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

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not really invested in Eberron one way or the other, but a domain or quasi-domain centred around a haunted or cursed train could be awesome.

Clive Barker has an interesting story called Midnight Meat Train (not haunted but could certainly take trains into horror territory with the concept)

 

[Remathilis]

Black Dice Society 5: Plants vs Zombies

The cold opener involves Contact from Jandar Sunstar. He's looking for his daughter and needs are teams help. Not much but foreshadowing future quests. Again, he could be part of the book or merely brought in for the pod.

Most of the adventure is broken into two combats with connective tissue between them. They do reveal two returning foes: doppleganger plants and boneless. Pictures of art from the stream below, sorry about the quality.

Two areas of Falkovia named: forest of strangeness and the capital: leskar.

Mordent named dropped again by Jandar, he also mentioned being fractured. Return of the apparatus?

Three of the PCs now have a shown abilities that aren't part of the normal PC abilities. Two were revived when brought to 0 hp automatically. One had an alternative form like a dragon/vampire bat, and the aforementioned lycanthrope. Wild speculation, but these could be Dark Gifts from the book, or just stuff for the pod.

Light on spoilers, but fun episode.

 

[Faolyn]

A boneless and a doppelganger plant, perhaps.

 

[Remathilis]

A boneless and a doppelganger plant, perhaps.

The boneless was called that by name. The doppleganger plant was called a pod plant, but it fit the 2e description to a tee.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I think I'll just say one thing about Ravenloft, and whether it is horror.... playing a Ravenloft D&D game is a lot like playing Castlevania. There is a lot of horror appearing around you, but you're still a hero, and a pretty powerful one. Do you get scared? Maybe on occasion, by something truly gross or horrifying, or maybe a loved one (NPC) being threatened. Maybe you even encounter a difficult boss and fear for your (video game) life. But overall, it's not like your living in constant fear.

That is very different than say a game of Call of Cthulhu. Is it still horror? Eh, who cares, its definition-semantics. What matters is your emulating a certain type of heroism, spitting in the face of a vampire, even if deep down your frightened of the inevitable showdown.

 

[overgeeked]

I think I'll just say one thing about Ravenloft, and whether it is horror.... playing a Ravenloft D&D game is a lot like playing Castlevania.

Unfortunately, yes. It could be so much more. So much richer. So much deeper.

There is a lot of horror appearing around you, but you're still a hero, and a pretty powerful one.

Which makes it not horror. Horror is about disempowerment, not empowerment. Being a powerful, capable hero precludes horror. Unless the DM ramps the difficulty of everything around you way, way up...like every single encounter is deadly or beyond. Or makes it nearly impossible for you to hurt the monsters while they can easily kill you.

Do you get scared?

In D&D? Not unless there's a fear effect you fail your save on. And not unless you know the Monster Manual and realize the beastie the DM just put in front of you is way out of your league.

Maybe on occasion, by something truly gross or horrifying, or maybe a loved one (NPC) being threatened. Maybe you even encounter a difficult boss and fear for your (video game) life. But overall, it's not like your living in constant fear.

Horror isn't about constant fear. Horror is about tension. Horror is transgressive. Horror is isolating. Horror is disempowering. Horror thrives on uncertainty and suspense. Check out the Dragon Talk video put out yesterday. They touch on some of this.

That is very different than say a game of Call of Cthulhu. Is it still horror? Eh, who cares, its definition-semantics.

We should because definitions are important. It's the basis of our ability to communicate. If we talk about cars for an hour and at the end one of us points to a balloon and calls it a car...we have a problem.

What matters is your emulating a certain type of heroism, spitting in the face of a vampire, even if deep down your frightened of the inevitable showdown.

That's part of the point. Horror doesn't really have heroism in that sense. Action-adventure stories that use horror tropes and horror monsters do. Horror itself? Not so much. In horror that would be something like the final girl in a slasher flick. That's a far cry from Castlevania. Castlevania isn't horror, at best it's an action-adventure story with spooky set dressing. If that's as close to horror as you want to get, that's your choice, of course. But don't confuse Castlevania with horror.

 

[Charlaquin]

The skittering horror? Unless this is a new creature with the same name... that's a Magic: The Gathering monster, previously appearing in the Ravnica book. Will there be a MTG-based domain in Ravenloft? That'd be a big deal.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Innistrad becomes a Domain of Dread.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm interested in the huge squid-thing on the back row. It makes me think of War of the Worlds Martians done right. Which is something I have never seen in any of the many TV/film versions.

The blue marking on its head appears to be the symbol of Tharizdun. I wonder what that’s about.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Innistrad becomes a Domain of Dread.

I feel like they would have led with that early on, to stop the purists freaking out when the book hits the streets and they learn about it that way.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Unfortunately, yes. It could be so much more. So much richer. So much deeper.

Which makes it not horror. Horror is about disempowerment, not empowerment. Being a powerful, capable hero precludes horror. Unless the DM ramps the difficulty of everything around you way, way up...like every single encounter is deadly or beyond. Or makes it nearly impossible for you to hurt the monsters while they can easily kill you.

In D&D? Not unless there's a fear effect you fail your save on. And not unless you know the Monster Manual and realize the beastie the DM just put in front of you is way out of your league.

Horror isn't about constant fear. Horror is about tension. Horror is transgressive. Horror is isolating. Horror is disempowering. Horror thrives on uncertainty and suspense. Check out the Dragon Talk video put out yesterday. They touch on some of this.

We should because definitions are important. It's the basis of our ability to communicate. If we talk about cars for an hour and at the end one of us points to a balloon and calls it a car...we have a problem.

That's part of the point. Horror doesn't really have heroism in that sense. Action-adventure stories that use horror tropes and horror monsters do. Horror itself? Not so much. In horror that would be something like the final girl in a slasher flick. That's a far cry from Castlevania. Castlevania isn't horror, at best it's an action-adventure story with spooky set dressing. If that's as close to horror as you want to get, that's your choice, of course. But don't confuse Castlevania with horror.

I'm not going to argue with you point by point, because I hate dividing my quotes up. But no, I don't agree that horror is all about disempowerment. Sometimes, it's a powerful hero coming up short. If you ever watch the end of the Gold Age Arc in Berserk, which is pretty horrific for many reasons, it's a case of a very powerful hero coming against an impossible foe. His allies and friends all around him are killed and abused, and his best friend does a truly unspeakable (for this forum) act. At no point did I think the hero Guts was disempowered, but I did think that all of his power came up short against this foe, and for that he pays a heavy toll.

So no, I think your definition of horror is frankly too narrow. That said, D&D is not truly built for horror of any type, because the heroes are expected to triumph in the end. No player I know of really wants to lose. Knowing it is a possibility is different than actually wanting it to happen because it "fits the genre." The players want to confront the horror and win. This is not really on-theme for horror.

And yes, I do find arguing with you on definitions largely tedious. Largely, because I know I'm not going to change your mind. So in the end we will point at the same thing and call it different things, and what's the point? We aren't going to agree, neither of us is going to change our mind, so I'd rather talk about something else.

I've put in a trailer for the upcoming Castlevania show, which does a pretty good job of encapsulating what "Horror D&D" is typically going to look like. I'm not going to show Berserk because that's NSFW on a whole range of levels. If you want something that's disempowering for your D&D game, well, I might recommend a different game honestly, because that's not really what D&D 5E is, and would require a heavy rework to do so.