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

 

[QuentinGeorge]

1) In a novel, the lack of escape can be portrayed many ways that can't be done as easily in DnD. For example, if you are being hunted by a vampire, you could flee to the countryside in a novel, but obviously the monster follows you. But, again, none of the Dark Lords can follow you/

You are presuming that only Dark Lords can be the enemy in Ravenloft not true. And yes, as pointed out, this may be a situation in which you could utilise closing the border. But again, it isn't in Strahd's personality to want to pursue you anyway. Strahd is your enemy because you have blundered in his domain. He's not going to run after you. Another vampire might, however.

2) It seems they are calling it Falkovnia because Drakov's relative is taking over and the zombie plague probably ties into the wars he used to run.

A relative we've never seen nor heard of before. (Despite Vlad having a huge family they didn't bother to use any of them) Again, Falkovnia in name only. Might as well cut the leash and go for full originality. (Or just use Souragne...since it already is the Zombie domain)

3) Military Dictatorship and endless war are a very different kind of horror, if you are on the outside of the situation. Like... Hobgoblins have a military dictatorship and run an endless war in the plane of Archeron. It isn't... horror in the same way as some of these other elements are. Sure, the soldiers rising endlessly to fight and die endlessly is vaguely horrific, but since the PCs aren't part of the war, it doesn't have the impact that I think drives that to true horror levels.

Who says your PCs aren't involved in the war. Part of a setting is actually having your characters be tied to it in someway. Honestly, so many of these bad interpretations are a result of treating the setting as a "weekend in hell" trip.

And like, the soldiers being killed by their own dead comrades is any war against a necromancer, and it is horrific if it is a surprise and used against the forces of the players, but... to a person just passing through, watching? Especially PCs who routinely see death and carnage? In a Realm they know is full of darkness and evil, it isn't going to have that impact on its own.

But that's the thing. That's not what the realm is. The people who live in it don't know they are surrounded by monsters. They just see their home.

4) I don't think it is fully ignoring the "humans are the real monster" trope, but it is pulling new horrors in. And, if I have 30 stories of "humans are the real monster" then I'm going to get real bored by like, domain number 6. You have to have variety to compare the humans to for that sort of thing to truly impact the way you want it to.

There are domains covering everything under the sun, there is not 30 domains of the same type or whatever strawman you're trying to summon. Falkovnia focus on the cruelty and horror of evil men, for, as you say diversity. There already is a zombie realm - Souragne. I don't see a reason to have Falkovnia copy that and lose its own unique identity.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Several of them weren't even really horror, betraying the passionately-put premise of the setting.

They were certainly all horror in my opinion. Some more successful at it than others, but I can't really think of a domain that wasn't horror.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

They were certainly all horror in my opinion. Some more successful at it than others, but I can't really think of a domain that wasn't horror.

Some weren't gothic horror, but they are all definitely horror.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So promise away, but it's certainly valid to point out that a lot of the older domains were both same-y and un-exciting. "Gameable" is a meaningless term here because is no setting so bad, so poorly put together, so fundamentally dull that some DM doesn't consider "gameable". And they're probably right that it is! But it's just an incredibly low bar.

Entertaining I just can't agree with if you're claiming that applied to EVERY domain in old Ravenloft. That's wild.

I found Ravenloft exceptionally gameable. Especially when you applied the Van Richten books to it. And definitely didn't find it gamey and unexciting. I don't know. I had a different reaction than you to it. Not saying every single domain was equally good. But I found the setting overall to be very well done. There were certainly domains that didn't click with me as much. And some I considered weaker concepts than others. Overall though, it was a great setting. Again all I can give is my reaction. I definitely think your reaction is your own. I think people who are not familiar with the material should read and run it for themselves so they can decide.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Some weren't gothic horror, but they are all definitely horror.

