Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Suvnica Guild Profile: The Zhavi Council

(This is part of a series of documents that are meant to provide snapshots of each of the guilds. These documents will probably be updated with some regularity. They are meant to provide a starting reference point when developing new cards and ideas for the guilds.)

{W}{B} The Zhavi Council

The Zhavi function as the governing agency of the guildpact, ensuring compliance and punishing transgressions. They do little in the way of legislating, although they oversee the court system of Suvnica. As the enforcers of the guildpact, they are seen as being the highest ranked of the guilds, and are the most strict about adherence to its requirements within the guild. Without exception, every member of the Zhavi is born that way. No one is able to join, or even serve any function other than as menial labor within the Zhavi's territories. 

The Zhavi exercise a strict intra-guild heirarchy. At the top are the individuals that actually oversee enforcement of the guildpact - the judges and tribunals. This group also includes an advisory council that identifies threats to the continued existence of the guildpact and orders the measures to be taken to prevent the threat -- typically direct assassination or use of curses and similar types of magic to neutralize the threat.

Promotion within the Zhavi can be based on merit or influence, but is also primarily a function of heredity. A number of very prominent families in the Zhavi are always filling choice societal roles and setting the standard that the rest of the guild strives for.

Typical Creature Types

  • Human
  • Cat (Humanoid)
  • Kor (both in {B} and {W}
  • Large Iconics: Avatars

Typical Occupations

  • Judge/Politician (Advisors)
  • Assassin
  • Wizard
  • Soldier

Opinions on the Guilds

  • {W}{U} Suiroza: Their insistence that blood plays no role in one's capability is absurd. If you take a newborn pup from the street and raise it in opulence, does that make it less of a mongrel?
  • {W}{B} Zhavi: We protect society from slipping into chaos, ensuring that the only those truly capable continue to safeguard our future.
  • {U}{B} Rimid: The most tainted of bloodlines. If the pact permitted their elimination, they would be a long-forgotten memory.
  • {U}{R} Tezzi: Their open disdain for the guildpact is not nearly as funny as they believe.
  • {B}{R} Radkar: Useful soldiers, as long as they remember their place. They are eager to pick up the slack in pact enforcement where we find ourselves unable to keep up. 
  • {B}{G} Gilrog: Their manipulations are interesting, although sometimes we suspect that they hope to engineer their way into much more power than they deserve.
  • {R}{G} Grohm: Their nomadic nature makes them difficult to observe, but they seldom offer us any trouble.
  • {R}{W} Sorba: Their deceit is as repugnant as it is transparent. They routinely interfere with our basic enforcement of the pact, and yet no one is ever able to identify any of the individuals that did so.
  • {G}{W} Sahleen: Masterful teachers and spiritual advisers. They may over-think the importance of fate within their bloodlines though.
  • {G}{U} Kisme: Tragic figures, bombarded with premonitions of the future and yet invariably compelled to change them. Of course, they make some of the most useful informants.

Guild Mechanics

Coming soon...