D&D 5E New D&D Hardcover To Be Announced On The 23rd (Tomorrow)?

According to this page on Amazon.com, a new Dungeon & Dragons hardcover title for May will be announced tomorrow. Users in the US see the product below (those in the UK are seeing a Wizkids miniatures set instead).

So far signs look like Ravenloft, but we’ll know for sure tomorrow.

[Update -- also mentioned by Todd Kendrick, recently of D&D Beyond].

WotC has posted the below animation, which says “The Mist Beckons”.

 

[JEB]

I wager this Ravenloft is going to dispense with a lot of the old metaplot. I mean, it's written by Van Richten, who canonically is gone following the events of Bleak House. I wager they won't be any reference to the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, the Requiem, or even the Grand Conjunction going forward.

It had been established that the Mists can do funny things with time, though, so it would be easy for Curse of Strahd to have been set in Ravenloft's past, before Van Richten was gone (or any other events in 2E/3E Ravenloft). That's certainly what I would assume in my campaign, too.

But you're probably correct that this will be something of a reboot. All the easier to fix issues that way, too.

 

[Faolyn]

It's not quite the same as previous setting books, as those didn't have an equivalent section comparable to this one's "run your own gothic horror games" section.

It'd be interesting to see if they do a Dark Sun book with a "run your own post-apocalypse game" section or a Spelljammer game with a "run your own weird science fantasy game" section. Not that SJ is true science fantasy, but you know what I mean.

 

[Faolyn]

It had been established that the Mists can do funny things with time, though, so it would be easy for Curse of Strahd to have been set in Ravenloft's past, before Van Richten was gone (or any other events in 2E/3E Ravenloft). That's certainly what I would assume in my campaign, too.

But you're probably correct that this will be something of a reboot. All the easier to fix issues that way, too.

Plus, he's a writer, so this could be just one of his old manuscripts, published posthumously by Esmerelda or by (ugh) the Foxgrove-Weathermay twins.

Assuming it's not a reboot or a complete rewrite, of course.

 

[Parmandur]

It's not quite the same as previous setting books, as those didn't have an equivalent section comparable to this one's "run your own gothic horror games" section.

Au contraire, all of Ravnica, Eberron and Theros had extensive similar advice for Urban Fantasy, Pulp Fantasy, and Mythical Heroic campaigns. Possibly more than Ravenloft will have for Gothic Horror, frankly.

 

[Faolyn]

Meat puppets?

Nah, just evil puppets. The closest they had to meat puppets would have been the head hunters--humanoid heads with spiderlegs, razorwire webbing, and the ability to crawl into and animate beheaded corpses.

 

[Rikka66]

It'd be interesting to see if they do a Dark Sun book with a "run your own post-apocalypse game" section or a Spelljammer game with a "run your own weird science fantasy game" section. Not that SJ is true science fantasy, but you know what I mean.

Dark Sun will have something about running desert or more hardcore survival adventures, I reckon. Spelljammer tips about space travel or something. But neither setting is as broad with their genres (which is really sword and sandals for Dark Sun, though I get where you're coming from with the post-apocalypse thing) as all the Domains of Dread are with gothic horror.

 

[Faolyn]

I don’t really understand the Ravenloft hate. Gothic Horror is the gift that keeps on giving. It has a massive backlog of tropes, references, movies, literature, and music. In short it’s exactly what D&D likes best... a massive body of collective conscious it can mine for familiar roleplaying game experiences.

There are people who think--and not without good reasons--that it's hard or impossible to run good horror in D&D, because D&D characters are so powerful. I haven't had a hard time personally, but I seem to have a knack for horror.

It might also be because 3x Ravenloft didn't really introduce much new--it just expanded upon what already existed. I know that as much as I love Ravenloft, and as much as I love the way S&S made the place come alive, I also don't need Yet Another description of each of the domains, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was a major issue with others. I'm glad that this version is including PC stuff, monsters, and new rules all in one book, because it means it won't just be the domains.

 

[JEB]

There's an official page on the D&D site now: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft | Dungeons & Dragons

Note it differs slightly from the Amazon listing.

 

[Faolyn]

From the D&D site's description (thanks for the link, @JEB): Includes rules and advice for building custom domains and Darklords using established horror tropes or your own special blend.

Now that they took Ravenloft out of the Ethereal and plunked it down in the Shadowfell, I wonder if they're doing away with the whole Core/Clusters/Islands thing altogether--if they're just turning each domain into a site within the Shadowfell. An "Oasis of Horror," if you will.

 

[Mind of tempest]

From the D&D site's description (thanks for the link, @JEB): Includes rules and advice for building custom domains and Darklords using established horror tropes or your own special blend.

Now that they took Ravenloft out of the Ethereal and plunked it down in the Shadowfell, I wonder if they're doing away with the whole Core/Clusters/Islands thing altogether--if they're just turning each domain into a site within the Shadowfell. An "Oasis of Horror," if you will.

did they not retcon that back after 4e?