D&D 5E (2024) Ravenloft: The Horrors Within preorder page lists the book's contents

You can now pre-order preorder Ravenloft: The Horrors Within over on D&D Beyond--the ultimate bundle costs $149.99, while the book alone comes in at $59.00. There are pages for the new DM screen, map pack, and Tarokka cards as well. The pre-order page lists the book's contents.

• 16 Domains of Dread, including the new cosmic horror domain Innsmouth.
• 17 Darklords for your party to face or flee from, equipped with challenging stat blocks.
• 7 subclasses (including the new Reanimator and Hollow Warden), 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 2 Origin feats, and 9 Dark Gifts for building tortured protagonists.
• 10 genres of horror from gothic to dark fantasy.
• A bestiary of 41 monstrosities and 10 domain denizens for your party to encounter.
• 47 maps and 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

Tonight, your party’s greatest nightmare... is the one you create.

Bring fear to the table with the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Ultimate Bundle, the complete horror toolkit with everything you need to create a personalized horror campaign – and strike fear into the hearts of your players.

The Ultimate Bundle includes:

• Physical and digital versions of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, containing 16 Domains of Dread, 17 Darklords, 7 subclasses, 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 11 feats, 68 monsters and 47 maps including 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Tarokka Deck for weaving terrifying twists into your campaign with 54 fully illustrated cards.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Dungeon Master’s Screen for keeping your plans enshrouded in mystery.
• Physical and digital versions of the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Map Pack for plotting out eerie encounters for your party.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why not both?

A lot of this sounds like it's likely going to be a rehash of Van Richten's in the genre & domains, so I'm not so sure I'm going to end up picking this up. For me, It'll come down to what monsters it's going to have (including Dark Lord stat blocks ....). The fewer overlap on the monsters with Van Richten's, the better as I'm still using plenty of 2014 stuff.

Agreed. I had hoped they with vrgtr being so recent that we would get "toolkit" stuff like supporting rules and such rather than just a bunch of (mostly reprint) of options. @Davy Greenwind mentioned more info on the official page a few posts back and it spends almost the entire page listing out the player facing stuff but despite using the word "toolkit" repeatedly I'm not seeing a whole lot to justify that term.

If non specific monsters lacking detail of relevance makes the book a "toolkit" you could say the same about nearly any d&d book. S couple paragraphs or pages about the domains of dread that I already have? I need rules to support the themes and tones of those more than a reprint. Maps? Holy Heck that's a comically low bar. Adventures? I write most of what I run and those are incredibly simple to find cheaply or even free, what I need are things like a "toolkit" of rules support for the setting. My players might be excited about the powerful new pc options, but IMO it's rare that things like player facing race background or subclass is able to carry the setting themes and tone in actual play absent rules changing enough relevant defaults to support those themes and tones... I'm not seeing anything about filling that gap.

 

[Davy Greenwind]

There's 17 Domains in Van Richten's, which means that, with the Inclusion of Innsmouth, a couple major Domains are either getting cut, or being moved to the "Other Domains" section. Looking at info on the Beadle and Grimm's website, we can see the following ones confirmed:

Barovia
Borca
Darkon
Dementlieu
Har'akir
Kalakeri
Mordent
Odaire (probably staying as an Other Domain)
Shadowborn Manor (probably staying as an Other Domain)

My guess is that the Carnival might be downgraded to "Other."

There's also quite a few Sithicus references, but that is perhaps...DLC?

Anything I miss?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Also, with 7 subclasses, I suppose it's a "see you later" for the Hexblade

Probably Arcana Unleashed

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My guess is that the Carnival might be downgraded to "Other."

The Carnival is a pretty poor fit for a domain, IMO. It can certainly be put in a catch-all other category.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, can we officially toss out the "WotC won't redo existing 5E books for 5.5, especially recent ones" argument now? Because I think the answer is pretty clearly that they will, when they think there's a big financial upside in it for them.

 

[VashVet]

you could always just get the digital version on DDB

I’m leaning towards just doing the physical special cover and the Tarokka deck, and if the Sithicus adventure gets released separately then I’ll bite. As much as I’m can be swayed into going for the premium sets, I’ve really found that I don’t use as much of the maps as I think I would.

 

[GarrettKP]

Also, can we officially toss out the "WotC won't redo existing 5E books for 5.5, especially recent ones" argument now? Because I think the answer is pretty clearly that they will, when they think there's a big financial upside in it for them.

I think the argument was more “they won’t reprint 5e books with 5.5 edits.” While I get that this is similar, it isn’t the same as them printing a 5.5e VGTR redux.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think the argument was more “they won’t reprint 5e books with 5.5 edits.” While I get that this is similar, it isn’t the same as them printing a 5.5e VGTR redux.

Sorry, 5E redux + Cthulhu, Sithicus and an extra subclass or two.

I would like to hear what Van Richten's has that this does not, because it certainly seems like it's meant to be a replacement.

And no, as one of the people making the argument, it was acknowledged from the beginning that "also we'll add a few extra sprinkles on our remake" was going to be part of the "new" product.

 

[Remathilis]

Also, can we officially toss out the "WotC won't redo existing 5E books for 5.5, especially recent ones" argument now? Because I think the answer is pretty clearly that they will, when they think there's a big financial upside in it for them.

There is still a big difference between this product and just re-releasing CoS with 5.5 statblocks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There is still a big difference between this product and just re-releasing CoS with 5.5 statblocks.

Yes, there's not a big adventure in this one.