Denizens of Darkness is a 184 page $29.95 hardcover monster supplement for the Ravenloft campaign setting.
The supplement attempts to fill three separate purposes: to convert setting monsters from 2e to 3e and add a few new ones for old fans of Ravenloft, to fit into and support the Ravenloft line of 3e books so that they are complete without any 2e books, and to provide a host of gothic horror monsters suitable for any D&D setting.
The book starts with a brief introduction that analyzes the roles of the different standard monster types in Ravenloft gothic horror roleplaying, provides an index of the 90 monster entries, then provides 170 pages of monsters followed by a journal entry preview of Van Richten’s Arsenal laying the foundations for the setting’s most famous monster hunter and sage. Finally there are a few pages of ads for Ravenloft and Sword and Sorcery products. There are two two-page pdf previews each depicting a whole entry, and a web enhancement of vampire strain spawn available from the white-wolf site and www.kargatane.com
The monsters are presented alphabetically with templates mixed in with the standard entries so you have the humanoid vampyre race immediately after the vampire strain templates. The monsters are layed out one after the other so there is little wasted white space at the end of entries. I found it easier to look up creatures than in the 3e monster manual. Almost every creature has a piece of art depicting it. The art ranges from poor to good and very good.
Overall I found the artwork disappointing. There are several different styles of art throughout the book and some work well while others do not. I particularly liked the well inked pieces by Bob Giadrosich as shown in the ghoul lord and snow wraith. However another artist’s style seems wholly too cutesy for a horror sourcebook and made it difficult for me to take the moor men and spirit waif seriously. I found the lycanthrope pictures good except for the disneyesque werejackal. One artist draws in a sort of sketchy anime sort of style which works well sometimes (I like the vistani) but sometimes appears too underdeveloped and looks like first draft sketches. Also there is a smudgy charcoal style I do not care for. Part of my disappointment might be that I really liked the 2e art for many of the creatures from the original Ravenloft monstrous compendium and a lot of the new art does not compare well.
The monsters range from CR 1/6 to 16 with most ranging from 1 to 5 and only two being over CR 11. The templates, however can add as much as +6 to a base creature. In an interesting typo the 10 HD radiant spirit is listed as CR 110.
There are nine new templates presented, including: animator, dhampir, ermordenung, geist (with two subtypes), ghoul lord, lebendtod, living tattoo, vorlog, and zombie lord. Two of the templates can be added to objects.
There are eight new types of lycanthropes including ones based on worgs, dire wolves, dire badgers, jackals, jaguars, leopards, hybrid stingrays, and dire raven. Most are on the lower end of power with only the dire wolf rivaling the standard weretiger for stats. Unfortunately, instead of adding to a creatures CR every lycanthrope adds +2 to its base animal CR only, how you handle a humanoid with more levels than the animal is not explained. Notable for their absence are the bat, crocodile, and shark, particularly because there are Ravenloft lords with these lycanthrope types. They are covered in Monsters of Faerun so I think their omission is deliberate. However, the werebat stat changes snuck into the lycanthrope stat change chart.
There are also lots of vampires in this book. There are seven vampire “strains” or variations of the standard vampire template including Chiang shi (oriental), nosferatu (no energy drain, with a cerebral subtype), vyrkola (diseased), dwarven, elven, gnomish, and halfling. The kender vampires from 2e are no more. Also there is a vampiric monstrous humanoid race, the dhampir half vampires, and the vorlog (almost made but then botched special not quite vampires). There is also a procedure for vampires to turn a subject into a full vampire instead of a spawn. The variations are more than just names as they each have different weaknesses and powers that make them distinctive adversaries. Each of the full vampire types has a different chart for the effects of different age categories making the older ones much more powerful than standard fledgling vampires.
The book has lots of undead, both corporeal and incorporeal. Roughly one third of the entries are undead. There are lots of ways that souls can come back depending upon the situation of death. For example, a paladin who dies with a mission unfulfilled, people burned to death at the stake, hanged wrongfully or not, sailors drowned, pirates and ship captains, an innocent whose bones are unconsecrated and in a dangerous place, assassins killed on assignment, etc. Given the numbers of undead I was surprised at the low number of energy draining attacks in the book. While PCs can take heart in this they should still be wary because there is an inordinate number of creatures with permanent ability drain attacks.
There are numerous shapechangers that can appear human and mix with society ranging from dread doppelgangers to skin thieves, to pool entities that wear the bodies of their victims to non infectious wolf werewolves known as wolfweres.
Among the constructs there are figurines, scarecrows, living walls, six types of golems (bone, doll, gargoyle, glass, mechanical, and zombie) and others. I was disappointed in the constructs because they do not provide creation rules for any of them save the living wall. In Ravenloft constructs can be created without magic, but I still really wanted rules for spellcasters to make them. I felt it was a mistake to not include such rules, particularly for people using this as a resource in other games. Also the CR 12 zombie golem was quite the disappointment in terms of actual danger, 18 HD but only 17 AC and restricted to partial actions. Serious fighters can mow them down easily and they are nothing compared to a stone golem. A single first level character with enough alchemist’s fire can take one out even if he succumbs to the special stench attack.
Fey are well represented with lots of invisible and malicious or otherworldly types. One of the most powerful special attacks I have seen is listed for one subtype of fey, blinding speed, which gives three full attacks in one full attack action, the only restriction being it can not be used with heavy weapons.
I really like the dread cloakers, aberrations that act like beneficial magic items and establish links to their hosts. They are dangerous to their hosts if not able to use their powers and feed or if they die after bonding.
I don’t own the 2e nightmare lands boxed set and the dream creatures were interesting to get a peek into that realm and to create good dream sequence scenarios. The one non creature crunchy bit is a magic weapon quality that makes weapons more powerful in dream sequences.
There are some issues with typing creatures where it could have gone different ways. For example, a spirit bonding with an item is an undead if it is an animator, but it is a construct if it is a living tattoo. Also the shadow asp is described as being an outsider from the plane of shadow, but is typed as a magical beast.
As a conversion book it provides a wealth of stats for familiar creatures such as the goblyn, the dread elementals, etc. There are creatures not just from the compendiums but from adventures and sourcebooks including such entries as the marikith, and four of the arak shadow fey. However, not every monster from the old books are here, the darkling and doom haunts from the first compendium are missing, for instance, and while the lebentod of Ship of Horrors is here the snow golem is not.
As a continuation of the Ravenloft 3e line it mostly serves its goal, but I was hoping for more folklore development for the monsters on why they have their powers and weaknesses. For those with Secrets of the Dread Realms, they will be disappointed to know the sentinel bat that was promised to be here is MIA and they will have to decide whether the Sith lord is missing her blinding speed power because of a curse as a darklord or because she was made before this supplement came out and retroactively give it to her.
As a generic sourcebook for any campaign it does pretty well, giving interesting creatures with neat powers and vulnerabilities, many that can hide among humanity or plague them. Many scenarios can be created just based around single monster descriptions and their typical modus operandi. The lack of construct creation rules and referring back to the Ravenloft core book instead of explaining vampire age categories or Ravenloft construct creation hamper the book’s efforts to be useful to a wider audience.
At first I was disappointed by the book, particularly given the price. I wanted more in-depth descriptions and the monsters that were missing really bugged me. The more I read it, however, the more it grew on me. It might have helped that I do not own the third 2e Ravenloft monstrous compendium or the nightmare lands so a good number of monsters were fresh to me. In the end I found the book to be a solid, useful 3e monster book.
