Reading some of the official short stories and novels may answer a few of those questions, but still not nearly enough. So, what I decided to do was to dive instead into the original inspiration for the setting to inspire my own stories and Dungeons & Dragons adventures: Slavic mythology.
Elements of Mythology: cultural and religious traditions, folk lore, and fairy tales.
In Slavic mythology, there are three defined genres:
- Bylichka (beh-LEECH-kuh). Literally "tales." First- or second-hand accounts of strange, often paranormal or supernatural events or encounters with spirits that they experienced—typical tall tales with no real plot, but also some religious stories. Common tales are about someone getting lost in a forest and seeing something bizarre, children going missing and turning up years later saying or doing strange things before disappearing, or about meeting a revered house spirit or another fairy and making a deal with it which they must keep a secret for many years. Some of these sound like a child's stories about playing with an imaginary friend, pages torn out of Alice in Wonderland, or bizarre dreams (never so frightening to be a nightmare) apparently made real.
- Skazka (SKAZ-kuh). Stories or fairy tales. Short stories and oral folk tales as a form of fictional entertainment involving magic and fantastical creatures, or about mundane daily life. Authors of current, well-known children's fairy tales were often inspired by these stories (such as Sleeping Beauty), and some stories have been adapted to modern times by replacing magical plot devices with scientific ones.
- Bylina (beh-LEE-nuh). Epic oral poetry, sometimes called "stariny" (literally "stories of old"). In contrast to skazka, many of these bardic poems or songs would have originated from historical accounts that were then embellished with hyperbolic and fantastical elements over time, although there are some that are purely fictional. Many of the storytellers were/are illiterate singers, or, possibly, were simply dedicated to preserving their culture of the epic oral poems as it was understood that paraphrasing a story to anyone without performing the full song leaves out too much detail. Like modern singers and comedians, the particular stories they sang and many details about named locations or characters were improvised based on the current locations they were at and the company they were with.
The structure of these poems is not unlike the structure of the hero's journey or a classic D&D adventure: a "bogatyr" (BOH-guh-TEER; mythic hero or character similar to a knight-errant) receives a task or rises to the call to action and encounters fantastical things on a long journey, and gets a reward of some kind at the end of it or upon returning home. Very rarely are sub-plots of any kind present; the story moves straight along from point A to B to C with a simple overarching conflict.
Of course, all of these elements bleed into and influence each other over many, many generations to create a vast, rich, epic tapestry.
Bylichka in Ravnica
Common tall tales and, for RPG players, adventure hooks or rumors to investigate and other places to discover and explore. But the rumors and missions all have a twist to them. Alternatively, read these tales and tweak and adapt them for weird, supernatural social encounters, puzzles, visions or dreams, and any other quirky, non-combat scenes.
Someone goes missing and a family member, partner, or close friend or coworker tells the hero(es) about what happened. It turns out later, however, that the events transpired decades ago and the person who told the story is actually a ghost in need of putting to rest. Or, that the events have yet to happen, and the person is befriended unknowingly (as they were wearing different garb or their face was obfuscated when first "met") and, days or months later, the strange series of events happen to the character who then becomes the missing person.
Fey creatures from friendly pixies or malicious sprites to scheming hags always make for interesting scenes, especially when there is something the characters and the fey want from each other. Instead of talking in riddles or offering a trade of some kind, a faerie might give an ominous message or hand over a curious consumable with a clearly stated, positive effects and an obscure, abstracted warning of its negative side effects (if any warning is given at all).
If there are choices the character can make, different paths to choose from, there should be some noticeable effect caused by their actions and not simply the illusion of choice. But whatever the situation, it is not one in which failure results in any severe or long-term consequences, if there even is a way to fail.
Skazka in Ravnica
With these, I mostly see monster encounters and acts in story. In any part of Ravnica, these fairy tales and brief stories can give hints and clues about what to expect from an adventure, or describe (possibly in a roundabout or convoluted way) how to negotiate with adversaries down the road or overcome malevolent spirits and monsters. Very likely, they are ominous tales the party overhears (or tells themselves) that foreshadow an upcoming encounter or greater adventure. Fairy tales of all kinds are ripe for picking apart and putting back together with all manner of changes and adaptations. They're also incredibly varied in how innocent and whimsical or bleak and gruesome they can be, and more innocent tales can easily be turned grisly and vice versa.
