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]

You seem to be labouring under the delusion that anything less than a 1-20 campaign is resolved within a single weekend. There is a middle ground. My players have been trapped in Icewind Dale (RotFM) for over three months now (real time). And will probably be there for another three. But there is plenty for them to do. They don't need to go whizzing all over the continent to find plenty of adventures.

Having a continent doesn’t mean they are ‘whizzing around’. If this works for you great. I loved having the core, and thought it worked well for horror and felt nothing like forgotten realms

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Having a continent doesn’t mean they are ‘whizzing around’. If this works for you great. I loved having the core, and thought it worked well for horror and felt nothing like forgotten realms

It doesn't "work for me". That's the point. But if players aren't wizzing around between domains then "the core" serves no purpose.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How? What made the horrific? Your players are buzzing around the continent wherever they want to go, and presumably killing monsters for a living. That's no different to the Forgotten Realms.

Yes, an inherent problem with trying to do horror in D&D, that Ravenloft never solved.

a lot of things made it horror, and obviously that is going to be subjective. What I know is I didn’t need to trap my players in a domain all the time to create a sense of dread. Often what made it horrifying was the nature of the creatures in the world, especially using the customizing tools in the van Richten books. Also using the advice in the book, treating Mocs and monsters as more than just opponents to fight (making them living, cunning foes). Also there are plenty of other things to terrify besides entrapment: infection, madness, being hunted, being haunted, etc. they don’t literally need to be stuck in one domain to experience horror and terror. There were lots of things that made the campaigns horror.

if the core didn’t work for you, that is fine I can take you at your word: but take me at mine too. Your experience isn’t the only one by which all experiences are measured

 

[Bedrockgames]

It doesn't "work for me". That's the point. But if players aren't wizzing around between domains then "the core" serves no purpose.

I don’t know what to tell you: the core worked great for me.

 

[Remathilis]

Sure, the contrast is necessary. Which is why you transport PCs from their home plane to Ravenloft, and hold out the carrot of escape just out of reach. A campaign that is 100% in Ravenloft is not horror, and never has been. It is a regular D&D campaign with Hammer-themed monsters.

Vampires and werewolves and mummies (oh my!) Are no more inherently horrific than any other monster in the Monster Manual.

I'm going to agree, but probably not for reasons you think

D&D is a poor fit for traditional horror period. The PC quickly become too powerful for traditional methods of fear to work. They have access to magic and enough hp to withstand any reasonable challenge, so the feeling of powerlessness that fills horror isn't really there. Classic Ravenloft tried to fix that by making certain abilities not function or weaken, but as classes got more complex, more and more nerfing was needed. (The 3.5 RL PHB practically forces every class to fight with one hand tied behind thier backs).

What D&D can do well though is Dark Fantasy; the gothic overlay on fantasy tropes such as Castlevania or Van Helsing. There are elements of horror in it, but it's still assumed the heroes are badasses who can stand toe to toe with the forces of darkness and live. I think new Ravenloft is going to tap into that genre more than try to emulate the truer horror tropes found in classic horror films and novels. Less Jonathan Harker, more Trevor Belmont.

 

[Alzrius]

But, part of what I do remember is that there is a lady who Strahd is after as the reincarnation of his beloved, and she wants nothing to do with him. So, if we are in "freely travel the Core" Ravenloft... why doesn't she just run to a different domain? Sure, it will be equally terrible in a lot of ways, but she can escape Strahd.

The thing is, she did.

That was a plot-thread in the 3E take on the setting, and it was a fascinating way of laying down potential adventures for your party, because Strahd was getting angry that he couldn't find her among the current generation of young ladies in Barovia, while Tatyana's latest reincarnation (who'd been taken out of the domain by her parents when she had her fortune told as a child, and were horrified that it ended in her dying before she turned twenty if she stayed in Barovia) has been having recurring dreams about going back to Barovia, dreams that are getting stronger over time...

