Golgari Swarm

Ravnica's Agricultural and Waste Management Group

Overview

The Golgari Swarm is the embodiment of life and death. The teeming masses of the Swarm believe that life and death are both natural and equally essential too. To them, these aspects are natural elements of a cycle with no intermediary break. Growth is power that comes slowly, but it is also ruthless and inevitable, and this makes growth a key virtue of the Swarm's power. Their necromantic magic has made the Golgari the largest Ravnican guild. Much like a swarm of insects, the Golgari often seem to behave more like a single organism than as a group of individuals. The whole Swarm is driven by a primal instinct to survive and reproduce. Their revered Parun is the legendary necromancer Svogthir, the "God-Zombie".

Purpose

The original mandate of the Swarm under the leadership of Svogthir, was to maintain Ravnica's agriculture and manage its waste. The Golgari accomplish this task by recycling and reusing everything. They grow food from decay in the Rot Farms and employ everything from giant ants to fungal zombies to gather the trash from the rest of the city and bring it down into the undercity. Because of their work with waste and their turf being beneath the surface streets, many above ground inhabitants loathe or fear the Swarm.

Core Values

Their Parun's interests in necromancy and eventual transformation into a Lich shaped the course of the guild's activities and gave birth to its philosophy of embracing death as a part of nature's cycle. The Swarm believes that the notion that life and death are opposing forces is nothing but a naive sentimentality. They know everything crumbles and rots in the end, and then new life springs from that rot. Time inevitably passes, bringing both destruction and new creation to all things.

The 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, diseases, and other unsavory 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 above ground civilization of Ravnica slowly erodes and destroys itself.

Goals

The teeming 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 the absence of the Guildpact proves it. The Swarm is not surprised by this development, knowing that all things decay and bloom new life. As such, they see the looming interguild conflict as a necessary final push to bring about a new era - their era.

In preparation for this glorious day, and to protect Golgari interests in the meantime, Jarad maintains a council of shamans and rogues to serve as a combination of advisory parliament and spy network.

Organization Structure

The leadership of the Swarm has undergone several major changes, but the nature of the guild makes it easily adaptable to the churn of continuous cycles. Being alive isn't a prerequisite for leadership, as demonstrated by their current Guildmaster Jarad Vod Savo. Assassination is seen as a perfectly valid means of effecting political change, which is how Jarad's sister, Savra, rose to power before him. Various groups of people and monsters coexist within the swarm, their relative power waxing and waning with the years, and through it all, the guild goes on.

Lower ranking individuals of the Swarm live in the shadow of the various factions and their leaders. The machinations among Elves, Gorgons, Kraul, and other creatures rarely bring any significant improvement to the lives of the Swarm's countless members, but often cause 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 disfavor 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.

Unlike the rigid hierarchy of most other guilds, the Swarm are shaped by the factions within them. Each of these have their own goals and agendas parallel to the function of the guild.

Teratogens
The Teratogens are the large, monstrous side of the swarm. This faction consists of mostly non-humanoids like plants, harpies, and nagas as well as monstrous humanoids like Gorgons, Sporefolk, Mutants, and other monsters. In the earlier days, this faction reigned through sheer force, but eventually, most likely because of the monstrous and often unintelligent nature of many Teratogen monsters, their place in the swarm fell down to simple security, keeping overworlders out of Golgari turf; however, the more intelligent among their ranks, namely the Gorgans, take this responsibility to the next level and leverage their positions as speakers for the monstrous hordes of the Swarm to gain political clout.
Devkarin
The Devkarin, or "Elves of Deep Shadow" in ancient Ravnican Lore, are a brooding winsome race of Elf that are often quite ambitious. For vast swaths of history, the Devkarin existed within the Swarm, serving as powerful guildmages, loyal spies, and even reliably doing blue collar work such as Fungal Farming. Eventually, the Devkarin ascended to the top of the Swarm, forming their own political faction within it. Not every Devkarin is a member of this faction in the Swarm, some belong to the Street Swarm or the Ochran.

