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]

I’m fine with monster attacks being common, making travel between settlements difficult and such. But I do want there to be places within them people live. CoS hit a nice sweet spot for me; it felt dangerous and oppressive, but also like a place you could go adventuring in.


Yeah, that’s definitely not what I want. The domains shouldn’t just be generic fantasy worlds with some spooky mood lighting. But I also don’t want them all to be non-stop terror, you know? There needs to be a balance between the heart-pounding terror, the gradual creeping dread, and the moments of calm, even glimmers of hope.

So far we have:

• Barovia
• Dementlieu
• Lamordia
• Falkovnia
• Kalakeri
• Valachan

That's only six out of the thirty. Of those, from what the video said, two of them were deathtraps (Falkovnia - Zombie Apocalypse and Valachan - The Most Dangerous Game/Battle Royale). The first three we know aren't going to be deathtraps. Kalakeri is new, but three domain lords trying to control it, probably isn't a deathtrap.

So right now we're looking at 33% deathtraps. It's also interesting that both the deathtraps were extremely boring before. Falkovnia was cut-rate Barovia and Valachan was just a bland mess with very little detail, like a vaguely maybe Mesoamerican area but ruled over by a stereotypical "Evil white guy with an Eastern European name" and his evil wife.

So I mean, ridiculously small sample side, but it looks like maybe if a place was too boring to live, they reworked it hardcore.

 

[overgeeked]

Turns out someone screwed up big time. It was supposed to be a "live" stream...that they prerecorded and posted to YouTube around 9am PST...about 5 hours before it was streamed "live" on Twitch at 2pm PST. Oops. I watched the first few minutes of it when I spotted it this morning. So when they eventually make it public it will be easy enough to verify it's the same video.

D&D Beyond Twitter announcement about being "live" at 2pm PST.

As of now, the video is public but unlisted. Good thing I have the direct link.

 

[GlassJaw]

"Valachan (hunting PCs for sport)"

This caught my eye and I couldn't recall much about the original Domain. I did some research and discovered an awesome adventure and source material in Dungeon #50: Felkovic's Cat.

I like the idea of "hunting PCs for sport". That could be a nice "exit" post CoS heh heh heh

 

[darjr]

I'm reading Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft via the Dragon+ app
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

 

[MNblockhead]

I hope Valachan finally gives us rules to run the Battle Royale game Mike ran at the PAX East 2018 Acquisitions Incorporated game: Penny Arcade - News - Acquisitions Inc. Battle Royale

 

[Faolyn]

Back in the 90's, our campus gaming club had one DM that absolutely, positively loved Ravenloft as his favorite setting. . .but fairly quickly word got out to never play under him, because he had absolutely no concept of boundaries while running RL, and liked to do everything he could to shock, horrify, disturb, and alarm players.

Ugh. I hate that. I like what Jonny Sims said in a metacast about his Magnus Archives horror podcast. To paraphrase, he does horror, not trauma. One is fun, the other isn't.

 

[Faolyn]

Many of them were so incredibly boring and un-horror-y that they didn't feel like "Domains of Dread" at all though, that's the problem there. Ravenloft's original 2E release (the first time it was a setting, I think), set up very specific and strong expectations that it was about "Gothic Horror", and like, a whole bunch of those domains, were neither really gothic nor really horror. They were like, "The Forgotten Realms only someone turned the lights down 15%".

You're right about some, but in others, the lack of everyday horror helps when the horror does show up. Mordentshire is a legitimately nice place most of the time, which makes the tragedy of all the ghosts all so much worse. Tepest is also a nice place until you realize that the real horror is the literal witch hunts the citizens engage in--the fey and goblins are just a secondary horror.

 

[overgeeked]

You're right about some, but in others, the lack of everyday horror helps when the horror does show up. Mordentshire is a legitimately nice place most of the time, which makes the tragedy of all the ghosts all so much worse. Tepest is also a nice place until you realize that the real horror is the literal witch hunts the citizens engage in--the fey and goblins are just a secondary horror.

And it’s not like you have to worry about people getting fed up and leaving. The Dark Lords control their domains. If there are people there, the Dark Lord controls whether they can leave. If there’s not enough people, the Dark Lord just creates some.

 

[Faolyn]

From the Dragon Mag article (thanks for the link, @darjr):

While gremishka are creepy gremlin-things that are allergic to magic. If you cast a spell on them, they might have an adverse reaction that includes potentially exploding into a swarm.

Now that's different! They used to just be tiny little light-averse Salacious Crumb-esque humanoids. I always thought they were adorable, in a way.

And also:

vampiric mind flayers.

A repeat of the alhoon, or completely new stats, I wonder. Either way, this suggests that they're keeping Bluetspur. I hope they do something interesting with the place rather than have it as a wasteland. I had tried, years ago, to recreate it as a "Lovecraft Country" domain, with quaintly picturesque fishing and farming towns, dark, crashing waves on the shorelines, mysteriously marked standing stones in the woods, and areas of blasted heath. Then my computer crashed and I lost what I wrote.

 

[Alzrius]

A repeat of the alhoon, or completely new stats, I wonder.

I'd hope new stats. Alhoons are "illithiliches," keeping their sentience when they make their transition to undeath. The mind flayer vampires were experiments gone wrong (EDIT: they're originally from RQ2 Thoughts of Darkness; affiliate link), turning into little more than animals as a result of their transformation.