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

 

[eyeheartawk]

Considering that NPCs aren't built with PC rules anymore nor are there rules for more powerful vampires, ghosts and mummys, you end up with most of the Darklord's looking like option one: monster manual stats with some additional abilities.

Even Strahd's "unique" stat block in CoS was the MM vampire with the spellcaster variant option, a slightly higher Int score and a few swapped spells.

Okay, sure, so put that in the book then.

I don't think people complained about Strahd's stat block did they? Like, here they aren't even printed in the book. Go look somewhere else and add some stuff, maybe, is pretty weak for a 50 dollar book.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it's telling that to make Dementieu compelling, they needed to elevate a minor NPC from a supplement to near equal of the domain lord. Personally,v I'd have gotten rid of Dominic and made Von Aubrecker darklord; at least he's horrifying.

As for the ball, lets see if that's still true when we actually see the book.

To be fair, one mind-controlling baddy would still be more compelling than a masquerade ball.

 

[Kurotowa]

I don't think people complained about Strahd's stat block did they? Like, here they aren't even printed in the book. Go look somewhere else and add some stuff, maybe, is pretty weak for a 50 dollar book.

Look, when you're producing physical books, page count is limited. You can't just pad them out with extra material the way you can a digital only release. So count the number of Domains, count up how many page's worth of stats it would take to do a full stat block for every Darklord, look at the previewed table of contents, and tell us exactly what you'd cut to make room for that.

I mean, that's even assuming they want to give specific stat blocks. As has been mentioned, locking the Darklord to a specific CR and plot weaknesses works in a campaign book like CoS, but it's less attractive for a setting and style book like this is.

 

[overgeeked]

The point is, the dark lord is not the focus of the story.

Legit everything we've ever known about Ravenloft contradicts this sentence. Literally the entire focus of Ravenloft is the Dark Lords.

The DM can create a story with two mind controlling antagonists for the players to engage with without involving the darklord at all. A backdrop is exactly what the setting is intended to be.

If you think the setting, any setting, is nothing more than backdrop, then you don't understand what a setting is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Okay, sure, so put that in the book then.

I don't think people complained about Strahd's stat block did they? Like, here they aren't even printed in the book. Go look somewhere else and add some stuff, maybe, is pretty weak for a 50 dollar book.

What they should do is what made Ravenloft work: lean into the customization of all the monsters, and then turn some of the railroady GM advice, into tools that fit with the cosmology (take away the railroading but bake the more amorphous elements into the system). Definitely Ravenloft isn't a video game, but it should accommodate a number of style of play, and it should be horror. I wasn't a huge fan of Dementlieu. But don't find a masquerade ball more compelling than the hypnotist. But stuff like making Har'akir not even Egyptian themed, and stripping out all that classic flavor, for some vague high fantasy creature that doesn't really resonate, is an example of why these changes look so awful.

 

[Weiley31]

In an attempt to steer the thread back, what're you most looking forward to seeing/reading in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft?

Dark Gift feats(whatever they are called in the book), the two subclasses, and the Ancestral Legacy Lineages and see what changes were made.

 

[Weiley31]

Y'know, I'm not sure. I may end up loving the new versions of the domains, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to like how the Core was broken up (I'd been thinking about doing something like that myself), but in the end, I'm almost certainly going to be using a pastiche of old and new information anyway.

I'm pretty much gonna be the same in that regard: the information pastiche.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I spent the past day going over the previews more closely. This really seems like it is thumbing its nose at the old material to be honest. And it definitely doesn't seem like they are making an effort to unify anymore like they did when they released 5E. This is the fire the old fans edition of Ravenloft

They defined the Dark Powers.

 

[Weiley31]

The original I'Cath was much less "badly butchered Chinese myth" and much more "Let's base a domain solidly but clunkily on the film A CHINESE GHOST STORY, which combined wuxia and EVIL DEAD."

EVIL DEAD: Wuxia Edition sounds hella cool!!!

 

[Bedrockgames]

They defined the Dark Powers.

I haven't looked at the link yet. Do they really define them? You never define the dark powers. Ever. Their mystery is part of what makes them work. Defining the dark powers takes you down a 'it was just midichlorians the whole time' road