House Dimir

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House Dimir

Alternative name	The Unseen
Colors:	Blue and Black
Guild leader:	{{{parun}}}
Guild leader:	Szadek, Lord of Secrets
Guild champion:	Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
Guild hall:	Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Keyword:	Transmute
Featured set:	Ravnica: City of Guilds
Signet flavor text:
An emblem of a secret guild, the dimir insignia is only seen by its own members-and the doomed.

House Dimir is one of the ten guilds of Ravnica. It is a guild of secrecy, manipulation and underhanded deals, a shadowy organisation operating behind the scenes to twist Ravnica to its own ends. The guild provides espionage, smuggling, burglary, counter-intelligence, assassination and other illegal services for the Ravnican populace, although its patrons are unaware that they are in fact employing the guild, instead thinking they are employing guildless mercenaries or another guild such as the Rakdos. The guild is so secretive that even its own agents often do not know who they truly work for.

[edit] Background

House Dimir is ruled over by the ancient vampire Szadek. The vampire was one of the ten paruns that signed the Guildpact and remained in charge of the guild for the subsequent 10,000 years. One of the crucial clauses of the Guildpact was that none of the signatories (including Szadek) could reveal the existence of the Dimir to Ravnica's people, protecting the guild's anonymity while forcing it to remain hidden. This created a flaw in the Guildpact's structure that would eventually allow it to be broken.

Officially, the guild does not exist. The Ravnican people generally believe that there are only nine guilds and that if there ever was a tenth, it dissolved thousands of years ago. The name Dimir is not known by most people and those that do know it believe it to be a myth, childrens' story or a paranoid conspiracy theory. This misinformation is actively propagated by the Dimir themselves as a method for avoiding suspicion.

[edit] Guild information

The guild operates on a strictly need-to-know basis. At the top of its hierarchy is Szadek, the lord of secrets. Only he is fully aware of all of the guild's activities. Beneath Szadek are the necrosages, who oversee the guild's activities from Duskmantle, the house of shadow. They manipulate the flow of information, keeping the guild informed on all things whilst keeping the rest of the plane ignorant. Few individuals are ever allowed to meet the guild's leaders, as instead a network of middlemen are employed to pass on messages to field operatives. Agents at the very bottom of the guild only meet a mysterious individual in a back alley that gives them some basic information on their target and nothing else.

The Dimir's guildmages use their magic to influence the minds of others. They can send messages to operatives over distances or strike people with amnesia, magically alter memories or even perform lobotomies on victims to cover their tracks. The Dimir also practice necromancy, creating undead minions such as skeletons and wights to carry out missions. Such minions are employed as they are single-minded, easy to create and dispose of, cannot be interrogated in the event of capture and are easily blamed on the Golgari instead. Spirits are also used by the Dimir to pass on messages, carry out surveillance invisibly or even to possess important figures such as judges and senators. Nobody is beyond the reach of House Dimir.

[edit] Present status

After the events of the Dissension novel, a new Guildpact is formed but it does not recognize the House Dimir as an official guild. However, the district of Agyrem reappeared within Ravnica, and is under Szadek's control (he can easily control the spirits that inhabit it), which means that the guild is still operational and possibly, stronger than ever.

[edit] Play

House Dimir, in game terms, is a blue and black color guild that focuses primarily on the Library. It features a unique keyword called transmute, which enables a player to exchange one card for another in his or her library. It also uses a lot of mill cards, which allows a player to win the game by removing cards from his or her opponent's library.

Notable Dimir cards are: