Getting Around in the World of Ravnica

[HappyDaze]

So the Ravnica setting details a world with a constant cityscape often with an overlay of other terrain types (forests, marshes, mountains, rubblebelts, etc.) and tells us that there is much more to Ravnica (the world) than just the core districts of Ravnica (the city).

So far, so good, but how do people travel in this setting? While walking and animal transport is certainly present, along with some form of watercraft for the (mostly covered) seas, what else do they have? Is it like Eberron with elemental airships and a lighting rail? Are there common portals for instantaneous transport from city center to city center?

Insights from any methods mentioned in MtG are welcome!

[Arzanyos]

Well, you gotta remember that Ravnica City is huge. Like, everything mapped out in GGTR is just one-tenth of the city proper, not counting the minor parts outlying the Ten Destricts. As for transportation, there are airships of some kind, the Boros had one as a fortress, and its probably they have non-military models. Also, giant sky snakes could probably be genetically modified to serve as transports. There are also crawling transport constructs, at least as prisoner transports. Teleportation circles, though... I don't think the populous would trust them.

[HappyDaze]

Well, you gotta remember that Ravnica City is huge. Like, everything mapped out in GGTR is just one-tenth of the city proper, not counting the minor parts outlying the Ten Destricts. As for transportation, there are airships of some kind, the Boros had one as a fortress, and its probably they have non-military models. Also, giant sky snakes could probably be genetically modified to serve as transports. There are also crawling transport constructs, at least as prisoner transports. Teleportation circles, though... I don't think the populous would trust them.

Are there pictures of the airships or crawling transports in any of the cards?

[Arzanyos]

The card Armored Transport shows off a transport, but I don't think they have pictures of the airships.

[Eragon123]

Selesnya have burrowing wurms that they've trained some to ride

[Vogie]

Are there pictures of the airships or crawling transports in any of the cards?

Assault Zeppelid (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=97107) is specifically an airship-esque sky beast that the flavor text refers to that the Simic is hocking to the other guilds.

[Millstone85]

You can also take the subway.
Magically charged tracks line the floors of tube-like tunnels that send vehicular constructs to major locations in the Tenth District and beyond. The tunnels open into small stations that have staircases leading up to the surface.

[HappyDaze]

You can also take the subway.

Thank you. I'd somehow missed that in the book.

[A Fat Dragon]

There are a bunch of flying creatures that allow people to get around, such as the Skyjek Roks for certain Boros soldiers, or creatures made by the Simic to help the other guilds travel around. There are also many inventions and spells created/tampered with by the Izzet League that are usable for flying. I wouldn’t imagine that it’d be all too uncommon to see Izzet artificers zipping about with boots of flying, or wings of flying (or whatever they’re called). In Krenko’s way, it also explains how some Iszet members use flying disks to travel about, so “hover board” is also a viable means of transportation.

[HappyDaze]

There are a bunch of flying creatures that allow people to get around, such as the Skyjek Roks for certain Boros soldiers, or creatures made by the Simic to help the other guilds travel around. There are also many inventions and spells created/tampered with by the Izzet League that are usable for flying. I wouldn’t imagine that it’d be all too uncommon to see Izzet artificers zipping about with boots of flying, or wings of flying (or whatever they’re called). In Krenko’s way, it also explains how some Iszet members use flying disks to travel about, so “hover board” is also a viable means of transportation.

I'm imagining a Ravnica version of Space X run by a mad Izzet wizard.

[Madfellow]

So the Ravnica setting details a world with a constant cityscape often with an overlay of other terrain types (forests, marshes, mountains, rubblebelts, etc.) and tells us that there is much more to Ravnica (the world) than just the core districts of Ravnica (the city).

Yeah, according to the map in the book, the Tenth District is not quite 50 square miles, and the book makes reference to at least 13 districts. So Ravnica the city is about as large as a modern-day city like New York or Chicago.


So far, so good, but how do people travel in this setting? While walking and animal transport is certainly present, along with some form of watercraft for the (mostly covered) seas, what else do they have? Is it like Eberron with elemental airships and a lighting rail? Are there common portals for instantaneous transport from city center to city center?

Insights from any methods mentioned in MtG are welcome!

Yeah, the book refers to two major roadways, the Transguild Promenade and Tin Street, that run roughly parallel to each other going north to south through all the major districts of the city. It also makes reference to an airship dock in Precinct 2 that allows for easy (but expensive) travel between the six precincts and the other districts, though there are no airships depicted in cards in sets based on Ravnica, which is weird. There is also a brief mention of a subway system in the Undercity that isn't mentioned anywhere else.

However, I can say with some degree of certainty that Ravnica does not make extensive use of teleportation magic. That kind of magic is very rare in the MtG 'verse, and is usually the domain of Planeswalkers. On a different MtG world called Kaladesh, there is an inventor who made a teleportation ring, but it can only transport non-living matter. Exposure to the Astral Plane is fatal to anything that doesn't possess the Planeswalker Spark.


There are also crawling transport constructs, at least as prisoner transports.

