D&D 5E Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book

Here is a list of everything we know so far about the upcoming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Art by Paul Scott Canavan​

• May 18th, 256 pages
• 30 domains (with 30 villainous darklords)
• Barovia (Strahd), Dementlieu (twisted fairly tales), Lamordia (flesh golem), Falkovnia (zombies), Kalakeri (Indian folklore, dark rainforests), Valachan (hunting PCs for sport), Lamordia (mad science)
• NPCs include Esmerelda de’Avenir, Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, traveling detective Alanik Ray.
• Large section on setting safe boundaries.
• Dark Gifts are character traits with a cost.
• College of Spirits (bard storytellers who manipulate spirits of folklore) and Undead Patron (warlock) subclasses.
• Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood lineages.
• Cultural consultants used.
• Fresh take on Vistani.
• 40 pages of monsters. Also nautical monsters in Sea of Sorrows.
• 20 page adventure called The House of Lament - haunted house, spirits, seances.

​

D&D 5E - Full Wraparound Cover Art For Ravenloft

We've seen the cover already, but here's a look at the full wraparound art by Anna Podedworna. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/heres-the-ravenloft-alternate-cover.678414/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Here's the Ravenloft Alternate Cover!

As usual, there is an alternate hobby-store exclusive cover for the upcoming Ravenloft book. Here's a look at it! And here's the full wraparound art. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - [Updated with cover!] The D&D Book Is.... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

Yesterday's hints that a new D&D book would be announced today have born fruit -- we now have a product description and a title! It's a Ravenloft setting book, with tools and new rules for horror-themed games, and new horror-themed character options. I'll update this post with a product image as...

www.enworld.org

 

[overgeeked]

EDIT: how often are the six hunters in Dracula (the Harkers, Steward, Morris, Godalming and Van Helsing) paralyzed from fear or revulsion?

It depends entirely on which version you’re talking about. If you mean the original novel, I don’t remember as it’s been more than a decade since I read it last.

 

[Remathilis]

The PCs generally start as 1st-level adventurers. That’s fresh off the farm with granddad’s rusty sword not seasoned combat vets. Besides, even seasoned combat vets freak when faced with something new and truly terrifying. Like say being magically transported into a new land of nightmares. Look at Aliens as an example. Over time they’d get used to the awful, but that’s why you throw new awful things at them.

I think this divide comes down to wanting to play actual horror vs wanting to play horror-themed action heroes. I want Ravenloft to be horror. Not exactly like every other D&D game with gothic monsters instead of orcs and goblins.

See, after decades of trying, I finally realized that D&D is an absolute failure for true horror. There are far better systems for that. D&D is great though for fantasy with a Horror overlay though. I tend to play to D&D's strengths rather than bend it into fit styles of play its ill-suited for. But that's my take.

 

[Bedrockgames]

See, after decades of trying, I finally realized that D&D is an absolute failure for true horror. There are far better systems for that. D&D is great though for fantasy with a Horror overlay though. I tend to play to D&D's strengths rather than bend it into fit styles of play its ill-suited for. But that's my take.

YMMV. I found this to definitely be the case when I ran Ravenloft using 3E. But I have to say, I found Ravenloft definitely worked as a horror game using 2E. Is it as terrifying as being a 1 HP nobody in a horror adventure? No. That is a totally different kind of play. But you can have competent characters, even powerful ones, and still have it be horror, provided the monsters are powerful and the tools are there. To do Ravenloft as the 1 HP nobody, that would be tricky. But I think people are presently an excluded middle here.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have to remember this a game, and not designed to be "one-shot" story. In a movie all the characters can be doomed, but in a game appears then there is some way to be defeated, or at least avoiding to survive. Besides this product is for a new generations of players who are used to read creepypasta stories.



The new lore has to be enough flexible to allow videogame adaptations, not only the classic survival horror, but also building a camp for your zombie apocalypse.

State of Decay 2 Wiki

state-of-decay-2.fandom.com

* We have to remember some players want to be monsters PCs, and then we have plot about supernatural palace intrigues, practically a "Falcon Crest" (80's soap opera) with fangs and superpowers.

 

[overgeeked]

YMMV. I found this to definitely be the case when I ran Ravenloft using 3E. But I have to say, I found Ravenloft definitely worked as a horror game using 2E. Is it as terrifying as being a 1 HP nobody in a horror adventure? No. That is a totally different kind of play. But you can have competent characters, even powerful ones, and still have it be horror, provided the monsters are powerful and the tools are there. To do Ravenloft as the 1 HP nobody, that would be tricky. But I think people are presently an excluded middle here.

