so who or what built the huge city that covers all of ravnica? what was ravnica like before the city was built? was there civilization on the plane before the city was built?
The city grew like any other city and was built by the inhabitants of Ravnica. The plane's been close to entirely covered for well over 10 000 years, longer than we in the real world have even had civilization to speak of, so anything before that is well and truly in the past. On the plane of Ravnica there are cities other than the city of Ravnica, but they're more like suburbs, and still built on the remains of past buildings.
No, the ten guilds ruled over all of Ravnica (the plane).
The Gruul typically don't live in Ravnica (the city), instead making their way in the world by scavenging from the ruins of the outlying buildings. They are portrayed as being savages, but you have to remember that they're savages in a very different world from our own. The city beneath the city is so deep that only the peaks of the tallest mountains still offer natural ground. The Gruul live in the ruins of those cities, but it's still man made. You can't say the prehistoric people of Ravnica were like the Gruul because before the cities enveloped the plane, it was actually natural ground (in other words, very different from Ravnica now). It certainly takes a very un-Gruul mind to spread a cityscape that far.
If I recall correctly, Rix Maadi (the Dungeon Palace, guildhall of the Cult of Rakdos) is the only part of the actual planar surface that actually breaks through the cityscape. It's the peak of an ancient mountain, the base of which has been hollowed out by Rakdos mining operations over the years, and is now home to the lavapit where Rakdos slumbers when he's not out making with the chaos and rioting.
ah gotcha. so theres old city under the city, and older city under that, and olderer city under that, and on and on. somewhere at the bottom is real ground though. do we know anything about that deep down, at actual ground level? does anybody live down there?
ah gotcha. so theres old city under the city, and older city under that, and olderer city under that, and on and on. somewhere at the bottom is real ground though. do we know anything about that deep down, at actual ground level? does anybody live down there?
Long, long, LONG ago, there were open seas/oceans, but gradually the city grew over them and they were sealed from the surface. Only recently have the lost oceans been rediscovered, when the merfolk opened the Zonots and took up the mantle of the Simic Combine. Previous to the opening of the Zonots, the merfolk were believed extinct, but in reality they have been living as an isolated civilization in the depths.
wait... the citys foundation is water!? or when you say they sealed the oceans from the surface do you mean they like covered them up with something? how would they cover a whole ocean?
wait... the citys foundation is water!? or when you say they sealed the oceans from the surface do you mean they like covered them up with something? how would they cover a whole ocean?
wait... the citys foundation is water!? or when you say they sealed the oceans from the surface do you mean they like covered them up with something? how would they cover a whole ocean?
Actually, on a much smaller scale, a similar thing happened in my city (Charlotte, NC). There was a small river (Little Sugar Creek) running through the city at one point, and as the city grew they covered over the river to the point most people didn't know it was ever there. It was effectively routed under the city through a system of ditches and tunnels. They've recently begun restoration efforts to uncover the river and restore its natural flow into the Catawba River basin.
There is bedrock under some parts of Ravnica, of course. The city has just grown so much over the millennia that it's expanded past the beaches and across the seas.
Merfolk return aside, Ravnica: City of Guilds implied that the buildings of the city simply went down to (and through) the ocean, in true Arcology fashion.
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For the record, the Izzet built the entirety of Ravnica Prime, which was sort of a celebratory gift from Niv-Mizzet to commemorate the guildpact.
... It was also his plan to use a glyph the size of ten districts to seize power, but the goblins building the city found that and changed it, thinking that, surely, the dragon hadn't meant to do that.
Anyways, one detail that my fellows here haven't actually gotten right is that there ARE three places where city does not cover.
1) Centerfort. The exact center of Ravnica Prime. It's an expanse that is actually illegal to build on.
and
2) The north and south poles. The arctic zones are too cold and too full of natural resources to build there. The only installations that exist there are Izzet owned geothermal stations. Interestingly Djinn and Dinosaurs make up most of the polar population.
