Guild of Ravnica #007 Rakdos Carnarium (Patreon)

As laid out in the Guildpact, the cult of Rakdos was intended to fill roles concerning entertainment, mining, and manual labor. Some argue that any effort to give a demonic cult a respectable role in society was doomed to failure, but the cult remains part of Ravnica's social fabric nevertheless. The Guildpact prohibits the cult's extermination, and its entertainments - even the ones that are dark and destructive - hold broad appeal. From rowdy mobs who love to see the cult skewer the powerful elites to decadent socialites who come to the Rakdos for illicit amusements, most of Ravnica's people don't really want the Rakdos to go away, as much as they might publicly protest otherwise when the ugly side of the cult shows itself.

The cult has a wide variety of performers that fill the odd niches Ravnican culture has created for entertainment; spikewheel acrobats, lampooners, fire jugglers, puppeteers, pain artists, noise musicians, dark clowns, and hellbent riders form the heart of the cult's bizarre diversions, putting on shows in guild-owned speakeasies and on portable stages in the streets. Performers called uncagers tend to - and unleash - the variety of the beasts and horrors used in Rakdos shows. Other Rakdos performers are spell casters of spectacular sort, using expressive, free-wheeling, and dangerous magic. They can be equally gratified by howls of laughter or howls of horror - any attention, in their minds, is good attention.

The cult's hedonism, and willingness to risk their lives in its pursuit, is an acceptance of death's inevitability and an embrace of the precious gift of life they have been given - as well as a reminder to others that life is both fleeting and precious, and thus should be treated as the gift that it is, no matter how harsh or short it may be. The Cult of Rakdos was originally recognized as a guild as part of an effort to channel the impulses of demons, giants, ogres, and humans into an acceptable direction. The effort, some would argue, has never been completely successful.

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