4e Ravenloft - Dragon 368

[Nahat Anoj]

Someone's tiefling warlock and someone's dragonborn paladin and someone's eladrin ninjarogue will be able to tackle the castle and kill Strahd.

They never did this before?

Tieflings and warlocks have a great Ravenloft vibe IMO. Savage dragonborn warriors with Slavic or Romanian overtones could be neat as well. And nothing beats cruel-hearted, unseelie eladrin lords.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Tieflings and warlocks have a great Ravenloft vibe IMO. Savage dragonborn warriors with Slavic or Romanian overtones could be neat as well. And nothing beats cruel-hearted, unseelie eladrin lords.

Well, the Ravenloft that I most accurately remember (and it could be horribly distorted) was xenophobic to the point of hysteria, much like the stereotypical "Wallachias" of the Dracula-style movies. Insular, frightened, and over-protective, these villages shut their doors and their minds to all that is outside because everything outside -- from the wind to the sun to the ever-present mist -- is alien, evil, and possessed of a black soul of corruption.

A man walkin' around with devil horns or a dragon's maw or who can step in and out of space is going to be mobbed and killed by the first yokel strike team the village can assemble in a setting like that.

Now, it's possible that this isn't entirely accurate to the rest of the way the world has seen it, and instead has mostly been from my own DM's particular style. But those things you mention, in the Ravenloft I'm aware of, would all be monsters. Not PC's. It would be like making PC's who are "half-vampire" or somesuch -- an affront to the roots of gothic horror that treats the Other as something always to be terrified of.

Now maybe those would all work in a horror setting where PC's got to play as monsters (I'm looking forward to a werewolf PC!), but Ravenloft wasn't really that setting, AFAIR. But, again, that could've just been my DM's take on it.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

The fact that the quote in the OP refers to the "Domains of Dread" and not just the Castle Ravenloft gives me hope that the demiplane will be existing in a more traditional way that some of you fear. I don't see how anyone could find it beneficial to just drop Barovia into the Prime of the PoL when adding in the entire plane would be pretty easy.

I don't expect we will get all of the domains in this initial release, but I would be surprised if any of the major ones were left out (Darkon, Tepest, Barovia, Sithicus, and Mordent to name a few). Most likely we will get a sweeping over view to be expanded at a later date.. I least I hope that is the case.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Again, I'm pretty sure they aren't going to put every single country from the Ravenloft Campaign Setting into the 4e default world. I'm certain that all they will do is make Castle Ravenloft a locale in the 4e world. This is similar to what they did with Sigil - they didn't bring in every aspect of Planescape into the 4e cosmology, just that one (really cool) piece.

In my original campaign, we had the Grand Conjunction occur and merged Ravenloft with the "real world". Rather than a demi-plane, the Mists imprisoned great evils in small domains/ sinkholes of evil. It worked fine for us.

 

[Shroomy]

I'd surmise that the Ravenloft content will be a series of articles: a 10-12 page overview/gazateer with some crunch (maybe backgrounds), another article with character options (feats, paragon paths), a bestiary article, and then maybe something describing some Ravenloft specific rules. However, all of this content will be applicable to non-Ravenloft campaigns.

 

[Serendipity]

Emo, as a descriptor for a music genre, is so vague as to be effectively worthless, since you have bands that range in style from Fugazi to Sunny Day Real Estate.

Fugazi is considered emo? Wow, I've been living in a cave for several years.
Sorry for the thread hijack.

 

[Shroomy]

Fugazi is considered emo? Wow, I've been living in a cave for several years.
Sorry for the thread hijack.

Fugazi is part of the emotional hardcore movement (aka emo), which was a subgenre of hardcore punk that arose in Washington DC. However, when people use "emo" to disparage something nowadays, they are not talking about that type of music.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

"Emo" has changed a lot. The current look of emo is pretty far detatched from what it used to be. You can thank the formulaic drivel of Dashboard for that.

 

[Serendipity]

Fugazi is part of the emotional hardcore movement (aka emo), which was a subgenre of hardcore punk that arose in Washington DC. However, when people use "emo" to disparage something nowadays, they are not talking about that type of music.

Okay, thanks. I've been with Fugazi since 13 Songs; never heard the term emo til about four years ago. In context (as I've encountered it) I have to remind myself that it refers (originally) to a style of music even though I've never run across anyone actually using it as a descriptor.

 

[Dykstrav]

I thought it was because Weis & Hickman threw a hissy fit because Soth "their character", and then killed him so that nobody could use him anymore.

That was how this long time dragonlance fan heard the situation went down, but I could be clouded by bitterness.

I never saw an official statement about it, hence why I prefaced it as "rumor." But it wouldn't be the first time that creative people didn't agree on the future of an intellectual property.