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

 

[Parmandur]

Frankly, that whole 'false history' concept was a pain in the posterior when 2e/3e did it, and if they were going to reboot I wish it was one thing they entirely did away with. It's cheap and metagamey and clearly has its origin in poorly coordinated writing back in the TSR days than any attempt to make a playable setting. Aside from making (for instance) History proficiency damn near meaningless, it centres the setting even more tightly around the darklords, which i think would be the last thing you'd want if you're writing a more general campaign setting than a one-off CoS type long adventure.

Honestly, Ravenloft as a Setting has always felt super weird to me, and not attractive as written. This book, as a Dark Fantasy smorgasbord, is pretty attractive, though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Frankly, that whole 'false history' concept was a pain in the posterior when 2e/3e did it, and if they were going to reboot I wish it was one thing they entirely did away with. It's cheap and metagamey and clearly has its origin more in poorly coordinated writing back in the TSR days than any attempt to make a playable setting. Aside from making (for instance) History proficiency damn near meaningless, it centres the setting even more tightly around the darklords, which i think would be the last thing you'd want if you're writing a more general campaign setting than a one-off CoS type long adventure.

It actually goes back to 1st edition - The House on Griffin Hill, and is a feature of the gothic subgenre.

As for history skill, you could ask for a roll for a character to spot an inconsistency.

Ravenloft is the realm of nightmares. Normal rules, like history, geography, economics, causality and the linear flow of time have no meaning here.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One thing I noticed about the dark gifts is for several of them the bad stuff happens when you roll a 1. This presumably means halflings have a 95% chance of ignoring the bad stuff.

Also metagamey, the lineages have the option of keeping the movement of the base race. So dhampir wood elf would be faster, Returned aarakocra could fly, a Tabaxi hexblood can run up trees and a dwarf anything has the option to be slower than everyone else.

 

[TheSword]

Part of that is design. We've had several setting books and they've mostly followed the same layout of giving a grand overview of one area or areas and only giving a mention to the rest. This is because WotC is moving away from the "one cannon" method for the "baseline for your own version". They give you the seeds, you're supposed to grow the garden. Every DMs Ravenloft is going to be different and that's intentional. Every setting is getting the 84 Greyhawk folio treatment, but with more mechanical support.

Plus there is a hard book 10 level adventure campaign set in ravenloft. Several of the locations and plots in could be lifted and moved to other domains without trouble. It isn’t like Eberron or Ravnica where we’ve just had a guide and no campaign.

 

[Kurotowa]

Also metagamey, the lineages have the option of keeping the movement of the base race. So dhampir wood elf would be faster, Returned aarakocra could fly, a Tabaxi hexblood can run up trees and a dwarf anything has the option to be slower than everyone else.

Two caveats. The minor one is that dhampirs already have a movement speed of 35ft, so there's no increase from being an ex-wood elf. The major one is that the Ancestral Legacy option is an either-or proposition. Either you retain the movement features and racial skill proficiencies of your old race, OR you get two free skill proficiency picks. So it's not a free upgrade by any means.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Frankly, that whole 'false history' concept was a pain in the posterior when 2e/3e did it, and if they were going to reboot I wish it was one thing they entirely did away with. It's cheap and metagamey and clearly has its origin more in poorly coordinated writing back in the TSR days than any attempt to make a playable setting. Aside from making (for instance) History proficiency damn near meaningless, it centres the setting even more tightly around the darklords, which i think would be the last thing you'd want if you're writing a more general campaign setting than a one-off CoS type long adventure.

I never had trouble with the amorphous nature of Ravenloft. It was a place that changed even during the line in significant ways. I definitely am not going to be buying the new Ravenloft (for the reasons I have given in these threads to do with the shift in focus, the aesthetics, and the heavy-handedness of some of the politics: zero interest in what I am seeing), but false history has always been there and always fit pretty well. It also allows for some very interesting horror check possibilities if a player is native to a place with false histories. Yes this can make your history NWP useless, but Ravenloft routinely altered class abilities. And it wouldn't be a totally useless NWP, it is just going to have to abide by Ravenloft's ability to create false pasts.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Two caveats. The minor one is that dhampirs already have a movement speed of 35ft, so there's no increase from being an ex-wood elf. The major one is that the Ancestral Legacy option is an either-or proposition. Either you retain the movement features and racial skill proficiencies of your old race, OR you get two free skill proficiency picks. So it's not a free upgrade by any means.

Okay, so I didn't see that bit, but the wood elf is still a speed upgrade for the other two. It comes with Perception proficiency too, so it's only losing one skill pick.

And flying is a pretty major upgrade for anyone, well worth two skill picks.

Lizardfolk get swim speed and two skill picks.

Centaur gets move 40 and a skill pick.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay, so I didn't see that bit, but the wood elf is still a speed upgrade for the other two. It comes with Perception proficiency too, so it's only losing one skill pick.

And flying is a pretty major upgrade for anyone, well worth two skill picks.

Lizardfolk get swim speed and two skill picks.

Centaur gets move 40 and a skill pick.

It is completely possible to metagame your race choice, but bare in mind the way its written is that if you're level 1 and dhampir is your race choice, you get the two skills while a PC who starts as a different race but becomes a dhampir though play gets the choice to keep it's skills and move. It's not probably going to break the game to allow tabaxi dhampir at level 1, but it's up to the DM and not guaranteed meta-cheese.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is completely possible to metagame your race choice, but bare in mind the way its written is that if you're level 1 and dhampir is your race choice, you get the two skills while a PC who starts as a different race but becomes a dhampir though play gets the choice to keep it's skills and move. It's not probably going to break the game to allow tabaxi dhampir at level 1, but it's up to the DM and not guaranteed meta-cheese.

Tabaxi gets Perception and Stealth prof as well as climb speed, so it's not like they are losing anything*. It certainly gives power-game inclined players an incentive to choose whacky combos.

*Dhampir still get spider climb, so not so much for them.

I want a dhampir centaur so I can trot along the ceiling.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Just noticed, the linages have lost having two creature types. Dhampir and Returned are plain humanoid, Hexblood are fey.