Yeah, it's basically an Apparatus of Kwalish. :smallsmile:

[HappyDaze]

However, I can say with some degree of certainty that Ravnica does not make extensive use of teleportation magic. That kind of magic is very rare in the MtG 'verse, and is usually the domain of Planeswalkers. On a different MtG world called Kaladesh, there is an inventor who made a teleportation ring, but it can only transport non-living matter. Exposure to the Astral Plane is fatal to anything that doesn't possess the Planeswalker Spark.

Interesting that they didn't bother to say anything about this in the Guide (that I could find) and there are no apparent setting-specific rules on limiting teleportation or planar travel options. This may be an intentional case of dropping setting elements that don't comply with the mainstream D&D rules. If so, that's disappointing.

[Beleriphon]

Yeah, according to the map in the book, the Tenth District is not quite 50 square miles, and the book makes reference to at least 13 districts. So Ravnica the city is about as large as a modern-day city like New York or Chicago.

Ravinica is functionally supposed to cover the entire planet, much like Coruscant in Star Wars. Also, large parts of the city might very well be huge farms, or vast "parks" the size of small countries. Or huge tracts of ruins, or rubble belts as they are called. The whole world can be covered one way or another, but each District might be considerably larger than the Tenth which is the capital region for the whole world. There are likely districts largely controlled by a specific guild as well.

For more info:

https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Ravnica

[Vogie]

Interesting that they didn't bother to say anything about this in the Guide (that I could find) and there are no apparent setting-specific rules on limiting teleportation or planar travel options. This may be an intentional case of dropping setting elements that don't comply with the mainstream D&D rules. If so, that's disappointing.

Mike Mearls in his Happy Fun Hour stated they left out the Planeswalking rules and limitations because there aren't other planes to planeswalk to. He mentioned if they do another book like GGtR in another MtG setting, they'll likely put the rules there.

If you're familiar with the setting, or have an afternoon to poke around the cards in the setting on gatherer.wizards.com, you'll notice there is very little teleportation magic as a whole. You do see some, on cards such as

Aetherling
Incursion Specialist
Teleportal


The bulk of movement-related things in Ravnica are flavored (via their portrayal in the art) as either being slippery, running up & around buildings, or just walking through walls (or guards, in Writ of Passage):

Passwall Adept
Way of the Thief
Keymaster Rogue
Rogue's Passage
Elusive Krasis
Sewer Shambler
Silhana Ledgewalker & Spire Tracer
Skyblinder Staff
There's also a recurring issue with invisible creatures, hence the introduction of the Glaring Spotlight (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=366334)

[Millstone85]

Mike Mearls in his Happy Fun Hour stated they left out the Planeswalking rules and limitations because there aren't other planes to planeswalk to. He mentioned if they do another book like GGtR in another MtG setting, they'll likely put the rules there.On the other hand, Jeremy Crawford made a whole video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHyJj8C21c) about the difference between a plane and a world, and how 5e went back to the original D&D assumption of a shared cosmology. He spent some time talking about Eberron, a setting created for an edition where that assumption was lost, and how he and Keith Baker discussed of a way to integrate it. They came up with an amusingly meta solution too. Basically, the Great Wheel is banging on Eberron's crystal sphere, trying to reclaim this world and its orbiting demiplanes.

But if that's the case, making a MtG book is one of the most heachache-inducing things they could have done.

[HappyDaze]

But if that's the case, making a MtG book is one of the most heachache-inducing things they could have done.

Aren't all the the (currently six?) MtG-based "Plane Shift" settings linked into their own cosmology?

Also, for that matter, how do spells like Gate, Banishment, and the like work in Ravnica? Where do elementals come from in Ravnica if not the elemental planes (Izzet labs are a possibility)?

[Madfellow]

Aren't all the the (currently six?) MtG-based "Plane Shift" settings linked into their own cosmology?

Yep. The Multiverse of MtG used to be called Dominia, but nobody uses that name anymore because just calling it the Multiverse is more descriptive. All of the different Material Planes are floating about in the Astral Plane, which in MtG is called the Blind Eternities.


Also, for that matter, how do spells like Gate, Banishment, and the like work in Ravnica? Where do elementals come from in Ravnica if not the elemental planes (Izzet labs are a possibility)?

At one time, it was possible to open up portals to other worlds, but this eventually led to a fraying of the fabric of reality, so there are measures in place now that prevent it. This was called the Great Mending. Banishment spells are fairly common, but it's not always clear where the target is sent. It's likely either a harmless demiplane or a random location on the Material Plane.

Elementals and the like are all native to the Material Plane.

[HappyDaze]

At one time, it was possible to open up portals to other worlds, but this eventually led to a fraying of the fabric of reality, so there are measures in place now that prevent it.

Is any of this in the Guildmaster's Guide? I don't recall seeing anything in there that would alter how planar travel spells would work in Ravnica. If they intend for them to operate as usual, than that seems like an unfortunate break from the flavor of the world.

