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

 

[Remathilis]

That sounds exactly like 99.9% of D&D adventures, so I'm confused as to how you think you're making a point against that approach.

The specific nature of "weekend in hell" where you go for a short time in and then your goal is to see the sights and find the exit is one way to play, but I would like some support for extended play in a domain that isn't focused on finding an exit while outrunning the darklord. That's all.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was thinking about my own reboot of Yagno Petrovna, darklord of G'henna. He...

Not that D&D characters need to follow real-life Slavic naming conventions, but if you didn’t know, but Petrovna is a feminine patronymic. The masculine version would be Petrovitch.

 

[Aldarc]

The specific nature of "weekend in hell" where you go for a short time in and then your goal is to see the sights and find the exit is one way to play, but I would like some support for extended play in a domain that isn't focused on finding an exit while outrunning the darklord. That's all.

Having the domain's darklord as the group's patron would be an interesting way to possibly extend play beyond "weekend in hell" scenarios.

 

[Remathilis]

Not that D&D characters need to follow real-life Slavic naming conventions, but if you didn’t know, but Petrovna is a feminine patronymic. The masculine version would be Petrovitch.

Someone should have told 1992 TSR...

Yagno Petrovna - Mistipedia

www.fraternityofshadows.com

Then again, his Domain shares a name with not only an actual mythological concept, but a Great Wheel plane of existence. Sloppy work all around.

 

[TwoSix]

Oooooo... now this has me curious to see Ravenloft run with the Year Zero Engine (e.g., Alien, Forbidden Lands, Vaesen, etc.) or even something along the lines of Forged in the Dark.

Maybe Mork Borg, but that might be flavor overkill.

 

[tetrasodium]

The specific nature of "weekend in hell" where you go for a short time in and then your goal is to see the sights and find the exit is one way to play, but I would like some support for extended play in a domain that isn't focused on finding an exit while outrunning the darklord. That's all.

Send the players in with or have them link up with a group from a nation state/dragonmark house/etc similar to the army core of engineers or have them link up with it with the goal of modernizing the domain with better roads, better transport (ie lightning rail/ports/etc), industry (farming/mining/luxuries/etc). Of course they need to stabilize a central point to work from, kickstart things like mining operations for resources needed to build with, kick start luxury places for the labor force to use, etc... all of these places could exist.... but all of them are in disrepair unstaffed and/or filled with/surrounded by monsters so players have a lot to do . Of course given that everyone of use to the PCs is a cr0 commoner or cr0 magewright pretty much anything dangerous needs to be done & protected by the PCs . It goes without saying that the Dark Powers will happily help ensuere it's not a smooth & easy process

 

[Bedrockgames]

I said walk away, not run away. Not the same thing at all. A PC who is running away is trapped - they have no choice but to keep running. You where arguing that PCs need to be free to choose - which might mean choosing to not engage with the monster at all.

Not all cages have physical barriers. You can have reasons why the PCs have to face the monster other than "you are trapped by the mists" but that makes no difference, you are still removing the players' freedom to choose.

Maybe, but I think there are points you are missing.

For example, I don't really see invading another dread realm but being doomed to failure as particularly horrific. And part of that is that there are different types of horror, and the new book is looking to expand past the Gothic Horror it used, which sounds like a good thing, because it sounds like many of those previous realms fell flat.

But also, while I could go back and read the old stuff... It is also possible that that the newer stuff will inspire me like the old stuff inspired you. I've come to love Eberron, and I have never read any of the older material for that setting. The new material inspired me.

And, I don't see how the core landmass made the horror better, except in the idea that if the players had the chance to flee, then when they can't it is scarier. But, the islands can still give some of that feeling. Maybe worse, because it can also be the things in the Sea that can cause that issue, giving a choice. Face the elder horrors of the place between the realms, as they are active, or stay here and face the dread realm itself.

I think that element has value, compared to "you can leave whenever you want because this is simply a country with borders like everywhere else.

The core still has borders. They just weren’t up all the time. Dark lords could always close the borders when they chose and it always varied (some had must rise up, some had walls of dead, some simply disoriented you do you couldn’t escape). The border closures were there if you needed them to achieve horror. Also the invasions were part of the color and flavor. It brought some life to the setting. Things were not static. His involved the players got in that was up to them and the GM, but the doomed invasions resulted in the dead riding and returning to fslkovnia (which was horrifying IMO if used right)

again there is no right and wrong, it is just opinion. I just think people are being overly dismissive of the old material and not recognizing you don’t have the new without the old

 

[Chaosmancer]

this is why the van Richten books are so important

I think though you might be conflating a good set of tools with the setting you used them in.

I have a homebrew setting that I tend to use, and it isn't horror themed. And yet, two of my most horrific encounters happened there because of clever use of monsters.

An Aboleth who used the children of the community as its workforce, leaving them little more than puppets of the God of the community, who worshipped the evil thing as their salvation.

A Mindflayer colony that had overrun an elven kingdom centuries ago, and the body horror and sheer ugliness of what those Illithids did to create a sustainable population of slaves from those elves.


So, if we accept that horror can happen anywhere when you have the proper idea and the proper challenges, then what about Ravenloft made it better for horror, compared to someplace where it is far easier to have that contrast?

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe Mork Borg, but that might be flavor overkill.

I think Mork Borg kinda leans into an almost intentionally absurd overkill.

With the YZE, you could include mechanics like Stress from Alien but retooled for horror (e.g., insanity, corruption, horror, etc.) while still dealing with PCs that are less sturdy than your D&D fare band of heroes.

 

[Charlaquin]

Someone should have told 1992 TSR....

Someone should have told them a lot of things about the names they were using... It’s been a heck of a job trying to clean up the names in Curse of Strahd.