Inhumanities Week

Current System Configuration: Fighting neuralgia
Earworms:
Iisang Bangka by The Dawn
Hemisphere by Maaya Sakamoto (from the anime RahXephon)
The Gate of the Hell by JAM Project (from Mazinkaiser vs. Ankoku Daishogun). Yes, it really is "The Gate of THE Hell."
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] French toast and blueberry jam
[Lunch] Spaghetti with meat sauce
[Dinner] Ziti with meat sauce D:
[Coffee] None
Current Read:
None, finished the following recently:
-The Giver by Lois Lowry
-Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

InHumanities week is finally over. Overall it was a good mix of doing absolutely nothing and being absolutely stressed. For most of the time I did nothing but listen to talks, but yesterday was completely busy. English day does that to you. I coached one of the debate teams, and in the afternoon I emceed for the speech choir competition.

The result of the debate was very favorable. My team did win, although both the Best Speaker and Best Debater awards went to Max Gana on the opposing team. He did excellently, and deserved it. I was pleased with the good fight both teams put up. In fact, one of the judges commended the students on how impressive their manner was, considering that they were only in high school. He said that they were quite promising and could look forward to outstanding performances in debate circuits if they continued honing their skills.

The speech choir was generally impressive. Most of the presentations were quite entertaining, although some of the sections failed to grasp the concept of the speech choir---that is, unison. Some put on impressive shows, although only a few people were talking at a time. One class relied too much on monologues, which hurt their score a lot.

The most memorable of the presentations was that of Rosal. They dressed up as zombies and portrayed a shambling undead horde quite well--the result was slightly comical at first, but it eventually escalated into a haunting portrayal of our country's fight for freedom. They only won second place, but it's the only presentation that really stood out in my mind.

The rest events of the week are chronicled in my photobucket account.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v312/AslanCross/Pisay/InhumanitiesWeek0607/
The password is vaevictis

Again, the week was generally successful. The only total failure was on the part of our government, which did not pay us when they should have.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased with the two books I finished this week. Let's start with Inkheart.

Inkheart is a must read for anyone who likes reading. The story revolves around Meggie, a 12-year-old girl whose father Mortimer (Mo) is a book restoration specialist. The book starts with a visit from a mysterious old acquaintance, Dustfinger. Eventually, it's revealed that Meggie's father has the ability to read fictional entities and objects into physical existence in this world whenever he reads out loud.

The plot itself is quite long and winding, so first time fantasy readers might find the text ponderous. In the words of one of my students, it was quite tiring to read towards the end. However, it was very entertaining, with the ending leaving many possibilities open. I look forward to getting my hands on the sequel, Inkspell.

If Inkheart was a bit of a struggle, The Giver was not. Lois Lowry narrated it so clearly and concisely that I finished the book at 10 pm, having only begun at 4:30pm that day.

The Giver is set in what seems to be a utopian society in which everything is controlled and taken care of. Jonas, the protagonist, is an eleven-year-old boy waiting for his assignment to his adult role in the community. Eventually, he discovers that his community is not as peaceful as it seems.

The novel was quite chilling and inspiring at the same time. It asks very poignant questions about human freedom. Of course, I can't discuss it in detail as I will be giving my students a long test on it. <_<>

Oh yeah, for all my current students:
If you didn't know yet, I'm making sigs for use on the Rex2010 Forums for those who get a 1.00 in my class. So far, four people got them, with one declining my offer. Here are the ones I've made so far:

Andie's sig:








Joe's sig:







Isa's sig:









So if you guys want to have a custom sig done by me, do better this quarter.

The Return

Current System Configuration: Physical Fitness Mode
Earworms:
-Jin/Shin/Ki -MAN-GOD-MACHINE- by Yuichi Ikusawa [JRock, Kishin Houkou Demonbane OP]
-Ages of Power by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-Subarashiki Shin Sekai by Flair [JPop/Trance, Namco vs Capcom insert song]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Grilled ham and cheese sandwich
[Lunch] Fruit magic's pesto spaghetti and choco-banana shake.
[Dinner] None yet. Antonio's despedida tonight.
[Coffee] Homemade mocha (just ordinary coffee+Swiss Miss mix. I don't have espresso, sadly.)
Current Read:
-Wormwood by G.P. Taylor

My brother's finally coming home tomorrow night. I really miss the guy even if I visited him last summer. It'll be great to have him here again. I guess I always take his presence for granted. Most of us are like that, anyway.

