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]

Anyone else think a Cthulhu by Gaslight game set in Ravenloft would be the perfect combination?

I always thought of Ravenloft as a mix of D&D and Call of Cthulhu. Investigating horror, bad people, and monsters. D&D you normally fight the monsters, CoC you normally are outclassed by most every monster, Ravenloft you are expected to fight a bunch of monsters but usually be outclassed by darklords.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, horror usually works better for one-shots than long-term campaigns. I think the key with campaigns like Curse of Strahd is to steer into the gothic and let the horror be a little looser.

Horror works great for long-term campaigns. You just need to shift and slide the horrors around. Either do different genres or have different types of horrors. Just don’t hit the same beasts and themes in the same way over and over again. Call of Cthulhu has at least three behemoth campaigns that are quite well-known. Horror on the Orient Express. Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Masks of Nyarlathotep. Depending on how often you play (anything less then once a month and don’t bother) these can take years to complete.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, that's just your nostalgic childhood memories coming to haunt you. My adult sister still tenses up and closes her ears when I mention this fellow from Wallace & Gromit;

View attachment 133595

It really isn't I can often go back and watch movies I feel nostalgia for and realize they were way more corny and way less effective than I remember (and honestly most of the time, that is what happens with a given movie). I think a lot of people dismiss old art and old media as "that's just your nostalgia talking", To me that is kind of closed minded. Newer doesn't automatically mean better. Good is good, and will stand the test of time in any era. There is a lot of crap in the hammer catalog, a lot of weird, but also a lot of really solid horror movies. When I sit down to watch all of the hammer frankensteins back to back, that is nostalgia. When I sit down to watch Curse of Frankenstein, it's because I think it is a genuinely good horror movie. Also these were movies that were made well before I was born. I am more prone to nostalgia glasses if the film was made in the 80s, since then it does get harder for me to distinguish. But I think if you go back and watch classic movies with open eyes you see many of them are brilliant. You just have to get over the context and that things were done differently in different eras (for example a lot of old movies use sets and that makes it harder for viewers who aren't use to sets, but I think sets add a level of immersion that sometimes you can't capture with things filmed outdoors at real locations----those have their own advantages, but sets add a dreamy immersive quality to movies). You also start to see some of these older movies are filmed in truly stunning ways. Go back and watch some of those silent films and many of them look like paintings and works of visual art (and they can even get quite surreal). There is value in going back and seeing where things came from (if you ever try to sit down and watch the evolution of kung fu and wuxia films for example from say just the mid-60s on, you will definitely see that).

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It really isn't I can often go back and watch movies I feel nostalgia for and realize they were way more corny and way less effective than I remember (and honestly most of the time, that is what happens with a given movie). I think a lot of people dismiss old art and old media as "that's just your nostalgia talking", To me that is kind of closed minded. Newer doesn't automatically mean better. Good is good, and will stand the test of time in any era. There is a lot of crap in the hammer catalog, a lot of weird, but also a lot of really solid horror movies. When I sit down to watch all of the hammer frankensteins back to back, that is nostalgia. When I sit down to watch Curse of Frankenstein, it's because I think it is a genuinely good horror movie. Also these were movies that were made well before I was born. I am more prone to nostalgia glasses if the film was made in the 80s, since then it does get harder for me to distinguish. But I think if you go back and watch classic movies with open eyes you see many of them are brilliant. You just have to get over the context and that things were done differently in different eras (for example a lot of old movies use sets and that makes it harder for viewers who aren't use to sets, but I think sets add a level of immersion that sometimes you can't capture with things filmed outdoors at real locations----those have their own advantages, but sets add a dreamy immersive quality to movies). You also start to see some of these older movies are filmed in truly stunning ways. Go back and watch some of those silent films and many of them look like paintings and works of visual art (and they can even get quite surreal). There is value in going back and seeing where things came from (if you ever try to sit down and watch the evolution of kung fu and wuxia films for example from say just the mid-60s on, you will definitely see that).

I'm not disputing that some Hammer movies are good. All I said is that at the time they were released, people found them a lot scarier than if you released them to an audience today.

 

[Stormonu]

Staving off the darkness just one more day is also an acceptable ending.

Strahd May be stimied from his current plot, but he’s still the ruler of Barovia, and may see the return of Tatyana again one day to try again. The party may put a stake in Strahd, but Belview pulls it out after they are gone. The party drowns Adam and saves Elise, but after everyone returns home, Adam walks back onto the shore of his castaway island, waiting for another passing ship to find him.

 

[Charlaquin]

Horror works great for long-term campaigns. You just need to shift and slide the horrors around. Either do different genres or have different types of horrors. Just don’t hit the same beasts and themes in the same way over and over again. Call of Cthulhu has at least three behemoth campaigns that are quite well-known. Horror on the Orient Express. Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Masks of Nyarlathotep. Depending on how often you play (anything less then once a month and don’t bother) these can take years to complete.

I didn’t say horror doesn’t work for long-term campaigns. Perhaps it would have been better word choice to say it’s easier to do as one-shots rather than “better.” It can be quite challenging to maintain horror long-term without it becoming oppressive. But it is certainly possible.

I would argue Masks of Nyarlathotep is more pulp than horror though.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, upon release in 1958. That’s 63 years ago. But those films have been watched by younger people since their initial release. As mentioned some had X ratings on release but are now G or PG-13 (in the US at least). So again, what adults find corny, kids can still find amazing and terrifying. A kid screaming about a Dalek is met with an adult rolling their eyes at a wheely-bin with a plunger on. All I’m saying is corny is subjective. And nostalgia goes a long way to cover for corny.

The empty child 2005. "Mummy, are you my mummy? Mummy I'm here"
Don't blink 2005: "Listen. Your live could depend on this. Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink & your dead. They are fast. Faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back. don't look away & don't blink good luck"
"Hey who turned out the lights. No seriously turn them back on who turned out the lights"
Adults can still find all of that scary in ways that make them want to hug a puppy in a well lit room. The 63 year old movies aren't scary because there is no more unknown or dramatic elements to them, that's where the importance of the Dark Powers comes in. Daleks just need a small twist to churn that pit in your stomach though "You would make a good Dalek" turning the mirror more obviously back at the viewer or "are you my doctor, help me" doing the same in a different way.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We must remember Hasbro wants Ravenloft could allow horror stories for no-mature audence. Even monsters as "tomb-elementals"(grave, pyre, mist and blood) could replace undeads because destroying "statues" is less violent than fighting against skeletons.




* The weeping angels from Doctor Who are good example of how a monster can be dreadful even if explicite violence is not showed.

* Do you think a dread domain based in forgotten franchise Inhumanoids is possible?

* Of course the PCs can't save all the world, but survival is not far from a happy end, and we have to remember the end of the sorcerer-kings from Dark Sun setting isn't easy neither.

* The dread domains should allow good horror stories but the presence and direct contact with the dark lords shouldn't be necessary.

* Vlad Drakov was too evil to endurance for a long time. I mean in the real life Robespierre was the responsible of the French Terror for a year, and his end arrive relatively soon. Don't be a stupid toxic boss because you get wrong then you may be momentarily vulnerable and then your enemies take the opportunitie to make you fall. Some tyrants fell because they were too hard and caused a "flight foward"

* My advice is the main plot to be the classic adventures with a piece of humor, and the horror appears when you don't notice.

* Do you remember the arcades "Night Slashers" and "Zombie Revenge"? If you kill too many undeads then they aren't dreaful monsters, but only ugly creatures.

 

[MGibster]

I'm not disputing that some Hammer movies are good. All I said is that at the time they were released, people found them a lot scarier than if you released them to an audience today.

I think it was 2-3 years ago Friday the 13th part III was on and I decided to watch a few minutes of it. Wow, I couldn't believe I found it scary as a kid. I don't know what it looks like to hack someone's arm off with a machete but I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like that. But a lot of our horror icons aren't all that scary to us now. Does anyone find Count Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster scary these days?

 

[Charlaquin]

The empty child 2005. "Mummy, are you my mummy? Mummy I'm here"
Don't blink 2005: "Listen. Your live could depend on this. Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink & your dead. They are fast. Faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back. don't look away & don't blink good luck"
"Hey who turned out the lights. No seriously turn them back on who turned out the lights"

Man, Moffat’s episodes used to be so damn good before he became showrunner.