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

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I just don’t think trapping the players in a scenario all the time is the way to go. Too railroady for me

You have too options: you can trap the players or they walk away. The third option is the horror trope known as "the idiot in the attack". The idiot, of course, being the protagonist.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think though you might be conflating a good set of tools with the setting you used them in.

I have a homebrew setting that I tend to use, and it isn't horror themed. And yet, two of my most horrific encounters happened there because of clever use of monsters.

An Aboleth who used the children of the community as its workforce, leaving them little more than puppets of the God of the community, who worshipped the evil thing as their salvation.

A Mindflayer colony that had overrun an elven kingdom centuries ago, and the body horror and sheer ugliness of what those Illithids did to create a sustainable population of slaves from those elves.


So, if we accept that horror can happen anywhere when you have the proper idea and the proper challenges, then what about Ravenloft made it better for horror, compared to someplace where it is far easier to have that contrast?

Sure, horror can happen anywhere, and tools are tools. I am not suggesting they are not, or that you can't have horror in a regular fantasy campaign. What Ravenloft does though is make those tools part of the setting itself. Right from the premise of powers checks and dark powers, and how those warp yet reward, you have so much to build villains from. And the Van Richten books work because the tools they provide violate many of the core assumptions of how monsters worked in other settings. Ravenloft big twist is it throws twists at you: spells, monsters, etc these things don't operate the same in Ravenloft as elsewhere. So that stuff is part of the setting itself. And the setting also lends itself to things like horror adventures. The mists, the dark powers, the way domains work (for example being able to have a haunted theater domain show up in some city the players are in) those all help. My only point about not overdoing things like entrapment is the overdoing it part. There is more to Ravenloft than just trapping the players in a domain and having them face the domain lord. That is definitely one possible avenue of adventure, but plenty of domains have lords who are much more in the background, and even in places like Barovia you can throw other threats and challenges their way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You have too options: you can trap the players or they walk away. The third option is the horror trope known as "the idiot in the attack". The idiot, of course, being the protagonist.

Not really IMO. I find that kind of thinking too rigid personally. If it works for you fine. But I wouldn't want to run my horror campaigns the way you describe (and I run lots of horror: even my wuxia campaigns have tons of horror in them). If the adventure is compelling enough, players will engage it. I mean not everyone runs away from something they find horrifying. Some people are drawn to it by curiosity, some people have stakes (like they can flee, but someone might perish if they do). it really depends on the adventure. But I have had plenty of adventures where the players delved deeper and deeper into a horrifying location or scenario, because they were seeking something like knowledge. I definitely know from my own experience I didnt have to resort to trapping them all the time.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not really IMO. I find that kind of thinking too rigid personally. If it works for you fine. But I wouldn't want to run my horror campaigns the way you describe (and I run lots of horror: even my wuxia campaigns have tons of horror in them). If the adventure is compelling enough, players will engage it. I mean not everyone runs away from something they find horrifying. Some people are drawn to it by curiosity

I.e. they are the classic horror movie idiot.

, some people have stakes (like they can flee, but someone might perish if they do)

I.e they are trapped. "Having stakes" is not different to the mists, the character is still trapped.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Ravenloft is not about killing waves of undeads as a Castlevania, or House of Dead, videogame


It is not only the monster of the week, but fighting a tragic fate. The dark lords are doomed, and there is a supernatural force trying to cause higher number of troubles, in the dread domains and sometines in the worlds from the material plane. It is about to discover who and where is the monster hidden among us. It is about heroes hurrying to avoid a sentient puppet uses dark magic to transform innocent children into doll half-golems (like the "robots" created by the Dollmaker(Antont Schot), a DC supervillain). Horror is when you have to worry more about poison in your wine cup than the enemy front of you. It's the land where the last words by fallen word can curse you and cause more damage than a sword.

* Do you remember the "malefactors", the monsters from the videogame "the suffering"? I guess today gothic horror, movies by Universal or Hammer aren't the only source of inspiration.

Killers

The Killers are Characters in Dead by Daylight . It is highly recommended to thoroughly read up on both Killers and Survivors to fully understand both sides. For tips on playing Killer, please refer to this section of the Wiki: Playing Killer: Tips and Tricks The Killers have been tasked by The...

deadbydaylight.fandom.com

 

[Bedrockgames]

Someone should have told them a lot of things about the names they were using... It’s been a heck of a job trying to clean up the names in Curse of Strahd.

I think it is important to understand how much the internet changed things. Things get instantly corrected by the audience now, and writers can check stuff like that easily. Back then research was a whole different ball game (back then being the late 80s, early 90s, not the time when CoS was written)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I.e they are trapped. "Having stakes" is not different to the mists, the character is still trapped.

No, they aren't. You are just creating three categories and forcing everything into those categories. If you have stakes you are free to leave, but there might be consequences. If you are trapped you are not free to leave, you have to find a way to escape. These are two entirely different situations.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I.e. they are the classic horror movie idiot.

Then the problem I think is your framing. You keep framing alternatives using dismissive labels. I understand what the horror movie idiot is, but I don't think that quite captures a situation where someone reasonably goes into the danger because it makes sense for them to do so (versus the moron who goes into the basement because plot has to happen and someone needs to get killed by Jason). Same with the whole 'whizzing around' thing. Clearly we have different styles. I just think we see and use Ravenloft, and approach horror differently. But I can report the way I've done it over the years has worked very well for me, and have been horror.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, if we accept that horror can happen anywhere when you have the proper idea and the proper challenges, then what about Ravenloft made it better for horror, compared to someplace where it is far easier to have that contrast?

I sort of answered this already so see my previous response to your full post. But I think Ravenloft worked well because it was built around horror, the settings reflected the kinds of places you see in gothic horror stories, and it had mechanics to support horror

 

[Bedrockgames]

I.e. they are the classic horror movie idiot.

I.e they are trapped. "Having stakes" is not different to the mists, the character is still trapped.

Also lets keep in mind where this disagreement originally arose from: whether you need individual domains the players are trapped inside or whether you can have something like the core, where the players are not necessarily trapped in individual domains. I think my posts demonstrate, even if you feel entrapment is necessary and you define entrapment as broadly as you do, that it is entirely possible if the players are not trapped inside a single domain (and again, I think the contrast of being free to roam more, definitely will make it more horrifying when they are trapped)