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

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One movie I actually kind of enjoyed, even though it really had serious flaws, was Frankenstein Theory. It was a found footage version of the movie. It had an interesting premise. If you don't mind a more Blaire Witch approach to the material, it is something different (and it has some campy acting in it----but I kind of liked that about it).

Oooooh I've never even heard of that but I do think a Blair Witch take on that deal could actually be pretty cool. I'll keep an eye out for it.

It looks like this depicts Gennifer and Laurie Weathermay-Foxgrove, and the werewolf is Natalia Vhorishkova.

As a British person, I can absolutely hear the cut-glass accents of people with the surname "Weathermay-Foxgrove" in my head (esp. as Laurie and Gennifer are absolutely plausible first names for that sort of surname). Great names.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nice shoes. Shame about the hat.

Right? I was showing my wife, like this is a FASHION mummy, dude is stylin', and we both liked the shoes particularly. I kind of wished I didn't have giant clomping feet so I could have a pair. For around the house, y'know?

D&D and other tabletop RPGs have been on Forbes for years now. Rob Weiland writes RPG articles for them regularly (he also writes one here on EN World every Friday!)

Makes sense when you consider the audience. I know an awful lot of upper-middle-class people who have or do play RPGs (in the US and UK) in my early 40s and the posh school I went they were pretty common at (I knew of at least two "rival" D&D groups just my year and the two years above). And they've clearly been aimed to get "the best of gaming writing" for a while - they hired Jason Schrier, probably the biggest name in video games journalism, and certainly the best at getting "inside scoops", away from Kotaku a couple of years ago.

Then I suspect not many people actually play default D&D for any campaign. I don’t think ‘default’ is a very useful term for looking at D&D 5e in any guise.

I suspect there's some considerable truth to this but looking at people I know, and people whose posts I read (particularly on the 5E subreddit, which I think skews broader and younger than ENworld, though also isn't as interesting or thoughtful as ENworld is these days), I feel like D&D basically divides into two groups - people who are running homebrew settings, who usually also seem to have at least some optional rules in play and often house rules too and so on, and people who run almost exclusively pre-gen campaigns/adventure paths (I wish we I knew what we were calling them these days), who tend to use few/no optional rules and few/no houserules (though if a campaign adds them, they will use them of course).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oooooh I've never even heard of that but I do think a Blair Witch take on that deal could actually be pretty cool. I'll keep an eye out for it.

As a British person, I can absolutely hear the cut-glass accents of people with the surname "Weathermay-Foxgrove" in my head (esp. as Laurie and Gennifer are absolutely plausible first names for that sort of surname). Great names.

I heard they where at Roedean with Penelope Creighton-Ward.

 

[Parmandur]

Right? I was showing my wife, like this is a FASHION mummy, dude is stylin', and we both liked the shoes particularly. I kind of wished I didn't have giant clomping feet so I could have a pair. For around the house, y'know?

Makes sense when you consider the audience. I know an awful lot of upper-middle-class people who have or do play RPGs (in the US and UK) in my early 40s and the posh school I went they were pretty common at (I knew of at least two "rival" D&D groups just my year and the two years above). And they've clearly been aimed to get "the best of gaming writing" for a while - they hired Jason Schrier, probably the biggest name in video games journalism, and certainly the best at getting "inside scoops", away from Kotaku a couple of years ago.

I suspect there's some considerable truth to this but looking at people I know, and people whose posts I read (particularly on the 5E subreddit, which I think skews broader and younger than ENworld, though also isn't as interesting or thoughtful as ENworld is these days), I feel like D&D basically divides into two groups - people who are running homebrew settings, who usually also seem to have at least some optional rules in play and often house rules too and so on, and people who run almost exclusively pre-gen campaigns/adventure paths (I wish we I knew what we were calling them these days), who tend to use few/no optional rules and few/no houserules (though if a campaign adds them, they will use them of course).

In regards to how common "standard" D&D is...I don't think any of us have a sufficient sample size in experience or observation to make broad statements about 40+ million people playing D&D. However, the 5E assumptions match what my group had been doing throughout 3.x, when I thought we were weirdos for not doing things the way people talked about playing on forums...

 

[darjr]

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Probably a coincidence. I must say, I am impressed by your ability to dig up these hints, reveals and teases!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In regards to how common "standard" D&D is...I don't think any of us have a sufficient sample size in experience or observation to make broad statements about 40+ million people playing D&D. However, the 5E assumptions match what my group had been doing throughout 3.x, when I thought we were weirdos for not doing things the way people talked about playing on forums...

Interesting - what did you think you were doing differently to "people on forums"?

The biggest division-point I see re: reddit (which has vastly more in the way of "new to D&D with 5E" people) and here is attitudes to rolled stats, oddly enough. Here people see them as reasonable albeit inherently imbalanced and with some accompanying issues to be aware of. On the subreddit for Next I've seen attitudes towards rolled stats which basically amount to considering them outright heresy, or an active attempt to destroy your game and/or grief your players. Not kidding or overstating either. And from the up/down votes these were not unpopular views. Ones defending rolled stats were unpopular views, to put it mildly.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There is a difference between use a story to show satire or social report and using this as propaganda to promote your own predjudices. You can add a character as Jar Jar Binks, but you shouldn't say all gugans from Naboo are stupid jokers. You can use in your story a character as Fu-Manchu, but the good sense advice in your story you should show also some Asian characters in the side of the good guys, or at least with positive traits. Let's notice how now vistani has suffered some little changes to be more politically correct. Applying indiscriminately negative tropes to all the members of a group not only is offensive, but it may be so dangerous like other types of hate and intolerance.

