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

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I’m not sure that it makes much practical difference either way. If the players defeat the Darklord, they defeat the Darklord. For the purpose of any individual campaign, that’s all that matters. The whole resetting thing always just seemed to me like a cheeky way to acknowledge the fact that the adventure keeps getting rehashed, with the details tweaked but fundamentally the same beats.

I think it a homage to the Hammer Christopher Lee Dracula who would be killed off and then revived by a drop of blood at the beginning of the next movie (which wasn't very different to the previous movie).

Although Peter Cushing's Doctor Frankenstein was more impressive, since he managed to pull off the same trick without the benefit of being undead.

 

[Charlaquin]

I will do my best to answer those questions later (other fans might be able to do so before I get back online). Definitely I think the new material created very different expectations with the setting. I honestly think the old setting is best understood by reading black box or domains of dread. There is only so much we can highlight and the black box makes a very passionate case for what it is trying to achieve (plus I think it is better if people can see it and judge for themselves: our reporting can only be second hand info to you). That said I get that chaosnancer and some others have no of little experience with 2E Ravenloft and are genuinely curious. I don’t mind answering their questions. But what I am saying is there also seems to be a contingent of older fans who didn’t like Ravenloft, and are basically trashing it as a setting. I don’t understand writing new setting towards people who disliked or were unsatisfied with the old setting (there has always been the didn’t like Ravenloft crowd, but they didn’t but the books generally).

What I’m saying though is, I don’t think it is being written towards people who were dissatisfied with the old setting. I think it’s being written towards people who are unfamiliar with the old setting, and changing the details so the things about the old setting that made it less accessible aren’t as much of an obstacle. Those questions were rhetorical - I’m not really looking for them to be answered, and if I was I would get the black box material and read it. They’re just barriers to entry that I get the impression the new book is trying to remove. The fact that these changes also appeal to folks who didn’t like the old setting is incidental. Or, at least, that’s the impression I get.

The fans like me genuinely have deep love for the setting. And there are a lot of us. And many of them okay 5E and want 5th edition Ravenloft that feels like the old. I see them in conversations in several forums. I think for a large chunk of the old Ravenloft fans this notion of having a core, for a variety of reasons which I will get into in another post, is very important. I am not trying to attack people for preferring the new cosmology or liking CoS: but I am trying to convey why I am so enthusiastic for the 2E line (and it definitely wasn’t perfect, I would be happy to talk about aspects of 2E Ravenloft I thought had issues and problems with gaming and D&D at that time: one reason I keep mentioning van Richten books is they are a solution to some of these problems)

I totally understand. I had similar reactions to Mike Mearls’ reinterpretation of Nentir Vale and the MtoF version of the Raven Queen. When you love something from a past edition, and that thing gets updated to the current edition, but the changes made in the update make it no longer feel like the thing you loved originally, it’s frustrating. I’m not trying to downplay your experience or call your frustration invalid. I’m just trying to reframe the changes they’re making - I don’t think they’re trying to “fix” the old setting for people who didn’t like it, I think they’re trying to make it more accessible for folks who never got into the old setting, by doubling down on the most exciting hooks and cleaning up the common sticking points. It’s perfectly natural and understandable for someone who loved the original as it was to be dissatisfied with those changes, but at the end of the day, the old material still exists.

Hopefully the new book will give you the tools you need to bring what you loved about the original setting over to 5e, and it won’t take too much extra work to tweak to your liking.

 

[Bedrockgames]

with classic domain lords you had to kill them in the right way to rid the world permanently of them. This principle applied to other threats and monsters too, but was especially the case with lords (and in some cases it was really a question of if the mists agreed). It wasn’t that the whole domain reset, or that your actions never occurred, it was more you physically killed a lord but he or she reformed in sone way if you didn’t take right steps. For example, if I recall if killed harkon Lukas’ spirit would inhabit the nearest wolf and slowly turn into Lukas—going by memory so might be off on details). The best lords had methods of killing that that made sense when you understood their backstory. This is one weakness of the 2E line in my opinion because the idea really crystallized over time with things like the van Richten books: I think more lords should have had methods of being killed that were clearer when you researched and learned about their past

 

[Bedrockgames]

Although Peter Cushing's Doctor Frankenstein was more impressive, since he managed to pull off the same trick without the benefit of being undead.

peter Cushing Frankenstein was an ace at circumventing death. That is a very interesting series to watch film to film. Agree on that (also his was one of the more interesting characterizations as well)

 

[Remathilis]

I am not familiar enough with the shadow fell concept to comment on that. In the old version it is more connected to the ethereal plane

Just to clarify the reason I say the line, is that is how I am referring to the Ravenloft setting as it was from black box to domains of dread. The setting spans multiple publishers and versions of D&D. To me ‘the line’ just equals “90s TSR Ravenloft” when I use it here. And it also matters because the setting evolved and changed a lot during that time (domains of dread and black box are quite different)

I think that might be part of the communication problem.

