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.

​

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

 

[Weiley31]

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.

Man, could you imagine if your PC encountered something like that and got asked "Ticket please?"

But your PC doesn't have said ticket.......

 

[Remathilis]

Ravenloft needed an overhaul. I say that as a fan. There are a lot of domains that felt the only interesting elements about them was the darklord and the domain itself was just generic Hammer-horror land or hyper-specific to the lord so that you could do nothing but confront them for conflict. Even when the setting was turned into a more connected world, it rarely felt like a "real" world, traveling across the domains often still felt artificial. For example, Darkon (a realm with demographics and attitudes of a typical D&D world) was buttressed next to a realm that rejected magic exists and another that views magic and non-humans as evil spirits. Like, how are these nations supposed to have trade relations? As another example, you could travel though three domains and the moon would change in number, phase and appearance in each of them. Not to mention the giant gaping country-sized hole in the center of the continent.

I'd say I'm disappointed in the breakup of the core, but in further reflection I'm happier that (if my hunch is correct and the plane of shadow will be used to get from domain to domain) it opens up a lot more of options for traveling. You can't always get to Mordent from Dementieu. A Vistani caravan can get you to Souragne. The Sea of Sorrows is still mentioned to be a thing, in sure you can use boats for travel. And I fully assume there will be domain shared elements (for example, the Church of Ezra makes a great shared resource across domains without calling on interloper or historical deities like Bane and Osiris). The Keepers of the Feather are already discussed as one such group.

Personally, I'm kinda excited to see where they go with this. The last revision to Ravenloft was in the 90s (with Arthaus mostly piggybacking on it) and a lot has changed in terms of fantasy, horror, and RPGs. If there is something I don't like; I have Domains of Dread on my bookshelf to add or fix it. I feel they will keep the spirit of the setting and aren't going to mess up the good parts, but there is a lot of cruft that could be redone better.

 

[Alzrius]

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?

The closest I can recall for this was The Eternal Order, the death religion that Azalin constructed whole-cloth as an experiment in social control. But it wasn't ever given much attention, mostly being spotlighted as a tool during the events leading up to the Requiem (i.e. Death Unchained, Death Ascendant, and Requiem: The Grim Harvest).

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ravenloft needed an overhaul. I say that as a fan. There are a lot of domains that felt the only interesting elements about them was the darklord and the domain itself was just generic Hammer-horror land or hyper-specific to the lord so that you could do nothing but confront them for conflict. Even when the setting was turned into a more connected world, it rarely felt like a "real" world, traveling across the domains often still felt artificial. For example, Darkon (a realm with demographics and attitudes of a typical D&D world) was buttressed next to a realm that rejected magic exists and another that views magic and non-humans as evil spirits. Like, how are these nations supposed to have trade relations? As another example, you could travel though three domains and the moon would change in number, phase and appearance in each of them. Not to mention the giant gaping country-sized hole in the center of the continent.

I'd say I'm disappointed in the breakup of the core, but in further reflection I'm happier that (if my hunch is correct and the plane of shadow will be used to get from domain to domain) it opens up a lot more of options for traveling. You can't always get to Mordent from Dementieu. A Vistani caravan can get you to Souragne. The Sea of Sorrows is still mentioned to be a thing, in sure you can use boats for travel. And I fully assume there will be domain shared elements (for example, the Church of Ezra makes a great shared resource across domains without calling on interloper or historical deities like Bane and Osiris). The Keepers of the Feather are already discussed as one such group.

Personally, I'm kinda excited to see where they go with this. The last revision to Ravenloft was in the 90s (with Arthaus mostly piggybacking on it) and a lot has changed in terms of fantasy, horror, and RPGs. If there is something I don't like; I have Domains of Dread on my bookshelf to add or fix it. I feel they will keep the spirit of the setting and aren't going to mess up the good parts, but there is a lot of cruft that could be redone better.

