Ravnica Table of Contents & More

gyor said:

Category (4) those who want to poach the races and subclasses for use in the Forgotten Realms. FR has Centaurs, Minotaurs, Loxodons (Loxo), Goblins.

Circle of Spores Druid makes a good druid for darker gods and druids of the Shadowfell.

Order Domain is good for any lawful God.

Vedelken and Simic Hybrid are in FR, but both scream creations of the Creator Races. Vedelken could be a descendant of the Batrachi and the Simic Hybrids could be the result of Batrachi and Sarrukh experimentation, both where known to use magic to merged different creates to create new ones, as well as mutating themselves, and mixing their own genes with their creations. That is how they created Doppelgangers, Bullywugs, Tako, Lizardfolk, Pterafolk, Nagas, Yuan Ti, Abashi, and more.

Even many of monsters can be poached. Use Angels to fill out roles within ranks of the servants of the Gods. Thay would totally be open to creating Thrulls.

Felidar, servants cat linked deities like Sharess, Nobanion, Anhur, Ra, and Nature Deities like Silvanus, Chauntea, Lurue, Malar (in the case of Fallen Felidars), Mielikki.

Demons come in endless variety, so that is a no brainer.

Undead could be produced by any sort of necromancer.

Hypersonic Dragons could be refugees from Abeir. Pit Dragons might be usable as Grey Dragons depending on stats.

The NPCs are harder to use, but some might still be useful in FR, especially templates.

Only the really the Bracers of Illusion would likely be setting neutral enough to use in FR for magic items. Cod be wrong.

Any knew types of Dryads fit into the Feywild and Get filled regions as well.

Some of the other monsters could fit too, I'd have to see them first.

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Fair point, I'll say type three would include other settings (Minotaura for Dragonlance, etc.).

gyor said:

Sadly true. It's a great edition whose one weakness is a huge lack of ambition so it never reaches it's potential.

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Market sustainability is a high ambition. It isn't what D&D has done before, but flaming out every few years wasn't good for settings in the long run either.

Between what we know if the Guildmaster's Guide, and the contents of the Way finder's Guide, it seems their setting strategy is just now coming into focus.

Kramodlog said:

That is even less sensical. It like buying the Old Grey Box and having only Suzail described.

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Kramodlog said:

The funny thing is that I already used Ravnica's parts in previous campaigns. I had a necromancer grow hallucinogenic mushrooms on zombies in the sewers of a city. That was the Golgari Swarm influence.

In a village I had a ghost council of the village's founders run things. That des the Orzhov Syndicate influence.

I also had an ecumenopolis (In ruins) as a moon that orbited a gas giant with many habitable moons. Granted that was more Narnia inspired.

The point is, Ravnica is old(-ish) and I already used its parts.

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So use some of the monsters and NPCs, or use a different aspect of the guild as inspiration, they are very broad.

One idea, maybe a village has temple dedicated to a rogue Deathpact Angel, who has trained an order of clerics to serve her and worship and help create new Deathpact Angels. And it seems evil at first, but maybe she eliminated a threat to the village, and the magic she taught her order of clerics helped stop plague the village was suffering from, and the magic has helped ths village propster and converts from missiinary work is helping the village to grow.

Or you in your travels stumble into a strange war between Felidar and Hell Hounds, celestial cats vs. fiendish dogs, and you have to make sense of strange war.

Maybe you refluff Thrulls as beautiful instead of ugly and create a bit of an altered carbon type story, where the ghosts of a dead village possess the bodies of their beautiful Thrull servants, but are always searching for bodies that would make for good new Thrulls, both as servants, and hosts.

Maybe you use Rakdos' stats as the stats of a simular demon lord 5e hasn't gotten to yet.

Maybe you use the Orzhov guild as a basic template for a government, but you replace the ghost council with the angel Aurelia as a Archangel Queen. Maybe you make the Purple Dragon (renamed Angel Knights) Knight Subclass from the SCAG her elite guards.

Or maybe you just toss random horrors and undead and insects from the book into a simple dungeon crawl.

Maybe you reuse Sunhome into the Palace of an Ancient Gold Dragon King, fill it will younger gold and silver dragons and dragonborn, and then use Niv Mizzet stat block as a new villian and have him attack with some red dragons and what dragons this book has.

Maybe any new contracts and weirds in the book find themselves being used in Lantan in FR.

Maybe another setting invades Ravnica, like the Wizards of Thay stumble upon a spell that creates of portal to Ravnica and they try and take over.

Or the Gods of say Greyhawk discover Ravnica and start sending visions to the Guileless, and these new converts distrupt the established guild religions and the lingering faiths the predate the guild system.

Maybe a Rakdos cultist bungles a dark rite and instead summons the Demon Lords from Out of the Abyss into Ravnica's Old City and they send Ravnica's old order into choas.

