Ravnica, the plane-sized city, home to ten powerful guilds that control everything, is the first plane to be officially both a Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons setting. Magic is set to have its third Ravnica-set card block while D&D is releasing the Gulidmaster's Guide to Ravnica, an official sourcebook for the setting.
Each of these games has an idea at its core that defines the characteristics and behavior of people and entities within it. In D&D, there are the two spectra of alignment: Law versus Chaos and Good versus Evil. Magic, on the other hand, has five different colors that represent different values and practices.
Ravnica was, in fact, built primarily out of a contrivance of this five color system. The makers wanted to do a multicolor set, encouraging players to play decks of multiple colors, but they had done a block only a few years earlier that encouraged everyone to play with all five colors. For Ravnica, they decided to create identities based out of each two-color combination and encourage players to make two-color decks. The result was, mechanically, very effective, as it forced them to give each of these combinations its own identity, and they managed to balance the metagame in such a way that most guilds were rather viable, diversifying the field, which is always a healthy thing for a game like Magic.
But on top of that, they came up with this idea of guilds to explain these combinations, and the flavor behind them became extremely popular.
The Guilds are of course rather definitional to the idea of Ravnica, but in order to let D&D players who are less familiar with Magic come into Ravnica - this isn't some cheap thought experiment; they're really making Ravnica just as valid a D&D setting as Eberron, Dark Sun, or Greyhawk - the book apparently makes no mention of color.
Now, those of us in the know could pretty easily reverse-engineer what colors the guilds each represented even if we somehow knew Magic colors but didn't know Ravnica, but one thing I think is interesting to consider is what D&D alignments each guild would have.
So one thing that I think presents itself when you think this way is that Magic is pretty morally grey. There are plenty of bad guys, but good guys, especially among these powerful guilds, are sort of hard to come by. Law and Chaos are much easier to identify, however.
Selesnya Conclave: Lawful Good: Good could be a stretch here, given their cultishness, but the Selesnya do encourage life and growth, which I think we tend to put more in the good category. And their collectivism is very Lawful.
Boros Legion: Lawful Good: Possibly the only really obviously good-aligned guild, the Boros do, of course, have a zealous streak, and they're the kind of lawful whose zeal can sometimes actually result in chaos. But this is the big Paladin guild, so I'm going to give them the old LG.
Orzhov Syndicate: Lawful Evil: Oh man, is there a better representation of Lawful Evil? They're a church that is also an organized crime syndicate that bleeds money from the citizens of Ravnica to enrich themselves. (Yes, crime syndicate as a Lawful organization is kind of odd, but I actually think a lot of organized crime types see themselves as enforcing their own laws.)
Azorius Senate: Lawful Neutral: This, again, is like your textbook Lawful Neutral to the extreme. They are obsessed with regulation and authority, and they would never let moral concerns get in the way of the law. They aren't actively seeking to harm anybody, though, which keeps them from being lawful evil.
Gruul Clans: Chaotic Neutral: On the other side of things, this is the group that would like to see the city demolished so nature can take its course. They're anarchists, which is kind of the standard chaotic neutral type.
Golgari Swarm: Neutral Evil: To be fair, it might be less evil than neutral, but the Golgari do seem to traffic a lot in necromancy and zombies, and are also probably serving the poor of Ravnica a lot of Soylent Green-like stuff. Of course, in their minds they are true neutral, which could also be a viable alignment.
Simic Combine: True Neutral: Their goals are evolution at any cost, which means that they don't really want to harm anyone, but they also don't care if they do because their ultimate goals are that life itself advances.
Cult of Rakdos: Chaotic Evil: This is another no-brainer, with a cult that, first off, worships a demon, but also puts on murderous carnival shows? It's like a guild made up entirely of Jokers (like, the Batman villain.)
Izzet League: Chaotic Neutral: These guys could possibly be chaotic good, actually, as I think they've generally been pretty forthright with their goals. They want innovation, and they're kind of insane.
House Dimir: Neutral Evil: Wait, what? This guild doesn't exist! But seriously, this is a guild that does not let ethical considerations get in the way of its ambitions. They can use lawful means or chaotic means to achieve their goals in their quest to dominate Ravnica.
These are my takes on the guilds, and there are certainly areas where I might be off. The guilds very likely see themselves differently than I've put them down, but in terms of look and feel, I think these alignments fit pretty well.
In Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, a character's guild is actually a replacement for their character background, coming with its own interesting features. There's apparently a sort of flowchart questionnaire to allow players to figure out a guild that they would want to be a part of. But I also think it's an interesting way to translate Magic colors into character alignment.
It also allows for some interesting flexibility. You might be a naive member of the Orzhov who thinks that the care they provide for their own makes them the good guys, or you might be a member of the Gruul clans who uses their anti-establishment attitudes only as a pretext for indulging in your violent tendencies.
I can't wait to get my hands on the book - it's probably the non-homebrewed setting I'm most excited to run something in.
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