Gruul Clans

Ravnica's Wilderness Reclamation Factions

Overview

The Gruul Clans are a wild people in a civilized land, a loose affiliation of bands that squat on the fringes of Ravnican society. They shun the centers of civilization, which they see as a source of oppression and weakness, and instead haunt Ravnica's alleyways, abandoned zones, and ruins. The Clans want to see the edifice of civilization torn down so the world can revert to the pure wilderness that thrived before the city grew to cover everything. Then the true order of nature can be restored - an unbridled and brutal state in which only the strong survive and the strongest rule.

In a world covered with city streets and towering buildings, the Gruul are the most out of place, the most ill at ease, and the most eager to topple it all and start fresh. Constant ritualistic warfare reverberates among the clans, every skirmish reinforcing their doctrine of the survival of the fittest. They frequently send sorties into civilized areas to secure goods - and to wreak havoc.

Purpose

Before and for a short time after the signing of the Guildpact, the Gruul Clans were a wild and noble guild charged with maintaining the wild places on Ravnica. They were supposed to keep civilization in check. Civilization and the other nine guilds, however, overran every wild place on the plane. This changed the Gruul.

Shortly after their persecution began, they decentralized, ultimately lacking any real leadership after the death of their unifying Parun. The guild became nothing but a loose affiliation of clans. Exploited and ignored, they started to take any reason to cause chaos, any reason to destroy a symbol of civilization. Most Gruul hold contempt for those outside the Clans, referring to them as "cobble roaches", and want nothing more than to bring the beloved social structure of Ravnica crashing down, one neighborhood riot, one robbed traveler, one toppled statue at a time.

Core Values

So far as any philosophy can be said to underlie the Gruul way of life, it is about living in the now, with little concern for forethought, planning, or speculation. Impulse drives the actions of the Gruul Clans. They want to live their lives unimpeded, and they lash out when something tries to stand in their way. Emotion and impulsiveness drive them as they seek to do what they want, take what they want, and smash what they want.

Goals

It is common for Gruul clans to raid an area, destroy it, and live there until the resources gleaned from the destructive raid are used up. Once that happens, they move on to a new area, leaving smoldering ruins in their wake. They observe few consistent traditions but love to celebrate Rauck-Chauv, an irregular festival characterized by several days of rioting, feasting, looting, and destruction.

Organization Structure

As a collection of disparate clans, the Gruul have no single leader and no headquarters. But the Gruul respect strength and are willing to follow a strong individual who points them in a direction they want to go anyway. For several decades, that position has been held by the mighty cyclops Borborygmos, Chief of the Burning Tree Clan. His nihilistic anger inspires the rest of the Gruul, so when he calls on the other clans to join a raid, they usually agree. Even the fractious Gruul can see the benefits of banding together. The clans sometimes gather at Skarrg, a ruined palace in the Rubblebelt adjoining the Tenth District.

Right now, there are a total of 6 widely recognized Gruul Clans. While the number of Clans can fluctuate and guild-wide recognition is not needed for members to branch off and start their own clans, the only ones recognized by the other Gruul are the strongest. The very strongest clan's crest is the symbol that the general Ravnican populace recognize them by because it is the crest that is carved into all their guildgates.

Burning Tree Clan
The Burning Tree clan is the most fearsome of all the clans, as well as the largest and most diverse, with branches in several districts of Ravnica. The fear and awe inspired by Borborygmos unifies its diverse membership. The Ravnican populace regards the symbol of the Burning Tree clan as the symbol for the entire guild, but this association is not disputed by the other clans, rather, they too believe that the strongest clan should be the face of the Gruul to the city they hate.
Ghor Clan

The Ghor clan is led by an ettin named Ruric Thar (or, perhaps more properly, Ruric and Thar, since the heads claim separate names) who commands this group of berserkers and guerrilla insurgents with unbridled hatred and animosity for civilization. Of all the recognized clans, the Ghor carry out the most frequent and savage assaults on Ravnica's citizenry. The clan is known for its audacity in forging encampments close to heavily populated districts."

Scab Clan

Members of the Scab clan display grotesque scars and body modifications, which they view as expressions of the powerful rage they harbor within themselves. The clan has grown in influence by engulfing or destroying several smaller clans in the recent years, but the leader of the Scabs, a corpulent giant known as Narbulg Nine Fingers, has not gone so far as to challenge the Burning Tree clan.

Slizt Clan

The Slizt clan is a clutch of sly, skittish warriors, consisting largely of Viashino, along with a few wily Humans. This clan survives in the rubblebelts by taking up hiding places in high ground and ambushing its enemies with ranged attacks from above. Other clans regard the Slizt as skulkers and cowards, but nonetheless, all are cautious when entering areas with elevated ruins. The home ground of the Slizt clan is the Husk, an area at the center of a vast rubblebelt featuring many large, ancient structures that have remained standing for generations. Because of the secluded nature of this clan, no one knows who its current leader is.

Gravel Hide Clan

The Gravel Hide clan believes that resilience is the truest measure of strength. Though a relatively new group, its members have already earned a reputation (almost certainly exaggerated) for shrugging off devastating attacks. The clan's leader, a hot tempered Goblin named Skorik Boulder Tooth, adorns himself with the shattered remnants of weapons that he has rent to bits with his own jaws.