He just graduated from High School in the US. He did pretty well there; he was exempted from practically all his final exams because of his performance. He'll be staying here for about 8 months, as he will leave for Singapore next April. He's most likely going to take up Management and Culinary Studies at Temasek Polytechnic. At least he'll be much easier to visit in Singapore, and as I have plans of eventually working there, it won't be such a big problem.

~~~~

Wormwood has been an interesting read so far. It's not particularly excellent; I find it too dark, the imagery too squalid. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's an accurate portrayal of 18th-century London. My main issue with G.P. Taylor's work is that I find his world view confusing and inconsistent with the Christian ideas that he is trying to present. Of course, his main target audience is the goth demographic, trying to draw them to faith in Jesus Christ through his horror novels. That was certainly clear and present in his previous novel, Shadowmancer, but in Wormwood I'm having trouble seeing who the good guy really is.

There is no clear protagonist, though I see two who are experiencing the story in a similar way: Dr. Sabian Blake, an astronomer and master of the Kabbalah, and his servant girl, Agetta Lamian, a flea-bitten teenage girl with a knack for thievery. Both are caught up in things they do not understand, a web of deception. They both encounter angels who tell them more about the greater scheme of things, although Agetta's angel is a remorseful and disempowered being who had been doomed because he had fallen in love with a demonic sorceress.

The plot seems smooth---the action rises, slowly but surely, through each cryptically-entitled chapter (most of them have Latin or Hebrew titles). As I see it, Wormwood is much more allegorical than Shadowmancer, which was very literal in its treatment of the use of magic and salvation. More to come when I finish the novel.

Books and related things

Current System Configuration: First Quarter Storm
Earworms:
-Through the Fire and Flames by Dragon Force [Power Metal]
-Warriors by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-XTC by Psychic Lover [JRock, Witchblade Anime OP]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Oatmeal
[Lunch] Kielbasa, buttered veggies, whole wheat toast with olive oil
[Dinner] Sbarro's Spinach and Mushroom pizza.
[Coffee] Tall Mocha frappuccino with Valencia. Twice Blended.

I'm really happy with the new reading list we're using for my English 1 class. The previous year's list of books was at best hard to relate to, and at worst horribly boring. Compare these two lists:

Last Year
1st Quarter: Silas Marner by George Elliot
2nd Quarter: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
3rd Quarter: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
4th Quarter: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This Year
1st Quarter: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2nd Quarter: The Giver by Lois Lowry
3rd Quarter: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4th Quarter: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Silas Marner wasn't really bad, albeit mildly boring. It was just rather hard to relate to and the way the local manner of speech was rendered made it exceedingly hard to take in at times. Oliver Twist, on the other hand, was downright horrible. Dickens's prose is long-winded, wordy, and preachy. The plot felt like one of the telenovelas on ABS-CBN. Among these four, I liked the Red Badge the most. It was really short and was a rather vivid tale of war, though there were times when the narration confused me. Heart of Darkness was difficult to wrestle with, but it was still nowhere as awful as Oliver Twist.

Among this year's readings, the only one I haven't read yet is The Giver. I've already gone through Lord of the Flies and The Alchemist before, and both were quite engaging to read. I'm almost done with The Secret Garden, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I thought it would be another dreary and confusing story, but I have to say that it is definitely one of the better classics I've read. I can't say too much about it now as most of the readers of this blog are my students who should be reading the novel on their own.

I took a trip to the bookstore a while ago to hunt for the Bartimaeus trilogy. I only found the second book (The Golem's Eye). Perhaps tomorrow I'll have better luck at Powerbooks. I intend to do a fair amount of book hunting soon. I have yet to finish That Hideous Strength, though--I had to put it down for a while. It really is a challenging read.

The only other book I'm hunting for right now (probably going to ask my brother to get it for me in Barnes and Noble before he comes home from the US) is Dissension, the third book in Magic: The Gathering's Ravnica trilogy. Ravnica: City of Guilds was good but rather convoluted, while Guildpact was complex in an amusing way. I never thought Teysa Karlov would make such a good protagonist, but she just shines in it. I expect Dissension to be full of action. After all, Rakdos the Defiler has come to party, and Razia's legion of angels isn't too happy about that.

~~~

On a rather sad note, I heard from one of my students that her mother was not letting her read Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books. According to the mother, fantasy was "useless" and Tolkien was crazy to have spent so much time creating his own universe.

I beg to differ. All literature is rooted in human experience, and Tolkien's "own world" is in fact supposed to be OUR world. Arda IS Earth. On top of that, Tolkien's work is ultimately uplifting.

