What if the Orzhov Syndicate wasn't just a Church of Deals? What if Teysa actually DID "gut the Orzhov guild and reshape it into a new kind of power that Ravnica had never seen," as she wanted to during the events of the Dragon's Maze? What if her plan with Tajic to destroy the Obzedat... worked?
The Obzedat are dead.
No, not dead; they are simply no longer. Spirits of ancient times, the original Orzhov representatives to the original Guildpact. Relics of an outdated era, reduced to skulking in Agyrem while Ravnica evolves beneath them, concerned with only the gold that their intangible hands grope for and fade through and their fading control over the land of the living.
Teysa Karlov has utterly destroyed the Obzedat. Not through force, or by with overpowering might; not through flashy incantations or the shining steel of swords and spears. No, she has manipulated the situation while the runners milled about and squabbled under Jace, the New Guildpact, locking the Orzhov out of their own guild bit by bit, decree by decree, using contract minutiae, her political and legislative acumen and the Ghost Council's own arrogance to unmake them, tearing down the Church of Deals around her, ripping out the entrails of the old system and building a new beast from the bloated remnants of the former guild. Almost overnight, the Church ceased to exist, and the Spirit Syndicate took its place. A relentlessly thorough mafia of beings tied to Teysa only through several layers of magically binding contracts and handlers, the Syndicate descends on Ravnica to ensure its cooperation - for its own good.
Teysa's agents spread throughout the city-plane, evading even the watchful eyes of the Dimir by passing in and out of Agyrem, the Spirit Quarter, via spells and portals known only to the members of the Syndicate. The orders trickle down through an inner cadre of angels bound by various arcane pacts and contracts, written by Teysa herself and imbued with powerful sorceries. Each member of this heavenly (or hellish) host manages a different district of Ravnica, and commands cells of clerics, assassins, and enforcers, calling spirits from Agyrem to do the majority of the grunt work. Their handlers, sensitives and mediums who can sense and speak to these spirits, bind the fallen of Ravnica to their will, drawn by the sense of devotion and loyalty to the angelic host. In the undercity, where the spirits find it difficult to maintain corporeality, Teysa employs necromancers and their abilities to bind the souls of the restless into the flesh of the dearly departed, leaving no incriminating evidence of just who assassinated who, or who destroyed what.
This new Church calls upon the zealous, the devoted, and the spiritual of Ravnica, clandestinely championing causes that result in advantageous situations for the Orzhov while using ethereal agents to topple the schemes of rival guilds and pave the way for total Orzhov control, to keep Ravnica from succumbing to the rot within.
Should the situation necessitate reinforcements, Teysa has secured the curiosity (if nothing else) of the vampire planeswalker Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, who occasionally loans his skills as a vampire and sangromancer in disposing of Teysa's targets and providing her with new vampiric agents - for a price. Elsewhere entirely, she has secured
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
as a military advisor, someone to train her knights (who will inevitably take her altruistic, for-the-greater-good philosophies and twist them into strategies that best expand Orzhov power) and bolster her ranks, as well as dispose of higher-profile targets.
If the situation is dire enough, Teysa herself comes to call, and harnesses her prodigious magical talents to prove her worth even out form behind a desk or chair. She can use the essence of the spirits themselves to completely and utterly erase her targets; whispers abound throughout the echelons of her guild that this is the fate the Ghost Council met when they turned their backs on the Orzhov Scion. Additionally, your service to the Scion does not end, even with your death; she can draw the spirit from the fallen bodies of her minions, taking for herself the knowledge and secrets of the recently deceased and adding a new sould to the ranks of her forces.
And Teysa has no shortage of ways to completely level Ravnica and start it over should she wish, just as she did with her own guild. If the need ever arose, she could wipe the planar slate clean, taking with her all traces of the Neverending City, a tabula rasa with which she could shape an empire of souls.
The only obstacle standing in her way is the Living Guildpact - and currently she has few ways of dealing with his power. So she bides her time, slowly rolling like a quiet mist into all of Ravnica, waiting for the perfect time to consolidate her power.
Threw together a Teysa EDH from cards I already had lying around after I bought Sorin vs. Tibalt, and then this happened. I realized the deck kinda had a theme so I wrote a backstory for it. The whole last paragraph stems from the fact that this deck really has no way to deal with planeswalkers except for Sorin or beating face, haha. So until I can trade for a Hero's Downfall... yeah. The Disciple of Bolas is a stand-in for Rousing of Souls, which I'll put into this list once tappedout updates for Conspiracy.
