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

 

[Faolyn]

Okay, but then back to my original question. If you could just not have them hear about the other lands, if you could focus the entire adventure to one land even without the Dark Lord, then why is the Island idea so bad? What are we losing?

You mixed us up. I actually rather like the Island idea. It's an idea that's been floating around in my head for about a decade now, but I've always been too lazy to actually do something about it. Although I'd have more reliable Mistways and roads leading from one domain to the other. Mind you, roads wouldn't be entirely reliable either.

Okay, but that isn't what I was told by @QuentinGeorge , who I quoted saying this: They removed the domains from the Core that didn't belong there after the Red Box setting. (Zherisia, Bluetspur, the Nightmare lands etc). The remaining fit quite well - Dementileu, Mordent, Richemulot share a common culture and language. Lamordia is close culturally as well.

OK, first off, the countries in the Core are culturally similar in the way European countries are culturally similar.

Mordent is basically the English countryside, complete with moors to stay off of, but with a teensy bit eldritch horror (in the form of Creepy Old Families That Died Out In Mysterious Circumstances). Dementlieu is Paris (specifically, Gay Paree, with lots of emphasis on The Arts and scholarly learning), and Richemulot is countryside France.

The writers at some point decided that Mordentish, the language, contains both "High Mordentish" (based on French) and "Low Mordentish" (based on Old English, I believe); the two are treated as a single language. Because of the French aspects of Mordentish, the writers decided that Dementlieu and Richemulot (and some other places) speak it as well. It might be worth mentioning that the Darklord of Dementlieu, Dominic d'Honaire, was born in Mordent, so it also makes sense he'd carry his language with him.

One of the native religions of Ravenloft, the Church of Ezra, has been spread throughout the Domains since late 2e. While the Church (which was only founded less than 200 years ago) has a singular focus, it has four major sects, each of which emphasizes separate things. The Dementlieu sect is True Neutral and scholarly while the Mordentish sect is Lawful Good and about redemption.

Lamordia is Mad Science Switzerland. Complete with neutrality; they're the only domain that has a nonaggression treaty with Falkovnia.

Zherisia was never actually part of the Core (it's a Cluster that contains a wasteland, the city of Paridon, and Timor, which is the sewers beneath Paridon), Paridon is based on London (and a bit of Paris, but in the Big City sense, not the cultural sense). Bleutspur didn't have a culture (eldritch wasteland above, mind flayers below), and the Nightmare Lands are a chaotic, fantasy Australian Aboriginal Dreamlands turned nightmare which don't also need to be a physical location.

And I think, after getting some sleep, the problem is that the core premise I was told about Ravenloft is just wrong. This isn't a land where evil people from across the multiverse are pulled in for punishments. This is a land where some people are pulled in, and other villains spiral off from their own circumstances. The villains of Borca are from Barovia originally, not outside of Ravenloft. And this... confuses me. Because I thought the entire purpose of the Dark Powers was to pull in people and torment them in a domain reflecting their own personal hell, but then they are creating new personal hells for the side characters in the personal hell of the original target?

The Dark Powers both reward and punish evil (and the punishment is always worse than the reward is good). Some of these people are brought in from the outside, but others are home grown. Not everyone is turned into a Darklord. Some people are turned into monsters or suffer some other horrible curse for their deeds. In some cases, it's hard to tell if the person was punished by the Dark Powers or simply suffered the natural results of their own ill deeds.

The Dark Powers have never been statted out. We don't know what they are, what they want--even what their alignment is. We don't even know if they're a unified force.

Also, when they create a new Domain, they are literally creating a new Domain. They don't take bits from another Darklord's Domain. Except when Necropolis was formed, but that was a special case.

 

[Faolyn]

Oh. I don’t care for the sound of that at all.

