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.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Not seeing it. Elise was a real person before her transformation. Viktra saved her life in a medical procedure. It's just after that, Viktra became obsessed with ripping her apart to study why the unbreakable heart works and all her other attempts failed. Maybe you should actually try reading the new Ravenloft books before you speak?

 

[Bae'zel]

That's hardly the only symbolism in Mary Shelley's original work, and hardly is something really lost in the genre character change, and hardly is something really relevante in the 2e version of Lamordia.

Okay, I'll preface my posts with the following from now on:

"IN MY HUMBLE OPINION"

K, now that this is out of the way...

I never said that it was THE ONLY symbolism, only that that I prefer the older take on Lamordia that adheres a bit more to the genders in Shelly's book.

And I even explicitly said that swapping things doesn't really matter anyway; don't get too stuck on the book to make the D&D setting work and explore other things.

Take it easy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My partner believes it’s inspired by Mary’s Post Partum Depression. The experience of being unable to love your child, despite everything telling you you should.

Which would make Victor an author-insert character, gender changed because it would have been very difficult for a woman to get the requisite medical training at the time of writing.

I think Victor is also a cheeky mirror to Shelley's male friends, tbh.

But overall i suspect your partner's theory is sound.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The teaser made me to remember the indie analogic horror videogames or titles like "I hate this place", the videogame that is an adaptation of a comic published by Image. I suspect Ravenloft 5.5 drinks from different sources of inspiration, not only classic gothic horror literature or vintage movies but also indie videogames and comics.... or even creepypaste fiction.

Usually horror franchises lack the level of worlbuilding of epic fantasy, but post-apocalypse subgenre.

* I once read an interpretation suggesting that the story of Frankenstein represents the rejection of a bastard son. In a sense, the creature is the product of its "creator's" sin—the archetype of the mad scientist who, in the name of science, is capable of creating atrocities.

* OMG! Now I am remembering the 2014 movie "I, Frankestein", but this was more action urban fantasy than gothic horror.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I remember some cheesy horror movie I saw where a character referenced "Los Vampyros Lesbos" and thought it was a throwaway joke. But it turns out its a real movie from Spain that was made in the 1970s, with a plot seems to seems to be just like Dracula and other vampire stories except more lesbian.

And it makes me think that if Strahd thought that Tatyana was reborn in the body of male character, he'd just act the same way to that character as he does with every other woman.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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

True. But more often than not, the person who says that read the book first. So of course they will be biased towards the book.

Ask someone who watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy films first and then went back to read the books and it's often likely that person will say the movies were better (due to just the sheer length of the novels, all those extra characters who show up and then disappear, the long passages of poetry and whatnot, the visuals of fight scenes and such the books can't give you, etc. etc.). But you ask the person who grew up reading the novels which were better, of course the movies can't compare to them.

So it can go both ways. But I agree, the novel-first folks were the ones who made the cliche a thing, as you said.

 

[Remathilis]

I remember some cheesy horror movie I saw where a character referenced "Los Vampyros Lesbos" and thought it was a throwaway joke. But it turns out its a real movie from Spain that was made in the 1970s, with a plot seems to seems to be just like Dracula and other vampire stories except more lesbian.

And it makes me think that if Strahd thought that Tatyana was reborn in the body of male character, he'd just act the same way to that character as he does with every other woman.

I mean, one of the three major modern vampire trope setters is Camilla which is explicitly a lesbian story.

 

[LordLothar]

I mean, one of the three major modern vampire trope setters is Camilla which is explicitly a lesbian story.

more on the homophobic side

 

[LordLothar]

The teaser made me to remember the indie analogic horror videogames or titles like "I hate this place", the videogame that is an adaptation of a comic published by Image. I suspect Ravenloft 5.5 drinks from different sources of inspiration, not only classic gothic horror literature or vintage movies but also indie videogames and comics.... or even creepypaste fiction.

Usually horror franchises lack the level of worlbuilding of epic fantasy, but post-apocalypse subgenre.

* I once read an interpretation suggesting that the story of Frankenstein represents the rejection of a bastard son. In a sense, the creature is the product of its "creator's" sin—the archetype of the mad scientist who, in the name of science, is capable of creating atrocities.

* OMG! Now I am remembering the 2014 movie "I, Frankestein", but this was more action urban fantasy than gothic horror.

Well, the new Ravenloft books from 5e an 5.5 explicit point that they want to show others horror genres besides gothic horror.

And 2014 "I, Frankestein" and 2004 "Van Helsing" are good exemples of what is Ravenlofth in D&D rules (2e or 5e)

 

[Remathilis]

more on the homophobic side

They aren't all romances...