Holy crap, they're crossing the streams!
For those who don't know, Ravnica is one of the most popular settings from Magic: the Gathering, the mother of all CCGs. Magic, like D&D, is both a property of Wizards of the Coast as well as being a fantasy-themed game, so translating Magic settings for use in D&D is something that works out fairly well - but in the past, they've done simple PDFs in a series called Plane Shift.
This, however, is going to be a published hardcover sourcebook.
Ravnica is my favorite setting they've done in Magic, and the original Ravnica block was the last period I really played a significant amount of the game.
For those who know D&D and not Magic, let me give you the rundown:
In Magic, there's a vast multiverse filled with different planes - sort of like planets, but magically separated into their own universes with different peoples, gods, and the like. Much like D&D's various worlds of the Material Plane, Magic's planes have some similarities that echo through them.
One of the core elements to the nature of the Magic cosmos is that there are five colors of magic, representing different attitudes, techniques, and philosophies of magic. The five are White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green. I don't want to get too down in the depths of what they represent, but to sum up briefly: White is holy, light-based magic focused on cooperation and law. Blue is arcane, cerebral magic that focuses on using the mind to manipulate reality. Black is necromancy and sacrificial magic that focuses on empowering the caster at any cost and destroying one's enemies. Red magic is chaos, focusing on impulse and emotions, prizing action and recklessness. Green is nature magic, empowering the strong and focusing on instinct and growth.
In a sense, you can think of the color system as Magic's alignment system, but with a bit more nuance than the two-axis D&D one. White, for example, might represent altruistic goodness, but it could also represent tyrannical authoritarianism. Every color has its good and bad aspects (though you might find it harder to make a hero that uses black mana than, say, one who uses green.)
Ravnica is one of the many (maybe infinite) planes in the multiverse, and it's a fairly unusual one.
The entire plane is covered by one massive city - the city and plane of Ravnica are one and the same.
Ruling over this city are its ten guilds, each playing a different role to keep the city functioning. Each guild utilizes two different colors of magic - every two-color combination has a guild.
The Azorius Senate (White/Blue) is the city's legislature and bureaucracy. The Boros Legion (White/Red) is its military and police force. The Selesnya Conclave (White/Green) maintains its parks and green spaces. The Orzhov Syndicate (White/Black) is its church and tax collectors (and also its mafia.) The Gruul Clans (Green/Red) are its demolitionists (and anarchists.) The Golgari Swarm (Green/Black) are its waste-disposal and providers of food for the poor. The Simic Combine (Green/Blue) maintain its water supply and perform biomancy research. The Cult of Rakdos (Black/Red) are its bacchanalian entertainers (and often assassins.) The Izzet League (Red/Blue) are its builders and magical researchers and engineers. Finally, House Dimir (Black/Blue) are its archivists, but are also its spies, assassins, and knowledge brokers.
Any adventure in Ravnica is likely to involve a lot of intrigue between the different guilds and their various ambitions.
I, for one, am super excited about getting this sourcebook. While the Plane Shift articles have offered Magic planes as a suggested setting, this seems to be the first time they're releasing an actual book based on a Magic property within the official D&D 5e line.
Also of note is that there is a PDF on DMsguild with information about Eberron. I think I'm probably going to pick that up (I know some old school purists might be annoyed that a Magic property gets a book release while an actual original D&D setting is only getting a PDF. I don't really have any comment on that, but as someone who was kind of obsessed with Ravnica, I'm pretty happy at least about this release.)
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