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.

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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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Have you watched Critical Role...? Horror is quite the recurring theme and effect on the players. They have actually run World of Darkness and Call of Cthulu games, even.

And a great game of Monsterhearts.

 

[Parmandur]

So, Keith Baker is working on a Ravenloft book for DMsGuild:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Probably, where I'm coming from this dictionary definition seems apt:

"in the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way."

Seems to apply equally to Saw with the ridiculous cartoon plot and murder puppet just as much as any other horror flick.

I figured that's what you ment. But being British, and older, the word carries other connotations to me.

It comes from here: Polari - Wikipedia

 

[Parmandur]

I figured that's what you ment. But being British, and older, the word carries other connotations to me.

It comes from here: Polari - Wikipedia

TIL, very interesting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing about horror is horror is not scary. "Fear" is an emotional response that exists only in the mind of the individual. And what individuals find scary varies enormously. So you cannot say "X is scarier than Y" because scariness in not an intrinsic property.

All you can say about the horror genre is it tries to be scary.

 

[Stormonu]

I think they may have missed a horror type that was popular in the 70’s, but has now been spoofed to hell - nature horror.

I’m talking the likes of Jaws, Cujo, Grizzly, Orca, Lake Placid, Pirahna, Jurassic Park and the like. A horror where humanity goes from the top of the food chain to the main dish. It preys on ancient fears of being eaten alive, of not being in control of our environment and simply being prey to something far more powerful and unconcerned with our well-being. You can’t reason with it, and yet somehow it’s more than just an animal doing it’s thing. Somehow, it seems like it’s hunting you with a cunning and maliciousness far greater than it should possess.

While some of those movies are still made, they’ve veered into camp, absurdity and self-parody with the likes of Megladon, Sharknado (Anaconda?) and other such movies.

 

[Nikosandros]

I figured that's what you ment. But being British, and older, the word carries other connotations to me.

It comes from here: Polari - Wikipedia

Interesting, I didn't know any of that. I'm a bit perplexed by the hypothesized etymology for camp in the article. In Italian "campare" means "to live" or "to survive":

 

[Bedrockgames]

Horror is a genre - a loosely defined set of conventions, tropes, and common themes that characterize certain works of fiction. Not everything scary falls into the horror genre, and not everything that falls into the horror genre is necessarily scary. Fear is often one of the emotional responses works of horror try to evoke in their audience, but it isn’t always successful. And often, non-horror works will evoke a fear response in at least some of their audience members, intentionally or unintentionally.

When I say “D&D isn’t horror,” I’m not saying D&D isn’t, can’t be, or shouldn’t try to be scary. I’m saying its conventions, tropes, and themes, taken holistically, don’t fall under those associated with the horror genre. Typically speaking. Obviously you can include horror conventions, tropes, and themes in D&D, and the result might be something that could reasonably be described as horror. But I don’t think the game as-written is particularly well-suited to it.

Ravenloft, as a setting, does employ many of the tropes, conventions, and common themes of horror, so I think describing it as a “horror setting” is very fitting. Playing a game that is not horror by design, in a setting that is, can create a very interesting genre mashup. I think that’s the primary appeal of Ravenloft. And, of course, you can adjust the dials to find the balance of adventure, horror, and fantasy that feels right for your purposes.

I don't agree. I found Ravenloft to very much be a horror game once you implemented the system adjustments. Obviously there are other ways to emulate horror and some games make a point of ensuring things like 'don't go into the basement' come up more. But I don't think that is necessary for something to be a horror game. My feeling with D&D is you can do a number of different genres in it with the right adjustments. Will it tend to be as focused as something built around a genre from the ground up: probably not. But I think Ravenloft, at least as it was originally presented in 2E, leaned very heavily into being a horror game (again just having played a bunch of horror RPGs in that period, I think it stood up with the best of them).

 

[Bedrockgames]

The thing about horror is horror is not scary. "Fear" is an emotional response that exists only in the mind of the individual. And what individuals find scary varies enormously. So you cannot say "X is scarier than Y" because scariness in not an intrinsic property.

All you can say about the horror genre is it tries to be scary.

I think this is one of those things where when someone says X is scarier than Y, they really mean something like "I think X is scarier" or "the consensus appears to be X is scarier".

 

[Bedrockgames]

As an aside, I'd actually say the horror movies that tend to survive are not the scariest ones (which are often not even the best ones), but rather the ones which are scary and tell a good story. Some of them are actually towards the lower end of the scary scale, esp. '80s ones. It's not always true though. Don't Look Now is still profoundly creepy though perhaps not very scary, for example.

This I think this true, but it is also, at least for me, true that the most scary films tend to have stories and/or characters that you make you want to keep watching and make you care about what is happening. And there is of course a spectrum: some horror movies technically fall into the genre, even have many of the tropes but are more of an entertaining romp than something that makes your heart race. Quality of the film isn't just about how horrifying it manages to be to an audience but how much it manages to entertain them. But I think this is an argument for elements of camp and humor. They sometimes open you up more to being receptive to the horror. Mentioned it before, but American Werewolf in London is quite campy (though it seems we have some feuding definitions, so lets just say it at least brings in a number of humorous elements). But it is also quite scary, and I think it may even have been a less scary movie without the humor (I might be wrong on that, but it is my impression). But then there are movies like Bride of Frankenstein. It is filled with camp, wildly entertaining, but in all honesty probably less scary than the original Frankenstein. Still at the end of the day I find Bride of Frankenstein a more entertaining and moving horror film, so it is what I'd rather watch.