Right. 3E and 4E are terrible for horror, but the rest can work fine. You just have to know what you’re doing and use the available tools. Throwing a fair fight worth of goblins at the party isn’t going to cut it. You have to ramp up the horror either by making it an unbalanced fight with way more goblins or you have to change the nature of the goblins. Re-skinning works great. Instead of goblins they’re feral cannibal children or vampire children. Having them skin each other before the fight could work. Especially if the skins get up and attack too. The trouble is getting the characters to respond in genre rather than shrug and charge.

 

[MGibster]

The PCs generally start as 1st-level adventurers. That’s fresh off the farm with granddad’s rusty sword not seasoned combat vets. Besides, even seasoned combat vets freak when faced with something new and truly terrifying. Like say being magically transported into a new land of nightmares. Look at Aliens as an example. Over time they’d get used to the awful, but that’s why you throw new awful things at them.

In 5th edition, the PCs start out with backgrounds, one of which is soldier, which would indicate that they're not exactly fresh off the farm. The PC with the soldier background spent some time as a soldier before becoming an adventurer.

Horror is a state of mind. If you think about it, in a regular D&D campaign, there are all sorts of terribly horrific creatures even when we're not talking about Mindflayers. Harpies, golems, Kuo-toa, and even rocs are frightening creatures that could star in a horror story. It's difficult (not impossible) getting into a horror mindset with D&D because it's a game centered on adolescent male power fantasy fulfillment. A rampaging bear is frightening in real life but a mundane experience in D&D unworthy of even an arched brow.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's difficult (not impossible) getting into a horror mindset with D&D because it's a game centered on adolescent male power fantasy fulfillment. A rampaging bear is frightening in real life but a mundane experience in D&D unworthy of even an arched brow.

I really don't think this is the case. Back in the day, when I first started it was about survival more than power fantasy. Obviously you do grow in power as you level, but most of my characters never got to high level. I think D&D does not have to be about power fantasies and it can very much be about the horror if you are willing to engage it that way

 

[TheSword]

In 5th edition, the PCs start out with backgrounds, one of which is soldier, which would indicate that they're not exactly fresh off the farm. The PC with the soldier background spent some time as a soldier before becoming an adventurer.

Horror is a state of mind. If you think about it, in a regular D&D campaign, there are all sorts of terribly horrific creatures even when we're not talking about Mindflayers. Harpies, golems, Kuo-toa, and even rocs are frightening creatures that could star in a horror story. It's difficult (not impossible) getting into a horror mindset with D&D because it's a game centered on adolescent male power fantasy fulfillment. A rampaging bear is frightening in real life but a mundane experience in D&D unworthy of even an arched brow.

A polar bear tracking the party across an icy waste when one has a broken leg from a lingering injury. They are all on reduced hp because they can’t rest without shelter and then the blizzard starts up reducing visibility to 30 ft...

... worth more than a raised eyebrow.

Horror is 80% setup and adventure structure and 20% rules. (Though this risks starting up the ‘does system matter debate again’)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is a ridiculous example and I might be misremembering the precise details but as I recall in the Bride of Mordenheim adventure the splintered door could do damage (something like 1d2 or possibly 1d4) if you knocked on it. I had a low level character die from that. Now clearly that is a bit silly. But at low levels characters are incredibly fragile, and in classic ravenloft you got way less XP than other settings, so characters often remained low level for sometime. Plus with spells and magic items operating differently (and with many requiring powers checks to use, such as necromantic magic), with monsters being so powerful and customizable that definitely put something of a lower ceiling feel to the game.

 

[Voadam]

Sorry, the bolded bit looks exactly like you gave 50/50 odds on beating Strahd. You worded it as him wrecking you, but the alternative in that binary is you beating him. Though I did drop the words “better than”.

Taking out the words "better than" does change the meaning.

I see him as being tough enough with enough advantages that I expect he will more likely than not beat us when we go after him. I do not see it as a toss up. I do believe we have a shot at winning, though whether it is 45% or 10% I could not really say and we would be going for it anyway if the game picks up again regardless. As I said, we expect it will end badly, but we will be taking our shot at pulling off the win anyway.

At 9th level with all that gear?

The two anti-vampire artefacts were not very helpful against The Thing in the Water, The Bad Things in the Temple, or the second-tier Witches. They were eventually great against the secondary Vampire and his Spawn, but errors on our party's part made that an almost disaster as well. We specifically decided not to go after the Top Tier Witch after investigating her, fearing it would go badly and we wanted to focus on Strahd.