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

 

[Juomari Veren]

Fingers crossed that House of Lament is a suitable replacement for Death House. DH just feels awful to run IMO, and I could use a different take on the "spooky house" angle that DH was pushing but didn't really deliver on.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Safe boundaries" like points of light right?

No, presumably about not surprising your group with, say, sexual violence without checking if that's the kind of stuff they're OK with.

 

[Parmandur]

Fingers crossed that House of Lament is a suitable replacement for Death House. DH just feels awful to run IMO, and I could use a different take on the "spooky house" angle that DH was pushing but didn't really deliver on.

Really?? Playing through Death House is actually one of my fondest D&D memories.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm just happy it's not a MtG book or Transformers.

I am guessing the Transformers and My Little Pony games will be part of a separate publication schedule with their own staff working on these tie-in games.

 

[darjr]

Loved Death House! Started with that and they went and eventually killed Strahd. Oh did they hate him.

 

[Parmandur]

Very interesting.

We can expect this will follow the same six chapter outline that Ravnica, Eberron, and Theros do:

Chapter One: Character creation. (Ravnica had a 18 page Chapter 1, Eberron's was 85, while Theros was 21: I would expect about 20 pages for Ravenloft)
Chapter Two: The Dread Lord's, maybe?
Chapter Three: the Domains of Dread Gazetteer
Chapter Four: Adventure creation material, and the 20 page adventure (Ravnica had a 50 page Chapter Four including a 12 page intro Adventure, Eberron's was ~120 pages with a 14 page intro Adventure, and Theros had a 84 page Chapter with a 10 page intro Adventure)
Chapter Five: Magical treasure
Chapter Six: Beastiary (40 pages here, as opposed to ~60 for Ravnica, ~40 for Eberron, and ~50 for Theros)

 

[Istbor]

And come on, "Viktra". Could we have used "Victoria Mordenheim" ?

No clue who she is and why it should matter that we have one over the other. Or really what half of this stuff was, so I am guessing the reimagining is to freshen up some problematic areas they had seen when working the domains over.

I can't believe I am saying this, as I personally got so burnt out from the zombie apocalypse surge, but I am kind of intrigued on how that domain would work.

 

[pukunui]

My only complaint so far is that the intro adventure is another haunted house. We already got that with Death House. Surely there are other ways besides haunted houses to introduce people to horror adventures!

 

[Dire Bare]

"The wildest reinvention of all might be Van Richten’s Guide’s version of Falkovnia: once similar to Barovia as a riff on vampiric horror, it’s now a full-on zombie apocalypse zone." - While I know that everyone is focused on Vlad Drakov no longer being around, I'm more curious about what this means for the stability of the rest of the Core. Falkovnia has no natural barriers separating it from the surrounding domains, so are the zombies flooding outward, making Falkovnia's neighbors take measures to seal their borders? What has that done to the food situation in the rest of the Core? Falkovnia might have been belligerent, but it was also "the breadbasket of the Core" (to quote Gazetteer II), so has this caused famine to develop elsewhere?

Even when Ravenloft was a "continent", each realm was bounded. The zombies aren't getting out of Falkovnia unless the Dark Powers want them to.

 

[ART!]

I have to say, I'm actually sort of excited about this, and horror isn't usually my thing. I'm liking the mix of content, and the how-to stuff.