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.

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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

 

[Charlaquin]

I never thought of Ravenloft as a theme park but I think that's an apt description. In truth, Ravenloft is a curated setting much akin to Disney World with it's Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. Except instead of a friendly guy with a mustache who wants people to have a good time we've got mysterious Dark Powers torturing heads of states.

Fair enough. Maybe it’s not the setting for me in the same way I thought it would be.

 

[Alzrius]

Possibly inspired by the Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead. The only one I remember off the top of my head are the Tobin zombies, where Tobin was kind of an spirit-undead Joker and any zombie it spawned became part of its Borg-like hive mind. Each individual body wasn't really any more powerful than a typical zombie, but each body was Tobin, and it was impossible to know if you had killed all of him.

Toben the Many (fun fact: he was named after "Tobin's Spirit Guide" from the original Ghostbusters movie) was a fun character, but had a quirk in that his hive-mind didn't extend across domain borders; if any of his bodies crossed into a different domain from where the bulk of them were, they became normal zombies. That was rather awkward, since it meant that in order for him to cross domains, a majority of his bodies all had to cross into the same domain at the same time. I found that to make for a very weird thing to visualize, like all the zombies line up at the border and go "okay, on three: one, two, three, JUMP!"

 

[JEB]

Possibly inspired by the Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead. The only one I remember off the top of my head are the Tobin zombies, where Tobin was kind of an spirit-undead Joker and any zombie it spawned became part of its Borg-like hive mind. Each individual body wasn't really any more powerful than a typical zombie, but each body was Tobin, and it was impossible to know if you had killed all of him.

There were several other cool low-level undead in that book, but they were more ghoul-like than zombie-like. They had a "Countess Bathory"-type blood-bathing ghoul.

I remember Tobin, pretty interesting villain, probably the best thing out of that book in fact. I certainly hope they plan to delve into the Arthaus material for this new book! (Would also settle the question of its canonicity.)

Though of course there were also several variant zombies in the 2E Ravenloft Monstrous Compendiums IIRC, including one that was a knock-off of The Fog. (Would rather have Tobin if we're doing a zombie horde, though.) Plus the lebendtod (though that might be better represented through a NPC with the new reborn lineage).

(If I were designing the book, I would have went with one signature monster for each domain, plus a scattering of other highlights from older Ravenloft books.)

 

[Guest 6948803]

Dragon+ article:
"Well over a dozen domains get the spotlight in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but with a whole chapter on making your own domains and Darklords, the book gives you the tools to unleash an infinite number of nightmare realms upon your game."
That looks different from "more than thirty" that people keep talking about, and honestly, it is more realistic to expect. So, how do you think, a typo or real number?

 

[Faolyn]

Dragon+ article:
"Well over a dozen domains get the spotlight in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but with a whole chapter on making your own domains and Darklords, the book gives you the tools to unleash an infinite number of nightmare realms upon your game."
That looks different from "more than thirty" that people keep talking about, and honestly, it is more realistic to expect. So, how do you think, a typo or real number?

Maybe its 12+ domains that get a couple of pages each, and 20~ domains that get a paragraph or three?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Dragon+ article:
"Well over a dozen domains get the spotlight in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but with a whole chapter on making your own domains and Darklords, the book gives you the tools to unleash an infinite number of nightmare realms upon your game."
That looks different from "more than thirty" that people keep talking about, and honestly, it is more realistic to expect. So, how do you think, a typo or real number?

A bunch of community folks and articles have said 30, so I think that's the right number. The "more than 30" is coming from one social media post that said "30 new domains of dread" which I think is a miscommunication (ie there are 30 in this book, not 30 completely original domains).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I don't feel confortable with Elena Faith-Hold, darklord of Nidala because she is the trope about the danger of faith without mercy nor good sense. This trope has been abused too much in the last years. I want to be a vampire-hunter PC, not to feel like the main character of "the tale of the maid". You may think this a ridiculous opinion, but we have to remember today old titles are now "politically incorrect" and they need special disclaimers. Maybe in the next decade "the tale of the maid" or Netflix's "Cursed" will need a disclaimer like the one from "Gone with the Wild".

Dread domains are bad designed if they are only for a one-shot adventure against the local darklord. If the players know where they are, then they will try get ready to face the dark lord but other type of monsters, where is the surprise then? The fear is when you don't know what weapons to choose against the next monster. If you know the darklord is a powerful but ordinary human then PCs will save the weapons against undeads or werebeasts.

Bluestspur is almost useless because only can be visited and explored by players with enough level, but the things would be different as a faction could send spies to cause troubles, and a serious paranoia, in the other domains. (Do you remember the prestige class "flayerspawn psychic" from "the complete psionic"?).

Somebody like the Gedächtnis Esser (memory-eater) from Grimm TV show.

* I feel a strange wish to mix Ravenloft with pulp age . Although I know machine guns are too noisy to be used in cities or stealth operations, and too soon get stuck or overheated. A piece of ectoplasm is enough to block the canons.

* Would you allow biopunk technology in Ravenloft? For example an artificial muscle to reload crossbows.

* You could cause a great surprise using dark-faes with special traits. The players may believe they are the ordinary undeads, but they discover they are bulletproof. How? They are incorporeal for ammo crafted industrially. When you use weapons or projectiles crafted handly these are attuned with your chi/ki/lifeforce. Special gunslingers can hurt those dark faes because their guns are attuned thanks a special gift and mind. For example a standar Magnum 44 would be uselless, but if this is the Sledge Hammer's treasure "Her". This gun is too attuned with the shooter and then the bullets can hurt those dark-faes with face like a rip-off of husks from "Fortnite: Save the World".

 

[Charlaquin]

Dragon+ article:
"Well over a dozen domains get the spotlight in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but with a whole chapter on making your own domains and Darklords, the book gives you the tools to unleash an infinite number of nightmare realms upon your game."
That looks different from "more than thirty" that people keep talking about, and honestly, it is more realistic to expect. So, how do you think, a typo or real number?

Todd Kenrik was pretty specific. 30 domains. Some domains have multiple Dark Lords, so potentially more than 30 of them, but 30 Domains.

 

[Parmandur]

Todd Kenrik was pretty specific. 30 domains. Some domains have multiple Dark Lords, so potentially more than 30 of them, but 30 Domains.

The keyword is probably "spotlight": there may be over 30 Domains given some attention, but a dozen get a real deep dive.

 

[Azzy]

I think it's perfectly acceptable to have some domains that are only suitable for a few sessions. Every domain doesn't need to be a place we want to spend six months of our lives campaigning in. You could probably do a lot of fun little adventures in places the characters aren't going to spend a lot of time in.

The zombie apocalypse domain could have a "reset button" where every so often (maybe when everyone in the domain is turned into a zombie, the dead residents are brought back to life and have to suffer it all over again like some Sisyphian nightmare. Bonus points if the residents remember each previous time around (including their time as a zombie).