Zhur-Taa Clan

The Zhur-Taa clan advocates an extreme interpretation of the Old Ways. Central to this view is its belief in the imminent awakening of an ancient boar god - Ilharg, the Raze Boar - who will lay waste to an over civilized world. Led by a Centaur druid called Nikya of the Old Ways, the Zhur-Taa pile up skulls as offerings to this god, and their druids perform guttural chants before and during battle that are said to be in the language of the old gods. Additionally, the druids of this clan are adept at summoning magic and training beasts as war-companions and mounts, and the clan's warriors wade into battle alongside giant boars, other beasts, and and even wurms or hydras.

Bolrac Clan

The Bolrac clan is the most selective of all the Gruul clans, denying membership to the smaller races. Its members are all enormous, lumbering brutes, primarily cyclopes, ogres, and giants. The clan's leadership changes frequently - sometimes daily, since battles for supremacy are as common as meals. The Bolrac clan specializes in bringing down massive structures using mauls and battering rams. The only thing the Bolrac love more than destroying something smaller than them is toppling, overrunning, and destroying something larger than them.

Trogs

Some wandering hermits, known as Trogs, find even the company of a clan to be too suffocating, so they spend their days alone in the wild places of Ravnica. These individuals are fierce, independent warriors who traverse the rubblebelt as apex predators. Trogs are notoriously short-tempered and impatient around others. Occasionally, they heed the call of the Guildmaster to join riots or festivals, but more often they conduct their own ceremonies and celebrations in private.

History

The Parun and first leader of the Gruul was Cisarzim, a cyclopes who was purportedly the ancestor of Borborygmos, the current Guildmaster. Cisarzim was called the Lord of Chaos, and his guild's original function as maintainers of Ravnica's natural places meant keeping his faction as remote as possible from the civilized parts of the world. The gradual expansion of the city, however, has driven the Gruul into smaller and smaller refuges.

As the wilds were torn down, so too were the Gruul's responsibilities taken from them. The Simic Combine claimed jurisdiction over nature's future. The Selesnya Conclave preached about harmony with nature and began to protect small controlled plots of land within the city limits as they spread outward. With their responsibilities taken over by others, they were seen as outside of the Guildpact and the Azorius Senate began to write them out of the law. Outside the law, the Boros Legion were not required to protect them and the Orzhov Syndicate were free to enslave them.

Notable Members: There is also Ulasht, the Hate Seed. Though it isn't a part of any clan, it is revered by many Gruul as a natural embodiment of pure destruction and mindless rage.

Recruitment

Public Relations

By standing in opposition to the civilized ways of the other guilds, the Gruul Clans have made it practically impossible to establish alliances with those guilds.

Similar to the Golgari, Selesnya, and Simic, the Clans respect nature and maintain a close relationship with animals - in the Gruul's case, the monstrous creatures that stalk the rubble and ruins. But the Clans would just as soon smash the sewers, gardens,

Ravnica's Opinion of the Clans

The Clan's Opinion of the Other Guilds

Since every other guild participates to some extent in the establishment and sustenance of the civilization that the Gruul despise, the Clans look down on all other guilds as soft, corrupt, or downright abhorrent, depending on which Clan you ask.

Azorius: "Civilization is a disease, and the Senate are its plague bearers. Once they are destroyed, Ravnica will reclaim its primal essence."

Boros: "Puppets who are all too eager to kneel at the feet of their Angel handlers."

Dimir: "Skulkers, whisperers, and back-stabbers! They are an infestation of roaches. If they remain in the shadows, they will be crushed beneath the rubble of a city that we bring down on their heads. If they face us in open battle, well, then we'll have a good laugh."

Golgari: "Hermits and under-dwellers. They see that civilization must be brought to its knees, but they just want to replace it with another of their design."

Izzet: "Like us, they respect the powerful, but they seek it in their gadgets and try to contain it in jars."

Orzhov: "The schemers of the Syndicate are the festering wound on a limb that must be hacked away. They amass their power by preying on the weak, so how powerful can they truly be?"

Rakdos: "The guild of fools. The Cult's natural byproduct of chaos admirably wears down society's function, but they waste their potential on acts of mockery while the real work of razing the city remains undone."

Selesnya: "The Conclave would coddle a wolf, teach it to fetch sticks, and call it a dog. We prefer to starve the wolf, let it hunt for its food, and make it a stronger wolf."

Simic: "The Combine enjoy twisting nature, but they will not enjoy it when nature twists back."

Making a Gruul Character

Gruul Classes

Clan Background: Gruul Anarch

Clan Spell List

Fueled by the fire of rage burning within their hearts, Clan magic is almost always accompanied by fiery effects, such as flames smoldering behind their eyes or dancing over their hands. Furthermore, their primal use of mana can evoke the rumblings of the nature around them, sometimes even including the distant muffled sound of a subterranean wurm or a thrashing hydra subconsciously lending its fury to the wardens of savage nature.

Cantrips