I agree with that. I was never too worried about it being a purely gothic setting. For me the gothic vibe and the classic horror vibe, with some other stuff blended in that fit was fine. Gave it enough variety. A lot of horror settings i've tried since often feel too one note. Ravenloft was quirky enough to not be just one note.

 

[Faolyn]

1) In a novel, the lack of escape can be portrayed many ways that can't be done as easily in DnD. For example, if you are being hunted by a vampire, you could flee to the countryside in a novel, but obviously the monster follows you. But, again, none of the Dark Lords can follow you/

Traditionally, the Dark Lord can close the domain (except in very rare situations), making it impossible for a person to leave for exactly that reason. Plus, there are plenty of monsters that aren't DLs--and most of the DLs have enough clout that they can send minions after you.

3) Military Dictatorship and endless war are a very different kind of horror, if you are on the outside of the situation. Like... Hobgoblins have a military dictatorship and run an endless war in the plane of Archeron. It isn't... horror in the same way as some of these other elements are. Sure, the soldiers rising endlessly to fight and die endlessly is vaguely horrific, but since the PCs aren't part of the war, it doesn't have the impact that I think drives that to true horror levels.

As mentioned by QuentinGeorge, Drakov is only partially Tepes--he's a whole lotta Hitler, too. While he mostly discriminates against non-humans and Vistani--by which I mean, rounding up and enslaving--there were strong suggestions in the Gazetteer that he also went after humans who weren't fantasy-aryan enough and that he gave his soldiers carte blanche to attack, steal from, rape, or kill anyone they chose (at least, among the poorer peasants). Plus, there are his various ministries, which do all sorts of fun stuff for the war effort. Like human experimentation.

When it comes to monsters, there's pretty much just vampyrs and kobolds, and the kobolds have only ever been mentioned in passing, like in encounter lists, so I have no idea what they're doing.

So there is actually a lot of horror in Falkovnia that can affect the PCs... but it's mostly the kind of horror that would get a writeup on r/rpghorrorstories, not the fun kind of horror.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Drakov is also likely father to another Darklord (Gabrielle Aderre) and grandfather to a putative one (Malocchio Aderre, the Dukkar).

EDIT: Another fun thing with Drakov. He's a mercenary lord from Thenol, in Taladas. Meaningless Dragonlance tie-in? Maybe not. Thenol is ruled by the Church of Hith, whose necromancers routinely use undead in their armies. Why is Drakov so determined to conquer Darkon? Azalin reminds him of the arseholes he used to work for, who showed him no respect. So what do the Dark Powers do to torment the mercenary? Drakov will never conquer Darkon, and never get respect from Azalin either.

 

[Bedrockgames]

He really only shares a name and an afinity for impaling with Vlad Tepes. He's actually much more like this guy:

I get that. I had a campaign that featured time travel in ravenloft where the party ventured forward to period where the core was ravaged by a war that was like WWI and II, and it was easy to fit Falkovnia into it for that reason. But I also think part of his character increased as the line went on (I could be misremembering)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I get that. I had a campaign that featured time travel in ravenloft where the party ventured forward to period where the core was ravaged by a war that was like WWI and II, and it was easy to fit Falkovnia into it for that reason. But I also think part of his character increased as the line went on (I could be misremembering)

Oh definitely, but that's more because the Black Box depictions were pretty barebones. Tristan Hiregaard didn't even have a first name in the original writeup.

 

[Faolyn]

I would have liked the Core to be well thought out and cohesive landmass, with the darklord influencing the area it controls and twisting it to his curse.

The thing is, the Darklord doesn't have control over its domain, except through what political power it has. That's part of the DL's curse.

The Core was mostly well-thought out, I believe, with only a few outliers--like G'Henna and Markovia, which got yanked out and turned into a dark, Mist-filled pit of nothingness that got turned into the Shadow Rift (which I always felt should be a forest).

I, as always, await the final book to see the details.

At the very least, it should provide some inspiration--if only to say "wow, I hate how they did this domain now!"