Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica

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

6j CllAPTER2 C.UILDSOFRA\NICA

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.