D&D 5E Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Art Preview

Parmandur said:

Not necessarily: there also guns in some of these pics. The tech level and cultural style is much more 18th/19th century Europe.

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It's not a matter of 19th C tech level. That locomotive is suspended above conductor stones.

Compare to this official Eberron illustration:

Rabulias said:

It looks to me that his he is reaching his hand out toward the viewer, palm up, so I think it's just weird perspective/foreshortening.

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yeah I initially thought missing arm, but rechecked and he is holding his hand up against his body, cant see anything like an elbow which is where the perspective goes askew.

I had assumed that was a picture of The Machine and he might be a ghost

The pointed ears are signs of wisdow and a long life. In Spain there is a tradition of pulling the ears of the children in their birthday.

The old canon said Strand had got pointed ears.

If Azalin comes back then his curse has to be different. We have to remember he is a very important character in the event of the grand condjuction.

* A new dread domain based in Eberron? It is possible, maybe something linked with machines that rebels against the humans.

* The hexborn hasn't got horns, but he wears something like an altlered crown.

Marcelus14 said:

Really enjoying the frankenstein inspired image

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It's probably adam & he has a fairly interesting history/story in past editions

Azzy said:

I love that we're getting jiangshi.

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where are they?

Mind of tempest said:

where are they?

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In the attached link

Aaron L said:

I much, much, much prefer the way Tieflings were originally portrayed, as unique individual descendants of fiendish ancestors, each with their own unique individual deformity.

Seeing as how the idea behind Tieflings came from the Medieval idea that birth deformities were caused by the sins of the child's parents and/or ancestors, it makes a whole Hell of a lot more sense that they would each have unique deformities, rather than being a full race of uniformly red-skinned, goat-horned, and lizard-tailed Devilpeople. I just cannot stand that massive alteration. It just makes them... flatter and less interesting.

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This is pretty far afield of the topic, but Tieflings weren’t just chanted to “a full race of uniformly red-skinned, goat-horned, and lizard-tailed Devilpeople.” The change was first introduced in 4e, and it was specific to 4e’s assumed setting, commonly referred to as Nentir Vale. In that setting, there was an ancient empire called Bael Turath, who’s (human) nobility made a pact with Asmodeus to maintain control over their empire. As a result of this pact, all of their descendants were cursed to bear a devilish visage as mark of their forebears’ sin. The Tieflings of the Nentir Vale setting aren’t even a race as the word is typically used in D&D, they’re a cursed bloodline of humans.

Now, 5e moved away from the 4e assumed setting, so there’s no Bael Turath and no cursed bloodline, but for some reason they kept the appearance of 4e Tieflings despite not keeping the lore behind them. So, I agree that in the context of 5e where Tieflings are back to being people with fiendish heritage, the uniform appearance doesn’t make sense. But it did make sense in the context of their 4e lore, which is where the uniform appearance originated from.

There's some beautiful work there. The Jiangshi one is gorgeous, as is the first one with all the ghosts. That's got to be the House on Gryphon Hill, right? The golem workshop, and the one with the wererats, and the mummy's tomb piece are really nice too. The third last one I assume is the new female Falkovnia darklord - lots of zombies, eagle motif? Can't say i'm a fan of the Azalin/Strahd one, admittedly. A bit too 'cover of an early-90s Warhammer supplement' for me

They really seem to be heavily going for the gothic style of clothing and equipment. Prominent guns, very little armour, lots of waistcoats and monocles in the place of tabards, shields, and plate helms. I wonder if there'll be new equipment rules to reflect that, or whether PCs will largely end up wearing the heaviest armour they can manage as happens in most D&D games?

A lot of these look straight out of Innistrad

Pretty average art IMO, nowhere near creepy enough. The Strahd one looks positively shiny