The leader of this faction is known as the Matka, the High Priestess. The current Matka is Izoni Thousand-Eyes. A group of chosen Devkarin known as the Cilia guard and assist the Matka and even the Guildmaster if the current master is themself a Devkarin.
Lotleth
The Lotleth are the Golgari's irregular faction of undead, necromancers, fungus-binders, and other members associated with the restless dead that assist the Swarm. Although most Golgari undead are mindless fungal constructions maintained by necromantic magic, the Lotleth do have some more or less intelligent undead among them, plus a few higher-ranked necromancers who speak for the faction. Generally, the Lotleth serve as a labor force for the Golgari's constant program of reclamation and expansion. The current leader of the Lotleth is Wratislav, a skilled but conceited human necromancer.
Kraul
The Kraul lived for ages on the periphery of the Swarm as part of the Teratogens, but they are now an ascendant and unique faction with the Swarm. These six-legged insectile beings are hard-headed and literal-minded. Their current leader is Mazirek and their military are known as the Krunstraz. Because of their strange perspective, this faction is often very difficult to work with depending on who the leader of the Swarm is, sometimes refusing to help or hindering the political machinations of a Guildmaster they don't respect.
Streetswarm
The Street Swarm forms Golgari's labor class. This faction includes corpse scavengers, low-ranking street shamans, rot farmers, tunnel trolls, and various other worker insects and creatures that assist in the menagerie duties that contribute to the function of daily Ravnican society.

Each neighborhood of Ravnica tends to have its own chapter of the Street Swarm, and each chapter is led by a local Swarm-Boss. Spore Druids specialize in fungi, moss, molds and other decomposers. Reclaimers are Elf and Kraul scavengers who patrol the city and gather the dead to be recycled
Ochran
Although many discount them as an urban legend, "the assassins of the Ochran" are a Golgari cult of mercenaries operating out from the Undercity and specializing in vengeance killings. The word cult is used because the Brotherhood of Assassins have their own unique bylaws that are separate from the rest of the Swarm. Members belong to the Ochran and owe no other political party besides the Swarm as a whole their allegiance.

The Ochran, most of them Devkarin elves, are known for the virulence of their poisons and the excruciating ways they can extinguish a life. Most of these poisons are made from the remains of previous assassination targets. Ochran can be excommunicated from the cult for breaking their bylaws or other heinous acts against the family or the Swarm as a whole. Ex-Ochran operatives are in great danger because their previously unknown association with the cult are revealed to everyone in the community.
Erstwhile
A delicate and sophisticated race of elves known as the Erstwhile once were an important faction in Ravnica. They were laid to rest in coffins in Umerilek, Mausoleum of the Erstwhile. They returned as Zombie Attendants of Vraska. In contrast to the regular fungus-animated zombies of the Golgari, they retain a higher degree of intellegence and agency. They continue to wear their stately attire, despite its moldering and rot. The leader of the Erstwhile is the powerful lich Storrev, who is solely responsible for keeping her entire race in a state of undeath since countless centuries ago until this very day.

Recruitment

Similar to a swarm of insects, the Golgari collectively behave more like a single organism than a scattering of individuals, at least compared to most of the other guilds. New members aren't recruited or initiated into the Swarm; you have been absorbed and incorporated, and the biological system of the swarm funneled you to where your talents are most needed to contribute to the health of the guild. Your position within the guild is defined by your capabilities, and as your capabilities evolve, so too does your position.

Public Relations

The Golgari Swarm shares a general philosophical approach with the other nature-oriented guilds (Simic, Gruul, Selesnya ) in its concern for the forces of life and growth. Under the right circumstances, a member of the Golgari can work well with agents of those organizations. But the guild's emphasis on death as part of the life cycle is foreign to those other guilds.

Ravnica's Opinion of the Swarm

The general public of Ravnica only sees members of the Swarm that have reason to crawl out into the world and away from the slinking depths of their Undercity lairs. This means that those outside the Swarm don't have an in depth understanding of the guild's inner workings and leads to all Golgari members spotted above ground being lumped into one of two stereotypes, a Street Swarmer (garbage man, rot farmer, trinket broker) or an Assassin/Thug, depending on where in the city you are.

Leyfolk of Ravnica don't know the difference between a Teratogen Bridge Troll and a roaming, mindless Groodion, so most monstrous beings near or in Swarm territory are considered to be a part of the guild. Similarly, the Lotleth, Kraul, Devkarin, and Erstwhile factions are lumped into the Street Swarm when gazed upon by overworlders.

The Swarm's Opinion of the Other Guilds

To the Golgari, the other guilds of Ravnica are shortsighted and inevitably doomed to collapse.

Azorius: "Such hubris! As if all of their laws could shore up this crumbling society. Their regulations and institutions are just detritus in the making."

