D&D 5E Ravenloft Previews of Dementlieu, Lamordia, and Har'Akir

WotC has been sprinkling previews of individual Ravenloft domains to various websites -- including Dementlieu, Lamordia, and Har'Akir. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is only a couple of weeks away, coming out on May 18th!

Dementlieu​

• Forbes takes a look Dementlieu, which has inspirations like Cinderella, The Masque of the Red Death, and Dark City. "Dementlieu is one of over 30 domains of dread detailed in the book. It’s a sharp contrast to Barovia’s dark forest and looming Gothic castle on a hill. Instead it’s covered in a glamorous sheen of fine clothes and fancy parties. Everyone is dying to be invited to the Grand Masquerade held by Duchess Saidra d’Honaire every week on her private island. And, in many cases, killed if they are discovered at the ball if they’re not supposed to be there."
• Syfy Wire looks at Lamordia, inspired by Frankenstein. "Many of the Domains of Dread are inspired by some horror tale or piece of creepy folklore, and Lamordia definitely has its roots in Frankenstein. But while the Domain is inspired by that classic horror story, its elements are then shot through the lens of D&D adventures and explored to dozens of horrific extremes. Mordenheim's land isn't just about resurrection gone awry, it's also the Domain for all different types of science gone wrong, bizarre experiments, body horror weirdness, and grim tales of society versus a frigid land. Just as there's more to Frankenstein than a scientist who abandoned his child, there's more to Lamordia than stitches and semi-dead flesh."
• Polygon has Har'Akir, an Egyptian-themed domain. "Why is there a Domain that is a desert that is riddled with these ancient, inexplicable haunted monuments and ruined pyramids? How does a Domain like that exist? How does it make sense? To an extent it doesn’t, and it’s going to be the players that come and explore that, who are some of the only people that realize that the entirety of the domain is, to an extent, gaslighting them."

Ankhetop, darklord of Har'Akir

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[Coroc]

The -ovich suffix denotes a patronymic though, not a family name. And if it was a patronymic, it would suggest that his father’s name was Zar, not that his father was a tsar. At any rate, it certainly wouldn’t be preceded by Von, which is Germanic, not Slavic, and also means “son of/daughter of”. And Strahd sounds like a slavicization of Stroud, which is English.

well ravenloft has more of these quasi real world / horror theme namings. e.g. Lamordia sounds like a mediteranean location, but Mord means murder in german. Vlad Drakov has been mentioned, everyone and his mother hearing that name would associate this with vampire. Adam - Adams family anyone? Funny no Ravenloftcharacter is named thursday, or Latricia or uncle furuncle

 

[Bedrockgames]

You are entitled to believe anything you like. But then other people are entitled to judge you based upon your professed beliefs.

Sure, they can judge me. But I can respond if the judgment, as I stated before, seems an unfair or inaccurate one. And I can especially push back if they put words in my mouth. I don't think anything I have said makes me immoral or bad at all. People can disagree over media tropes. Thinking that somehow tells you if someone is a good person or not, I think that is more worthy of judgment than simply disagreeing over them.

 

[Charlaquin]

well ravenloft has more of these quasi real world / horror theme namings. e.g. Lamordia sounds like a mediteranean location, but Mord means murder in german. Vlad Drakov has been mentioned, everyone and his mother hearing that name would associate this with vampire.

Right, but Strahd Von Zarovich isn’t just an obviously vampire-y name, it’s a linguistic mishmash that was obviously devised by someone who thought certain elements of Eastern European names sounded cool but didn’t really understand the naming conventions they were imitating.

That’s not necessarily a problem - it’s a made-up fantasy world, the names don’t have to follow real-world naming conventions. But based on the fact that a lot of Barovian names are like this, I assumed the same would hold true throughout the domains. Hearing that Ankhetpot is based on actual ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs was exciting.

Adam - Adams family anyone?

Umm... Pretty sure he’s named after the biblical Adam, just like the creature in every other adaptation of Frankenstein. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where the Adams Family got it’s name from.

Funny no Ravenloftcharacter is named thursday, or Latricia or uncle furuncle

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure, they can judge me. But I can respond if the judgment, as I stated before, seems an unfair or inaccurate one.

And people can respond back, within forum rules.

And I can especially push back if they put words in my mouth. I don't think anything I have said makes me immoral or bad at all.

Well, no, no one ever does. Everyone believes they are trying to do and say the right thing. But whether what they believe is true or not is up to others to judge.

People can disagree over media tropes. Thinking that somehow tells you if someone is a good person or not, I think that is more worthy of judgment than simply disagreeing over them.

"The medium is the message" - Marshall McLuhan

What appears in the media influences people opinions. It cannot stand outside of moral judgement.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Funny no Ravenloftcharacter is named thursday, or Latricia or uncle furuncle

There is now.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What appears in the media influences people opinions. It cannot stand outside of moral judgement.

He also talked about mean world syndrome. It isn't as simple as content=message. And that is mainly what I take issue with here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, no, no one ever does. Everyone believes they are trying to do and say the right thing. But whether what they believe is true or not is up to others to judge.

This is a door that swings both ways. Like I said, i think I haven't said anything wrong. You can disagree but you don't have special insight into who I am because of exchanges over a gaming forum (just as I know next to nothing about you based on that). Good people can say bad things, bad people can say good things, and reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes bad language, bad media content, etc

 

[Azzy]

I just don't have the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses for Ravenloft the way some people do. I was a teenager when Ravenloft (the setting) first came out. Some of my friends were all in on the setting, but my thoughts on it at the time were that it was hokey and quaint. It was very Bela Lugosi and, well, to quote Bauhaus, "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The Universal Monsters had given way to rather different ideas of vampires and horror. Even Dracula had to have a facelift, giving way from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee to Gary Oldman. But Ravenloft never got the memo, and for the most part stayed chained to cliches and bad ripoffs of Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, etc. while rarely offering anything new or truly inspired or subversive (IMO). And, while I guess that can be fun, I never had as high of an opinion of the setting that my peers did.

Personally, I'm glad that the new Ravenloft is giving something more than the staid same-old-same-old and not hewing so closely to literature and movies. The setting can still be played with the old fluff and the old lore and the old tropes, but for me I'm interested in seeing the new twists it adds and its attempts to take on additional types of horror subgenres.

I fully welcome the new Falkovnia and Anhktepot's new look.

 

[Faolyn]

That's quite a few posts just to make an observation.

Of course, this post is also just making an observation.

It had been just a comment that people decided to complain about...

 

[NaturalZero]

Sort of off topic, but has anyone played A Plague Tale? I was running through it when the Ravenloft book got announced and thought it would make a perfect domain. Having deadly swarms dominate any area of darkness also helps make darkness scary, even for characters with darkvision.