Check Out This Early Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Artwork

TravDoc42 said:

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This is definitely a depiction of the Great Race of Yith!

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I'll reserve judgement until I actually read the book or at least hear more, but I'm really unsure why the Great Race of Yith would be in Ravenloft.

ersatzphil said:

I'll reserve judgement until I actually read the book or at least hear more, but I'm really unsure why the Great Race of Yith would be in Ravenloft.

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Because copyright has expired?

Mount Bluetspur from the original was about as close as they could get to Cthululu as Lovecraft's works were still copyrighted, in a sort of "Mountains of Madness" way, so the Great Race actually kinda fits.

ersatzphil said:

I'll reserve judgement until I actually read the book or at least hear more, but I'm really unsure why the Great Race of Yith would be in Ravenloft.

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I'm just thinking, Cthulhu being a Dark Lord now might make that more likely

Stormonu said:

Because copyright has expired?

Mount Bluetspur from the original was about as close as they could get to Cthululu as Lovecraft's works were still copyrighted, in a sort of "Mountains of Madness" way, so the Great Race actually kinda fits.

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Interesting side note: HPL more or less officially entered the public domain in 1986, when Wandrei finally won his lawsuit against Arkham House. "RQ2: Thoughts of Darkness" was published in 1992, well after - was Bluetspur mentioned in the Red Box? It was in "Domains of Dread", but that came out in 1997.
edit: Even the Black Box was 1990.

But to your actual point: what would they be doing in Ravenloft? Are they still traveling forward and back in time via mind swapping? Wasn't their library in Australia? Again, I'm reserving judgement, it's just very unclear how you'd use them in the context of the domains of dread.

ersatzphil said:

Interesting side note: HPL more or less officially entered the public domain in 1986, when Wandrei finally won his lawsuit against Arkham House. "RQ2: Thoughts of Darkness" was published in 1992, well after - was Bluetspur mentioned in the Red Box? It was in "Domains of Dread", but that came out in 1997.

But to your actual point: what would they be doing in Ravenloft? Are they still traveling forward and back in time via mind swapping? Wasn't their library in Australia? Again, I'm reserving judgement, it's just very unclear how you'd use them in the context of the domains of dread.

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That's very understandable! The art sure resembles them, but I see your point. I guess we'll find out come June!

ersatzphil said:

Interesting side note: HPL more or less officially entered the public domain in 1986, when Wandrei finally won his lawsuit against Arkham House. "RQ2: Thoughts of Darkness" was published in 1992, well after - was Bluetspur mentioned in the Red Box? It was in "Domains of Dread", but that came out in 1997.

But to your actual point: what would they be doing in Ravenloft? Are they still traveling forward and back in time via mind swapping? Wasn't their library in Australia? Again, I'm reserving judgement, it's just very unclear how you'd use them in the context of the domains of dread.

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Is it possible that part of the book will just be about horror in general, and not horror set in Ravenloft? They could squeeze in a chapter on the mythos as an example of cosmic horror without putting them down the road from Castle Ravenloft.

I adore the alt cover art. It's exactly what I want in an alt cover: stylized, and sick as heck! The typefaces used make it so cool to me, too!!

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Is it possible that part of the book will just be about horror in general, and not horror set in Ravenloft? They could squeeze in a chapter on the mythos as an example of cosmic horror without putting them down the road from Castle Ravenloft.

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I could totally see that, and I could see it working well.

And I mean, you could make the Yithian's ancient library a domain of dread, I just don't know how you make it horror. The horror of the Yithians is knowing:
1. Anyone you meet or know, including friends and loved ones, might be a Yithian,
2. At any moment, your consciousness might be hurdled through time to inhabit a Yithian body, for as long as the Yithians want, and
3. The Yithians are orchestrating events across time to ensure the survival of the Yithians. They don't hate us or anything, they're just cosmically indifferent to the survival of the human race - they're already transferring their best and brightest into the race of beetles that will inherit the earth after Man's extinction.

Again, it just doesn't seem obvious to me how you do that in D&D. Hopefully they've cooked up something good to convince me otherwise!

ersatzphil said:

I'll reserve judgement until I actually read the book or at least hear more, but I'm really unsure why the Great Race of Yith would be in Ravenloft.

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I'm going with Appendix N having a long shadow, and Ravenloft being the catch-all "dark" kitchensink.

ersatzphil said:

Again, it just doesn't seem obvious to me how you do that in D&D. Hopefully they've cooked up something good to convince me otherwise!

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Yeah, this definitely works better in Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Alien or Mothership, in my opinion, but "can D&D do horror" is a perennial argument around here.