They were statted up as half-orcs. I made a homebrew caliban race for 5e which my players love, but I emphasized them looking very inhuman (one in my game looks like a mannequin) rather than just having deformities.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Guess I should have scrolled to consolidate

I don't understand why you are so hung up on the idea of forcing them to face Strahd. If you want to run that scenario, you can, just have him close the borders.

What makes the setting different from Eberron?

Is it politics? Constant war?

No. What makes Ravenloft unique is the Dark Lords. They are the biggest draw of the setting. Heck, you can't even say horror because with Megacorps and human experimentation and Sarlona, you can have plenty of horror in Eberron too. In fact, Sarlona is perfect for a horror campaign.

So, I'm "obsessed" with them fighting Strahd, but these figures are what make the setting unique. No where else has this story of people dragged into repeating their own personal hells for all eternity. But it also means that if they are the draw, you really want to have them felt. If you can go through all of Barovia without even hearing about Strahd... then what makes it different than any other vaguely eastern European setting?

I'm not saying it isn't unique, or can't be made unique, if you know the lore... but if I'm taking new players to Barovia, they are expecting to confront Strahd, not something else.

Why is that "the point"? I never said that.

And I don't particularly see "vampire land" as more horrific. That's not subtle. That's a themepark. It might as well be "Hotel Transylvania".

It depends on how it is run. A land ruled by Vampires carries with it a lot more notes of potential horror than a land ruled by a military government. The details can increase or decrease that in either direction, but what I was presented with originally (A military dictatorship in a state of constant war, and sometimes they fight someone who raises the dead soldiers as zombies to kill their former allies) isn't really horror. It is a set piece that could go into any fantasy setting.

It is absolutely true that the people in the demiplane don't know they are ruled by monsters. Azalin is not a lich, he is "Azalin Rex", the wizard-king who rules austerely yet with a cold sense of justice. Strahd isn't known as a vampire, he is merely the latest in line of tyrants dating back to "Strahd I", who the Barovians revere as a great hero who delivered them from the Tergs. Jacqueline Renier is not known as a wererat. The place is not presented as some sort of spooky cartoon. Like all good horror you have to have the everyday, normal world to contrast the horror against for it actually to be horrific. It's the revelation.

And you can't have that revelation unless you are dealing with people who have no idea what the setting is like. You can't "reveal" that Strahd is a vampire when he is the most famous vampire lord in all of Dungeons and Dragons.

The horror is for the players, not the common masses, and the players know what they are getting into. A few places might have fake-outs, but most of them probably don't.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. There already was a zombie domain. I don't need Falkovnia to be that. If I want an Island of Terror filled with zombies I will use Souragne.

Feel free to change the name then, but I never knew either place and the idea of a zombie infested domain intrigues me. If it makes you feel better to alter the name, be my guest.

No thank you, I'd like to keep that silliness out of the setting.

What you see as silly, other people see as part of the horror.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not quite sure what to do about Calibans. There are no native orcs to have half-orc children with, but I'm not exactly sure about some of connotations caliban's bring. Half-Vistani need to GO. Just allow full-Vistani PCs.

When I homebrewed them--and I won't say I did the best job--I divided them into three "flavors". Not quite subraces, since I didn't give them different stats, but more based on appearance. I had the Bent, which were the "typical" caliban; the Bestial, which I felt were more like Vincent in the TV show Beauty and the Beast; and the Waxen, which were the "pretty but in the uncanny valley" caliban. I also let the players pick some abilities and flaws to go with it. But if I had to redo them, I'd probably just give them the Tasha's treatment, but with a more limited selection of available feats.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay... but travel is only as difficult as you want to make it. It is trivially easy to decide to make travel along certain ways safer and easier, or that it is dangerous unless you have the proper guides.

I mean, if that is the extent of your complaint about the island set up "it is theoritically harder to travel" that isn't much of a complaint.

