Stories of Ravnica

After a long journey across the Valian sea on one of Captain Angrath's many ships, our party had made land at dusk. Still weary and getting used to land we spent the night at the local tavern by the port. The sounds we've grown used to-- the rolling waves and squawking of gulls, were replaced with clinking bottles and sounds of laughter. I never noticed how much I had missed the crackling of a fire and so I spent most of dinner time by the hearth. That was when a halfing approached us. With a subtle hobble in his walk, he introduced himself as the inn keeper. Interested in the look of our group, mostly because of my prominent fishy features, he told us of the city of Ravnica. A vast cityscape of universities filled with powerful institutions and figures of prominence capable of waging wars at a moments notice. These individuals are exactly the type we are looking for in order to stop the quickly militarizing Gnomish Reich. Nure-onna brought up our intentions in seeking to oppose the Reich, to which the inn-keeper happily responded to with a slap of his knee and a swig of Zhorguul's ale (I brought him another before he got too upset).
 
The sun had set beyond the waves when he took us outside. Along the sides of the inn was a crate no bigger than Zhorguul, the party's dragonborn. As he opened it, we saw an invention he had nabbed from the Reich. He called this invention a "firearm", a weapon said to fire faster than a bow and quicker to arm. Sad to say, it was only a prototype and so I never got to see it in action. However, he told us of the Izzet, the university of invention and wild imagination. Students ranging from deranged lunatics, who volunteered to be test subjects rather than pay tuition, to child prodigies who learnt how to use a power-coil inhibitor crank before they learnt how to walk! The Izzet people had their own versions of said firearm.
(This could turn out very VERY lucrative if I play my cards right).
 
The very next morning I was awoken by the sound of the fleet's war bellow. Captain Angrath's deep outcry was something I was not going to miss anytime soon. Most fleets would use conch shells or horns to signal orders. The minotaur had no need for such instruments for his war cry was enough to send his message. Obey. And as the fleet drifted far back into the blue, so did it mark our own departure for the city of Ravnica.