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

 

[Remathilis]

The second edition line was very experimental in terms of settings and many of them moved away from fantasy. Ravenloft was an attempt to push D&D to into gothic and classic horror. It was meant for people who were not as enthused about stuff like the Forgotten Realms. Personally, as a kid who grew up watching tons of old horror movies, when I read Knight of the Black rose (which I read because I was a dragon lance fan), I was instantly in love with the setting concept. And I thought it was a good fit for the game, a good direction to go. There was always a tug of war over how much ravenloft should include fantasy elements. I was always in the 'as few fantasy elements as possible' camp.

Yeah, I was never a fan of the "D&D in name only" era of 2e; Dark Sun being the worst offender of the lot. Ravenloft should be D&D first, with a gothic overlay. Dark Fantasy.

Am I? I don't recall many other D&D settings where being an elf was a problem. Oh, I suppose it might be a problem is some very specific areas. But in the setting as a whole? If I'm hurting please let me know.

You're right, every setting with elves is exactly the same. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Eberron, Ravnica, Planescape; you can play an elf and aren't killed on sight. Same world.

His whole military background is connected to that backstory

Being a military general, even a cruel one, doesn't make you Vlad the Impaler. As far as I know, Strahd never impaled people on stakes. (Although, it's been decades or so since I read I, Strahd).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ironic, since my next campaign was going to be Darkon between the Requiem and Azalin's return, where there was no Darklord in control and things were spiraling out of control with multiple factions fighting to gain control. It captured everything I wanted from Ravenloft: limited Darklord interference (Azalin was gone, Death had limited reach), a huge area that made some geographical sense, normal D&D races and magic, multiple factions to fight, and an overall sense of gloom that ratcheted up as time worn on.

I guess we are bound to eternally disagree on what the best part of Ravenloft actually is.

that is fine. Ravenloft was a line that spanned many years, and everyone has their favorite incarnation.

 

[Faolyn]

Y'all really can't see the pontential MINEFIELD associatate with a domain who's a mixture of Vlad Tepes (a controversial and brutal figure, but a still a hero to certain areas of the Slavic world) and Hitler, complete with racial discrimination, super-soldiers, and "branding"?

Seriously, World War Z is a far easier sell than Fascist Utopia. Esp for an "all ages" market they are attempting to reach.

I'm pretty sure everyone most people see the problems with Drakov.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, I was never a fan of the "D&D in name only" era of 2e; Dark Sun being the worst offender of the lot. Ravenloft should be D&D first, with a gothic overlay. Dark Fantasy.

I think we just have really different preferences here. My favorite setting after Ravenloft was Dark Sun (which if I remember correctly I actually traded with a friend for more Ravenloft material at one point). I liked how different Ravenloft was from regular D&D. I liked, for instance, that it wasn't so much about things like dungeon crawls. And I liked that you could have a campaign world where the aesthetics were pushing the limits toward more early modern era and later influence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Being a military general, even a cruel one, doesn't make you Vlad the Impaler. As far as I know, Strahd never impaled people on stakes. (Although, it's been decades or so since I read I, Strahd).

The particulars of his military background are just reminiscent of Vlad the Impaler. I don't know. By the time I got to Ravenloft, I understood the connection. If you think it is too far for a connection fair enough. Drakov is definitely closer to the historical figure. My point was, strahd still owes his existence to him.

 

[Bedrockgames]

??? Is that like a prize? Part of my brain is saying it might be.

It was a typo. I have no feeling in my fingers (sometimes mistype a lot of things). It was meant to say "award"

 

[Voadam]

I think the more non human races work better in isolated islands than in a core type setup where the target theme is gothic horror mood. Islands have more latitude to be non-gothic and weirder D&D horror such as Kalidnay in 2e which is a Dark Sun domain island. Similarly I think there was a dragon based island domain in 4e. I think the core works more effectively if there is a lot of straight gothic horror where a more humanish starting viewpoint works with that theme.

Part of the gothic horror flavor is that the inhuman and the twisting of humanity are aspects of the horror, if you start off as an inhuman lizard person to start it is a different and less impactful reference point when the reveal is that some you thought were humans are not actually humans.

For the straight gothic horror mood theme and play experience 3e turned mechanical half-orcs into background cursed calibans and left actual half-orcs and orcs as default not part of the setting unless specifically brought in as outsiders. Similarly 2e spoke about monster and race palette selection and how things like dragons went against the themes.

The islands however can be their own thing and a single isolated horror domain involving a dragon plot can be an interesting D&D horror experience with a lot of other aspects of Ravenloft themes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

??? Is that like a prize? Part of my brain is saying it might be.

I would award it for D&D to Ravenloft, though not RPGs in general as there have been countless superb horror RPGs, and Ravenloft is merely a setting for D&D which can work okay as a horror RPG under specific circumstances.

Again it is preference. I played a lot of RPGs that were horror themed. My two favorite are Call of Cthulhu and Ravenloft. I preferred Ravenloft. Would certainly have given it a general award (though CoC deserves one as well in my opinion). Not saying Ravenloft was perfect, no setting or ruleset is. But it was a masterpiece in RPG content IMO (especially in the context of the era).

 

[Charlaquin]

It supposed to be a land of evil people though. It makes sense to model them after figures like that. History if filled with terrible people who did terrible things, and I think it is fair for a horror game to find inspiration there.

You’re missing the point. The problem isn’t that Drakov is modeled after notorious historical figures. It’s that one of the figures he’s modeled after is still viewed as a national hero. You wouldn’t model a Dark Lord after like Andrew Jackson either, because while yes, he did some messed up stuff, he’s still beloved by many, and framing him as a villain worthy of eternal punishment would upset a sizable portion of your audience who thinks very highly of him.

In terms of Strahd, everyone knew he was based on Dracula and by the time of the black box release at least, the connection to Vlad the Impaler and Dracula was quite well known.

But Dracula is at best very loosely inspired by Vlad Tepes, and while the connection is well-known, the parallels are fairly abstract. Furthermore, Dracula has been re-interpreted so many times, basing a character on him reflects little to nothing about the historical figures he was inspired by (no, Vlad Tepes was not the only inspiration behind the character.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This has no bearing whatsoever on whether they succeeded as horror settings, only whether you liked it or not. I've read plenty of RPGs where I loved the setting but it didn't actually work the way it was intended. It's almost routine.

It absolutely does: I loved it because I loved horror (was a huge classic horror fan as a kid), it worked for horror when I played it. It definitely wouldn't have resonated with me if the horror aspect wasn't there and wasn't done well. I mean my whole attraction to it was reading Knight of the Black Rose and realizing you could do Horror in D&D. And the boxed set captivated me with its use of language, its presentation, its content (all because it oozed horror)