I don't think we are going to see eye to eye on this one. But why even set it up as an island in the first place, if just having it connect to adjacent domains effectively is the same? Trade and communication by water or by mists, ought to be different from trade by land, no? I mean, if you like the island premise, that is what you like. But what you are describing just seems like something I wouldn't be interested in. I liked having the core as a solid landmass of connected domains. I honestly don't understand why I even need to defend that preference.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I skipped 4e too, but the Raven Queen is one of the better things to come out of it. Her alignment is chaotic neutral, she is incomprehensible, uncaring, and collects memories associated with negative emotions.


"The Raven Queen is trapped by her fascination with the past. She sits in her fortress, amidst all the memories of the world, looking at the ones that please her most as though they were glittering jewels. Many great wizards have attempted to understand her motives, but like a raven she has always remained cryptic, keeping her cache of secrets just out of their reach."

This is new 5e lore, this is not how she was presented in 4e.

I want to be a little pendantic, because I like her from 4e and I'm not a big fan of her in 5e. Sure, the figure is nice, but I need a new name for that figure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, as I said before, your tendency to shatter posts and respond to them out of order and seemingly at random makes it incredibly difficult to talk to you. Saying you described it across multiple posts does not help me at all.

And I think, since I've explained now how poorly this place was presented to me in this thread, you can see where my original point was coming from. What you described as "horrific" wasn't, without being able to see the whole of it. I mean, you may find zombie soldiers horrific, but when you are playing a game where you might fight a necromancer raising zombies at level 2, they really lose a lot of the horror.

Maybe it is a "familiarity breeds contempt" thing, but I've seen it so many times, that unless you zoom in and make it personal it isn't horror. It becomes the same as bombs or machine gun fire, just another devastating tactic of war. You have to zoom in, be the soldier now fighting the dead body of the comrade they shared drinks with to have that horror impact. From a distance, it just doesn't work.

I don't think my responses have been confusing. I've responded to posts as I have seen them, and tried to address every criticism and point you've made. In one case I believe I responded out of order because of how I was cutting up the quotes (not particularly skilled at the quote feature here).

Look, if you don't find it horrifying you don't. I found Falkovnia plenty horrifying for the reasons I stated and others stated, and for the ways it was presented in the setting. One thing that was refreshing about it, was it was more about human horror and many of the other domains had more emphasis on monsters (which is fine, I like monsters). But with Falkovnia you could explore the horror and dread of being in an oppressive militarized domain. And like I have said several time, read the old descriptions for yourself. You will either find it works for horror or you won't. I can't really decide that for you.

 

[Faolyn]

I always thought it was silly to make the Vistani separate from a regular old human. When I ran the original I-6 Ravenloft, and then Curse of Strahd, they were humans.

A friend and I came up with an idea for them. Yes, they're totally human (or humanoid, because they did Found Family so nonhumans were possible). They just had access to some magic that most other people didn't have: magic of space and time. When I say "had access to," I mean in the standard wizard way: this was shortly after the Wildemont book came out, so we figured that they were the only people in the land who had access to dunamancy.

So basically, yeah, they have strange abilities, but it's just because they know some spells that nobody else does.

We also decided that the reason they weren't liked is because they would do things like "steal" people from abusive parents or spouses and then take them to new places for a fresh start.

 

[Alzrius]

The Dark Powers have never been statted out. We don't know what they are, what they want--even what their alignment is. We don't even know if they're a unified force.

Well, except for that whole "the Red Death was one of Ravenloft's Dark Powers -- exiled for violations of their mysterious code of conduct" tidbit, and which you fought and banished at the end of the Living Death campaign.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, that was a uselesslt vague description that doesn't help me at all. I guess you must have been talking about me saying you described Falkovia to me, but since you won't elaborate I have no clue.

I don't think it was, and I was trying to answer your posts to the best of my ability. If you are unclear you can ask me for more information. But please don't make insulting posts like this towards me. It doesn't make me want to answer you with a measured and honest response (and I prefer to have cordial discussions not hostile ones). If we disagree, that's fine. But we don't have to insult one another. Calling my posts a 'useless vague description' is insulting.