Boros: "The Boros speak a language we will never understand. Their militant dedication to empty concepts like 'justice' and 'righteousness' is both confusing and disturbing."

Dimir: "They collect information like trinkets, so how can they ever grasp the deeper truths we possess? But their presence in the Undercity is an all-too-real threat to our dominion beneath the streets."

Gruul: "The clans serve as effective instruments of the natural cycle, though in their anger, they are blind to the extend of the role they play."

Izzet: "Perplexing. They are attracted to whatever flashes the brightest and booms the loudest. Their fascination with their toys will only hasten their own end."

Orzhov: "They flout the natural order and use their knowledge of death to persist, clinging to the fiction of material wealth."

Rakdos: "They understand the inevitability of death but seek to hasten its arrival for their petty ends. What the demon destroys, we nurse back to life again."

Selesnya: "Their reverence for nature is the mark immaturity and naïveté. They fear death, so they can't understand life. They can be dangerous when they fervently cling to their narrow-minded and inadequate view of life."

Simic: "They seek patterns in the natural world, which is commendable enough, but they believe the search will lead them to find perfection through all of its flaws. They strive to move forward but fail to see that the path they tread is cyclical."

History

In the prehistoric eras before the signing of the Guildpact, the swarm was nothing but an army of elves, necromancers, and outcasts united by the dread mage Svogthir and his legions of undead servants. Despite being a force of chaos in those times, Svogthir was crucial in convincing the other chaotic and unruly forces to support the idea of the Guildpact when it was presented. He lead the Golgari as their Parun for several thousand years before dying of old age and returning as a Lich. During his lichdom Svogthir replaced all of his body parts until the only original piece was his head.

Almost a millennia later, Svogthir was betrayed by his personal guard, the Gorgon quintuplets that called themselves the Sisters of Stone Death. Although the sisters lost two of their own in the struggle, their coup was successful and they destroyed all of Svogthir except for his head which was completely invincible due to his powerful necromancy. The remaining three Sisters of Stone Death sealed away the Lich's head in what would become their Guildhall, Svogthos, and held control of the swarm with the support of the Teratogens for several thousand years.

A decade prior to the turn of the Decamillennial, the Devkarin, lead by their Matka Savra vod Savo, chafed under the rulership of the Gorgons and were desperate to tip the balance in their favor. When Savra was approached by Szadek, the Parun and then Guildmaster of House Dimir, with a plan to dethrone the sisters, she couldn't agree fast enough. With the help of her new extremely powerful ally, Savra resurrected Svogthos and provided him with a new body which he promptly used to defeat two of the remaining Sisters of Stone Death. Before he could destroy the last one and reclaim control of the swarm, Savra double crossed him, revealing that his replacement body actually neutralized the magic protecting his head. After killing and imprisoning Svogthir's soul in her scepter and returning his now empty head to Svogthos, Savra declared herself Guildmaster of the swarm and, with the support of the Devkarin, all the way up until the Decamillennial.

Power hungry as ever, Savra desired to take advantage of the Guildpact's collapse by subsuming the Selesnya Conclave into the swarm, something that would never have been possible when the magical pact was still functioning. Savra skillfully infiltrated the Chorus of the Conclave, a council of Dryads and prominent guild figures that collectively served as the Guildmaster for the conclave. After successfully becoming a part of the chorus, Savra could access the large pool of mana that conclave leaders shared. The next step of her plan was to assume complete control of the conclave; however, her old partner in crime, Szadek, had been watching. Szadek snapped Savra's neck, killing her and dealing a serious blow to the power of the swarm and the conclave all at once; all of which were ultimately a part of his plan to weaken and kill the Parun of the Selesnya Conclave, Mat'Selesnya, at the Decamillennial celebration, a plan that he was unable to execute due to being thwarted and arrested at the event with help from Jarad Vod Savo. Directly after slaying Savra, the master of House Dimir freed Svogthir from her scepter, allowing him to possess Savra's corpse and sneak away to recover. In the wake of the chaotic festival, the Devkarin were desperate not to lose power to the Teratogens again and decided to elect Jarad Vod Savo as the new Guildmaster immediately before a vacuum in power could be created.

