Page 65 - Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica

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-
lZZET LEAGUE nal mandate).

THE lZZET MAGES WEREN'T HARD TO FIND. AFTER A INSIDE THE LEAGUE
couple of days of observation, }ace heard an explosion and
Niv-Mizzet, the original and current guildmaster of
saw a startled flight of birds from across the district. The
the lzzet League, is a fifteen-thousand-year-old, vain.
plume of blue smoke was a telltale sign of one of the Izzet's temperamental, super-intelligent dragon. As he directs
pyrotechnic experiments.face tracked the source of the experiments throughout the guild, he values results
over success, accepting and even anticipating that Izzet
blast and spied two mages, a human and a goblin, outfit-
experiments will end in gloriously unpredictable ways.
ted with alchemical gadgetry and mizzium gauntlets. They However, the dragon rarely concerns himself with the
emerged from a disused tunnel. leaving behind charred day-to-day running of the guild, preferring to craft long-
bricks and a haze of smoke, and their instruments crackled range plans and let underlings implement the details.
Overseeing the daily operations of the guild is the
with energy. From whatjace had gathered. this was the
purview of the Izmundi, a board of directors that assem-
lzzet style of research: keep adding energy until something bles teams from among the rank and file of the Izzet
blows up. then observe the results. League to carry out research according to Niv-Mizzet's
-Doug Beyer, Return to Ravnica: The Secretist 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.
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 IN THE NAME OF MAGICAL SCIENCE!
solutions for public works projects (sewers. boilers, lzzet laboratories buzz with creative and often destructive
and roadways). but their increasingly far-fetched experi- energy, as countless researchers go about their business
ments satisfy only their insatiable curiosity. Sometimes pushing the boundaries of knowledge. But the lure of dis-
their experiments yield useful technological advance- covery is anything but monolithic across the lzzet League.
Humans, who make up the majority of the guild's
ments; other times they produce unintended mana gey- mages, are fueled by limitless curiosity and sustained by
sers, spatial rifts, arcane portals, or huge explosions- their ability to approach any problem from a multitude of
all of which can be useful in their own way. different angles.
The league's most grandiose experiments typically Goblins embody the lzzet's unrestrained enthusiasm for
concern public works projects and elemental experi- their endeavors. They epitomize the recklessness of lzzet
mentation. These efforts use a methodology that relies mages, and some participate as subjects in hazardous ex-
on unexpected outcomes: all results are informative, periments-even ones of their own devising. More often,
even if they completely defy expectations. For example, they thrive in their role as attendants to researchers.
V edalken tend to be more focused, organized, and as-
an experiment that begins as the creation of a "hyper- tute compared to their lzzet compatriots, and thus they
mana focusing lens~ might be renamed a "scram-range often serve as leaders of projects in the guild's laborato-
teleportal" once the researchers discover more prop- ries. Some vedalken are so obsessive about their work that
erties of what they have fashioned. Then, after a few they like to see to every detail themselves, rather than del-
goblin volunteers vanish inside it, the apparatus gains egating any task to underlings or assistants. This attitude
the designation of "universal refuse disintegrator"- until can irritate and alienate their guild mates-and put the
the goblin volunteers are discovered alive, having been vedalken in harm's way when an experiment goes awry.

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