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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Batman doesn't resemble the Batman from 1939's Detective Comics #27. He's changed and been rebooted quite a number of times since then. And many characters in his orbit like the Robins or Batwoman have been changed even more with various reboots. And those changes have stuck.

Batman has changed dramatically even since the New 52 reboot. Him changing and becoming a healthier person has been a major part of his story for the past 15 years.

 

[Umbran]

Umbran ...

Mod Note:
The Terms and Rules are pretty clear that you don't argue with moderation in thread.

So, you're done in this discussion.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Cause of that, I won't be able to not think of VAN RICHTEN'S GUIDE TO RAVENLOFT as DC's Snyderverse

It really is an apt comparison

I do not like the Snyderverse. At all. But Snyder did not hunt down the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and the Dini/Timm Superman animated series and set them ablaze. They're still out there.

My favorite comic is the Legion of Super-Heroes. You cannot find a franchise that has been more rebooted, mangled, reimagined and sliced and diced than the LSH. My favorite periods were the Mike Grell and 5 Years Later eras, neither of which we'll see again. The current LSH writer, Brian Michael Bendis, just tossed a big airball version of the 5 Years Later era in his Future State LSH comics earlier this year. It made me sad and frustrated.

But the Grell and 5YL books are still out there. One of these days, I'm actually going to spring for the big archive versions -- including a $100+ version of 5 Years Later heavy enough to kill a housepet if you dropped the hardcover on them. But they're also available on Comixology or in the back issue bins of comic shops worldwide.

If I decide to stop reading the current LSH -- and I did take a vacation from it for more than a few years when those runs weren't to my taste -- no one is going to be able to take away the versions of the comics I love, featuring the introduction of Wildfire, Glorith rebooting the universe to one ruled by magic, or the extremely clever fix to Crisis on Infinite Earths with Valor and Andromeda.

If someone doesn't like something WotC is doing, the best way to tell them is to not buy it.

 

[dave2008]

Keep as much of the old lore as possible. Change only what absolutely needs to be changed
Advance the timeline rather than rolling it back 20 or 30 years
Maybe don't shrink the lands down to one town, break apart the Core and erase all the past adventures and novels
Dominic d'Honair is a creepy sex offender? Have him killed and replaced by his daughter
Falkovnia leader is a Nazi and the land is boring? Just don't include it
The Three Hags don't interest you? Make all three interesting
And don't define the dark powers. That's like saying what caused the Mourning
Add don't subtract

Sure there's a lot more but I'm not "special enough" to get free books two weeks early
If I decide to bother with the book at all

Not everyone has the same sense of taste. What one person finds boring might fascinate someone else
I flipping hate CITIIZEN KANE and have never been able to sit through it. But a friend loves the film and watches it annually
Making changes because one designer thinks something is boring is pure ego and is flipping the bird to everyone that doesn't think exactly like them
Ironic then that VAN RICHTEN'S GUIDE TO RAVENLOFT really wants to be this big, inclusive and diverse product when it's setting out to exclude a chunk of the audience

I feel for you, but I am much more interested in this product than any previous Ravenloft / Domains of Dread product. So yay for me I guess.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The publishers sell us the "pieces", and our hobby and duty is to use these to create our own stories. If I don't like the dark powers are characters with "names and surnames", with a clear identity, then I can change it and I say these aren't the true but simple collaborators, facade or front, but the true agents behind the cortain are others. A lots of DMs would rather to change the lore to avoid spoilers, because some players could read the fandom wiki to know who are the big bad guys and what are their tricks and modus operanti.

I don't feel confortable with Yagno Petrovna, dark lord of G'Henna, but I have found an easy solution. Their clergy are allowed poligamy. Sorry, but I hate when a trope is abused because somebody tries to teach me about something I have just listened too many times. I am not who needs a preach about those matters. Other little change is Zakhata doesn't promote the death by starvation, but only radical fasting with special aliments. And WotC should be the first who doesn't want troubles with a fictional sect that promote anorexia. If a preacher or authority behaves as a toxic boss, you can't be surprised by the loss of loyalty and followers. He would be replaced too easily by other more carismatic "oracle". Varys in Game of Thrones was one of the most inteligent and sensibles characters in all the saga but in the end he was eaten by a dragon.

Dark Lords are "inmortal" but nor unstoppable neither unbeatable. Dark Powers could allow the ultimate death of a dark lord if they find a better or more interesting option. Other point is they aren't totally irredeemable but rejecting their opportunities of salvation makes them even worse. If Dark Powers loves ironic hells then we could dark lord facing the most annoying nemesis, their "good noble-heart twin", somebody better than them, making to remember they are "unholy sinners".

We can say goodbye for an update adaptation of the modules about the Grand Conjuction. This will happen some day, but it will be a multiverse event altering all the D&D lines. Maybe we could discover more things about the material plane where the original Barovia was.

The level technology of the domains are frozen. This means the possibilities of new domains with XX or XXI technology (but PCs can't try reverse engenering to craft machine guns), and these being showed in action-live productions. One of these domains could be based in Gamma World (and the king cocodrile as dark lord).

 

[Remathilis]

I feel for you, but I am much more interested in this product than any previous Ravenloft / Domains of Dread product. So yay for me I guess.

While I enjoyed the old Ravenloft material in the day, I'm super excited for the new stuff. There will be things I don't like, but this feels fresh enough to get my excited.

Ironically, if you had asked me how'd I would have fixed Ravenloft, I'd have gone in the opposite direction WotC did and made it MORE of a united world with open borders and trade and commerce. Darklords wouldn't necessarily be political powers, but be more like regional sinkholes of evil. There are areas not under the control of any darklord, and they must fight of the encroaching evil coming from those areas that are.

That said, I find that embracing the artificial fun house nature of each domain did enough to shake it up and fix the issues while staying truer to it's roots.

Can't wait for next week.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Getting back to the actual topic...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You'd best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner: You're in one.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Oh my god! They are so many monsters killing people than these are going to become the most depopulated one of the fantasy realms. Some day the dark powers will have to order a "biological stop" to avoid the total extinction of preys in the ecosystem.

* If reborns had got undead monster subtype they could be controlled by lots of the dark lords

Manifest(Ghostwalk) is perfect as a Ravenloft Spin-off

From Dusk Till Dawn Wiki

dusktilldawn.fandom.com

 

[Azzy]

Batman doesn't resemble the Batman from 1939's Detective Comics #27. He's changed and been rebooted quite a number of times since then. And many characters in his orbit like the Robins or Batwoman have been changed even more with various reboots. And those changes have stuck.

Exactly. And it'd even more true with the original Superman and his socialist-leaning self.