Center of Ravnica
| Center of Ravnica | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Plane | Ravnica |
| Part of | Ravnica City |
The Center of Ravnica is the historical, cultural, and political heart of the City of Ravnica.[1]
Description
The Center of Ravnica is at the very heart of the city of Ravnica. It is the ancient hub of the city-plane and one of the only exposed areas of Ravnica's original surface — a mountaintop flattened over the ages and surrounded by bridges, towers, and dense urban sprawl. This rare patch of solid ground holds some of the most important civic, military, and symbolic landmarks on the plane.
Dominating the Center is the Centerfort, the main headquarters of the Wojek League, where the Brass Chamber serves as the administrative heart for hiring, promoting, and retiring Ravnica’s constables. Adjacent to it stands the Hall of Judgment, an Azorius stronghold dedicated to arbitration and law.
Near the Centerfort, rising to the very edge of the open rock, lies the Rokiric Pavilion an open-air redstone building which offers sweeping views over the city’s expanse, while the Golgari Orchards, one of the rare surface holdings of the Golgari Swarm, provide food grown amidst the concrete heart of the city.
Bored into the very core of the mountain, the Cult of Rakdos bustles in its rocky foundations within the Hellhole, a chaotic network of mines and caverns at the mountain’s base.
Below the surface, Grigor’s Canyon, a jagged and misty ravine of untold depths, cuts through the mountain northwest to the Golgari Orchards. The canyon offers one of the few direct routes into Old Ravnica and the Undercity, accessed by a network of lifts. Only a select few know that the canyon runs even deeper, all the way down to the darkest crypts of Svogthos.[1]
History
The Center of Ravnica predates the Signing of the Guildpact and the rise of the ten guilds. Originally, the highest point of the natural landscape, the mountain at Ravnica’s core, became the foundation around which the city grew and transformed.
As the city expanded outward, ten districts emerged in a radial pattern around the Center, named in simple numerical order. Despite this orderly arrangement, there was no formal correlation between the ten districts and the ten guilds; all guilds maintained activity across every district.
Around 400–500 years after the Guildpact was signed, the Boros general Ferrous Rokiric erected ten stone titans to stand watch over the city in its defense. With each titan positioned at the edge of two districts, the tenth titan, Zobor, was placed in the Center of Ravnica itself, intended to awaken and defend the city's heart should it ever come under attack.
Ravnica’s relentless expansion eventually reached far beyond the original ten districts, gradually absorbing once-separate outlying cities and transforming them into countless additional districts. Over time, the ecumenopolis came to cover the entire plane. Yet still, the Center of Ravnica endured, its symbolism resonating across the world.
Over the centuries, the Center has remained the symbolic heart of Ravnica—the place where guilds converge, laws are shaped, wars are sometimes ignited, and peace is occasionally forged. Even as the city around it has changed, the Center has persisted as a nexus of power, history, and myth — a place where the ambitions and tensions of an entire world come into focus.
During the Decamillennial of the signing of the Guildpact, the Center was attacked by quietmen and Golgari Raiders led by Ludmilla, acting on the orders of their new guildmaster, Savra vod Savo. The quietmen made short work of Pivlichino's, a restaurant and fighting arena. With countless buildings having been constructed around it over the millennia, the titan statue of Zobor was unable to defend the Center effectively. The Golgari created a massive sinkhole beneath him, causing the titan to topple and shatter across the surface of the mountain. The fall also brought down the Tower of Thismi, a slender and elegant ancient structure of great historical importance, utterly destroyed during the attempted coup. Both the Centerfort and the Rokiric Pavilion sustained heavy damage in the raid. Only the death of Savra and the succession of leadership to her brother, Jarad vod Savo, ultimately brought the Golgari attack to an end and forced their troops to withdraw.[1]
References
- ↑ a b c Cory J. Herndon. (2005) Ravnica Cycle, Book I: Ravnica, Wizards of the Coast. ISBN-13 978-0786937929.