Twelve years after the Decamillennial, Svogthir, still in Savra's body, teamed up with the Guildmaster of the Simic Combine at the time, Momir Vig was desperately trying to rescue his child back from Lyzolda, a Cult of Rakdos Bloodwitch who was hellbent on summoning Rakdos and required the blood of a Guildmaster to do it. Jarad Vod Savo was caught in her trap and sacrificed to awaken the demon lord, but was reborn as a Lich. Svogthir was destroyed after Kraj went berserk and crushed the lab he was in.

Since then, the swarm have been extremely careful to shore up their own defenses and take a more reclusive stance than the wild machinations of former leaders. Jarad Vod Savo, former bounty hunter turned Lich, rules over the swarm in a relatively quiet era of isolationism. The Cilia guard their Guildmaster closely and, as of right now, the Devkarin are the dominant faction, just barely edging out the Teratogens, who are beginning to grow restless. Additionally, the Kraul are becoming recognized as their own faction, with Mazirek, their Deathpriest, recently discovering the long forgotten tomb of the Erstwhile.
[h2Culture

Being one of the largest factions in Ravnica means that the swarm is nowhere near a monolith; however, there are subcultures and trends within the teeming masses that can be observed.

Fashion: The farther away from the surface of the city, the stranger the Golgari tend to dress. In areas near the surface where most Rot Farms and Findbrokers ply their trade, members of the swarm can be seen in run down robes, burlap overalls, or tattered pants; but further down, away from the light, where members of the guild have to hunt and grow exotic fauna and flora just to survive, they usually adorn themselves with fungi, moss, mushrooms and the remains of the creatures they hunt for food. The Devkarin are the biggest fashion trend-setters in the swarm, but due to the lack of civility displayed by the other factions like the Teratogens and Kraul, there isn't really a high bar for earning that title. Most of these dark elves wear everything from brand new spider silk robes to nothing but a fungal loincloth, almost always including dark green, brown, and black color tones.

Diversions: Because the bulk of the swarm exists below the surface of the city streets, not many of them partake in the pastimes of above-ground culture. Beneath the concrete, members of this guild enjoy a surprisingly vast swath of diversion from horticulture to card games and contests of strength or prowess. While members of society above street level will often participate or observe large joint events from multiple groups of people, members of the swarm tend to only participate in and host local contests and events. This makes their communities very tight knit but members of those communities that have gone above ground might experience intense culture shock.

Holidays:

Demographics:

Making a Golgari Character

As part of the Swarm, you are a specialized instrument of the greater body. Your orders, when you have such, come from the Guildmaster or similar body of authority by way of Chancellors, who are designated to carry messages throughout the guild. The Swarm relies on you to advance the greater good by protecting some part, however small, of its thriving existence. That responsibility doesn't mean you're indispensable; your eventual death is part of your purpose and function, too, and you'll be replaced even as your body provides nutrients to further the Swarm's growth.

Golgari Classes

Keeping in line with their reputation as the largest of the Ten Guilds, the Swarm has a home for every class of adventurer. As previously stated, the nature of the Swarm itself makes sure every member is placed where they are most useful, and each of the classes can be extremely valuable in a wide variety of Golgari business.

Barbarian - Not all members of the Swarm are slinking, sneaking types; in fact, a vast majority of the teeming masses are brutal savages. Powerful berserkers and ragers are useful across the board in the guild. Body guards are needed up and down the chain of command, from guild leaders to rot farm guards. The swarm also have a constant vested interest in enforcing their underground borders nothing keeps people out like big, loud, scary brutes.

Bard - Though they are an odd fit for this guild, Bards still have a place among the Swarm, albeit in a vastly untraditional way. There are two places this class is seen most often in this guild, among the courts as musicians/entertainers or even as members of nobility themselves, and in members of the Swarm's military groups as moral boosters and attack coordinators.

Cleric - Those who revere and promote the Swarm's cycle of life and unlife with every fiber of faith in their body are useful in any part of the Swarm. Lower members of the Swarm follow small leaders who promote the Guilds, or one of the factions, ideals and Clerics are seen as religious leaders. Similar to Shamans, any death rites can be completed by Clerics of the Swarm.

Druid - Also called Shamans, this class is seen as a spiritual one in this guild. Druids are called upon to commune, create, or spread plantlife, including fungal zombies. Not only are they seen as religious leaders and active parts in the unending circle of life and death, they are also usually in positions of literal leadership, sometimes even have massive armies under their command.

