Golgari Swarm

A small crowd of pale elves and humans stepped into the light. Bits of bone and detritus woven into their matted hair clicked lightly. Their chitinous armour swarmed with tiny, riotous insects that moved in and out of the sheen of moss growing on their shoulders — a bed for sprouting fungi. Whether it was the Golgari themselves who had made the chittering sound or their bugs, Ral could not be sure.

The mass of people that make up the Golgari Swarm view themselves as being merely practical above all else. Un-fazed by death, they see it just as a part of the cycle of life. Their belief is that life and death are opposing forces, nothing more than petty sentimentality. The understanding is that everything rots away eventually. death breeds life anew. Time passes by and death comes to all things eventually. 
The Golgari's primary mandate under the leadership of Svogthir, the Devkarin founder, was to maintain Ravnica's agriculture and waste management. But all was not as above board as it should have been. Svogthir's fascination with necromancy led him to become a lich, which influenced the guild and gave birth to it's philosophy of death and life all being one continuous cog in the cycle of nature.

Inside The Swarm

Golgari has seen many major alterations in it's leadership in it's time, but it is in the swarm's nature to be able to adapt easily to any challenge that should present itself. Not being among the living doesn't mean you are not a valid candidate for leadership, as can be seen by the current guildmaster, the elf lich, Jarad Vod Savo. The guilds members are not beyond using assassination as a way to further their standing in the hierarchy. This is exactly how Savra, Jarad's sister took over the guild before her brother. Many diverse groups of people and monsters co-exist in the swarm, their power growing and shrinking as the years pass by. Despite it all the guild forever continues on.

There are three main groups in the Golgari, these are the following:

• The Devkarin elves,

• The medusas (otherwise known as gorgons in Ravnica),

• The Kraul (insect like creatures).

Jarad, although undead, represents the Devkarin and because of this the elves claim to have a position of privilege within the Golgari, for now at least.
Members of the Golgari Swarm survive under the shadow of Jarad and the other individual factions of the guild leadership. The many schemes and plots among the medusas, elves, kraul and the many other creatures populating the guild's undercity tend to hamper any real progression in the lives of the legion of people the constitute the swarm. In fact it more often than not does the opposite, it brings disruption and occasionally disaster. Most guild members believe it’s best to keep their heads down and stay out of the political conflict and to avoid attracting the disdainful eye of the Ochran, the guild’s order of assassins. More adventurous members might enjoy intrigue and politics, or might unwittingly become tangled up in the schemes of the guild’s leaders. Jarad maintains a council of shamans and rogues to serve as a combination of advisory parliament and spy agency. These high chancellors rarely convene publicly, preferring to disperse themselves throughout the swarm to keep information flowing from the nucleus to every part of the organism.

Dark Elves Of The Golgari

Also named the elves of shadow, the Devkarin are one of the three branches of Ravnica's elf race. Like other elves, the Devkarin are adept spellcasters and make up the majority of the Gokgari's shamans.
After being cast out of the incipient Selesnya Conclave millenia ago, the Devkarin found a home amongst the corrupted and overgrown areas of Ravnica. At this time the Devkarin necromancer Svogthir became the founder of the Golgari Swarm.

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Goals of the Golgari

The Golgari Swarm celebrates the growth and vibrancy of the natural world, but gives equal attention to nature’s facets of destruction, decay, and death. It finds allies and agents in the form of fungi, oozes, insects, diseases, and other unsavoury aspects of nature, and it uses the power of nature actively toward the goal of advancing its own place in the world. But the Golgari have also learned patience from nature; they are content to work from the shadows, harnessing the energy that comes from decay while the civilization of Ravnica slowly erodes and destroys itself.

The teeming hordes of the Golgari Swarm believe it is finally their time to shine. They have dwelled under the streets and under the sway of the other guilds for too long. They are convinced that Ravnica’s institutions are now on the verge of collapse and that the absence of the Living Guildpact proves it. However, the Golgari are neither surprised nor panicked by this, for they believe that all things eventually rot and die, and from this decay, new life blooms. As such, the Golgari see the looming inter-guild conflict as a necessary final push to bring about a new era — their era.

The Golgari are preparing for upheaval. They have sealed many of the passages leading into the undercity, making their territory seem like an impregnable subterranean fortress. Within it, the Golgari domain retains its grandeur, a mysterious and wondrous kingdom. The rare visitors who stumble into it are awed by its beauty and its aura of ancient power. Palatial architecture fills cavernous sewer chambers, and luminescent spores float through the air to shed an otherworldly light on the moss-covered masonry. Entering Golgari territory feels like stepping into a secret world of dangerous beauty.