How would you feel if anybody create a dread domain using a historical fact, the drowning at Nantes (mass executions by drowning for the French terror?), with a dark lord based in Jean-Baptiste Carrier, but with a little change, the souls of these martyrs aren't a menace for the innocents but for the monsters and unholy creatures, or a temporal antidote for cursed people. The dark powers have tried to poison or taint the river because this has become a sanctuary for prigrimls. Sometimes the desecration attempts have been successful... but only temporalily. In the end the collective memory has been rewritten and now everybody thinks the rive is cursed and tainted, when really its waters could be the key to cure some dieases or supernatural curses. Here the thread is the fear for the punishment when this is right and neccesary and the suffering for the penance when this is mixed with the hope of salvation.

* What happens with "Azalin's ascension"? Does this mean the updating of the modules about the grand condjuction will be also altered?

* The cult of the elemental evil should be added to Ravenloft as antagonist faction, and as a good excuse to add bulletproof dread elementals against PC who have specialized too much to slay undeads.

* Could the dark powers curse gunslingers with any gunpowder allergy to avoid possible abuse of firearms?

* The "goblyns" (why not another name? ) could enjoy some "bulletproof" trait gifted by the dark powers if the DM is afraid the PCs are using too many firearms.

* If there is a dread domain linked Spelljammer but not Kalidnay then that will be arrive sooner.

* If the changelings are a race from Eberron, what about the "changelings" from the Shadow Rift, constructs created by the Arak?

* If you were Raitsling, what would you do or Kitiara's soul, trapped within a gem? And Takishis to use this a a bait for a conspirancy? What if Sithicus is a dread domain, but not within the demiplane of the dread, but in Krynn-Shadowfeel?

And if Kalidnay is a dread domain, but in the Athas-Shadowfell?

The 4th Ed told about "sattelites" domains, in the Astral Plane, but separated, without direct contact with the demiplane of the dread, and maybe not totally controlled by the dark powers?

* Why not a dread domain based in Jakandor?

* Could be "hagspawn" an "artificial" race created by the hags to use their regenerative powers as renewable food source?

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[Faolyn]

How would you feel if anybody create a dread domain using a historical fact, the drowning at Nantes (mass executions by drowning for the French terror?), with a dark lord based in Jean-Baptiste Carrier,

Well, when you consider that large parts of Falkovnia, Tepest, Hazlik, and Souragne are based on, or at least very similar to, real-life horrors...

* The cult of the elemental evil should be added to Ravenloft as antagonist faction, and as a good excuse to add bulletproof dread elementals against PC who have specialized too much to slay undeads.

It could, but personally, I think it's the wrong type of horror. Ravenloft isn't just evil stuff; it's very personal, psychological horror.

* Could the dark powers curse gunslingers with any gunpowder allergy to avoid possible abuse of firearms?

Don't see why they would. Firearms in D&D aren't much more powerful than any other type of weapon. It's not like they can punch through armor like real guns can.

Heck, I have a gun-user in my Ravenloft game and if anything, we had to make it stronger to make it on par with other weapons.

Also, guns have been part of Ravenloft since the start--Godefrey used a gun to kill his family.

* If there is a dread domain linked Spelljammer but not Kalidnay then that will be arrive sooner.

There isn't one; at least not an official one. I think there might have been a Spelljammer-based domain in one of the Books of S___. I do recall a fan theory that Bleutspur had been relocated to the moon, and I always liked that.

* If the changelings are a race from Eberron, what about the "changelings" from the Shadow Rift, constructs created by the Arak?

Different creatures, different origins, same name.

* If you were Raitsling, what would you do or Kitiara's soul, trapped within a gem? And Takishis to use this a a bait for a conspirancy? What if Sithicus is a dread domain, but not within the demiplane of the dread, but in Krynn-Shadowfeel?

Raistlin isn't in Sithicus.

And if Kalidnay is a dread domain, but in the Athas-Shadowfell?

Does Athas even have a Shadowfell?

The 4th Ed told about "sattelites" domains, in the Astral Plane, but separated, without direct contact with the demiplane of the dread, and maybe not totally controlled by the dark powers?

That wouldn't be Ravenloft, though, but something else.

* Why not a dread domain based in Jakandor?

Make one!

* Could be "hagspawn" an "artificial" race created by the hags to use their regenerative powers as renewable food source?

Again, kind of the wrong type of evil for Ravenloft.

 

[overgeeked]

Again, kind of the wrong type of evil for Ravenloft.

It could, but personally, I think it's the wrong type of horror. Ravenloft isn't just evil stuff; it's very personal, psychological horror.

Respectfully, I disagree. There's no such thing as the wrong type of horror or evil for Ravenloft. It's not meant to be a horror D&D setting, it's meant to be the horror D&D setting. So, all bets are off generally, though your specific iteration of it might exclude certain things.

Personal, psychological horror is what the Dark Powers are doing to the Dark Lords in their domains. It's not what the setting is about for the players. I think WotC has made that quite clear with their detailing various types of horror and including the types of horror each domain focuses on. The zombie apocalypse domain, the body horror domains, the gothic horror domain, the dark fantasy domain, etc. Note how psychological horror doesn't seem to be on their list.