Fighter - The most numerous class in all of Ravnica finds many places among the Swarm. Guards, local leadership, workers, messengers, faction leaders, any one of them can be a fighter. Fighters may also very well be the most numerous class in the Swarm.

Monk - With their close belief of the cycle, many monastic traditions have spawned within the Swarm. Various factions have different traditions and most of them are quite secretive, but the talents they foster are invaluable on the battlefield, the subterfuge and stealth they're trained in makes them amazing scouts, and the wisdom they produce makes them strong religious or local leaders.

Paladin - These oath bound warriors fill the same niche as Clerics in the Swarm, easily becoming useful guards and religious leaders who are sworn to uphold the cycle of life and death. Warriors of this caliber are somewhat rare in the swarm, but when they appear, they are feared, no matter what faction they represent.

Ranger - This class is seen in spades among the scouts, infiltrators, and assassins of the Swarm, but even lowly Findbrokers make use of this classes penchant for tracking down trinkets in garbage heaps or other places that overworlders drop things they consider trash. If you're up against a Swam Ranger on their turf, say your prayers; they can shoot you from half a mile off just as well as they could lead you straight into a Groodion pit.

Rogue - Just like the Ranger, this class is seen in mass around the Swarm as infiltrators, assassins, and guards. They can also be cunning strategy leaders or members of a specialist taskforce. The potential of the Rogue in the Swarm is boundless and this archetype is feared throughout the overworlders. A true Golgari assassin can strike you dead with a pinprick and be a block away enjoying coffee before anyone knows what's wrong.

Sorcerer - Darker forms of this class are seen in the Swarm, usually as a result of a necromantic ritual lead by either the Matka or a Death Priest. Although rarer than other classes, there are still many places for them in the Swarm; however, because of this same rarity, they stand out and are often propelled to positions of leadership, either religious or functional.

Warlock - Many of these exist in the Swarm and almost all of them have made pacts with very powerful undead entities such as liches to receive necromantic powers. They are almost always specialists, assassins, scouts, or important positions of leadership because of their connection with an Undercity entity.

Wizard - While there aren't many of this class in the Swarm, those that are usually come highly recommended by their piers, despite being a little misunderstood by them. Swarm Wizards construct makeshift spell books out of thrown away pages from the surface, collecting the arcane knowledge like many other members of the guild collect trinkets and other artifacts discarded by the overworlders. Very few schools of knowledge are seen under the city but, just as with Monastic Traditions, very small specialized cloisters do exist.

Artificer - Non-traditional forms of the class that work primarily with stone, wood, and moss / other plant matter have been seen in the Swarm before. Although it is rare, Golgari Artificers are responsible for constructing many of the walkway systems in the Undercity as well as most of the modern trash filtering systems.

Blood Hunter - Every faction in the Swarm besides the Teratogens has a need for this monster hunting class. Some groups, like the Devkarin, will employ special teams of these hunters specifically to hunt down the monstrous ranks of rival factions. When they aren't being used in this way, Swarm Blood Hunters usually hone their craft in small cloisters and/or spend time as a guardian of Rot Farming villages and on a contractually hired basis.

Swarm Background: Golgari Agent

You are a member of a teeming horde - one small part of a sprawling organism. Just as you are part of the Swarm, the Swarm is a part of a larger ecosystem, in the dark places of the city where the messy parts of existence are on display. There is little squeamishness among the Golgari, no fear of death or taboo about the dead, just a fierce affirmation of the cycle.

Taking this background means that you are already a member of the Swarm, and have been for some time. Regardless of what position you operate in, you know the inner workings of the guild and how to get to each of their important locations via the Undercity. Whether you display it proudly or take a more minimalist approach, people around you can recognize that you are a member of the Golgari Swarm.

Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Survival
Languages: Choose one of Elvish, Giant, or Kraul
Equipment: A Golgari insignia, a poisoner's kit, a pet beetle or spider, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp worth of mixed coins.
Feature: Undercity Paths
You know hidden, underground pathways that you can use to bypass crowds, obstacles, and observation as you move through the city. When you aren't in combat, you and companions you lead can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow. The paths of the Undercity are haunted by dangers that rarely brave the light of the surface world, so your journey isn't guaranteed to be safe.

Golgari Spell List

For you, the spells on the Golgari Guild Spells table are added to the spell list of your spell casting class. Magic for the Swarm often takes dark black and green hues, usually swelling up through the ground into the flora and fauna that cover each member.

Cantrips