Later interviews with the designers revealed that they did this because it pushed questions central to the dynamic of the characters. Strahd's feelings for Tatyana were centered around the fact that she made him feel young and alive again, and that even now he intended to make her his eternally-youthful vampire bride, so what would happen if he encountered her when she was past her prime? It was brilliant, and it's a shame it's not being followed up on now.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't know what these two "legends" are, that's not something I've come across in English-speaking discussions of the conquistadors and I notice you're using an alternate spelling with an extra e, so presumably you're from South or Central America? But curiously British phrases like "bog-standard"... Obviously history is written by the victor, and you seem to attempting to say "Oh it's in the middle" and I'm sorry but that's not actually well-supported by historical research.

As for "bog-standard humans", well, all humans are "bog-standard humans", none of us are elves or whatever, so that's meaningless. What is meaningful is that they carried out atrocity after atrocity, and there's no getting away from that, especially as they didn't just stop when they'd established control (like, say, the Romans usually did), they just got worse, for a very long time. You say "cartoon villains", but let's be real - they were much worse than any sanitized "cartoon villains".

I'm not sure who the "empire" spreading this "black legend" is, but I'd love to know! Because as I said, history is written by the victor, so it presumably can't be the Aztecs. Is there some kind of Spanish vs Portuguese scuffle you're referring to or something?

EDIT - As an aside, I will note that in the early 2000s there seemed to be some attempt to "re-assess" the conquistadors etc. and try and paint them in a "they were just doing their job" way, and to point out that the biggest cause of death was smallpox, and so on (esp. after evidence in the 1990s showing the Aztecs really were bad news), but the big problem that stuff faced, and what lead to it kind of stopping dead before a full re-assessment could be made, was that whenever new historical or archaeological evidence appeared, it made them look really bad, and made it obvious that these supposed "savages" were even further from that than had previously been believed. I remember watching some documentary series that wanted to "change your mind your mind about the conquistadors" or something, definitely implying in the sense that they weren't as bad as you thought, but whilst some specific incidents were clarified, the overall effect was to make them look even worse (which I don't think was intended).

The "Black Legend" generally refers to the British propaganda about the Spanish colonies.

Overly simplified? The British basically spread rumors making the control of settlements sound far worse than it was, in an attempt to make them seem better than the British, because they would never treat their colonies so poorly.

It generally (to my limited knowledge) didn't involve much about the Conquistadors who were at the frontlines fighting wars and killing people, it was more referring to what came after, but there was a smear campaign against the Spanish to make them seem worse than the British (Both sides were terrible)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

only if the dark lord closed the borders. That depended on what was going on (and especially depended on whether the PCs attracted the dark lords attention)

A bunch of bad-ass adventurers are on your turf. How can the Dark Lord not notice? Of course this is more of an issue with 5e, where it is impossible for a PC not to be a bad-ass.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm going to agree, but probably not for reasons you think

D&D is a poor fit for traditional horror period. The PC quickly become too powerful for traditional methods of fear to work. They have access to magic and enough hp to withstand any reasonable challenge, so the feeling of powerlessness that fills horror isn't really there. Classic Ravenloft tried to fix that by making certain abilities not function or weaken, but as classes got more complex, more and more nerfing was needed. (The 3.5 RL PHB practically forces every class to fight with one hand tied behind thier backs).

What D&D can do well though is Dark Fantasy; the gothic overlay on fantasy tropes such as Castlevania or Van Helsing. There are elements of horror in it, but it's still assumed the heroes are badasses who can stand toe to toe with the forces of darkness and live. I think new Ravenloft is going to tap into that genre more than try to emulate the truer horror tropes found in classic horror films and novels. Less Jonathan Harker, more Trevor Belmont.

I agree 100%.

 

[MGibster]

There's something to be said about PCs being trapped in one area for a while. So often, PCs often pack up and move on to the next adventuring site. But what could be more terrifying than having to stick around and deal with the consequences of your own actions? Having to see the children of the guards you killed the other day looking at you like you're a monster.