As for life before the guildpact, there were regular cities scattered about. The guilds individually controlled those cities and a lot of them were torn apart during the war. Of course, the guilds weren't guilds at that point so they really were a lot more like city-states with standing armies. (there were more than ten cities, before you fall into that fallacy.)
The heck? How come we don't have dinosaurs in the district or block? And what do you mean by "too full of natural resources?"
Because Mark Rosewater hates dinosaurs.
As for "too full of natural resources" that was admittedly something of an awkward phrasing on my end.
Basically the ice, geothermal heat, and etc are too useful for the city to build over.
So wait is Ravnica an actual just spherical planet with varying degrees of latitude and what not? I always thought when they said plane it was just a flat boundless expanse that maybe was tethered off by strong Aether currents or something.
So wait is Ravnica an actual just spherical planet with varying degrees of latitude and what not? I always thought when they said plane it was just a flat boundless expanse that maybe was tethered off by strong Aether currents or something.
Ravnica is a spherical world.
Each plane has a different topography associated with, but most are always safe to assume analogous to a planet.
Serra's Realm was a boundless expanse (until you hit the edge of the world)
Rath was a construction project of a sphere, but most of its life it was incomplete.
Lorwyn is flat and whose boundaries become stranger before just bleeding into the Eternities.
Pyrulea is a dyson sphere, whose sun is at the heart of the world.
These are really the only exception to the actual planes that we know. Some demi-planes have different structures, but... they don't quite count.
In actuality, according to Brady's population estimates, Ravnica, for as densely populated as it is, must be surprisingly small.
The estimate is only put at several million.
How far into space does the plane of Ravnica (or any plane, really) extend?
What happens at the edge of a plane?
Part of the problem with this question is the fact that for all intents and purposes, each plane is genuinely an entire universe unto itself. So... why is only one planet significant on each plane?
There are no good answers. Still, one particular planet on each plane is the only one that matters and draws all of the attention.
As for the edge of the plane, we really only know what happens at the edge of artificial planes. Rath's Edge being one such example. They simply stop, and you're left staring into the chaotic abyss of the Blind Eternities.
Did we ever get a description of what someone standing on the edge of Rath would see? Like a visual description of the Blind Eternities.
I'd imagine that natural planes are large enough that finding the edge of it is near impossible. As for why there is only one planet of any note, that planet would be the centre of the mana on the plane. Any planeswalking would naturally end up there just like hopping in a river would eventually get you to the sea. I'd imagine that any other inhabited planets in a plane would be like ours; an unregarded little blue-green world circling a small yellow sun in the unfashionable end of the plane, with just enough mana to maintain life.
For the record, the Izzet built the entirety of Ravnica Prime, which was sort of a celebratory gift from Niv-Mizzet to commemorate the guildpact.
... It was also his plan to use a glyph the size of ten districts to seize power, but the goblins building the city found that and changed it, thinking that, surely, the dragon hadn't meant to do that.
Not that I find this particularly surprising, granted Niv-Mizzet is a dragon, but where was this originally mentioned? In the RAV block novels? Or one of the old articles? I'd love to read up on this, because this is most intriguing. . .
Not that I find this particularly surprising, granted Niv-Mizzet is a dragon, but where was this originally mentioned? In the RAV block novels? Or one of the old articles? I'd love to read up on this, because this is most intriguing. . .
It was in Guildpact (the book).
The exposition was involved with how the Izzet goblins were purchased by the guild for their realization that Niv had done what he had.
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was everyone kind of like the gruul before they started building the cities?
The Gruul typically don't live in Ravnica (the city), instead making their way in the world by scavenging from the ruins of the outlying buildings. They are portrayed as being savages, but you have to remember that they're savages in a very different world from our own. The city beneath the city is so deep that only the peaks of the tallest mountains still offer natural ground. The Gruul live in the ruins of those cities, but it's still man made. You can't say the prehistoric people of Ravnica were like the Gruul because before the cities enveloped the plane, it was actually natural ground (in other words, very different from Ravnica now). It certainly takes a very un-Gruul mind to spread a cityscape that far.
Don't quote me on that, though.