Maybe the party sparks and planeswalkers using the Amonkemt rules to Ravnica, learn it's secrets of magic and then return to their home world to use it's magic to conquer the world.

Or maybe you adapt Kenko's Way intro adventure to Waterdeep.

Maybe you combine the Order Domain clerics with the Ghostwise Halflings from the SCAG and create a order of Halfling hivemind clerics.

Or you use the Kraul, including the winged Kraul as a tyrantical race that has taken over your world enslaving everyone else and you are part of a rebellion against the Krual.

Or maybe using the Guild rules as a template, you create new Ravnica Guilds, rebel guilds, using out backgrounds as the features.

Or your evil heroes are up against an army of Devas riding on Felidar mounts.

And that is what I just thought up now before reading the actual book.

gyor said:

I think the idea is that maybe they should have expanded the setting beyond the capital region, and maybe explored more locations and cultures. If you read the novels the guilds are the dominate force and the world government of the plane, but most people are still guileless, and the guilds don't control everything, there are organizations outside the guilds, religions, and cultures that predate the guildpact. And there have been revolts against the guilds. And guilds were even dissolved for a time.

Its like the government departments, they determine an aweful lot, from infosteuxture, to schools, hospitals, the military, even in some cases religion (like in Iran). But no where does it nearky determine everything.

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That's basically my problem with the book. It doesn't really feel like a full setting that takes advantage of its ecumopolis premise, in favour of focusing solely on how the guilds interact. Now, I get why the guilds are a big deal to people. In the card game, the guilds are the main way of interacting with the setting, being the archetypes you build your deck around. For a CCG, strong, clear archetypes are going to be what makes the game interesting, and the world those archetypes exist in is mostly window dressing.

The issue, however, is that what makes for a good CCG setting doesn't necessarily translate into making a good rpg setting on a 1:1 basis. Even if everyone in the setting is sorting hatted out into one of these factions, the faction they belong to will still only be one small element of their character. The world the factions and characters inhabit should instead take the forefront. The thoughts and beliefs of the average person will rise to prominence; cultural practices that might previously have been a throwaway line on a card now have to become living, breathing events; locations that would've been a backdrop element on that card need to be developed places with character.

It sounds like Ravnica has some amount of this from the novels (though I doubt I'll read them; I'd rather not have to hunt down books for a world I've lost interest in on the off chance they'll respark it), but it also seems like the D&D setting book focuses a bit too much on what makes it cool for Magic players, and less so on what makes it cool for running an RPG in. That's not necessarily a bad thing, per se, so much as it not being for me, and not targeted for me. I've got Eberron, Planescape, and my own world ideas to tide me over until something really exciting catches my eye.

Kramodlog said:

That is even less sensical. It like buying the Old Grey Box and having only Suzail described.

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flametitan said:

That's basically my problem with the book. It doesn't really feel like a full setting that takes advantage of its ecumopolis premise, in favour of focusing solely on how the guilds interact. Now, I get why the guilds are a big deal to people. In the card game, the guilds are the main way of interacting with the setting, being the archetypes you build your deck around. For a CCG, strong, clear archetypes are going to be what makes the game interesting, and the world those archetypes exist in is mostly window dressing.

The issue, however, is that what makes for a good CCG setting doesn't necessarily translate into making a good rpg setting on a 1:1 basis. Even if everyone in the setting is sorting hatted out into one of these factions, the faction they belong to will still only be one small element of their character. The world the factions and characters inhabit should instead take the forefront. The thoughts and beliefs of the average person will rise to prominence; cultural practices that might previously have been a throwaway line on a card now have to become living, breathing events; locations that would've been a backdrop element on that card need to be developed places with character.

It sounds like Ravnica has some amount of this from the novels (though I doubt I'll read them; I'd rather not have to hunt down books for a world I've lost interest in on the off chance they'll respark it), but it also seems like the D&D setting book focuses a bit too much on what makes it cool for Magic players, and less so on what makes it cool for running an RPG in. That's not necessarily a bad thing, per se, so much as it not being for me, and not targeted for me. I've got Eberron, Planescape, and my own world ideas to tide me over until something really exciting catches my eye.

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I get what your saying and I partially agree, but I think your jumping the gun here. They call these organizations guilds, but they are so much more then guilds in the traditional sense. They are one part religion, one part nation (or nations), one part Union, one part Corporation, one part magic acamedy, one part social service department, and so much more.

Take the Golgori for example they act as the recyclers, morticians for regular folk, the food banks, the farmers, food trading business, scavengers, first line of defence against potential threats from the depths of old Ravnica, Necromancers, Druids, keepers of the history of Old Ravnica, keep the peace between rival tribes monsters, rule huge areas of Old Ravnica and other areas, tour guides to Old Ravnica, they have their own order of Assassins and more.

Rakdos is the labour union for miners, and the trade in raw metals, they run the carnivals, mercs, dark magic cultists, necromancers, entertainers, criminal gangs, and more.

