Setting Interest Check: Ravnica (D&D 5e)

So I just recently finished a roughly 9 month long campaign with my real life group set on Ravnica. For those of you out of the know, Ravnica is a Magic: The Gathering world, and the pitch of it is this:

Ravnica is an ecumenopolis (plane-spanning city) which has a society largely controlled by the ten guilds, each embodying two of the five colors of mana. You have the Azorius Senate creating the laws, in the belief that they are creating the order that is best for Ravnica. On the flip side, you have the Cult of Rakdos, a case of demonic cult meets circus performers. Each guild has a function in the city, and not every member of the guilds (in fact many members) are not the examples of violence and extremism depicted in Magic cards.

The guilds were formed over 10,000 years ago, when a magically binding enchantment called the Guildpact was signed by the 10 paruns, or founders. Since then, the original Guildpact has been undone, but now exists in the form of the Living Guildpact, Jace Beleren (at least as of the context Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is working with).

The guilds often skirmish with each other, but they also have a practical function in the city to ground them in the mundane. The Rakdos work the entertainment industry and hard labor areas, while the Golgari Swarm functions as the janitors of Ravnica. The Orzhov Syndicate is part-bank, part-church, and all mafia. The Izzet League are the mage-punk mad scientist inventors of Ravnica, responsible for its magically powered bullet trains, steam vents, and so much more.

Ravnica is a very rich world, full of so much potential that just can't be tapped into with a few visits in the card game. It's a setting that I'm incredibly fond of, and I'm curious how the rest of you feel about it. If you know of it, would you run and/or play in a Ravnica campaign? If you didn't know until now, have I piqued your interest? I don't have a a game in mind, either DMing or playing, but after the first game with my real life group, I realized I just can't get enough of the urban high fantasy of Ravnica.

Hey there HyperMizutsune, glad to see a fellow Ravnica fan out here!

I have been working on my own Ravnica campaign with a few other GP members. It's a tough nut to crack: I feel like the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica gives you this great tease but then it's not quite enough to hang a full campaign on. I've also participated in two other Ravnica games and seen DMs and players struggle to tie a multi-guild party together.

I'd love to hear more about your 9 month game, and I'm happy to share resources and talk about D&d in Ravnica with anyone who's interested.

Certainly, an interesting setting. I'm quite familiar with Ravnica, though not to any significant depth - I was already starting to move out of the MTG scene when the Ravnica block came out. I think my last constructed deck there was a Boros/Gruul/Selesnya mix. ^_^

Ravnica, I only know it from the campaign book but it looks like it could be pretty amazing.
Instant hooks with the guilds. Villains both high and low.
A Huge world wide city. (The only part to this I hate is they cover their oceans which would kill a hell of a lot of ocean life due to lack of sunlight getting to it.)
Factions with Mad Scientists
Factions that want to tear society down.
An evil church that wears and worships money.

Its a cool place.

I had to walk away from most of my games here, including a Ravnica game, but it is one of the settings that I would like to explore

I had a Ravnica game that ended without cause. If you're having one, I'd love to be a part of it.

I would also like to join a game, but not as 1st level. If we start at lev 3 or above, I'm game

We began at level 3, and I was a member of the Cult of Rakdos, an acrobat in a not-well-known troupe (College of Swords Bard). The other two were both members of the Golgari Swarm (Spore Druid and Beast Master Ranger), and session 1 began with my troupe performing a show in the small underground village they both shared. After the show, the lich running the village sent the two of them on an errand, and being the impulsive person she was, my character decided to tag along.

After this mission concluded, we traveled around, uncovering hints at various plots, and my character ended up murdering one of her troupe members in cold blood during an impromptu duo performance, hoping to attract the attention of a bloodwitch that had already set her sights on her younger sister.

What really became our driving motivation for a long time was stopping an extremist sect of the Boros Legion (same symbol, but the fist is gripping a lightning bolt, and alignment wise, they were Red/White/Black; we used color as alignment). They had burned the Golgari players' village to the ground without prejudice, and we discovered that their goal, under the stewardship of Nevana, one of the last firemane angels, was to purge Ravnica of the black-aligned guilds, and they planned to do this through a collaboration with the Izzet League; a huge sized mech dubbed Project Angelfire.

This key moment became a focal point for the campaign, and is what turned it from "some less than savory folk doing... stuff" into a very anti-hero centric game, and what someone else termed "noblebright" (the opposite of grimdark). Throughout this journey, we amassed help to assist us in assaulting Kamen Fortress, the Boros' foothold in Precinct Six, ehich these extremists had taken over. We succeeded in both destroying Project Angelfire and eliminating one of Nevana's angel generals. That pretty much concluded our first arc, but we wanted to go further, though the gane could have just ended there in theory. Character arcs still needed fulfilled though.

My character began regretting her choice of guild, and while working under the bloodwitch, and becoming one herself, she strove to break away, to not have endanger her older Boros contact (who also helped attack the fortress), a gather figure and potential mentor of sorts. She began speaking with him more and more, and she contemplated what it means to be good and a hero a lot. I grew very attached to this character, and often found myself feeling emotions outside the game because of her.

In the end, we went into the events of The War of the Spark, and within that, Vera Kozlov became a true hero, and afterwards, having fought side by side with us, the bloodwitch I was under dismissed me, both from her observance, and the Rakdos cult. It was then that she went to her true calling. She went to her contact, and said she wanted to join the Legion. The last scene of the campaign, in the epilogue mini-session, was Vera at her graduation ceremony from her training, with her Boros contact pinning on her first medal to her uniform through teary eyes.

EDIT: Sorry about the length, I feel like I need to hit so many high points of the story (and didn't even get all of them) to stress how well this campaign went. I don't really know what it was that "clicked" with our party, but it just did.

HM, that is fantastic, sounds like you really got into your character and the story!

I have also moved in and out of M:tG over the years but I always seem to be there for the Ravnica sets.

In the original I mostly played Gruul aggro, in Return to Ravnica I mostly played Azorius control, and in the most recent War of the Spark set I played Boros Feather.

Nowadays I mostly play through Magic Arena, grinding for cards without paying any money. It has been pretty fun, I recommend it to any old M:tG players who want to turn cardboard sideways again.

I am interested, I know not much of the MtG or the setting other then its similar to eberron but not :D

I would love to get down with a Ravnica game. I actually enjoyed reading the whole Planeshift series as well. Let me know. I'm open to trying any race/class combo as well that would fit well with a group. Although, I enjoy either a support role or an all-out Barbarian! :D