D&D Beyond teases Project Lamordia, a modern reinterpretation of Ravenloft

D&D Beyond has released a teaser video for Project Lamordia, a new adventure that reimagines Ravenloft's Domain of Dread Lamordia into a private technology company. An article, since pulled from D&D Beyond, hinted that Project Lamordia would be a Level 1-Level 3 adventure that uses character options from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. In keeping with the horror theme of the adventure, there would also be options to create “citizen” characters (aka Level 0 characters) that allow the players to explore a survival horror theme more closely.

Lamordia is traditionally a Ravenloft Domain of Dread that borrows heavily from Frankenstein. While originally ruled over by Adam, a creation of Dr. Victor Mordenheim, the Domain’s lore was updated so that its Darklord was Dr. Viktra Mordenheim, who resurrected her lost love Alice using an artificial heart. Viktra Mordenheim will be featured in Project Lamordia as a genius technologist obsessed with ending death.

The full Project Lamordia will be released on October 13th. In the meantime, enjoy this teaser video.

 

[delericho]

That seems like a bonus to me. “Everything you think you know about the world is wrong” is very horror.

I disagreed. And I have no intention of revisiting the book to see if my opinion has changed.

In the space allowed for each domain, even if they hadn't changed anything, it's unlikely there would have been anything new for you to use.

Even just gathering and summarising the lore that existed in the many scattered products would have been of value (as both the 4e and 5e Eberron books demonstrate). Or even just publish stat blocks of the Darklords - which, given that their revised version has them, it appears WotC now agrees was a mistake.

I can understand being excited for a new book and not finding it to your tastes . . .

In some ways I'm grateful to Van Richten's Guide - because of that I wasn't in the mood to give WotC the benefit of any doubt in their handling of classic settings, which means I promptly skipped Spelljammer. And while I disliked VRG, I suspect I would have hated that one.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

To me, I just don't think gender swapping does anything really substantive with the setting; it's not a tale of feminism or queerness, the story was just as functional with a toxic straight relationship and merely changing the genders and sexualities doesn't add anything to the equation, so why bother making the change? I suspect the answer is someone looked at a spreadsheet and realized they don't have "enough" lady darklords so they did a switcheroo rather than either producing meaningful commentary or original art

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To me, I just don't think gender swapping does anything really substantive with the setting; it's not a tale of feminism or queerness, the story was just as functional with a toxic straight relationship and merely changing the genders and sexualities doesn't add anything to the equation, so why bother making the change? I suspect the answer is someone looked at a spreadsheet and realized they don't have "enough" lady darklords so they did a switcheroo rather than either producing meaningful commentary or original art

Irrespective of gender, the parent/child relationship is quite a different theme to romantic passion. The novel is about the absence of love, not the excess of it.

But it’s not like the 2e version understood the themes of the novel, it was a very superficial knock-off. One of my issues with 2e Ravenloft was it pastiched a bunch of classic stories but made no effect to understand them, just the palest of imitations.

 

[Dire Bare]

To me, I just don't think gender swapping does anything really substantive with the setting; it's not a tale of feminism or queerness, the story was just as functional with a toxic straight relationship and merely changing the genders and sexualities doesn't add anything to the equation, so why bother making the change? I suspect the answer is someone looked at a spreadsheet and realized they don't have "enough" lady darklords so they did a switcheroo rather than either producing meaningful commentary or original art

Did WotC make the Victor/Victoria swap to give Lamordia new life (heh) . . . or was it more about increasing the diversity of stories in Ravenloft overall?

Or, was it to capitalize on the classic movie, "Victor/Victoria" starring the great Julie Andrews?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did WotC make the Victor/Victoria swap to give Lamordia new life (heh) . . . or was it more about increasing the diversity of stories in Ravenloft overall?

Both I imagine. And also to make it more of it's own thing where players could find their own stories rather than being railroaded through a classic novel. Lamordia makes a good dark steampunk setting, just keep the dark lord as background scenery.

 

[LordLothar]

Both I imagine. And also to make it more of it's own thing where players could find their own stories rather than being railroaded through a classic novel. Lamordia makes a good dark steampunk setting, just keep the dark lord as background scenery.

