D&D 5E Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book

Here is a list of everything we know so far about the upcoming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Art by Paul Scott Canavan​

• May 18th, 256 pages
• 30 domains (with 30 villainous darklords)
• Barovia (Strahd), Dementlieu (twisted fairly tales), Lamordia (flesh golem), Falkovnia (zombies), Kalakeri (Indian folklore, dark rainforests), Valachan (hunting PCs for sport), Lamordia (mad science)
• NPCs include Esmerelda de’Avenir, Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, traveling detective Alanik Ray.
• Large section on setting safe boundaries.
• Dark Gifts are character traits with a cost.
• College of Spirits (bard storytellers who manipulate spirits of folklore) and Undead Patron (warlock) subclasses.
• Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood lineages.
• Cultural consultants used.
• Fresh take on Vistani.
• 40 pages of monsters. Also nautical monsters in Sea of Sorrows.
• 20 page adventure called The House of Lament - haunted house, spirits, seances.

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D&D 5E - Full Wraparound Cover Art For Ravenloft

We've seen the cover already, but here's a look at the full wraparound art by Anna Podedworna. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/heres-the-ravenloft-alternate-cover.678414/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Here's the Ravenloft Alternate Cover!

As usual, there is an alternate hobby-store exclusive cover for the upcoming Ravenloft book. Here's a look at it! And here's the full wraparound art. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - [Updated with cover!] The D&D Book Is.... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

Yesterday's hints that a new D&D book would be announced today have born fruit -- we now have a product description and a title! It's a Ravenloft setting book, with tools and new rules for horror-themed games, and new horror-themed character options. I'll update this post with a product image as...

www.enworld.org

 

[DM Megan]

Since WotC didn't consult any sensitivity reading vampires in the making of this book to ensure cultural accuracy with how vampires live and their sensitivities I'm going to have to pass on this book.

What is the point of these comments? Is it to belittle people who in the past have had negative stereotypes perpetuated about them in D&D material? Is it to denigrate any company that tries to be more inclusive? I just don't get it.

Also please don't reply with "iT's JuSt A jOkE".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wouldn't it be relatively easy to run it as a campaign setting through? I'd be unsurprised if they have specific advice on how to do that, too. It does mean you won't have all the nonsensical "incursions" and "invasions" from one realm to another, but honestly they made me roll my eyes every time I read about them.

Since the player-facing content in this book seems to be about running a campaign in Ravenloft, I think they're definitely going to be supporting that style of play.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When a company puts something into production it's because they think their customers want it.

Buddy.

We're talking about TSR here.

They had absolutely no market research and basically no clue whatsoever what their customers wanted. Do we need to drag out Ryan Dancey and stuff to talk about this? You people cannot both tell me that TSR made mistake after mistake after mistake with publishing settings, and that they "knew their market". It's not both. Pick one - you (the board) already picked "TSR had no idea what they were doing". Therefore unless you're going to claim TSR did, in fact, know what they were doing, I'm going to have to go with "TSR had no idea what they were doing" and "a bunch of their decisions with Ravenloft reflect this".

 

[Parmandur]

The Dark Gifts sound interesting, Horror versions of the Mythic gifts in Theros (basically Feats).

 

[WarlockkingNelzul]

So about this evil gothic train darklord, why does it have to be a darklord... it could just be a dark power that runs the train, thus why it goes through out the whole of ravenloft and there are train stations in every domain, because none of the Dark lords want to fight one of the dark powers.

 

[DM Megan]

Even if it is most, is that really a problem? I mean "original-flavour" Ravenloft's domains are mostly ill-suited to lengthy campaigns in a single domain, with Strahd's one being the obvious exception. So long as a few of the domains could sustain people "hanging out" in them, I think that's enough.

I'm imagining Vistani run caravanserai. They're neutral territory so the darklords could theoretically even meet there (with most of their abilities "turned off"). Some characters might stay there for a year+, but eventually their ability to pay runs out and so they need to leave.

 

[humble minion]

If they re-invented the Vistani as an eldritch and mysterious Mist-spanning railway company, I would be 100% all over that idea.

 

[MGibster]

They had absolutely no market research and basically no clue whatsoever what their customers wanted. Do we need to drag out Ryan Dancey and stuff to talk about this? You people cannot both tell me that TSR made mistake after mistake after mistake with publishing settings, and that they "knew their market".

We're in agreement here. The more I've learned about TSR the more convinced I've become by how lucky they were to stay in business for so long. Still, even at TSR, whoever made the final decision thought that Ravenloft would be something their customers wanted. But then I'm sure whoever made the decision to produce Maztica thought the same thing.

 

[Parmandur]

We're in agreement here. The more I've learned about TSR the more convinced I've become by how lucky they were to stay in business for so long. Still, even at TSR, whoever made the final decision thought that Ravenloft would be something their customers wanted. But then I'm sure whoever made the decision to produce Maztica thought the same thing.

No, they really didn't: the TSR accounting people literally didn't let the creative side know sales figures, so they received no input about what worked or didn't work aside from talking to fans. Which is... dysfunctional.

 

[MGibster]

No, they really didn't: the TSR accounting people literally didn't let the creative side know sales figures, so they received no input about what worked or didn't work aside from talking to fans. Which is... dysfunctional.

While I find it entirely believable that the creative side had no sales figures, I find the idea that they had no idea how popular the I-6 module was to be implausible. They would have seen the mostly positive written reviews and likely received feedback from fans via letters or gaming events. I know we weren't as connected in the 80s as we are today, but people wrote letters and still met face-to-face at times.

And we should note. You can believe something will sell even if you don't have market data to prove it.