Gruul Clans

A guild of anarchists who demonstrate their love of nature with RAAAAAAAGE and RIP AND TEAR.

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History

The green and red guild was originally created to protect the remaining patches of nature in Ravnica. But this is not easy when your whole plane is a constantly growing urban landscape, with building leaving less and less space for trees and stuff. On top of that, the other green aligned guilds declared that protecting nature was their gig, making the Gruul Clans lose their relevance.

The Clans decided FUCK IT, and started tearing down building so nature can regrow... Or because they feel like smashing stuff.

Structure

As their name indicate, the Gruul aggregate themselves in a collection of clans without any semblance of organization, and allied only by their common love of breaking shit.

Guild Members

Guild Master

Borborygmos: The Gruul are too wild and angry for a formal leadership structure. Instead, they are represented by the cyclops Borborygmos, on account of the fact that he is the wildest and angriest there is.

Guild Champions

Ruric Thar

Ruric and Thar are the two halves of an Ogre who leads the Ghor-Clan, as opposed to the Burning-Tree Clan. They're the second strongest in the clan next to the current guildleader. Jace hired them to destroy his laboratory. Being against such huge nerdiness they destroyed it while Jace erased his memory. But then they got mentally connected to Jace a little bit and knew they had to run the Implicit Maze, so they did. In card form they must attack each round, and whenever someone casts a non-creature spell they deal 6 damage to that player. Probably while screaming "NNEEEERRRRDDDD!!!!"

Others

Mechanics

Bloodthirst

Creatures with this mechanic will get boosts if they are played in a turn where an opponent has been damaged

Bloodrush

Allows to boost an attacking creature by discarding another one.

Riot

Allows a creature to pick up either a +1/+1 counter or haste as it is entering the battlefield.

Dungeons & Dragons

Like all of the ten guilds, the Gruul Clans appeared in the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, a splatbook for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Here, it was handled as a combination of Background and Faction, with the player choosing the "Gruul Anarch" background to certify they have membership, and being able to earn Renown. This is a new system to 5e, and basically is a kind of abstractified experience; you start off as a general worker (Renown 1), and as you complete missions for the Guild or do things that get you noticed, your Renown increases, giving you increased abilities. Of course, if you publicly screw things up for your guild, your esteem will drop and you can loose Renown.

Characters from the Gruul Clans are most likely to be Humans, Centaurs, Goblins and Minotaurs. The most iconic classes associated with this guild are Barbarian (Ancestral Guardian, Berserker, Storm Herald, Totem Warrior), Cleric (Tempest), Druid (Moon), Fighter (Champion), Ranger (Beastmaster - Fierce Beasts, Hunter), and Rogue (Scout).

Gruul Anarch Background

Gaining proficiency with Animal Handling, Athletics and the Herbalism kit, the Anarch can also speak Draconic, Giant, Goblin or Sylvan, and starts play with a Gruul insignia, a hunting trap, a herbalism kit, a boar skull, a beast-hide cloak, a set of traveler's clothes, and 10GP worth of Azorius 1-zino coins.

Its background feature is Rubblebelt Refuge, which means that in rubblebelts, the anarch can always find safe places to hide or rest, as well as enough fresh food and water to feed up to 6 people (including themselves) per day.

To further represent the Guild's training and philosophical impact, spellcasters (that is, anyone with the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature) gain bonus spells to their spell list based on the guild. For the X, that's the following:

Spell Level Spells

Cantrip fire bolt, produce flame

1st compelled duel, speak with animals, thunderwave

2nd beast sense, shatter

3rd conjure animals, conjure barrage

4th dominate beast, stoneskin

5th destructive wave

Fueled by the fire of rage burning in your heart, your magic is almost always accompanied by fiery effects, such as flames smoldering behind your eyes or dancing over your hands.

Gruul Clans Renown

Needless to say, a bunch of anarchistic neo-primitives don't exactly have a complicated hierarchy.

Proven (Renown 3)

At this level, you're a recognized warrior in your own clan. You don't command enough respect to lead, but your prowess is acknowledged enough that your chieftain will often pick you out specifically for missions, and may send a warband of 1d4 anarchs to back you up in combat.

Beast-Friend (Renown 10)

At this level, your soul has grown strong enough and wild enough to enable for some level of communication and control with the beasts of the rubblebelt. Whilst they won't fight for you unless you have some specific ability to control beasts, you can still summon a batterboar, ceratok or raktusk to serve you as a mount in the rubblebelts. Also, when you are sent on a raid or other mission, your clan's druid will give you a Gruul Charm.

Celebrated (Renown 25)

Your clan knows and admires you, and even other clans nearby are starting to take notice of you. Such is the respect you command that not only will your clan druid cast spells for you on request, but you have picked up a personal entourage of 2d4 anarchs and 3 berserkers or 3 ogres, who eagerly follow you into battle. Your chief will start getting edgy around you at this point, because you've now become a potential threat to their leadership.

Chieftain (Renown 50)

Your name commands admiration, respect and fear. You can now challenge your former chieftain to a trial by combat to take their place, or ask the warriors loyal to you to follow you into the rubblebelts and found a new clan.