As many times should happen with the darklords. For the must part they should be the shadow cover the horro in the domain, like Stradh, some times they the mistery itself of the domain, like Shadowlands. One point interesting in Lamordia is that the darklord IS the horror itself

 

[DEFCON 1]

But it’s not like the 2e version understood the themes of the novel, it was a very superficial knock-off. One of my issues with 2e Ravenloft was it pastiched a bunch of classic stories but made no effect to understand them, just the palest of imitations.

Yeah, well it's not like even if the 2E Ravenloft writers got the themes correct that any of the playerbase was going to then use them correctly. The playerbase for the most part would be even more clueless about it than the designers would have been. So nothing was really lost by using pastiche as a backdrop for kids and adults to recreate some of their favorite horror stories in gaming form.

It's like when devout readers of a particular novel get all annoyed when a movie adaptation doesn't get things "right". Yeah, that may be true from the novel's POV... but they are separate things with separate needs for their existence. So a creator can't be so beholden to a work that it makes the adaptation not work on its own. And the person who is beholden to the original should probably not bother with the adaptation if they know they are going to be bothered by it.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, well it's not like even if the 2E Ravenloft writers got the themes correct that any of the playerbase was going to then use them correctly. The playerbase for the most part would be even more clueless about it than the designers would have been. So nothing was really lost by using pastiche as a backdrop for kids and adults to recreate some of their favorite horror stories in gaming form.

When Ravenloft was developed, the classic interpretation of Frankenstein was the Boris Karloff one, with the silent hulk and cackling doctor. I think the writers felt they were being subversive by going back to the original novel and using an articulate, cunning monster and dispassionate amoral Doctor. Of course, Ravenloft being Ravenloft, they lost the question of who is the real monster (the Doctor who abandoned his creation or the creature who realizes he has no place in the world but as a thing to fear) by saying "THEY BOTH ARE!" and making them co-darklords. Because at the end of the day, no matter how nuanced a darklord is, their ultimate role is XP pinata at the end of the adventure...

It's like when devout readers of a particular novel get all annoyed when a movie adaptation doesn't get things "right". Yeah, that may be true from the novel's POV... but they are separate things with separate needs for their existence. So a creator can't be so beholden to a work that it makes the adaptation not work on its own. And the person who is beholden to the original should probably not bother with the adaptation if they know they are going to be bothered by it.

There is a reason the cliche "the book was better" is a thing.

 

[Remathilis]

To me, I just don't think gender swapping does anything really substantive with the setting; it's not a tale of feminism or queerness, the story was just as functional with a toxic straight relationship and merely changing the genders and sexualities doesn't add anything to the equation, so why bother making the change? I suspect the answer is someone looked at a spreadsheet and realized they don't have "enough" lady darklords so they did a switcheroo rather than either producing meaningful commentary or original art

To be fair, they didn't just swap the doctor and monster's genders, they changed the nature of the obsession.

Victor, in classic Frankenstein fashion, is obsessed with creating life. Adam is the rejected son who never knows love and lashes out. Victor devotes y the rest of his time to saving his love and Adam spend his time ruining Victors life for spite and lulz.

Viktra is a obsessed with preserving life. She creates the unbreakable heart which saves her lovers life, but her inability to replicate the feat drives her to the ultimate conclusion: she must kill Elise to recover the heart to see why it worked and nothing else has. So Elise is running for her life against a doctor who cannot accept that her greatest accomplishment was a fluke and not her genius.

Victor is the classic "man makes life without woman, is bad parent" story that is the heart of every Frankenstein knock off. Viktra is a story of someone who cannot get over her greatest achievement and will do anything to duplicate it, even drive off the person she loved and saved to do it. I find Viktra a far more monstrous darklord and the lengths she is willing to go to far more unsettling than Victor. Of all the redone dark lords, she is the one I feel was the best redo.

I feel this modern Lamordia project is going to dive into the idea of medical breakthroughs, especially in the area of longevity, amoral science and experimentation, and obsession and madness. I hope it's good.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Victor is the classic "man makes life without woman, is bad parent" story that is the heart of every Frankenstein knock off. Viktra is a story of someone who cannot get over her greatest achievement and will do anything to duplicate it, even drive off the person she loved and saved to do it. I find Viktra a far more monstrous darklord and the lengths she is willing to go to far more unsettling than Victor. Of all the redone dark lords, she is the one I feel was the best redo.

If you consider the plot of Frankenstein to be stale, you should consider the plot of the new Mordenheim to be even staler since it's just Pygmalion.