I think this is all quite subjective. I hear these complaints plenty, so you are not alone. But I have to say, aside from the moon issue (which I did think was a problem that needed fixing it a better explanation), I always loved that:

1) the world felt stitched together and each domain had wildly different realities that reflected their dark lord

2) that it wasn’t intended to be a super realistic setting when it comes to geopolitics (it very much felt like classic horror movies brought to life, with not much worry about stuff like trade relations)

3) the more later attempts to fix the previous two, just made the setting less exciting, dreamy and surreal to me

4) Ravenloft domains were usually pretty rough sketches as presented in the boxed sets. This was either a feature or bug depending on your view. I liked it because it was fairly light (didn’t require the lore burrowing of forgotten realms) but left plenty of space for the GM to invent. You see this clearly if you read the boxed set entries for Forlorn and Karrakass but then look at Castles Forlirn and Feast of Goblyns: I used those as blueprints for fleshing out domains that were an idea with one or two key settlements listed. That is one of the things that made them fun: asking yourself what this domain looks like at the ground level

obviously all that didn’t work for everyone. But I loved it as written and had multiple lengthy campaigns using it that way. There is a bride of Frankenstein charm to Ravenloft IMO that is fun, horrifying, melodramatic and campy (and kind of weird). It is that strangeness that made it stand out to

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, but Maztica was written by adult, in 1990/1991, not a child in the 1960s, an adult who did an absolute ton of research because the books contain a lot of stuff very specifically derived from both South American/Mesoamerican mythology, and from the history of the European invasion of the area.

There's no way he didn't know that conquistadors were basically extremely bad news. Indeed, there are references to that sort of thing in Maztica, and to casting a faith (I forget which? Torm?) as the Catholic church in a bizarre way, but at the same time, the bulk of the setting glorifies the conquistador-types, and basically as them to as there to help the poor natives.

It's messed-up in the extreme.

EDIT - Also btw exactly how OLD do you think I am? 60? Learned in the 1970s? I was barely born in the 1970s! I learned about the that stuff in 1990-ish, when I was 11/12. Point is though, this was stuff in textbooks for kids. It wasn't risky or novel or shocking. The text books were from earlier in the 1980s (they had them on the Vikings too, I remember that, because it influenced some of the D&D I was running!), with lovely colourful art. It didn't dwell on the conquistadors being horrible monsters, but it did acknowledge it.

So I feel like an adult doing research on the same era, in the same time period, had to know all this and more - but they clearly thought it wasn't important and it was fine to re-write things so invaders were heroic saviours and so on.

It's bizarre though because for all Oriental Adventures' sins, it's much less bad the Maztica, because it takes the approach of "these people are just as good as Westerners, but do things their own way". Had Maztica been written by Zeb Cook as OA was, I strongly suspect the Mazticans would have been a bunch of badasses like the OA crew, and would have been sailing to the Sword Coast etc., not vice-versa, with no need for a conquistador narrative at all (of course it might have ended up getting called "Americas Adventures" and yet focusing solely on Incan myth or something lol).

Wow, yeah, sorry about the time thing, I thought I saw you mention the date '78: I'm going to defer to the late hour when I was posting, sorry.

But that makes my point more strongly: and adult from rural Wisconsin in the late 80's, early 90's is going to have a very different perspective on those events and people. The moral nature of the Conquistadors is, frankly, contentious and open to some nuance outside the narratives of the Black Legend as well: band of insane pirates that they were, they were complex human moral agents in a strange situation. I don't think Maztica's heroic portrayal does that complexity any justice, mind, because it's insane.

 

[Voadam]

That is the one. Lisa Smedman's stuff was usually very good in my opinion.

I am really not a fan of her work on Death Unchained and the rest of the Grim Harvest stuff. I did not like her take there on Ravenloft, Falkovnia, and transforming Darkon. Huge magical item availability was a strong tonal shift from the principles of the original black box.

For example Falkovnia's massive army: "They are recruited through an unusual method; upon conscription into the army, each is forced to drink a foul brew, the recipe for which is known only to Vlad Drakov (it is rumored to contain the gritty powder of a ground-up talisman of ultimate evil and swamp water from the lair of a will o' wisp). The unwilling imbiber must make a successful saving throw vs. spell or be driven mad. This insanity manifests itself as a switch to an evil alignment and an intense pleasure that is gained by witnessing a slow and painful death. The drink also provides a limited magical resistance."

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am really not a fan of her work on Death Unchained and the rest of the Grim Harvest stuff. I did not like her take there on Ravenloft, Falkovnia, and transforming Darkon. Huge magical item availability was a strong tonal shift from the principles of the original black box.

It has been a while since I read Grim Harvest. Grim Harvest was part of a phase where the quality was dipping overall in my view. But I liked Castles Forlorn, Adam's Wrath, When the Black Rose Blooms, the Awakening, etc. There was a tonal shift in the line overall (not sure who is responsible for that). Which I wasnt' a huge fan of. But Ravenloft fans from that period are kind of divided between Black Box fans and Domains of Dread Fans (I was always more of a black box person myself so I share your lack of enthusiasm for increasing fantasy elements and the massive change to Darkon: heck I am not even that big a fan of the Grand conjunction). It did seem like there was always a tug of war between making Ravenloft more rooted in gothic material and leaning more on the fantasy side of things.

