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]

You are putting Descartes before de horse.

Lots of people have read the Turner Diaries; a late 1970's dystopian novel about overthrowing the government. It's very popular with the militia movement in the US. Reading it probably never turned someone into a militias member with a bunker and an arsenal, but it did a LOT to reinforce the beliefs of those who already believed. Media can do that; reinforce held beliefs, making them impenetrable to new facts and points of view. Birth of a Nation or Triumph of the Will probably didn't make someone a Klansman or a Nazi; it convinced someone who was already sympathetic to those beliefs that they were right.

In fact I have often quoted “writing history with lightning” here: something often attributed to Woodrow Wilson after he saw a screening of Birth of a Nation (there is a paper about it that all history students have to read because it gets into how we understand the past and how it can be shaped by things like film). But Scarface isn’t the Turner Diaries and Souragne isn’t Birth of a Nation.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

then we are just using different language to say the same thing. In your language I think I am saying text does not equal subtext. To me that is what content does not equal message means

I don't think we are actually that far apart, which is why I haven't given up on debating with you.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How do you know? How do you judge "good" from bad"? I'm sure they just as sincerely believe they are "good" and we are "bad".

Paul, I am not your student. I had a religious and moral upbringing (my father was a pacifist). I understand how to read moral philosophy. I am not interested in having a discussion about what the good is with here. Suffice it to say, I am sure they felt they were good (which is one reason I always say we should be compassionate in how we reach out to people we think are doing wrong) but what they were doing disrupted the funerals of young men and women killed in war, and spread a message of hatred against gay people. We can analyze why that might be wrong from a philosophical point of view but I don’t need more than my upbringing to understand it is wrong

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think we are actually that far apart, which is why I haven't given up on debating with you.

Fine having a conversation. But I am not looking to be converted if that is what you are thinking

 

[Reynard]

Didn't read whole thread... article over at DDB with sneak peek at Carrionettes, including stat block and some more art from the book.

Carrionettes: Play Killer Toys From Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Is no fun, is no Blinsky!


View attachment 136790

Pretty cool, creepy villains. If I were to use them, I think I would enlist the player to run the carrionette in that possessed them, rather than knock the play out of the action for whatever amount of time. Alternatively, a whole gang of them that take over the party, leaving the PCs to save themselves while trapped in cursed toy bodies would be a pretty cool adventure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Paul, I am not your student. I had a religious and moral upbringing (my father was a pacifist). I understand how to read moral philosophy. I am not interested in having a discussion about what the good is with here.

I'm not asking you what the good is. I'm asking you how you know?

Ans once you have decided something is wrong, what are you going to do about it?

If you believe intolerance is wrong, does that mean you tolerate the intolerant?

 

[Bedrockgames]

If women are only shown in a certain way, one can only conclude that is how the author thinks they are supposed to be.

this is where I disagree. The intentions of the writer matter a lot here. I addressed this earlier in the thread when I said writers often tackle the same theme to work through a creative idea or to grapple with something personal. Black box was the work of two writers. I think you can see a recurring theme like that and leap to a negative interpretation: the writer feels x about women or the writer is saying women are only good for y. Or you can be more charitable, even try to find out what what the author meant. For example a poster mentioned something about female domain lords who wanted babies but couldn’t have them, lost babies etc, and said it is saying women need a man and to have babies. I disagree. I think more likely one of the two writers had sone kind of experience that made those details come out in the writing (and I gave a personal example of my mother having a baby who died to illustrate how those kinds of things can work their way into your writing without being a message that the poster assumed).

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not asking you what the good is. I'm asking you how you know?

Ans once you have decided something is wrong, what are you going to do about it?

If you believe intolerance is wrong, does that mean you tolerate the intolerant?

I am not having this discussion with you. Like I said: I am not your student. I understand where you are trying to go.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

this is where I disagree. The intentions of the writer matter a lot here.

No, because the reader has no way of judging the intentions of the writer apart from through what they have written.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am not having this discussion with you. Like I said: I am not your student. I understand where you are trying to go.

Are you suggesting my students usually have no idea where I am trying to go?

(probably true)