You're looking at Ravenloft only through one specific lens; the 1992 Black Box. While you acknowledge the Red Box and DoD, I get the feeling your looking for something closer to what you fell in love with 20 years ago. I get that, there are plenty of people who reject anything Greyhawk beyond the 84 folio or all Dark Sun beyond the original box. Traditionalism has its appeal.

But the game and setting has move on some from there. Much like how Dark Sun needed a huge amount of work done for its 4e update (and cue a lot of wailing and rending of garments from the DS grognards over that), Ravenloft is another setting that has remained buried too long and needs some work done to update to how the game is played today. It needs a fresh coat of paint because a lot has changed since the Arthaus era (and even more since the black box era) and the setting has to adapt to that.

I've often told Dark Sun fans who hated how 4e introduced spellcasting bards and tieflings the same think I'll say now; a setting that cannot adapt to how the game is now is a dead setting for WotC in terms of future support. The game has evolved past 2e, settings need to also. Luckily, nobody is going to steal your black box edition; you can still run Old Ravenloft as you always have. But WotC needs to make a Ravenloft for today, not one beholden to designs that are outdated or even possibly offensive (the Vistani debacle as a clear example).

 

[Remathilis]

I don’t know: I am not the one proposing all islands but the concept seems to shift in response each time I make a point about it

That's the point; we don't exactly KNOW what the connective glue is going to be. We just know there will be no poster-map of a continent with domains sharing borders. There is no gotcha here; plenty of people have pointed out how the Core had multiple design flaws and you have handwaved most of them with "I never had a problem with it".

I guess we'll know exactly come May, but for now I think it's safe to say there are enough people who don't feel the core is central to Ravenloft's design.

 

[Azzy]

One thing I haven't seen touched on in this back and forth (though I could have missed it) is that Van Richten is the book's framing device. That implies, pretty heavily, that there IS travel between the Domains.

 

[Remathilis]

Which means the core wide secret societies will not make as much sense nor will adventures where the agents of a Darklord are operating in another domain. The smaller domains which are single cities or towns or haunted houses/castles will stand out more obviously as metaphysically odd if they are default not part of a larger continuity.

Not so sure on that. Keepers of the Feather are already discussed as a group across the various domains. The Vistani can cross easily (and remember, some Vistani work for Strahd or other Darklords) and you obviously have heroic types like Van Richten, Ezmeralda and the like traveling from domain to domain. I also could see the Church of Ezra (and its mistwalking anchorites) being an evangelical movement in several domains due to the fact it can send missionaries into the Mists and find new domains to win converts in. What is lost is the fact that walking west of Barovia will 99% of the time put you in Invidia.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m just going to say, I very much doubt “islands” is meant literally. While I think the concept of making them literal islands and the Vistani into sailors is cool, I’d be extremely surprised if that was the way they went with it in the new book. I suspect they just mean “islands” in the sense that they are isolated.

I think if you want to get a sense of what the domains will look like, take a look at Curse of Strahd. It’s a valley surrounded by mist that discombobulates you and sends you back to Barovia if you try to leave without Strahd’s permission. No coastline to be found. If you leave, whether with Strahd’s permission, with a group of Vistani, or by killing Strahd, where do you end up? Who knows! It’s an extraplanar space, its relationship to other extraplanar spaces doesn’t need to conform to normal physical rules.

I kinda doubt that it will make any practical difference whether the domains are in a single connected landmass or not. Travel between them will be as convenient or as inconvenient as the plot demands either way, so I don’t really see any value in making it specifically one way or the other.

 

[Voadam]

The roster of people implied to be among the "people who liked it" in this conversation don't seem particularly interested or invested in playing 5e D&D so I'm not sure why WotC should care about them more than the people who bought and played the Curse of Strahd 5e adventure and made it into a success.

I played 5e Curse of Strahd and I enjoyed it. I own the 5e book. I bought the new 5e Tarokka deck even though I still have my old 2e one.

For a single adventure or an adventure path style campaign a single isolated Island set up can work. For a more sand box campaign and as a full setting I prefer having the domains connected.