House Dimir
A VAMPIRE APPEARED OUT OF THE DARKNESS, AS Q.UIET
as a breeze. He was stripped to the waist despite the chill
underground. and his eyes reflected light like a cat's. Hefloated effortlessly down from the upper reaches of the
chamber. and alighted on the chamberfloor near the
two of them.
- Doug Beyer, Return to Ravnica: The Secretist
House Dimir is Ravnica's dark secret: behind a facade
of respectable messengers and reporters lurks an
association of spies and assassins whose existence is
barely suspected by the populace at large. Secrecy is
both House Dimir's best weapon and its best defense,
and much of the guild's work is hidden even from other
members. Oimir agents leave no trace of their covert
activities, warping the memories of witnesses to their
crimes and even wiping their own minds to remove any
evidence of th eir completed assignments.
The first guild master of House Dimir was a vampire
named Szadek, whose organization agreed to serve as
Ravnica's couriers, information brokers, and librarians.
But Szadek also used his guild's expertise at gathering
information to build a vast spy network, and before long,
the secret operations of the guild vastly outweighed its
overt ones. Eventually the guild disappeared into the
shadows, and most Ravnicans came to doubt its exis-
tence. An immortal entity, Szadek ruled the guild for ten
thousand years until he was arrested and kHled in the
turmoil of the Decamillennial Celebration.
INSIDE THE HOUSE
House Dimir has a clandestine aspect hidden from all
but its most important members. The guild master, La-
zav. and his direct contacts guide and manipulate the
covert operations of the guild. Members of House Dimirultimately receive their orders from this source without
having any idea of who issued the order or why. Mes-
sages to agents are funneled through thought strands
(see '"Spell: Encode Thoughts" later in this section) and
telepathic couriers.
By design, you don't have much interaction with other
members of your guild. You might never meet your pri-
mary guild contact face to face, instead receiving assign-
ments and sending reports by way of secret message
drops and codes.GOALS OF THE DIMIR
House Dimir is all about secrets and misinformation,
even where its own members are concerned. Any given
Dimir agent knows of no more than a handful of alley-
way contacts and dossier drop spots. One agent knows
another only by a code name, or receives communica-
tions only at a particular meeting spot at a specific place
and time. Every self-proclaimed expert with an opinion
on the matter has a theory about the guild's intentions,
and all those guesses about Dimir's motivations and
pursuits contradict each other, frustrating any attempt
to get to the truth of things. The public face of Dimir
remains inscrutable, which some interpret as the best
evidence that the guild's true plans mean something
dire for the Ravnican populace.
To House Oimir, knowledge is power. The guild
hungers to learn everything it doesn't already know,
especially the weaknesses of its adversaries, and to ex-
ploit those weaknesses for its own gain. Conversely, the
house holds its own secrets tightly, because it doesn't
want its enemies to turn the tables. The Dimir lurk in
the shadows, methodically gathering the knowledge
they need to remake Ravnica to their advantage.
House Dimir's progress toward its goals depends on
a web woven from meticulously gathered intelligence.
Unpredictable behavior by other guilds can destabilize
that web. When the Boros take sudden. forceful action
inspired by an unexpected burst of zeal, the Dimir can
be caught off guard. The Selesnya behave predictably on
the whole, but the members of the conclave are so nu-
merous that it can be hard for the Oimir to keep track of
their activities. Of all the other guilds, the Izzet and the
Gruul concern the Dimir the most; thei r erratic methods
of decision-making, combined with their unflinching
approach to danger, can quickly undermine any Dimir
strategy designed to contain them.CllAPTf R 2 GUI U>S OF RA\~ ICA 1-5