The Boros are the military, body guards for hire, run fighting academies, train evokers, explore the Skies of Ravnica searching strange things, create battle angels, run the Wojeks, the Skyjeks.

Orzhov run the banks, a religion (or religions it's unclear), aristocrats, train wizards and sorcerers, run criminal cartels, run Lawmage firms, create the basic currenency and Alms coins, and more.

As for the books you can find them as Ebooks for extremely cheap in the kindle store, around $6 Canadian, which would be like $5 or $4 American to buy the bigger books, the Novellas cost even less. Easy to find too.

MonsterEnvy said:

Thats not how it works. The Guilds are a part of the worlds Lore. There are only 10 of them. And they determine nearly everything.

You are pretty much complaining about something you have no idea about.

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I have a pretty good idea of what they are. They are the entire setting of Ravnica in that D&D supplement. It will get old fast. As Jester pointed out, there use to be a setting called Council of Wyrms where you played dragons. You could play it it for long Same for the 3e setting Ghostwalk. You could play the dead soul of your character. They are one trick ponies that do not can be fun at first, but become boring real fast.

There also was the Planescape setting. The planes and Sigil had factions which is another word ofr guilds. Factions quickly became part of the background of our adventures rather than the main feature. What saved Planescape was the dept of the setting. It had other stuff to offer than factions. With out that dept, the setting would be as forgotten as Birthright.

I played and/or DMed in all those settings (except Birthright). Gimmicks get old fast. Dept is what is needed to make a players and DMs reach for that book more than once.

gyor said:

I get what your saying and I partially agree, but I think your jumping the gun here. They call these organizations guilds, but they are so much more then guilds in the traditional sense. They are one part religion, one part nation (or nations), one part Union, one part Corporation, one part magic acamedy, one part social service department, and so much more.

Take the Golgori for example they act as the recyclers, morticians for regular folk, the food banks, the farmers, food trading business, scavengers, first line of defence against potential threats from the depths of old Ravnica, Necromancers, Druids, keepers of the history of Old Ravnica, keep the peace between rival tribes monsters, rule huge areas of Old Ravnica and other areas, tour guides to Old Ravnica, they have their own order of Assassins and more.

Rakdos is the labour union for miners, and the trade in raw metals, they run the carnivals, mercs, dark magic cultists, necromancers, entertainers, criminal gangs, and more.

The Boros are the military, body guards for hire, run fighting academies, train evokers, explore the Skies of Ravnica searching strange things, create battle angels, run the Wojeks, the Skyjeks.

Orzhov run the banks, a religion (or religions it's unclear), aristocrats, train wizards and sorcerers, run criminal cartels, run Lawmage firms, create the basic currenency and Alms coins, and more.

As for the books you can find them as Ebooks for extremely cheap in the kindle store, around $6 Canadian, which would be like $5 or $4 American to buy the bigger books, the Novellas cost even less. Easy to find too.

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I think you're too optimistic on the "evergreeness" of a setting that focus so much on guilds and doens't develop the world all that much. Quickly players will want something else. You sound like you have a good imagination and you can provide that. But if you have to come up with your own material to make Ravnica interesting and are leaving the guilds behind, it seems to me like there is a major flaw in the design of the book.

Kramodlog said:

I have a pretty good idea of what they are. They are the entire setting of Ravnica in that D&D supplement. It will get old fast. As Jester pointed out, there use to be a setting called Council of Wyrms where you played dragons. You could play it it for long Same for the 3e setting Ghostwalk. You could play the dead soul of your character. They are one trick ponies that do not can be fun at first, but become boring real fast.

There also was the Planescape setting. The planes and Sigil had factions which is another word ofr guilds. Factions quickly became part of the background of our adventures rather than the main feature. What saved Planescape was the dept of the setting. It had other stuff to offer than factions. With out that dept, the setting would be as forgotten as Birthright.

I played and/or DMed in all those settings (except Birthright). Gimmicks get old fast. Dept is what is needed to make a players and DMs reach for that book more than once.

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Even once you feel like the Setting has been tapped dry from within itself, you still have a basic MM style chapter like MTOF and VGTM, plus player races and subclasses, maybe some other things. Do I wish they had extra space to focus on the Ravnica as planet wide city? Yes. Do I wish for more space to explore more distant parts of the setting? Yes. But I knew that this book was going to be very focused so I made my piece with it.

gyor said:

Even once you feel like the Setting has been tapped dry from within itself, you still have a basic MM style chapter like MTOF and VGTM, plus player races and subclasses, maybe some other things. Do I wish they had extra space to focus on the Ravnica as planet wide city? Yes. Do I wish for more space to explore more distant parts of the setting? Yes. But I knew that this book was going to be very focused so I made my piece with it.

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Always revolt. Never surrender.

Kramodlog said:

Always revolt. Never surrender.

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Choose your battles wisely and have realistic expectations.