. So yeah it's big.

But only part of the novels take place in the tenth, it's one of the most important parts, but other districts do get mentions and visited. Utava is a condemned rubble belt area that is owned by the Orzhov with a small town in the centre, it's an important location as well, and in fact Teysa is the Baroness of Utava.

There is also the Ghost District which acts kind of like Ravnica's Shadowfell and Ethereal Plane.

There is Old Ravnica, basically Ravnica's underdark.

The World Soul sort of functions as maybe the Ravnica feywild sort of, maybe, but more spiritual.

Then there are a whole bunch of Zonuts run by the Simic and even a District that is partial submerged.

Even the polar regions get mention which where a lot of the fresh water comes from.

So just doing the 10 District is like justing doing Waterdeep and saying here is the Forgotten Realms, ignoring the existance dozen of cities, nations, cultures, and so on.

Ravnica also has two moons. It will be interesting comparing fan made Ravnica Planeshift articles and Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.

Other than the Tenth District, proper, it seems most of that could be in the Guilds material (there is a sidebar about the Dark Elves of the Golgari, for instance).

There is also room, in terms of fluff, for much more material to be in the "Art of Magic the Gathering: Ravnica" book. Those books are fluff heavy campaign setting guides, huge art filled Gazeeters basically.

 

[Juomari Veren]

Darn, only two new subclasses is a bit of a letdown. I wasn't expecting one per guild or anything but the fact that one is just another cleric domain to add to the 11 we already have is a huge mark against it. Circle of Spores has been a hit and I'm glad it's finally getting out to players officially, but there's a few concepts I can rattle off the top of my head that could probably have made servicable subclasses (Orzhov Warlock patron, Simic Sorcerer origin, and Gruul ranger archetypes come to mind). This all makes me wonder if they're gonna try to eke out another book for more Ravnica content before they finish the sets (there's new Ravnica sets coming out through next winter so they could get one book out by the time they usually put their first/second book out in march of next year), but that'd be pretty bold - especially since the implication is that Nicol Bolas (MtG's current and most-central antagonist) is going to head there and wreak havok, so they'd be exploring a plane embattled between the guilds and this singular evil.

I'm not at all surprised there's no Viashino - the version they previewed in UA was super unfocused. They'd be better off making them lizardmen and reflavoring/swapping the amphibious and bone-crafting traits. There really isn't a race I'm clamoring to see out of this book, especially since minotaurs and centaurs are smaller on Ravnica than on other D&D worlds. But Ravnica isn't really cool for the races, it's cool for the guilds they work for.

It also looks like there's only a few actually new spells - the guilds have subsections denoting spells specific to them, so I wonder if the background choice gives you access to spells if you align yourself to a guild. That's something that I think could benefit from broad expansion - especially since there's a lot of iconic MtG spells that really deserve to transition into the game.

I think for what they're offering, it's gonna depend entirely on the DM to sell D&D to people who are coming over for the first time from MtG. But the book looks like it's gonna be decent at luring D&D players who've never touched a pack into the lore of Magic. I hope this venture is explored further, but I think this book is probably too safe for what it's trying to accomplish and puts a lot more work on the DM to make the setting compelling than it should've.

 

[gyor]

The whole place is urban sprawl, much of it abandoned and overgrown, with 10th being the capital and headquarters.

I would have like at least a brief over view the other districts and regions like the Ghost District, Utava, and the Polar Regions and so on. In all Honesty this book to do things really right should have made three separate books, a Ravnica Campaign Setting Guide for world lore, A Ravnica Player's Guide, and a Ravnica Monster & NPC book.

Still GGR will be fun, just like the SCAG and Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron, too anorexic.

Every setting they touched so far, Ravnica, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft has well well done, but only half done or less. It quality, but unfinished to so someone else mentioned, you have rely on Wikipedia and other sources to make up for it. That is shameful. Heck even Dragon Heist needed an outside suppliment.

 

[Parmandur]

I would have like at least a brief over view the other districts and regions like the Ghost District, Utava, and the Polar Regions and so on. In all Honesty this book to do things really right should have made three separate books, a Ravnica Campaign Setting Guide for world lore, A Ravnica Player's Guide, and a Ravnica Monster & NPC book.

