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

 

[Voadam]

And not much conducive to horror if the heroes can clear off if the going gets tough.

Call of Cthulhu has a number of horror campaigns where you travel around the globe a lot.

I wouldn't say a broader connected setting is bad for horror or D&D gothic horror.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Call of Cthulhu has a number of horror campaigns where you travel around the globe a lot.

I wouldn't say a broader connected setting is bad for horror or D&D gothic horror.

Sometimes it might even be essential (having a sense of distance from hone, hone base—even Ravenloft—can be very effective for horror).

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

I don't know if people are being overly dismissive, it is more just that they feel the "island" approach does a better job of feeling like a setting full of the cursed prisons of terrible people than having a continental landmass.

And since the isolation effect of each domain was already a thing, I don't understand what we are potentially losing. Yes, you don't want to trap them every single time they end up someplace new, but also, boats and ships are a thing, and you could much more easily play with that as their means of transport, making it dangerous and unreliable, and give us other reasons to stay.

Maybe you need to make saves while sailing, and something bad happens when you fail too many. Now the players don't have to be "stuck" as in it is impossible to leave, but they need to consider if the risk is worth it.

And I think that makes sense to me. Let each land be isolated, so each land is a custom prison for their Lord. The war guy is gone, so I don't think that is an issue unless there were more of them, and now you can build something between them. Something that can do what you want in terms of freedom or entrapment, but that gives this place a vastly different feeling.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, no argument about Columbus at all, but it is worth noting that it is by the standards of the Conquistadores that he was lacking virtue, not 21st century Anglos, as you say. I am certainly not defending the Conquistadores as some positive good. If anything, they were bog standard humans who tripped into a situation of technological advantage and battle-hardened training with said advantages: right place, right time.

The Conquistadors did all the same things he did, and more, and they did it for a lot longer. Read up on the actual history of life in the missions. They didn't just take over, they tried to utterly annihilate all local cultures and enslave local people. The full scope of how evil they were requires truly upsetting, stomach-turning, not appropriate for this venue, description of some of the most depraved behavior ever recorded by a conquering force.

Cortez would almost be too brutally evil to make a good Dreadlord.

Second, not all horrors are fightable, no matter who you are. Madness, loss of family or friends or principles, betrayal, hopelessness, becoming a figurative monster oneself... that’s much more deeply horror themed than fireballing werewolves in a haunted forest. But that’s something that has to happen between dm and player, no ruleset can force it. The group has to accept (via session 0 or whatever) that they’re in a horror game and act accordingly, and set their expectations accordingly.

Agreed. Strahd should only be fightable when you've got artifacts made to kill and bind him. Without them, he is the land and the mist, and you might as well try to fight depression with a sword.

It's not scary if I can walk away from it.

It certainly can be. You can walk away from It all you want, but it's gonna come back. Maybe we do a time jump, maybe I laugh and say, "Fair enough then. Let the people of Barovia deal with their Devil. Where to next?" and you learn a year later in real time and several levels that you brought Barovia with you back to your home and now the situation is much worse, or you meet with the king and there is something off about his eyes, and the familiarity with which he looks at you, or you need to go into a forest to find a mcguffin and you realise that any time you go into the woods or are out of doors when fog rises, in the dark, you're going to have to run for you lives to escape the mists, or any number of other things.

But adventure and setting design should always assume players and DMs who are on the same basic page, with no one trying to sabotage the game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I sort of answered this already so see my previous response to your full post. But I think Ravenloft worked well because it was built around horror, the settings reflected the kinds of places you see in gothic horror stories, and it had mechanics to support horror

I think you are hitting on the truth though.

Ravenloft worked because of the tragic stories, the changes to the game, and the tools to craft monsters.

None of that changes by making them islands. It is going to change for other reasons, but the island domains work just as well with the true tools that worked for the setting,

 

[Chaosmancer]

Call of Cthulhu has a number of horror campaigns where you travel around the globe a lot.

I wouldn't say a broader connected setting is bad for horror or D&D gothic horror.

True, but let us not forget part of the difference is that Cthulhu can appear anywhere. If you fight Cthulu's cult to prevent his summoning in South America, you can go to India and have to do the exact same thing. He isn't limited by boundaries, or even by space and time.

The Dark Lords are. They have no influence outside their domains. That is a fundamental difference.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think you are hitting on the truth though.

Ravenloft worked because of the tragic stories, the changes to the game, and the tools to craft monsters.

None of that changes by making them islands. It is going to change for other reasons, but the island domains work just as well with the true tools that worked for the setting,

the issue with making them all islands is you lose a lot. It basically reduced the setting to isolation and entrapment, while taking away the flavor and adventure hooks that came with having lands connected. The key thing is in the boxed set, you had both. I can tell you from experience long term campaigns didn’t work as well with islands as they did with the core. But if you wanted isolated domains: that was still there.

 

[Voadam]

True, but let us not forget part of the difference is that Cthulhu can appear anywhere. If you fight Cthulu's cult to prevent his summoning in South America, you can go to India and have to do the exact same thing. He isn't limited by boundaries, or even by space and time.

The Dark Lords are. They have no influence outside their domains. That is a fundamental difference.

So a Horror RPG with local dark lord analogies where the PCs can go from domain to domain but the dark lords are pretty tied down?

Vampire the Masquerade. "This city is getting too hot with the Malkavian prince after us, let's go to another one, maybe that one with the Toreador prince. Anybody know who is the prince of Toledo?"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We don't actually know how isolated these 5E islands are going to be. They are all in the Shadowfell. For all we know, they're "islands" 10 feet apart from each other.

Everyone should save some of their powder for May, when we actually know how it's implemented.

 

[Bedrockgames]

We don't actually know how isolated these 5E islands are going to be. They are all in the Shadowfell. For all we know, they're "islands" 10 feet apart from each other.

Everyone should save some of their powder for May, when we actually know how it's implemented.

I am not commenting on the implementation in this respect, I am responding to arguments in favor making them isolated islands