Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

l zzet League


THE lZZET MAGES WEREN'T HARD TO FIND. AFTER A
couple of days of observation, }ace heard an explosion and
saw a startled flight of birds from across the district. The
plume of blue smoke was a telltale sign of one of the Izzet's
pyrotechnic experiments.face tracked the source of the
blast and spied two mages, a human and a goblin, outfit-
ted with alchemical gadgetry and mizzium gauntlets. They
emerged from a disused tunnel. leaving behind charred
bricks and a haze of smoke, and their instruments crackled
with energy. From whatjace had gathered. this was the
lzzet style of research: keep adding energy until something
blows up. then observe the results.
-Doug Beyer, Return to Ravnica: The Secretist

The lzzet are obsessive experimenters, combining
a keen creative intellect with a short attention span.
The original mandate of the I zzet guild was to provide
solutions for public works projects (sewers. boilers,
and roadways). but their increasingly far-fetched experi-
ments satisfy only their insatiable curiosity. Sometimes
their experiments yield useful technological advance-
ments; other times they produce unintended mana gey-
sers, spatial rifts, arcane portals, or huge explosions-
all of which can be useful in their own way.
The league's most grandiose experiments typically
concern public works projects and elemental experi-
mentation. These efforts use a methodology that relies
on unexpected outcomes: all results are informative,
even if they completely defy expectations. For example,
an experiment that begins as the creation of a "hyper-
mana focusing lens~ might be renamed a "scram-range
teleportal" once the researchers discover more prop-
erties of what they have fashioned. Then, after a few
goblin volunteers vanish inside it, the apparatus gains
the designation of "universal refuse disintegrator"- until
the goblin volunteers are discovered alive, having been

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teleported far from the workshop. This sort of adjust-
ment is par for the course in lzzet experiments: the "fid-
dle and find out'' method is favored over any process of
systematic scientific research.
The lzzet League is one of the few guilds whose
founder, the dragon Niv-Mizzet, remains its guildmaster,
just as the guild continues to fulfill its original mission
(even as its experiments go far beyond the guild's origi-
nal mandate).

INSIDE THE LEAGUE


Niv-Mizzet, the original and current guildmaster of
the lzzet League, is a fifteen-thousand-year-old, vain.
temperamental, super-intelligent dragon. As he directs
experiments throughout the guild, he values results
over success, accepting and even anticipating that Izzet
experiments will end in gloriously unpredictable ways.
However, the dragon rarely concerns himself with the
day-to-day running of the guild, preferring to craft long-
range plans and let underlings implement the details.
Overseeing the daily operations of the guild is the
purview of the Izmundi, a board of directors that assem-
bles teams from among the rank and file of the Izzet
League to carry out research according to Niv-Mizzet's
directions. The Izmagnus is a smaller board with five to
seven members (some members' identities remain se-
cret) who serve as Niv-Mizzet's closest advisors.

In the Name of Magical Science!..

lzzet laboratories buzz with creative and often destructive
energy, as countless researchers go about their business
pushing the boundaries of knowledge. But the lure of dis-
covery is anything but monolithic across the lzzet League.
Humans, who make up the majority of the guild's
mages, are fueled by limitless curiosity and sustained by
their ability to approach any problem from a multitude of
different angles.
Goblins embody the lzzet's unrestrained enthusiasm for
their endeavors. They epitomize the recklessness of lzzet
mages, and some participate as subjects in hazardous ex-
periments-even ones of their own devising. More often,
they thrive in their role as attendants to researchers.
Ved alken tend to be more focused, organized, and as-
tute compared to their lzzet compatriots, and thus they
often serve as leaders of projects in the guild's laborato-
ries. Some vedalken are so obsessive about their work that
they like to see to every detail themselves, rather than del-
egating any task to underlings or assistants. This attitude
can irritate and alienate their guild mates-and put the
vedalken in harm's way when an experiment goes awry.
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