C.S. Lewis created his own world too (Narnia), and it too is an echo of ours. Wild and beautiful and tragically marred by a single act of human foolishness, ending only to be transformed into a truer, wilder, and more wonderful version of itself.

Now, if you want to read work by a crackpot, you might want to check out H.P. Lovecraft's stuff. I haven't read them personally, but in general it seems his work makes people want to believe that a giant alien octopus man is sleeping under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Lovecraft has a depressing, nihilistic point of view that makes you feel insignificant and weak. His mighty gods are not beings of glory, but twisted, vile creatures, mockeries of creation. Slugs, octopi, tentacle monsters, worms, giant demonic amoebas, giants with tentacles in place of faces--it goes on, and it sickens me. His obsession with tentacles is disturbing enough. Calling this guy a crackpot would not do him justice.

I really think it's unfair to fantasy stories to call them useless. Is "real-world" fiction any more genuine? Are their values even more applicable to human life? I'd definitely consider the values of honor, faith, hope and brotherhood (which appear in Lord of the Rings) much more applicable to life than the shallow materialism and consumerism promoted in the bilgewater known as Chick Lit.

I don't advocate rebellion against one's parents, dear student, but you'll always have your chance to read. Be thankful that you can read at all, and that you have good taste in books. Ultimately, your mind and your dreams are your own.

The City of Guilds [spoilers]

Current System Configuration: Recuperating
BGM: The Tower from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. The second-longest song in Avantasia, The Tower lasts around 9 minutes and is almost as grand as The Seven Angels due to its complex structure of refrains, recited lines and guitar solos. The chorus is an impassioned plea from Lugaid Vandroiy, Gabriel's mentor, encouraging Gabriel to "Go all the way to the Tower" and find out the true nature of its sinister lord. The "intermission" of the song is a recited dialogue between Pope Clement VIII and the Voice of the Tower, who always sounds creepy.
Breakfast: Haven't eaten yet.
Lunch: --
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)

My cold's finally clearing up, I just hope it doesn't recur later when I go out with my aunt. I don't really like staying home all day if I can help it.

Anyway, I've already finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds. The story is, in a nutshell, an intricate dance of a power struggle between the ten guilds (although only four really do much in this particular novel: The Boros Legion, the Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya Conclave, and House Dimir) as the decamillennial celebration of the Guildpact draws closer.

The Guildpact is a magical treaty, signed by many of the founders of the guilds, that seeks to give them an equal share of control and lordship of the massive ecumenopolis that is Ravnica.

Ravnica itself is pretty mind-boggling: imagine Coruscant from Star Wars and turn all of those hi-tech spires and domes into Gothic spires and domes. While the city covers the entire surface of the planet, the urban center of the city is situated in the City of Ravnica proper. The City of Ravnica is an immense, circular area that consists of a millions of arches, towers, floating reservoirs, sewers and other forms of infrastructure. This is reflected in the game: Magic draws resources from five basic "lands"---White mana from Plains, Blue mana from Islands, Black mana from Swamps, Red mana from Mountains, and Green mana from Forests. In the Ravnica block, however, Plains are depicted as the plane's tallest towers, with white mana being drawn from sunlight instead. Islands are depcited as the city's vast waterworks and floating reservoirs. Ravnica's swamps are not fetid marshes but its cavernous insides---Old Ravnica, layers upon layers of forgotten structures upon which the current city was built. The mountains are huge, smoke-belching furnaces, while the forests are groves and forests grafted into the numerous spires of the city.

Ravnica is not a magical and pristine place---it's polluted, seedy and dank. Many thousands of races populate the ecumenopolis: humans, goblins, ogres, dryads, viashino (lizardmen), angels, demons, elves (Silhana and Devkarin), centaurs, minotaurs, and many, many others.

The city was actually designed by the Izzet league: a group of mad scientists, architects, wizards and demolition squads all rolled into one. The dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet actually designed the city in the shape of a vast power sigil that would give him control over the entire plane, but the goblins in his entourage messed it up (unintentionally or deliberately, the jury's still out on this one) and instead the city ended up as it is now.

Spoilers below, so if you don't like spoilers and plan to read the novel, skip the black-colored area below. Otherwise, highlight to read.