When looking at a fairy tale to plug into your world—assuming that world is not meant to completely simulate a pre-existing real-world setting, culture, and mythology/religion—ask how it would look different in your world compared to the world it originated from. Most fairy tales are incredibly old and involve outdated places with outdated tools and technology and lack countless modern concepts. In Ravnica, a spirit might not be the housekeeper for one family but the manager for a whole apartment, or are employed by a high-ranking spirit or are working to pay off debts to the owner or a family long after the creature made a metaphysical pact with a now-dead relative. Faeries in a massive city don't just wear clothes made of leafs and sip nectar from flowers all day, they have suits or adventuring gear to wear and jobs or quests to complete for nobles, alchemists, spies, guildmasters, and so on. Merfolk, only recently discovered by the greater public, keep to themselves except when city projects and war threaten their homes—that, or they didn't exist at all until they were created by scientists looking to create new soldiers or evolve tools (gills and fins) for themselves so they can explore winding rivers, underground oceans, and drowned ruins, or they appeared suddenly after a catastrophic event that involved dozens (potentially thousands) of people drowning and returning as horrid, wailing sirens or amphibious zombies.
There are so many fantastic fairy tales and creatures in Slavic mythology, and there is plenty of room for them in Ravnica, in the Tenth District and elsewhere in the world.
Bylina in Ravnica
In the Tenth District—the center of the most densely populated city of Ravnica (a name which the plane itself shares) and highest concentration of guild-related activity—the tradition of bylina storytelling with few or no instruments except the singer's voice is likely to have faded to a great degree, with it only remaining as the memory of the origins of modern songs, plays, and recorded albums, much like it has changed in the real world.
Inside the Tenth, these songs are probably most commonly sang by Gruul clanspeople, with the most popular tales singing about the guild's parun, grand mountainscapes and storm clouds, and the great Raze-Boar god, Ilharg, who will bring about the apocalyptic End-Raze, after which the remaining Gruul members will celebrate and dance in the plane-wide ruins of the city. With the Gruul, these songs are always accompanied by dancers, a riot, or both. Rakdos guild members may have been the ones who took the tradition and transformed it into their well-known elaborate (and sometimes macabre) performances with music, dancing, acrobatics, and so forth, which modern operas and plays in the Tenth's theaters an jazz clubs could also originate from alongside the development of certain musical instruments.
Outside the Tenth, in other cities and smaller towns or with nomadic tribes, traditional bylina is likely much more common. If one leaves the big city and visits a rubblebelt, underground river, forest, or any small settlement, they would undoubtedly find a group of people huddled around a campfire, inside a large hall (or tavern), or flocking to a rickety shelter where music can be heard with a bard singing epic tales. Families and factions in smaller towns likely preserve many of the traditions, telling stories about ancestors and heroic (or doomed) adventurers and their adversaries with one or two instruments providing distinctly background music. Subject matter ranges from fighting monsters to solving a catastrophic problem, removing an epic villain or oppressive guild from the region, or the history of how their ancestors relocated to or founded a long-overbuilt town after surviving a terrible war. At night or during bad weather in any region, dense and modern or sparse and traditional, parents sing poems to their children—parents who are guild members may try to impress on their children with songs of guild heroes, success and money (or a lack of them), or a clumsy character who failed at their task because they opposed the guild. Older siblings may choose to tell spooky stories to younger ones as opposed to heroic and cheerful tales, and embellish them with fantastically gruesome details. Hosts may stand and sing to their guests at breakfast or dinner, or will hire or ask someone else to sing at a gathering.
Wherever you go, songs reflect the types of work people are doing and the specific struggles they have overcome in the past and are trying to overcome in the present and near-future. Newspapers, depending on the region, publisher, and writers, could start with a teaser poem on the front page with a longer story inside, and may be more popular when guild politics and tensions are high.
Bogatyr in Ravnica
Every culture has great heroes and tales of their epic deeds. Wherever the characters are, what are some local legends people tell in the district or neighborhood, who do people look up to? Perhaps some heroes have books written about them and kids desire collectible statues resembling a larger-than-life-size one in another city. What kinds of legendary heroes and ancestors do local families tell the children about? Are they tales of glory, or darker legends of fallen heroes and collapsed cities with moral lessons to be learned (or rebelled against)? In the guild that one of the player characters is a member of, whose footsteps do they strive to follow so they may bring glory to their guild? Does a prominent tale of an old hero have another side to it, or maybe it has been twisted by notable members of a family or guild that opposed them—wrongly, justly, or entirely gray on all sides.
Planeswalkers who visit Ravnica are bound to become legendary heroes or villains, and some may cause stories to form about mysterious, larger-than-life figures who travel beyond the nothingness outside the world's boundary—these are obviously absurd legends, of course, but epic nonetheless.
Statues, memorials, and temples dedicated to legends in folktales and to heroes of times of war and strife are scattered across every part of each layer of each city, from the highest promenades to the murkiest, disintegrated depths of the Undercity. Tomes new and old talk about them with a different perspective or opinion on their deeds based on the time period and author(s). Old paintings, relief sculptures, and ancient relics show off their deeds, although archaeologists and scholars can never agree on who is pictured and what the symbolism was intended to mean at the time of their creation.
If there aren't any of these heroes and epic songs about their deeds that can be heard in the city (or just the apartment or bar down the street), the characters will change that soon enough.