Also, to be fair, I would really need to re-read things like Grim Harvest and Death unchained to evaluate it again. At the time I was a little put off by it, but have to admit the new layout and art was a big part of that reaction if I recall. And I don't know if my opinion of it would be higher were I to re-read (I remember having a higher opinion of The Created for example, but being less enthusiastic about it when I ran it again in 2008).

 

[Remathilis]

It has been a while since I read Grim Harvest. Grim Harvest was part of a phase where the quality was dipping overall in my view. But I liked Castles Forlorn, Adam's Wrath, When the Black Rose Blooms, the Awakening, etc. There was a tonal shift in the line overall (not sure who is responsible for that). Which I wasnt' a huge fan of. But Ravenloft fans from that period are kind of divided between Black Box fans and Domains of Dread Fans (I was always more of a black box person myself so I share your lack of enthusiasm for increasing fantasy elements and the massive change to Darkon: heck I am not even that big a fan of the Grand conjunction). It did seem like there was always a tug of war between making Ravenloft more rooted in gothic material and leaning more on the fantasy side of things.

Also, to be fair, I would really need to re-read things like Grim Harvest and Death unchained to evaluate it again. At the time I was a little put off by it, but have to admit the new layout and art was a big part of that reaction if I recall. And I don't know if my opinion of it would be higher were I to re-read (I remember having a higher opinion of The Created for example, but being less enthusiastic about it when I ran it again in 2008).

To me, that was the tonal shift from "weekend in hell" vs. "Campaign setting". Escaping Ravenloft vs. Making it a better place. Outsiders who are feared vs natives born and raised there. Isolated realms vs connected continent. It never felt like the transition from Escape the Sealed Evil in a Can model to Heroes Fighting the Hopeless War clicked. Which of why breaking up the Core doesn't bother me; it barely worked as a unified landmass and created more problems than it solved.

For what it's worth, my Ravenloft idea prior to this was Darkon set between the Requiem and Azalin's return with no Dark Lord in control and dozens of factions fighting for control, so that might tell you a little on how I viewed Ravenloft.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Some thoughts on "the break up of the core"

When the original Ravenloft module was published it was designed to drop into an ongoing campaign. It was, therefore, part of "the real world" of the setting.

However, the second module, The House on Griffin Hill, connected to the first not by geography, but by dream. The suggestion was each time the party slept they would transfer between Mordentshire and Barovia.

This was based on a strong tradition in gothic horror (gothic romance too) of blurring the line between dreams and reality.

When the campaign setting was released it complicated matters. Now it was explicitly not the real world of the campaign setting, PCs where transported from their "real" fantasy world through the mists - a sort of dream within a dream. However, running counter to that was the fixed geography of the core. With real world issues such as international trade, diplomacy, economics and politics entering the setting - not such things as dreams are made of! And, along with economy, the need for people to be able to live productive lives in the world without being ripped to shreds by monsters as soon as they stepped outside their doors.

With the break up of fixed geography in 5e, combined with the placement of Ravenloft in the Shadowfell (reiterated in Tasha's) it makes the setting more dreamlike. Non-static geography - I walk down my childhood street in Liverpool and enter a familiar London pub - is a feature of dreams, as is a constantly changing reality. The peasant we saw eaten yesterday is back at work today. And the soulless folk introduced in CoS start to make sense - they are shadow-people, native to the Shadowfell. This also explains the horror trope of the villagers refusing to accept there is anything unusual going on, despite all evidence to the contrary!

So, this making Ravenloft more dreamlike also makes it more gothic. At the same time as introducing non-gothic horror! But one thing you can do with these individual mini-worlds is drop them into your "real" world campaign setting, losing any dreamlike element, and making the horror entirely real. Which takes us back to the original I6 Ravenloft Module.

Has the top stopped spinning?

 

[Gradine]

The Core always felt like a bad idea to me. It shouldn't be that easy to just waltz one from domain to another. Islands adrift in a sea of Mist. Even if you can travel through the Mists... you may just wind up in another domain. The idea that they're separate pockets in the Shadowfell doesn't make much sense, though. The Domains of Dread should be its own region of the Shadowfell (if we must have it there at all), but the Domains themselves shouldn't have a border you can just traipse across.