The climax was pretty exciting, with the rogue Golgari Swarm (Ravnica's resident necromancer guild, although strangely enough, they also supply the city with meat. Creepy, huh?) attacking the Boros Legion's Centerfort. As I mentioned in the previous entry, the Boros Legion is both military and police force to the City of Guilds, but the Centerfort is primarily a Wojek (Police) base. With the Gorgon Ludmilla at the head of the Golgari army, the poor 'jeks were no match for the undead swarm and their petrifying mistress. (Ludmilla is one of the Sisters of Stone Death, but her younger ssssystersss [sic] Lydya and Lexya had already been messily squashed by the ancient necromancer Svogthir, the Golgari swarm's parun (Guildpact signatory) whom the Ssssysterssss had imprisoned in the depths of their underground stronghold.) In a treacherous move, the Devkarin elf Savra, Matka (High Priestess) of the Golgari swarm, released Svogthir and reconstructed his rotted body in the form of an immense necroelemental. Svogthir easily smashed the younger sisters, but the wiser Ludmilla capitulated to Svogthir and Savra. The Matka then turned on Svogthir, using the body she made for him against him, and absorbed his several millennia worth of necromantic power. Savra, however, had more in mind than the leadership of the Swarm.

Savra conspired to have a member of the Selesnyan Chorus of the Conclave, a gentle loxodon (humanoid elephant) named Bayul, assassinated. Bayul was one of the few members of the Conclave who regularly left Vitu-Ghazi, the immense tree at the center of the city which the Selesnya Conclave held court. Because of this gap, the Chorus would seek a replacement---Savra. Despite being a death-worshipping Devkarin elf (as opposed to a life-worshipping Silhana), she was still an elf, and thus attuned to nature. Being fond of unity, it was very characteristic for the Selesnya to accept anyone, no matter the race, into the fold of the Conclave. Savra, of course, did this for the sake of power. She took control of the Selesnyan spy force (of course they won't call it that), the quietmen. (Quietmen are creepy humanoid creatures shrouded completely in white linen, their faces, hands and feet are all covered by cloth. They can fly, have psychic abilities, and can fly very well.) Savra replaced the quietmen with undead and
corrupted Vitu-Ghazi's living tissue, causing the entire Chorus to die out while she absorbed its power.

Savra wasn't smart enough to do this on her own. She was smart, but this needed the help of a dark and sinister master---the psionic vampire lord Szadek, who many Ravnicans thought was a myth. He appeared at Savra's coronation ceremony, and in classic villainous fashion, snapped her neck. Szadek then drew the unity elemental Mat'selesnya, the Selesnyan parun, out of the tree of Vitu Ghazi and tried to kill her in an attempt to void the Guildpact and take control of the plane for himself.

Okay, enough spoilers. But anyway, the book was pretty interesting, although the large amount of intrigue was pretty labyrinthine and difficult to crawl through. Of course, I'm sure my readers are certainly capable of that.

Also, another personality test taken from Katja's blog. (Ravnica left me with a rather Slavic taste for names right now)

You Have a Melancholic Temperament

Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything. You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life. You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you. Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace. You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life. Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times. At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you. You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others. You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult.

What Temperment Are You?

Pretty accurate, my mom wholeheartedly agrees that I'm melancholic. My brother is phlegmatic (he's passive, but a good companion), while grandma is sanguine (generally jolly, makes friends with everyone).

~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2004AD20060831
ー黒獅子アスラン

Get ready for a long one.

Current System Configuration: Congested
BGM: The Sign of the Cross from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. Not as epic and grand as The Seven Angels, but it also has a catchy chorus and a great melody---not to mention an awesome guitar solo. Most of Avantasia's guitar solos are done by Henjo Richter, and all of them are excellent. European symphonic power metal has really grown on me, since they're very different from the death and black metal that's usually associated with the metal musical genre. (Death metal has all that ogrish growling that I find reprehensible. Power metal has none of that--the melodies are soaring and pure if not rapid and exciting.)
Breakfast: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Lunch: Lamb on pita gyro (Again! Yum!)
Dinner: Salmon fillet and salad
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+Ravnica: The City of Guilds (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium, though it's a relatively slow read)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)



Last week I felt cold. Now I HAVE a cold. Awful. -_- This cold doesn't seem to be the viral kind, but the allergic kind triggered by the Spring season's massive discharges of pollen. The weather's great, but it's hard to enjoy with all the pollen and my perpetually congested upper respiratory tract. Yesterday I was so sick that my body spontaneously generated a fever, but this morning I felt well enough to trek once more to Manhattan, this time with my uncle on the way to the office.

Okay, trekking with your uncle to the office doesn't sound great at all. Of course, your uncle doesn't have an office that's very close to all the neon glow of Times Square, all the awesome food on Sixth Avenue, or the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue. My uncle's office (he's a paralegal whose business consists mostly of providing legal assistance to immigrants into the US.)

