The Simic Combine lore and key people

The Simic Combine is Ravnica's guild of life-shapers and bio-engineers. They are the city’s healers and ecologists, tasked with ensuring that life can survive and flourish in an urban environment. Their guild is a grand, bizarre experiment in adaptation, where the line between living organism and engineered chimera is blurred to the point of nonexistence. The Simic are driven by a profound and sometimes dangerous ambition: to perfect life itself.

### From Healers to Mad Scientists

The original purpose of the Simic Combine was noble and vital. When the Guildpact was signed, the Simic were tasked with preserving the few remaining natural spaces on Ravnica and, more importantly, with developing new life forms that could adapt to the ever-expanding city. They were the city's doctors and biologists, and they were respected for their knowledge and their commitment to preserving what little nature remained.

However, as the millennia passed and the city grew to cover the entire plane, the Simic lost their original purpose. With no wilderness left to protect, they turned their attention to a new and more radical goal: creating a new "wilderness" on a genetic level. This led to a period of scientific chaos, with the Simic conducting increasingly unethical and grotesque experiments. They began creating "krasis"—bizarre chimeras of different lifeforms, combining disparate creatures into single, monstrous beings.

### The Zonots and the Clades

The Simic’s guildhalls are not buildings but "zonots"—vast, hollowed-out sinkholes that descend deep into the ground, often filling with water and creating a subterranean ecosystem. These watery shafts are where the Simic conduct their most secretive and dangerous experiments, far from the prying eyes of the other guilds.

The Combine is organized into distinct **clades**, each with its own specific research focus. The lore in the **Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica** details these clades, giving each a distinct identity:

* **Fin Clade:** Composed of marine biologists and engineers, the Fin Clade is responsible for the Simic's underwater research. They create and study aquatic life forms, from giant kraken to bioluminescent fish.

* **Gyre Clade:** Focused on weather and atmospheric manipulation, the Gyre Clade experiments with creatures that can control wind, lightning, and temperature.

* **Hull Clade:** This clade is the builders and engineers of the Simic, responsible for constructing the massive creatures that serve as their living guildhalls and biological strongholds.

* **Moss Clade:** The botanists and gardeners of the Simic. They create and cultivate the strange, mutated plants that grow in the Undercity and in the Zonots.

* **Tide Clade:** A group of bio-engineers who specialize in genetic manipulation and the creation of Simic Hybrids—humanoids with animalistic traits.

* **Vernadi Clade:** The healers of the Simic, this clade focuses on medicine and anatomy, but their methods are often unconventional and involve the use of living creatures as surgical tools.

### Key People of the Simic Combine

The Simic have been led by a number of powerful and often ruthless figures who have guided the guild's strange evolution.

* **Momir Vig:** An elven biomancer who was the guildmaster during the original Ravnica block. Momir Vig was a ruthless and brilliant scientist who was obsessed with creating the perfect life form. He was a key figure in the "Project Chimera," which created some of the most grotesque and powerful creatures in the guild's history. Momir Vig was a cold and calculating individual who viewed living beings as little more than raw materials for his experiments. He was killed by the Planeswalker Agrus Kos, a tragic end for a man who believed himself to be a god of creation.

* **Zameck:** A more moderate leader who took control of the Simic after Momir Vig’s death. Zameck believed in a more cooperative and less destructive approach to the guild's work. He tried to steer the Simic away from grotesque experimentation and back toward its original purpose of healing and adaptation. However, his more moderate approach was seen as a sign of weakness, and he was quickly challenged by his rivals.

* **Vannifar:** An ambitious and powerful biomancer who was a staunch rival of Zameck's. Vannifar believed that the only way for the Simic to survive was to embrace its more radical side. She was a key figure in the **Implicit Maze** and the **War of the Spark**, and her research into creating new life forms was a crucial part of the guilds' defense against the Phyrexian invasion.

* **Krasis:** While not a single person, the "krasis" are a key part of the Simic's lore. They are living, breathing legendary artifacts created by the Simic's biomancers. They are powerful and often bizarre creatures that embody the Simic's philosophy of adaptation. Some are living vehicles, others are sentient weapons, and some are just grotesque, monstrous abominations.

* **The Simic Hybrids:** The Simic's ultimate expression of their philosophy is the "Simic Hybrid"—a humanoid who has been surgically and magically enhanced with the DNA of a different creature. They can be found with gills, claws, horns, and other animalistic traits, and they serve as the backbone of the Simic's military and labor force. They are the living embodiment of the Simic's ambition to create a new, better form of life that can thrive in a world that has forgotten the wilderness.