Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is coming in less than a month (or slightly more if you aren't getting it at a game store) and I'm ridiculously excited. This is probably the setting beside my own homebrew (or my friend's homebrew setting) I'm most excited to run something in, because Ravnica has been a big influence on me (along with all of Magic.)
As an exercise, I figured I'd go through each of the guilds and talk about what options would make sense for various classes. While I usually like to save my favorites for last, I decided to just rip the band-aid off and talk about my favorite guild first - House Dimir.
Note that the book itself will probably have some suggestions on what classes to play in which guild, and I don't have access to the specific mechanics behind these guild affiliations. But it's clear that certain character types work better for certain guilds. Let's explore! But first, let's talk House Dimir.
Lore of the House:
When the original Guildpact was written, there were nine guilds mentioned. House Dimir, founded by the psychic vampire Szadek, was part of that magical accord, but it was left out of any documentation. And that is because secrets, more than anything, define House Dimir. Many agents are not even aware that they work for the House, and those who do exist in heavily compartmentalized cells, knowing only as much as they need to know so that they cannot spill the secrets of the guild.
In more recent years, the Dimir have come out of the shadows to an extent, providing service as couriers and librarians within the city. Dimir hoards information like other guilds might hoard gold. But one can probably feel confident that the Dimir are still hard at work behind the scenes.
Alignment:
Magic's color wheel (something the books will ignore in favor of D&D-style alignment) is a bit more nuanced when it comes to good and evil, but in general I think one could describe House Dimir as Neutral Evil, with an emphasis on neutral. Your character might skew more toward the evil side or more toward the neutral or even possibly good side. The main thing is that the Dimir do not trust the other guilds to keep Ravnica safe. At its most wicked, the Dimir wish to control everything. At their most altruistic, they believe themselves the only ones capable of identifying insidious threats that could spell doom for the plane.
In Magic, Dimir is the Blue and Black guild. While Black is going to cover much of the assassination and thought-destruction the Dimir employ, the Blue aspect to the guild is equally important - the obsession with information and using intelligent tricks and traps to evade detection.
The Classes:
Dimir, being obsessed with subtlety, are not going to make a great amount of sense with some classes. That being said, because they employ agents everywhere, you can always make the very reasonable argument that you have apparent membership in one guild but are in fact an undercover Dimir agent, meaning every option is open to you (except maybe Paladin oaths where you can't lie.)
Barbarian:
This is one class that will struggle hard to fit in with the Dimir. House Dimir's greatest value is subtlety, and Barbarians are anything but. I might consider an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian as a possibility, using the House's many ghostly spirits as the spirits that aid the Barbarian, but even this is a stretch.
Bard:
The College of Whispers, from Xanathar's Guide to Everything, is about as Dimir as you can get. Addling the mind with Bardic magic and stealing peoples' shadows to imitate them is all very on brand. The College of Glamour could also fit to a lesser extent.
Cleric:
Here I think Knowledge and Trickery domains both work fairly well. If your DM allows Death domain, that could also work. Clerics are probably not going to be found as frequently in the Dimir, though.
Druid:
Generally there's very little overlap between Druids and the Dimir.
Fighter:
Once again, you might need to stretch things a little to justify a Fighter. An Arcane Archer who works as an assassin could be a pretty good option, but most melee-built Fighters are probably not going to be subtle enough to really work for the Dimir.
Monks:
Shadow Monks are a natural fit here, though I'd also argue that the Drunken Master, which is an inherently deceptive monastic tradition, actually works quite well. The Way of the Long Death from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide could also work well here.
Paladins:
Like Barbarians, Paladins are rarely subtle, which would generally not make them a terribly good fit. That said, if your DM allows Oathbreaker Paladins, you could easily be some former Boros or Azorius member who has maybe been blackmailed or corrupted by your Dimir handler.
Ranger:
Rangers in general I actually think fit decently, but none so good as a Gloomstalker. You could easily flavor your Ranger as some kind of bounty-hunter or private investigator, a service that the Dimir would be happy to employ.
Rogue:
House Dimir is essentially the Rogue guild, so just about every option would work here. Mastermind is probably the best roguish archetype for the guild's flavor, but Assassins, Thieves, and Arcane Tricksters are also pretty strong choices. The only one I'd hesitate to take is Swashbuckler, which again, is not terribly subtle in style.
Sorcerer:
I could possibly see a Shadow sorcerer as a good option for the Dimir, but given their focus on knowledge and the acquisition of information, you'll probably want to go more in the Wizard direction for pure spellcasters.
Warlock:
Given the use of "horrors," as a creature type and a tendency to muck around in peoples' minds, I think that the Great Old One patron makes a lot of sense for the Dimir. Undying might also work - your patron could be the now-ghostly vampire Szadek. Mask of Many Faces is practically a must as far as invocations go.
Wizard:
The schools of Illusion, Divination and Enchantment are probably the most obvious fits here. Again, being able to muck with peoples' minds is going to be a strong choice for any Dimir Wizard, as well as being able to gather information. One could also go Necromancy, as the Dimir are known to employ skeletal and ghostly spies.
The House Always Wins:
Some RP suggestions I might have for Dimir players: One is to not tell the other party members which guild you're in. Perhaps your wizard claims to be an Izzet researcher, or your Rogue puts on the manic frenzy of a Rakdos thug.
I also think you should work out with your DM some alternative goal that you're supposed to accomplish that you don't share with the rest of the party. Maybe the Azorius have hired your party to recover some stolen relic, but your actual mission from your Dimir superiors is to instead hide it away in one of their hidden vaults.
I would also emphasize that the Dimir really do think they know best. The entire mindset of an illuminati world-controlling conspiracy like what the Dimir strive to be is that they don't just do it out of greed or lust for power - a Good-aligned Dimir character might simply believe that if they don't control everything, the world will fall apart, giving you some interesting potential character flaws as well as more sympathetic motivations.
In terms of alignment, while Dimir suggest insidiousness and malevolence, Dimir's "evil" is less born of malice and more born out of a ruthless pragmatism. The Dimir are secretive, but they are also the best-equipped guild for discovering secrets. Indeed, in the latest card set (Guilds of Ravnica at the time of this post,) the Dimir are actually one of the most active "good guys" of the set, as they used their vast network of spies implanted in the other guilds to sabotage the similarly insidious threat of Nicol Bolas, one of Magic's primary "big bad" antagonists that span the 25-year history of the game.
Now that they're officially confirmed as a real guild after the events of the original Ravnica block, House Dimir serves a city function like the other guilds, in this case often acting as couriers, librarians, and reporters. You could easily have a heroic Dimir journalist character who uses the guild's resources to infiltrate corrupt institutions and discover what crimes are being held from the public. As a Dimir Operative, you're perfectly positioned to be the one who first discovers the plots of your campaign's big bad and bring it to the attention of your party or even the general public.
If you want a character with such noble intentions but you still want to retain the guild's edge, you can simply have them use unscrupulous means to do so. If you're a caster, enchantment magic might give you a creepier vibe than, say, illusion magic, though you're probably going to be using a mix of both. If you're not a caster (in which case I'd guess you're a rogue,) you might spend a long time gathering information on a target location, perhaps shadowing someone who works there and either intimidating or coercing them in some way into giving you access.
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