We arrived at the NY Port Authority bus terminal (the hub of all bus traffic in and out of New York) at around 11:15. By that time, most of the stuff that's worth seeing in the Big Apple is already open. However, lacking money (well, not really) and company (my brother's back at school), and having been to most of the worthwhile attractions already when I was last here 9 years ago (I haven't been to the Empire State building or the Twin Towers, but of course the latter was blown up 5 years ago), I didn't plan on going around much. Since I didn't have a camera, there wasn't much use in taking pictures of the view from the Empire State Building. I didn't plan on staying long, so I just went to Barnes and Noble on Fifth.

If I'm not mistaken, this is either the largest or one of the largest book outlets in New York. I have the general impression that the Kinokuniya in Singapore's Ngee Ann City is bigger, but Barnes and Noble still has a lot of stuff that you won't find on the shelves at Powerbooks or Fully Booked.

Of course by now you know I'm a nerd who likes reading, though I don't read as much as I'd want to. So in Singapore I bought That Hideous Strength, the last book in C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy. (FYI the other books are Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.) The Cosmic Trilogy is early 20th-century science fiction, so it doesn't have hyperdrives or lightsabers or black hole bombs and the rest of the stuff we're familiar with. It represents what we knew at the turn of the century when we were just looking out toward the other members of the Solar System. It's also set in the late 30's to the mid 40's, so the sci-fi is relatively low key. Don't expect skyscraping utopias or post-apocalyptic deserts. However, like the rest of C.S. Lewis's work, it presents a coherent world view that the author holds to believe is true in real life. (As do I.) It's entertaining and insightful into both the human nature and the nature of the Universe and what's Beyond. It's basically a very entertaining theological lecture. However, the series is a lot more difficult than the same author's Chronicles of Narnia. For one, it wasn't written as a children's series. It's a lot more academic (the main characters in all three books are members of the academe), philosophical, and complicated. Of course, most of my readers are mature enough for that kind of reading. I highly recommend it for you guys. Ironically, I found this neither in Kinokuniya nor Barnes and Noble, but in Singapore's other premium bookstore, MPH. (At least, this particular edition of the book---I wanted my books to be of the same edition).

Ravnica: The City of Guilds and The Myths of Magic are explorations of the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. I'll get into those in a bit. Ok, you're about to foray deeper into my geekiness, so beware. (I proudly declare that while I may be a geek or a nerd, I'm not a gnerd. That's a different creature altogether.) Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game I've been playing since 1996. The gist of it is that it's a strategy game that simulates two or more powerful wizards, called planeswalkers, beating the snot out of each other. The players employ various creatures (Humans! Goblins! Lesser wizards! Dragons! Angels! And yeah, Demons---I personally don't play those, but I don't think playing the game makes me any less of a Christian than playing the black side of the chessboard does.) , powerful spells and artifacts to dispose of your opponent in various ways. Beating him or her to death with big monsters is perhaps the most straightforward, and so is incinerating or shocking him or her. There are other, more subtle ways such as driving him or her insane (this is represented by running him out of cards), or poisoning him or her to death. (This is actually a lame way to win)

....oookay. You're bored. Lemme get to the book reviews.