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Long, long, LONG ago, there were open seas/oceans, but gradually the city grew over them and they were sealed from the surface. Only recently have the lost oceans been rediscovered, when the merfolk opened the Zonots and took up the mantle of the Simic Combine. Previous to the opening of the Zonots, the merfolk were believed extinct, but in reality they have been living as an isolated civilization in the depths.
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Actually, on a much smaller scale, a similar thing happened in my city (Charlotte, NC). There was a small river (Little Sugar Creek) running through the city at one point, and as the city grew they covered over the river to the point most people didn't know it was ever there. It was effectively routed under the city through a system of ditches and tunnels. They've recently begun restoration efforts to uncover the river and restore its natural flow into the Catawba River basin.
There is bedrock under some parts of Ravnica, of course. The city has just grown so much over the millennia that it's expanded past the beaches and across the seas.
@_kaburi_ on Twitter
Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!
Merfolk return aside, Ravnica: City of Guilds implied that the buildings of the city simply went down to (and through) the ocean, in true Arcology fashion.
... It was also his plan to use a glyph the size of ten districts to seize power, but the goblins building the city found that and changed it, thinking that, surely, the dragon hadn't meant to do that.
Anyways, one detail that my fellows here haven't actually gotten right is that there ARE three places where city does not cover.
1) Centerfort. The exact center of Ravnica Prime. It's an expanse that is actually illegal to build on.
and
2) The north and south poles. The arctic zones are too cold and too full of natural resources to build there. The only installations that exist there are Izzet owned geothermal stations. Interestingly Djinn and Dinosaurs make up most of the polar population.
As for life before the guildpact, there were regular cities scattered about. The guilds individually controlled those cities and a lot of them were torn apart during the war. Of course, the guilds weren't guilds at that point so they really were a lot more like city-states with standing armies. (there were more than ten cities, before you fall into that fallacy.)
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Because Mark Rosewater hates dinosaurs.
As for "too full of natural resources" that was admittedly something of an awkward phrasing on my end.
Basically the ice, geothermal heat, and etc are too useful for the city to build over.
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Ravnica is a spherical world.
Each plane has a different topography associated with, but most are always safe to assume analogous to a planet.
Serra's Realm was a boundless expanse (until you hit the edge of the world)
Rath was a construction project of a sphere, but most of its life it was incomplete.
Lorwyn is flat and whose boundaries become stranger before just bleeding into the Eternities.
Pyrulea is a dyson sphere, whose sun is at the heart of the world.
These are really the only exception to the actual planes that we know. Some demi-planes have different structures, but... they don't quite count.
In actuality, according to Brady's population estimates, Ravnica, for as densely populated as it is, must be surprisingly small.
The estimate is only put at several million.
How far into space does the plane of Ravnica (or any plane, really) extend?
What happens at the edge of a plane?
Part of the problem with this question is the fact that for all intents and purposes, each plane is genuinely an entire universe unto itself. So... why is only one planet significant on each plane?
There are no good answers. Still, one particular planet on each plane is the only one that matters and draws all of the attention.
As for the edge of the plane, we really only know what happens at the edge of artificial planes. Rath's Edge being one such example. They simply stop, and you're left staring into the chaotic abyss of the Blind Eternities.
I'd imagine that natural planes are large enough that finding the edge of it is near impossible. As for why there is only one planet of any note, that planet would be the centre of the mana on the plane. Any planeswalking would naturally end up there just like hopping in a river would eventually get you to the sea. I'd imagine that any other inhabited planets in a plane would be like ours; an unregarded little blue-green world circling a small yellow sun in the unfashionable end of the plane, with just enough mana to maintain life.
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Not on Rath, but it was covered with Serra's Realm during the collapse.
There are myriad descriptions of the Blind Eternities though.
Not that I find this particularly surprising, granted Niv-Mizzet is a dragon, but where was this originally mentioned? In the RAV block novels? Or one of the old articles? I'd love to read up on this, because this is most intriguing. . .
It was in Guildpact (the book).
The exposition was involved with how the Izzet goblins were purchased by the guild for their realization that Niv had done what he had.