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

Coroc · Feb 25, 2021

Alzrius said:
That would be When Black Roses Bloom (affiliate link), which I thought was truly superb.

it is, though it either requires you using it in connection with a DL campaign or having players with profound knowledge about the DL story, to really work out.

QuentinGeorge · Feb 25, 2021

Bedrockgames said:
There is Forlorn where you have Goblyns who tend to kill the human inhabitants. It isn't quite what you are looking for here, but I think there were places in the setting that definitely made humans feel that way. But again, to me this wasn't so much about picking on demihumans as emphasizing that it is a human-based setting, with really provincial inhabitants who mistake an elf for a spirit. It is there to play up the backwards nature of many of the locations more than anything else.

Darkon is the largest domain, both in area and in population, and has the same demographics as your average D&D realm in Greyhawk etc. (Course I'm sure it's been "reimagined" as a place full of demons or something for the new book.) Sithicus was of course, pure elves. The Wildlands is full of talking animals.

But the people being tormented in the Domains of Dread are not is population (at least in the classic setting) but the darklord. Barovia is not there to torment Barovians, its to torment Strahd. Falkovnia was never meant to be horrific for Falkovnians (Drakov made it so on his own volition) but to endlessly torture Vlad Drakov through his toxic ideas of masculinity.

But yeah, tons of zombies. Much more evocative.

QuentinGeorge · Feb 25, 2021

humble minion said:
Urgh, me too, but I'll suspend judgement until i see more. What is important to me is that the setting is an actual functional setting, with its own residents who go about their daily lives etc, rather than a puppet show put on entirely for the benefit of Darklords and PCs.

If there's actually communication between domains, and reasonably routine ways for people to travel from domain to domain, conduct cross-domain trade and diplomacy etc, then I can deal with it. If the setting is reduced to 30-odd one-off adventure settings, all largely ignorant or disinterested in each others' existence, then I'll be cranky.

If you didn't realise this was the direction they were going to take the setting after Curse of Strahd you weren't paying attention!

Barovia in Black Box/Red Box/Domains of Dread/Arthaus = Creepy slavic-ish domain where the locals are superstitious and believe there are monsters in the forest, but never see them. Their ruler is Strahd XXV, who they think is cruel but entirely human.

Barovia in CoS = Funhouse domain stuffed with every horror trope under the sun, half of its citizens don't even have souls, they would get eaten if they ever left their village, and they know they are being ruled by a bloodsucking vampire.

JEB · Feb 25, 2021

QuentinGeorge said:
half of its citizens don't even have souls

While I also had issues with a few of Curse of Strahd's changes, that addition was one I actually liked. Made some sense to me, considering the artificial nature of the plane.

LuisCarlos17f · Feb 25, 2021

Now I am thinking "Barovia" is "the core". That would explain several dark lords in the same domain. Maybe this is right because if the players know they are in a vampire land then they don't worry about defenses against werebeasts or other types of undeads.

Now I see the difference between the "old" and the "later" gothic horror. In the original fiction the fate was tragic, but in the Hammer movies from XX century the stories were more about "the sinner will be punished and the monsters killed by the honorable and brave heroes" with God's help. In the pre-60's movies the darkness was defeated by the forces of the light.

* Don't you miss the monsters from 3.5 "Libris Mortis", and Manifest, the city from 3.5 "Ghostwalk"?

* Usually we can tolerate the trope of sinnister minister and corrupt church, but I am afair we are suffering a serious abuse what makes me to feel sick. I don't want more factions like the Red Paladins from Netflix's Cursed, the (anti-mutant) Church of Humanity , or the Universal Church of the Truth last both from Marvel Comics. It is showed so many times, too repeated.

* I guess something is going to happen in Innistrad and it will have some link with Ravenloft.

* Do you think a intercompany crossover would be possible? For example Castlevania-Ravenloft.

QuentinGeorge · Feb 25, 2021

JEB said:
While I also had issues with a few of Curse of Strahd's changes, that addition was one I actually liked. Made some sense to me, considering the artificial nature of the plane.

The plane is constructed, not artificial. The people need to be real! You completely destroy any impetus for the characters to actually do good by the inhabitants of the plane, instead, you are enabling the worst murderhobo tendency. 5E Ravenloft seems to be a whole line made by people who don't understand the fundamentals of the setting.

QuentinGeorge · Feb 25, 2021

LuisCarlos17f said:
Now I am thinking "Barovia" is "the core". That would explain several dark lords in the same domain. Maybe this is right because if the players know they are in a vampire land then they don't worry about defenses against werebeasts or other types of undeads.

The players shouldn't know that they are in "vampire land" because the domains shouldn't work in that way. Barovia isn't "vampire land". It's a realm that happens to be ruled by a vampire. The only other vampire I can remember is the insane and imprisoned Leo Dilisinya.

LuisCarlos17f said:
Now I see the difference between the "old" and the "later" gothic horror. In the original fiction the fate was tragic, but in the Hammer movies from XX century the stories were more about "the sinner will be punished and the monsters killed by the honorable and brave heroes" with God's help. In the pre-60's movies the darkness was defeated by the forces of the light.

Not sure what you are on about. The themes of Ravenloft are about fighting the forces of darkness, ever more so because the deck is stacked against you

LuisCarlos17f said:
* Don't you miss the monsters from 3.5 "Libris Mortis", and Manifest, the city from 3.5 "Ghostwalk"?

Not particularly.

LuisCarlos17f said:
* Usually we can tolerate the trope of sinnister minister and corrupt church, but I am afair we are suffering a serious abuse what makes me to feel sick. I don't want more factions like the Red Paladins from Netflix's Cursed, the (anti-mutant) Church of Humanity , or the Universal Church of the Truth last both from Marvel Comics. It is showed so many times, too repeated.

There aren't really much "corrupt church" tropes in the Ravenloft setting. Yagno Petrovna and Elena Faith-Hold are completely sincere in their (wrong) beliefs. The Lawgiver is a harsh faith, but there's no evidence the leaders are insincere. Ezra's church are also true-believers, for the most part. What are you referring to?