Innsmouth added as new Ravenloft Domain of Dread, bringing Lovecraft to D&D

TravDoc42 · 2026-04-18T17:47:11+0100

GarrettKP said:
View attachment 434925

Spotted on Instagram. Wizkids teasing Ravenloft minis with this premium Cthulhu figure.

I don't need it I don't need it I don't need itttt...
Although it is SO COOL!

jayoungr · 2026-04-18T19:19:36+0100

Von Ether said:
On another note, I don't get why this is not a Halloween release.

I wondered about that too. Maybe the idea is for DMs to have time to read the book and get their campaigns ready by Halloween.

Selas · 2026-04-19T02:18:51+0100

It might just be because it's the book that was ready first, so why wait.

Autumnal · 2026-04-19T03:13:49+0100

@Thommy H-H : What I see here is essentially all negative evidence. If the question is “Must there not be any association between Cthulhu and Innsmouth?”, that’s fine. But it seems like most of us are asking if it’s required that Innsmouth be connected to Cthulhu, and does it benefit Innsmouth to be connected to Lovecraft, and I think the answer to both those is no.

“Dagon” gives us a giant deep one and great statuary suggesting more. So does one of the mythic histories in another story, IIRC. (I may not. My stress level is kind of unbelievable right now.) the Cthulhu connection in “Shadow” itself seems so tenuous that you could fit in just about any Great Old One with that level of inference and allusion. And fundamentally, I don’t think Innsmouth as a place or a story gains anything from the connection.

Stories I’m likely to associate with “Shadow” include “The Tomb”, “Dagon”, and either “At the Mountains of Madness” or “The Shadow Out of Time”, depending on my mood. Interrogating myself, I wonder if I tend to regard Cthulhu as a world-terminating cliche. That is, unless you rerun “Call”, you’re probably stuck with the world ending, while the others seem time to offer more room for horizontal expansion and development. That’s not fair to the work Lovecraft spent developing the Cthulhu cult, and sure, one can play fresh riffs with it for some time. But connecting Innsmouth to the Cthulhu cult feels distinct from Cthulhu itself, partly because the cult would presumably not be a dreadlord.

Hmm. There aren’t any collective dreadlords, are there?

TravDoc42 · 2026-04-19T03:17:45+0100

Autumnal said:
There aren’t any collective dreadlords, are there?

Borca has two, IIRC!

Voadam · 2026-04-19T04:22:21+0100

Autumnal said:
Hmm. There aren’t any collective dreadlords, are there?

Timor, from Islands of Terror, comes kind of close but despite the Dark Lord being the HIVE Queen of the Marikith, is an individual and her hive does not share a hive mind.

Paul Farquhar · 2026-04-19T08:21:39+0100

SkidAce said:
Great mini, kudos to artist....not Chthulhu.

It's not quite book accurate, in that it doesn't have "prodigious claws". Curious - the narrator says it has claws on both it's hind and fore feet, but it's standing in the water, so how does he know what it's back feet are like? The wings are consistent, the text says they are "long and narrow", but doesn't specify how many pairs. Common depictions of Cthulhu give him dragon-like wings, which don't actually match the text. One would imagine that the translucent jellyfish-like skull would have been mentioned if Lovecraft had thought of it. His ghost is franticly taking notes! One detects a general Giger influence on this mini.

It's certainly a lot closer to the original text than the depiction in the movie Underwater!

Autumnal · 2026-04-19T08:47:52+0100

TravDoc42 said:
Borca has two, IIRC!

Voadam said:
Timor, from Islands of Terror, comes kind of close but despite the Dark Lord being the HIVE Queen of the Marikith, is an individual and her hive does not share a hive mind.

Thanks!

Paul Farquhar · 2026-04-19T09:20:54+0100

TravDoc42 said:
Borca has two, IIRC!

Stats-wise, neither makes for and interesting combat though, unless they are changed significantly. One could play into the idea that both are artificers, with different subclass specialisations.

Have we managed to piece together a list of domains featured in the new book yet?

TravDoc42 · 2026-04-19T15:30:35+0100

Paul Farquhar said:
Stats-wise, neither makes for and interesting combat though, unless they are changed significantly. One could play into the idea that both are artificers, with different subclass specialisations.

Have we managed to piece together a list of domains featured in the new book yet?

Borca is pretty much confirmed, given how its on this map set from Beadle & Grimm's!

And I do think/hope they'll make those darklords more interesting. They mentioned 16 Domains, but 17 Darklord stat blocks, which makes me think each is getting a stat block!