Still GGR will be fun, just like the SCAG and Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron, too anorexic.

Every setting they touched so far, Ravnica, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft has well well done, but only half done or less. It quality, but unfinished to so someone else mentioned, you have rely on Wikipedia and other sources to make up for it. That is shameful. Heck even Dragon Heist needed an outside suppliment.

We don't know what won't be in the book yet. We know there will be a Tenth District Gazeeter, and a bunch of procedural generation centered on the Guilds. What that last part may contain we will find out in the next few weeks.

They do, essentially, have another book coming, as mentioned earlier, with the Art book. You should check out the Magic Art books, I think you would like their style. Wyatt writes them as old school campaign guides, just without rules.

 

[Remathilis]

I just want to remind you all I was right.


I pointed out multiple times, since SCAG and CoS, that the new norm was settings that lightly season the D&D game, not mega-guides that completely re-write the PHB and MM. People were still convinced that the old paradigm born of box sets and branded supplements would return. And now we're four settings in and that has yet to appear.

Ravnica was the Canary in the coal mine. It was a setting bereft of any D&D tropes from races to magic to monsters. In years past, it would have probably been a complete campaign setting, monster supplement, magic supplement, players guide, and an extensive re-write and ban list from the players handbook to capture the MTG feel and lore. But WotC isn't about that life anymore, so the guide instead assumes most, if not all, D&D tropes live alongside the Magic ones, and indeed take precedence over them when it comes to rules, which if why the color pie of MTG appears completely absent despite literally being the basis of the 10 guilds.

So we had Forgotten Realms that just fleshes out the default assumptions without radical departure, Eberron that just reflavors and adds more options to the base game without removing any mechanics, Ravnica that does mostly the same, perhaps changing some race options. Ravenloft, as presented in Curse of Strahd, similarly strips the additional mechanics and laundry list of restrictions to focus on horror-themed D&D. Anyone harboring the belief that a Dark Sun or Dragonlance update will not allow paladins, monks or dragonborn is probably going to be disappointed.

Really though, it's for the best. One of the best products, I've been told, is a folio from 1983 with a lot of blank maps and a whiff of lore. Maybe we should look at this as the new Greyhawk folio?

 

[Parmandur]

I just want to remind you all I was right.


I pointed out multiple times, since SCAG and CoS, that the new norm was settings that lightly season the D&D game, not mega-guides that completely re-write the PHB and MM. People were still convinced that the old paradigm born of box sets and branded supplements would return. And now we're four settings in and that has yet to appear.

Ravnica was the Canary in the coal mine. It was a setting bereft of any D&D tropes from races to magic to monsters. In years past, it would have probably been a complete campaign setting, monster supplement, magic supplement, players guide, and an extensive re-write and ban list from the players handbook to capture the MTG feel and lore. But WotC isn't about that life anymore, so the guide instead assumes most, if not all, D&D tropes live alongside the Magic ones, and indeed take precedence over them when it comes to rules, which if why the color pie of MTG appears completely absent despite literally being the basis of the 10 guilds.

So we had Forgotten Realms that just fleshes out the default assumptions without radical departure, Eberron that just reflavors and adds more options to the base game without removing any mechanics, Ravnica that does mostly the same, perhaps changing some race options. Ravenloft, as presented in Curse of Strahd, similarly strips the additional mechanics and laundry list of restrictions to focus on horror-themed D&D. Anyone harboring the belief that a Dark Sun or Dragonlance update will not allow paladins, monks or dragonborn is probably going to be disappointed.

Really though, it's for the best. One of the best products, I've been told, is a folio from 1983 with a lot of blank maps and a whiff of lore. Maybe we should look at this as the new Greyhawk folio?

Actually, Mearls did recently discuss what they would do with Dark Sun in these terms on the Happy Fun Hour, and it sounded like he had been giving it a lot of thought. He said they would basically give "restrictions" such as no Illusionists (he said he would limit the Wizard to the Defiler & Preserver Traditions, in a way that sounded like he has already sketched those out as options somewhere) or Sorcerers, but with the acknowledgement in the text that the DM and players can make exceptions. So, genre limits are something they are still going to recommend (notice that Halflings and Dwarves aren't a thing in this book), but WotC doesn't expect to micromanage every table.