[Millstone85]

Aren't all the the (currently six?) MtG-based "Plane Shift" settings linked into their own cosmology?That's the thing. It makes GGtR, and the "Plane Shift" PDFs that I haven't read, an exception to the alleged approach for this edition.

Alright, calling it "headache inducing" might have been exaggerated. It is more of a "make up your mind already" feeling.


Yep. The Multiverse of MtG used to be called Dominia, but nobody uses that name anymore because just calling it the Multiverse is more descriptive. All of the different Material Planes are floating about in the Astral Plane, which in MtG is called the Blind Eternities.
Is any of this in the Guildmaster's Guide? I don't recall seeing anything in there that would alter how planar travel spells would work in Ravnica. If they intend for them to operate as usual, than that seems like an unfortunate break from the flavor of the world.I am going to demonstrate my lack of respect for the integrity of the setting, because, if I were to run Ravnica as a D&D campaign, I would totally pretend that the Blind Eternities are in fact the Phlogiston, with Dominia as a particular cluster of crystal spheres.

[Drascin]

Animal transport is very common in Ravnica. It's just that the animals in question are probably not, like, horses.

I seem to remember Orzhov patriarchs and Teysa herself (back when she was just an up and coming lawmage) getting to places in palanquin carriages carried by Thrulls, for example (this does have the advantage that in case of bandits, the thrulls can leave the palanquin on the ground and get their murder on :smalltongue:). Golgari offered passage through the undercity on their enormous zombie husks, and there are many only-slightly-related-to-guilds services that use animals like Indriks as sort of buses.

The Izzet, of course, prefer actual vehicles. Flying jet-powered mizzium batyspheres, hoverboards, and jetpacks are some of the stuff the magelords can and do pull when they need to go somewhere, and sometimes they even arrive in one piece.

[Madfellow]

Is any of this in the Guildmaster's Guide? I don't recall seeing anything in there that would alter how planar travel spells would work in Ravnica. If they intend for them to operate as usual, than that seems like an unfortunate break from the flavor of the world.

Yeah, unfortunately it isn't. I guess the devs wanted to keep the barrier to entry low, figuring that established MtG players would already know this stuff and that non-MtG players would just run Ravnica as they would any other D&D setting.


That's the thing. It makes GGtR, and the "Plane Shift" PDFs that I haven't read, an exception to the alleged approach for this edition.

Alright, calling it "headache inducing" might have been exaggerated. It is more of a "make up your mind already" feeling.

I am going to demonstrate my lack of respect for the integrity of the setting, because, if I were to run Ravnica as a D&D campaign, I would totally pretend that the Blind Eternities are in fact the Phlogiston, with Dominia as a particular cluster of crystal spheres.

I'm not very familiar with Spelljammer, but this sounds like a reasonable approach. The Multiverse is infinite, and the worlds we've seen are only a fraction of what's out there.

Edit: The appendix to Plane Shift Amonkhet has a couple of pages that talk about the Multiverse and Planeswalkers. It doesn't have much about game mechanics, but it does briefly outline how people view the universe and how to run a game if your PCs have the Spark.

Here's a link: https://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/magic/plane-shift_amonkhet.pdf

[HappyDaze]

Animal transport is very common in Ravnica. It's just that the animals in question are probably not, like, horses.

I seem to remember Orzhov patriarchs and Teysa herself (back when she was just an up and coming lawmage) getting to places in palanquin carriages carried by Thrulls, for example (this does have the advantage that in case of bandits, the thrulls can leave the palanquin on the ground and get their murder on :smalltongue:). Golgari offered passage through the undercity on their enormous zombie husks, and there are many only-slightly-related-to-guilds services that use animals like Indriks as sort of buses.

The Izzet, of course, prefer actual vehicles. Flying jet-powered mizzium batyspheres, hoverboards, and jetpacks are some of the stuff the magelords can and do pull when they need to go somewhere, and sometimes they even arrive in one piece.

Do they have golem-like mounts/beasts of burden or animated objects that serve as personal vehicles (aside from the big prison crawler thing)? Once again, I could see Izzet getting into promoting self-driving personal vehicles... with calamitous outcomes.

I can certainly imagine Golgari gondoliers moving small boats by poles through the sewers.

I can also imagine centaurs pulling rickshaws around and groups of loxodons hauling litters or palanquins on their shoulders. But both of those might come off as being "fantasy racist" to some.

[Madfellow]

Do they have golem-like mounts/beasts of burden or animated objects that serve as personal vehicles (aside from the big prison crawler thing)? Once again, I could see Izzet getting into promoting self-driving personal vehicles... with calamitous outcomes.

When the Izzet get involved in transportation, their interest is usually in aviation: rockets, jet packs, thingamawings, you get the picture. :smallamused:

One place that kind of invention is popular though is the aforementioned plane of Kaladesh. It's a wonderful blend of steampunk technology and South Asian culture. :smallsmile:


I can certainly imagine Golgari gondoliers moving small boats by poles through the sewers.

I can also imagine centaurs pulling rickshaws around and groups of loxodons hauling litters or palanquins on their shoulders. But both of those might come off as being "fantasy racist" to some.

Yeah, totally.