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

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, first, you don't tell your PCs what they're fighting. And change up the monsters, even if only by their appearance. And if they figure out what the monster is, make it seem more like it is. Yeah, it's a grizzly bear. But it also seems to be far too intelligent for a mere animal, and are its eyes glowing? Secondly, the setup to the combat is actually the most important part. Make the setup as weird and creepy as possible. And if the PCs manage to take down the foe quickly, you can play up the idea that it was too easy--that there must be something else in play.

OK, my favorite example, one my players talked about for literally years after. I will be honest and say I was running this Ravenloft game in GURPS 4e, not D&D3e at the time, and my players are very good at allowing themselves to being scared. But:

In case you don't remember (and for those people who haven't played older editions of RL much), there is a monster called the carrion stalker. It looks like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a human ribcage filled with entrails, and it acts like a face hugger. It's sole purpose is to leap out at you, inject its eggs into you, then die. In 3x, it's CR 2; it'd probably be a lot lower in 5e, since it literally gets only one attack that does a very measly 1d2 of damage plus damage from the larvae. The players were the equivalent of 6th or 7th level at the time, and I think when I converted the carrion stalker to GURPS it was worth negative a ton of points and maybe had 2 hp.

The setup of the encounter was: there was a corpse in the middle of a field. It had a carrion stalker around it. Around the corpse was a tremendous flock of ravens. Zillions of them, everywhere, surrounding the corpse (that was hidden by tall grass) and staring at it. The ravens wanted to eat the corpse (ravens in this setting may be pretty smart and normally be Good-aligned, but they're still carrion birds) but didn't want to get too close to the stalker.

Along come the PCs. The ravens are thinking, "Hey, here are humans! They have sharp things and opposable thumbs! They can kill the creepy bug monster and let us eat the yummy yummy dead thing in peace!"

What they did, because ravens can talk (but not all that well, and at the time I assumed they sounded a bit like parrots), is, as a group, look at the PCs and say, "Humans! Humans, food? Humans, food, humans!"

And the PCs, who were powerful enough to have killed everything there without breaking a sweat, said "Run!"

A perfect example. That is amazing.

 

[overgeeked]

Honestly, anything that weighs 600 pounds and is charging me at 30 miles per hour is going to inspire terror in my heart.

And this is one of the reasons why D&D has an uphill battle when it comes to horror scenarios. The D&D mindset is that the PCs can overcome the threat. And that's a great mindset for heroic fantasy adventure. Not so great for a horror game.

So talk to your players when you’re setting up your game and tell them the genre expectations are different here. It’s worked for me for decades.

 

[overgeeked]

I really hope they include new rest and healing variant rules. The ones in the DMG are either too minuscule a change or too harsh. Something like healing 1/2 max hit points per long rest, along with the RAW for only regaining 1/2 your hit dice would probably slow the murder hobo roll just enough to matter without crippling the PCs.

 

[tetrasodium]

I really hope they include new rest and healing variant rules. The ones in the DMG are either too minuscule a change or too harsh. Something like healing 1/2 max hit points per long rest, along with the RAW for only regaining 1/2 your hit dice would probably slow the murder hobo roll just enough to matter without crippling the PCs.

Roll half your hitdice+con and good luck would be better than half your hp. Personally I think that might still be too much like pulling the console down & giving yourself a couple medpacks at those levels, but a level X character rolling 1/2x+con hit dice allows for bad rolls & good rolls that aren't dependable at least so players can't bank on saying "nope nope not moving tiny hit & long rest" to be a complete solution

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Honestly, anything that weighs 600 pounds and is charging me at 30 miles per hour is going to inspire terror in my heart.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, first, you don't tell your PCs what they're fighting. And change up the monsters, even if only by their appearance. And if they figure out what the monster is, make it seem more like it is. Yeah, it's a grizzly bear. But it also seems to be far too intelligent for a mere animal, and are its eyes glowing?

I don't think they would consider a glowy-eyed furrball particularly scary. Tell them it's a dragon, that scares them.

The other things like to scare them: harmless cute fluffy white rabbits, chests.

 

[Faolyn]

I really hope they include new rest and healing variant rules. The ones in the DMG are either too minuscule a change or too harsh. Something like healing 1/2 max hit points per long rest, along with the RAW for only regaining 1/2 your hit dice would probably slow the murder hobo roll just enough to matter without crippling the PCs.

I just make the PCs spend Hit Dice, even after a long rest.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't think they would consider a glowy-eyed furrball particularly scary. Tell them it's a dragon, that scares them.

Grizzly bears aren't furballs. They have enormous drooling maws and claws that can be six inches long. That's how you describe a bear.

 

[overgeeked]

I just make the PCs spend Hit Dice, even after a long rest.

So they get up to 1/2 their hit dice back for the long rest and you're using the Slow Natural Healing variant, so they have to spend those dice to recover hp? Does that work to slow their roll? I'd imagine you'd have players intentionally spending 2-3 nights on long rests to get back up to full hp and full hit dice before slogging ahead. How's that impact your game?

 

[Faolyn]

So they get up to 1/2 their hit dice back for the long rest and you're using the Slow Natural Healing variant, so they have to spend those dice to recover hp? Does that work to slow their roll? I'd imagine you'd have players intentionally spending 2-3 nights on long rests to get back up to full hp and full hit dice before slogging ahead. How's that impact your game?

I don't think it negatively impacts the game much; it just makes it scarier since they know they're not going to bounce back instantly overnight without a lot of magical help. If I had it to do over, I'd also include the healer's kit dependency.