Ghirapur Grand Prix

Ghirapur Grand Prix
Event Information
Era	Omenpath Era
Location	Avishkar Amonkhet Muraganda
Characters	Chandra Nalaar

The Ghirapur Grand Prix is a death-defying interplanar circuit race and the Multiverse's premier combat / sporting event. The second annual Grand Prix, across Avishkar, Amonkhet and Muraganda, is the focus of Aetherdrift. The race starts in Ghirapur, from where it is also broadcast.

Description

History

The Grand Prix started as the Ghirapur Sprint, an illicit street race adjacent to the Inventors' Fair. It was held annually by the New Culture Collective, a countercultural movement from Ghirapur. When the NCC became a major political party after Avishkar's Indigo Revolution, the race was proposed as a way to showcase Avishkar's culture and spread its influence to the citizens of the many planes it had become connected to by Omenpaths. The Grand Prix is championed by the new night minister of Ghirapur, Gonti.

The first annual Grand Prix was also the first multiplanar race. It was very chaotic, crossing two dozen planes through both stable and unstable omenpaths and with a mass of teams participating. It was won by the Cloudspire Racing Team, a team hailing from Kylem. The event was considered a success and another was planned for the next year.

Circuits

The entire event is called the Ghirapur Grand Prix. It is important to know, however, that the event is a festival of multiple races, a colossal undertaking that employs thousands of staff members, engineers, and marshals in an interplanar endeavor unrivaled in the Multiverse. The omencasted event that the fans across Avishkar gather to watch is called the Grand Prix. Multiple lower-division races follow the ceremonial departure of the Grand Prix, ranging from single-day sprints up to full-distance races. The events are as follows, ranked in order of prestige from most to least:

1. The Grand Prix proper
2. GP Aspire, a qualifier for the following year's Grand Prix
3. Top Division
4. Class 1
5. Class 2
6. Class 3
7. Exhibition races

Scope of the second Grand Prix

The second Grand Prix had a significantly increased scope, best exemplified by its controlled course, which now took a limited group of racing teams across Amonkhet and Muraganda before returning them to the finish line on Avishkar. The Aetherspark was offered as the race's grand prize. It is an artifact that contains a planeswalker's spark.

The Avishkar Assembly aims to build on the successes of the inaugural GGP by extending the festivities out of Ghirapur and Avishkar, inviting teams and delegations from across the Multiverse to participate. They hope that the GGP will become an annual Multiversal festival and showcase, displaying the wonders of post-invasion, post-Indigo Revolution Avishkar. The modern Grand Prix is no longer a rebellious, unsanctioned series of alley-barging races. It is a critically important demonstration of the new government's capability to manage interplanar logistics, administration, coordination, cultural wealth, and economic capacity. To that end, the governing body of the Ghirapur Grand Prix operates not just on Avishkar but across the Multiverse, sending delegates to linked planes to sanction and classify local versions of GGP-style stage races. These races, along with sanctioned events held across Avishkar, feed participants into the Ghirapur Grand Prix.

The Ghirapur Grand Prix itself takes place once a year by Avishkar's calendars over a week, beginning at nightfall in the heart of Ghirapur as a nod to the Ghirapur Sprint's night-time beginnings. Preparation takes months and requires a colossal administrative effort, combining the work of multiple teams (diplomatic, development, broadcast, security, and so on) across multiple planes to create a seamless festival atmosphere for its viewers and a coherent course for its participants.

The first stage of the Grand Prix races out of the heart of Ghirapur and into its rural edges. The second Grand Prix takes racers through a stable Omenpath to Amonkhet, where they will race along the lush banks of the revived Luxa. An Omenpath at the end of that stage will send racers into the wilds of Muraganda, where they will explore the canopies of this primordial plane from the safety of an elevated track. From there, they will return to Amonkhet — this time to sprint across the boiling desert — and then back to the final stage in the heart of Ghirapur.

Checkpoints established by the race record what teams cross through them, ensuring that cheating is, on paper, impossible. The victor is determined in the simplest, most straightforward way possible: the first team to cross the finish line wins.

Contestants

Ten teams are participating in the race:

• The Aether Rangers, a diverse team of innovators from Avishkar
  • Captains: Spitfire and Pia Nalaar
• The Champions of Amonkhet, a division of charioteers from the resurgent desert plane
  • Captains: Zahur and Basri Ket
• The Cloudspire Racing Team, a team of professionals from Kylem and the reigning champions of the race
  • Captains: Kolodin and Chandra Nalaar
• The Guidelight Voyagers, a hivemind of automatons searching for a way to escape Avishkar
  • Captain: Mendicant Core
• The Speed Demons, possessed racers under the thrall of the Speed Demon
  • Captains: Speed Demon and Winter
• The Goblin Rocketeers, a team of goblins that worship a god of speed
  • Captains: Redshift and Daretti
• The Alacrian Quickbeasts, masters of powerful racing beasts from Alacria
  • Captain: Caradora
• The Speedbrood, a team of insectile racers that can metamorphose into vehicles
  • Captain: Aatchik
• The Keelhaulers, a team of ruthless chordatans
  • Captains: Howler and Kari Zev
• The Endriders, a team of mercenaries from the apocalyptic world of Gastal
  • Captain: Far Fortune