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

 

[Bedrockgames]

Any word on Borca? That was always one of my favorites (although admittedly, it's been a long time since I read anything on it -- probably the 3E Ravenloft core book).

Borca and Dorvinia were my two favorites (and I even liked when they got merged).

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Yeah I'm glad they're ditching the Core. For me, the Domains are largely supposed to be "Demiplanes" in the Shadowfel that defy logic. For there to be a fixed continent/landmass where the same Domains always border with that conflicts with that idea.

Plus, the "islands in the mists" gives a lot more flexibility to DMs, so that they can move their players to whatever Domains they like. It even lets people keep the same setup as the Core if they prefer that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah I'm glad they're ditching the Core. For me, the Domains are largely supposed to be "Demiplanes" in the Shadowfel that defy logic. For there to be a fixed continent/landmass where the same Domains always border with that conflicts with that idea.

Plus, the "islands in the mists" gives a lot more flexibility to DMs, so that they can move their players to whatever Domains they like. It even lets people keep the same setup as the Core if they prefer that.

Just to restate this: the original Ravenloft black box had both. There were lots of isolated islands in the mists (some of the best domains were islands). But why limit the tool box? The benefit of a core and islands is it gives the GMs more options. You can run campaigns set in a core, or you can run campaigns hopping from island to island. Also doesn't pinning it to the Shadowfell make it part of forgotten realms? (not 100% clear on what the shadow fell is).

personally I have to say the new Ravenloft material just hasn't really interested me much

 

[tetrasodium]

Just one observation: one issue with not having a core, or with having players transport to random domains or domains of the GMs choice, is it is very heavy handed entrapment for players to go through. One trap I think Gms can fall into with ravenloft, is making it torturous for players, rather than intriguing. The core gives players the ability to have some say in where they are going, what they get to explore. It also gives the setting a bit of a spark of life in my opinion. Entrapment is definitely a part of Ravenloft, but I think the setting actually works best when the players buy into that entrapment. This is why I never sprang Ravenloft on players in an existing campaign set elsewhere, I always just said: this campaign is set in Ravenloft, and you are characters drawn from another realm (and we'd hash out what that backstory was). That allowed us to keep them as outsiders, allowed for escape to be a possible campaign goal, but they still had freedom to explore ravenloft and have a sense of some agency (whereas the times I kept them trapped in a domain so the plot would happen, only seemed to be frustrating for them).

The concept of weakened borders between two planes is better developed through eberron's manifest zones than it was decades ago. Walk through the border into another plane & use some planar navigation tools to find the plane you want. The inbetween plane you cross through might not be a setting or plane you want, but best be quick in sharn or whatever if you don't want the mists to grab you to where they want you

 

[Bedrockgames]

Plus, the "islands in the mists" gives a lot more flexibility to DMs, so that they can move their players to whatever Domains they like. It even lets people keep the same setup as the Core if they prefer that.

One thing to keep in mind about this, and it is one of the reasons I was always cautious about using them in classic Ravenloft, is this does give the GM more flexibility and control, but it also takes it away from players (in a setting that already takes a lot of things away from them). I think it does depend on the kind of campaign you intend to run. But I found the core was a much more stable foundation for a long term campaign, and islands were better for shorter campaigns or campaigns that were monster of the week in the manner of say Doctor Who going from one place to the next in semi-random fashion.

 

[Charlaquin]

I am more and more wanting to form a campaign setting wherein the Feywild and Shadowfell (and thus the domains) are places in the world, not separate planes.

In my setting, the Underworld (combines elements of the Underdark and the Shadowfell)... is another plane, technically, but you can just walk there. The deeper you go, the more otherworldly it becomes, and if you delve too greedily and too deep, you could end up digging a hole all the way to the Abyss. The Faewild is definitely another plane, but crossings to it are more commonplace the further you get from civilization, so it’s not uncommon to end up there by accident while traveling through the wilds. It acts as sort of a border plane between the material world and the elemental planes, and space there works more by the laws of sympathy than physics - the more attuned you are to fire, the closer you are to the plane of fire. Sages who study such things speculate that the underworld is actually just another part of the Faewild, which by nature of being underground makes it closer to the plane of earth and to the land of the dead. This also explains why barrows are often fae crossings.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The concept of weakened borders between two planes is better developed through eberron's manifest zones than it was decades ago. Walk through the border into another plane & use some planar navigation tools to find the plane you want. The inbetween plane you cross through might not be a setting or plane you want, but best be quick in sharn or whatever if you don't want the mists to grab you to where they want you

And to be fair, one of the functions of the Vistani in Ravenloft was their connection to the mists. They knew how to navigate it. I often made travel between islands possible through visitant (through caravans or a solo boat captain).

 

[Aldarc]

Also doesn't pinning it to the Shadowfell make it part of forgotten realms? (not 100% clear on what the shadow fell is).

The Shadowfell was a parallel plane of shadow, death, and negative energy to the Prime (like the Feywild) - essentially the Prime's dark reflection - introduced in 4e that proved popular enough (again, along with the Feywild) to bring over and incorporate into the Great Wheel cosmology.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The shattering of the core is fine by me. It's not like the Mists weren't capricious and wouldn't deposit you somewhere randomly back in the day, or stop you from leaving or entering a domain, if the DM wanted it.

That being said, I do wonder what they envision a campaign in Ravenloft to be like? Do they expect each campaign to be confined to a single domain, or consist of travel between them? One problem I can see with the latter is that PCs aren't as able to pick where they want to travel to (inasmuch as one ever could in Ravenloft). They can't hear rumors of a nearby domain and decide to investigate (Mists and Darklords permitting). Instead, they would be dependent on what the DM puts in front of them, with no sense of fixed geography. I would think that there needs to be some sense of agency, even in a horror campaign.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Just to restate this: the original Ravenloft black box had both. There were lots of isolated islands in the mists (some of the best domains were islands). But why limit the tool box? The benefit of a core and islands is it gives the GMs more options. You can run campaigns set in a core, or you can run campaigns hopping from island to island. Also doesn't pinning it to the Shadowfell make it part of forgotten realms? (not 100% clear on what the shadow fell is).

personally I have to say the new Ravenloft material just hasn't really interested me much

Well, I disagree with your inherent point; I don't think this limits the tool box at all, in fact I think it increases DMs options.

I don't actually think each Domain here is literally an island in water, it's just a way of explaining that "Barovia is surrounded by mists, and from those mists travelers can enter any other Domain." That leaves a ton of freedom for DMs to choose where to have the PCs go. Once they've finished Curse of Strahd, the DM can then set the next adventure in any other Domain, not just the ones Barovia borders in the Core. But if you're a big fan of the Core, you can keep that framework as well.

This way works for everybody! The old guard can keep their core, the new folks can use whatever Domains they're most interested in.