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

 

[Kurotowa]

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.

When has that ever not been true? If we're only hitting that point when you're stacking multiple flavors of optional rules together (Ravenloft Lineages AND often disallowed races like aarakocra or tabaxi) then I'd say we're doing well.

 

[Remathilis]

When has that ever not been true? If we're only hitting that point when you're stacking multiple flavors of optional rules together (Ravenloft Lineages AND often disallowed races like aarakocra or tabaxi) then I'd say we're doing well.

Even tabaxi is a wash since a dhampir gets a climb speed and two skills. The only way you benefit from racial dhampirs is for races with swim and fly speeds.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Fortunately, such things are built into the setting right from the Black Box beginning:

View attachment 136687
Combined with the Dark Power's ability to create false histories, yeah. Everything that happened below was but a nightmare... or perhaps what's happening now is the nightmare.

You can justify changes, and I think a lot of the changes I am seeing fit the above text, but this also very much feels like a hard reboot to me (just overall). I feel like I am caught in the middle here. I don't object to changes to gender or race, but at the same time, i really don't like when that is the whole point, or when its done in this very 'hey look we made this character more inclusive' kind of way. It just feels so hamfisted and it seems like the focus isn't on an interesting character as much as on striking the correct political note. You can strike that note if you want, but the character has to be good, the change needs to be something that makes it more interesting. Otherwise it just is cultural war disguised as writing (and I think we see that from both sides too often lately, and quality is the thing that suffers as a result).

 

[Kurotowa]

Even tabaxi is a wash since a dhampir gets a climb speed and two skills. The only way you benefit from racial dhampirs is for races with swim and fly speeds.

I mean, dhampir isn't the only option. You could do an ex-tabaxi reborn if you really wanted to play a dark fantasy cyborg catgirl or something. I've seen stranger character concepts. But it's a pretty minimal and edge case bit of optimization.

 

[Weiley31]

Wait wait wait I'm a bit late to the party, but what is this whole Ancestral Legacy option being mentioned?

 

[Kurotowa]

Wait wait wait I'm a bit late to the party, but what is this whole Ancestral Legacy option being mentioned?

Going by the leaks and previews, the finalized versions of the Ravenloft Lineages have some tweaks from the UA versions. One major one being that you can either gain two skill proficiencies or gain the racial skills and movement options of your former race. This is explicitly aimed at PCs who convert to a Lineage later in their adventuring career, so that they're not suddenly forgetting how to use certain skills or having their wings shrivel up and become useless.

 

[Remathilis]

From the little I've seen on the YouTube videos, I feel many of the changes fall into three modes:

• Getting rid of problematic elements that existed in the prior versions or source material.
• Changing darklords to make them less carbon-copy versions of actual classic horror monsters
• Strengthening thematic areas of domains to give them stronger hooks, tones and unique elements

Problematic changes like Valachan, I Cath or Souragne needed to happen for WotC to sell the book in 2021.
Changes to Universal Monster domains like Har'Akir, Lamordia and Nova Vaasa make them unique takes on the Mummy, Frankenstein and Dr Jeckyl rather than renamed pastiche of them.
Thematic domains added elements to make them stand out from what could be done in a normal D&D game. A mesmerist using mind control to manipulate the population isn't unique in D&D, but doing so to throw grand masquerade balls constantly and convince everyone to buy into the illusion of opulence even among squalor is unique. I can actually see using Dementieu, Valachan or Richemont now.

So while I feel some changes were made to correct socially yikesy things, a lot seems like them wanting to revitalize the brand and correct design flaws from 30 years ago.

 

[Weiley31]

Going by the leaks and previews, the finalized versions of the Ravenloft Lineages have some tweaks from the UA versions. One major one being that you can either gain two skill proficiencies or gain the racial skills and movement options of your former race. This is explicitly aimed at PCs who convert to a Lineage later in their adventuring career, so that they're not suddenly forgetting how to use certain skills or having their wings shrivel up and become useless.

So basically the Lineage becomes a mesh overlay that is applied on top of the initial race of the PC. Goodness I'm glad they are doing that as it never made complete sense the initial implication of the Lineages did to a PC once they became it.
I've been saying, and stating in the surveys, that's how it should've been in the first place.

Also, glad to see the Dual Typing got eliminated. And yet we get another Fey via Hexblood now. I just now want them to pull the trigger and allow an Undead typing to finally happen and be allowed for a Lineage since WoTC is a-OKAY with Fey mono-typing and its certain interactions with magic.

 

[Remathilis]

So basically the Lineage becomes a mesh overlay that is applied on top of the initial race of the PC. Goodness I'm glad they are doing that as it never made complete sense the initial implication of the Lineages did to a PC once they became it.
I've been saying, and stating in the surveys, that's how it should've been in the first place.

Also, glad to see the Dual Typing got eliminated. And yet we get another Fey via Hexblood now. I just now want them to pull the trigger and allow an Undead typing to finally happen and be allowed for a Lineage since WoTC is a-OKAY with Fey mono-typing and its certain interactions with magic.

I think the issue is fey are still living beings while undead and constructs are not, creating issues with healing and resurrection magics. But that's just my guess. Apparently it was issue enough to keep them humanoid.

 

[Kurotowa]

I think the issue is fey are still living beings while undead and constructs are not, creating issues with healing and resurrection magics. But that's just my guess. Apparently it was issue enough to keep them humanoid.

Yeah, with the Fey type about all you have to worry is them being subject to a few things like Magic Circle or an Ancients Paladin using Turn the Faithless. Those are more flavor than anything else. With Undead, first you have to package in enough racial traits to make them actually feel like an undead character, then you have to worry about all the spells and effects that explicitly work differently on undead. As people were quick to point out after the UA was released, there's a fair number of those.

Remember in 3e when Eberron had to jump through so many hoops to make Warforged into Constructs? They had to jimmy up Living Constructs as a type and create new Repair spells to heal them and everything. Now they're just humanoids in 5e because it's so much easier than way. I think the version of dhampir and reborn is the same compromise. They're the I Can't Believe It's Not Undead! of undead PC races. Similar but mechanically distinct.