I haven't finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds yet, but the novel tells the story of Ravnica, a gothic ecumenopolis, the setting of the latest block of M:TG expansions. The inspiration behind Ravnica is very Eastern European, with characters named with Russian-, Polish-, or Hungarian-sounding names. The main character is Lieutenant Agrus Kos, a wojek (cop) who serves in the Boros Legion, Ravnica's enforcers of fiery justice. Ravnica is governed by 10 guilds:
-The Azorius Senate, Ravnica's official government---guys who devised the Guildpact. These guys love order above all else and are dedicated to its preservation---at the risk of stagnation. Their guildmaster is Grand Arbiter Agustin IV.
-The Boros Legion, Ravnica's law enforcement---cops, soldiers, and fiery angels of justice, the Boros Legion enforces the law without being Azorius lapdogs. These guys enforce the law as swiftly as they can. No pencil-pushers, they are. Guildmaster is the archangel Razia.
-The Orzhov Syndicate, Ravnica's most illustrious corporation/church/Mafia. Under the guise of a Church, the Orzhov are actually Ravnica's savviest businessmen, lawmages and crime lords. These guys use their money (and worship it) more than any god. Their creepiest ability is to go after you for a debt, even after you're dead. After all, their leaders, the Ghost Council of Orzhova, are all dead too.
-The Simic Combine, Ravnica's biomancers. Originally they were supposed to be ecologists tasked to preserve what little of Ravnica's natural scenery was left, but they failed. Now they want to create their own brand of nature, whatever that is, and allow it to evolve on its own. This means that they're into magical genetic engineering and all manner of gruesome experiments. The guildmaster is the brilliant Elvish biomancer, Momir Vig.
-The Izzet League, Ravnica's resident mad scientists. Mad as they are, these guys actually constructed Ravnica's current infrastructure---its arches, aqueducts, and whatnot. The Izzet like making a lot of whatnot, too. They invent all sorts of weird gizmos and spells with tongue-twisting names like Schismotivate, Mimeofacture, Vacuumelt, and so on. Brilliance and passion all rolled together in one. Their leader is the smartest (and vainest) being on Ravnica, the dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.
-The Selesnya Conclave, who are generally perceived to be Ravnica's most benevolent guild. These guys uphold life and unity above all else, and offer all souls peace in Ravnica's rather turbulent afterlife. They're not above violence, however---the Selesnya can conjure legions of plant-monsters to their aid. Guild-leader: an ancient council of dryads (and a few others) called The Chorus of the Conclave.
-The Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya's direct opposite. The Golgari are death-worshippers and love working with death and undeath. They like plants too, but not the sun-loving kind. Their plants are the strangling, choking, killing kind. They like playing with plagues too, which makes them similar in a way to the Simic. Their leaders are the Sisters of Stone Death, a trio of Gorgons, although their high priestess Savra is trying to kick the stoner sisters out.
-The Cult of Rakdos, among Ravnica's most unsavory residents. These guys are demon-worshippers, sadists and masochists. Led by Rakdos the Defiler, an ancient demon lord, the Rakdos are thrill-killers and mercenaries. (The Ravnican term is "killguilder"). However, they have their uses---the Rakdos are Ravnica's primary source of labor and muscle. They also dig up the earth and mine it for the use of all Ravnica.
-The Gruul Clans, Ravnica's least lawful citizens. These guys detest law and order, and love stirring up messes. However, they're highly fragmented, and the many clans that make up the Gruul are prone to fighting (and eating ) each other. They're primal and chaotic. There's no actual leader---the Gruul answer to whomever is powerful and feeds everyone. In this case, it's the giant cyclops, Borborygmos.
-House Dimir, the Guild that does not exist. Many Ravnicans consider House Dimir to be a fairy tale, a story told to kids to scare them into bed. That's what the Dimir want, of course. These are the sneakiest citizens of Ravnica, plotting to take over the entire plane by subterfuge and all manners secret and deadly. Their guildmaster is the psionic vampire, Szadek, the Lord of Secrets.

The skinny on the story is that the Guildpact, the magical treaty between the guilds that keeps them in relative peace, is about to celebrate its 10,000th anniversary. However, something is brewing, and Agrus Kos is about to find out the hard way. So far I've found the book to be a challenge to read because of its numerous characters, but it interests me because Ravnica is, in my opinion, one of, if not the best M:TG blocks Wizards of the Coast has ever designed. It's interesting how they make so many opposing ideologies work together, just to have the whole thing unravel like so much thread.

The last book, The Myths of Magic, is an anthology of short stories based on the various stories set in the vast multiverse of Magic. Each "plane" of the multiverse is another dimension, each very different from the other. There's the "central" plane, Dominaria, which is about as diverse as our planet is. (Most of Magic's story takes place on Dominaria) There's the Japanese-themed Kamigawa, a world which fights its own gods. Then there's Mirrodin, a world made of metal, inhabited by diverse races that all have metal grafted into them. (Metal dreadlocks on lion-people, for example). I've already covered Ravnica, a world whose surface is one whole city. Then there's the sinister Phyrexia, a world full of twisted arcane biomechanical creatures, a hell governed by the self-proclaimed god Yawgmoth, who is perhaps the most powerful (and most evil) planeswalker in all of Magic. Myths of Magic has a lot of stories. The only one I've read so far is about an Argivian scholar from Dominaria ending up in the service of Phyrexia. It's pretty gruesome---they describe in detail the grisly operations used to "compleat" him as a full-fledged Phyrexian. This means replacing all of one's internal organs with...not very cool stuff.

....I've spoken enough. D: I hope I didn't bore you.

~Be Just or Be Dead~
#1804AD20062108
ー黒獅子アスラン