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

 

[overgeeked]

Four hour actual play shows tend to turn into Dungeons & Feelings pretty fast.

At least the Dungeons & Feelings folks try to push something like a story. It’s already tedious enough to try watching most actual play streams, I couldn’t imagine trying to sit through four hours of a combat-heavy stream. I’d rather gouge my eyes out.

 

[Parmandur]

Four hour actual play shows tend to turn into Dungeons & Feelings pretty fast.

I mean, isn't that how a lot of actual play goes...?

At least in my experience, though I used to think my groups were weird until I started seeing these actual plays that reflected my usual experience. Once in college, a friend joined our regular group one time, and stated that he felt "like a Tolkien character who stumbled into a Joseph Conrad novel..."

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, isn't that how a lot of actual play goes...?

At least in my experience, though I used to think my groups were weird until I started seeing these actual plays that reflected my usual experience. Once in college, a friend joined our regular group one time, and stated that he felt "like a Tolkien character who stumbled into a Joseph Conrad novel..."

Depends entirely on the group. My experience is most actual play is little more than the players moving their game piece around a map during combat. There might be some dialog with shopkeepers and various NPCs, but feelings are something largely ignored.

 

[TwoSix]

If this is done in the classic, it is a bad thing, and you lose control and wake up with no memory of the killings you have committed, I welcome it. If we are about to see lycanthropes as a viable PC race, that is getting into WW territory

That would be a welcome change. Too much thematic on the bone to leave to an indie company.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I mean, isn't that how a lot of actual play goes...?

The long ones, yes. If you listen to hour-long ones, not so much. They've got plot to get through. (e.g. The Adventure Zone, Not Another D&D Podcast, Dimension 20, Nerd Poker, etc.)

Some point after the hour and a half mark is when there's time for feelings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

At least the Dungeons & Feelings folks try to push something like a story. It’s already tedious enough to try watching most actual play streams, I couldn’t imagine trying to sit through four hours of a combat-heavy stream. I’d rather gouge my eyes out.

I honestly think four hours is too long for my tastes, no matter the content. I strongly prefer one hour sessions. Lots of stuff happens. On an hour-by-hour basis, I don't think there's any less combat than the four hour shows have -- the rest of it is filled up with plot, rather than (to use an example from the most recent Critical Role podcast) 15 minutes of the player characters telling each other what they'd like them to do in the event that the first character dies in what appears to be one of the big final fights of the campaign.

Obviously, Critical Role's success says that works for a lot of people, but it's a lot of feelings for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Depends entirely on the group. My experience is most actual play is little more than the players moving their game piece around a map during combat. There might be some dialog with shopkeepers and various NPCs, but feelings are something largely ignored.

Blargh. We might need to compare actual play lists. I don't think I'd want to listen to the ones you are.

 

[Remathilis]

I found the inherent flaw in the system was a lot of redundant dialogue vs. Dialogue that moves the scene along. This is obviously because they are improv-ing and don't have a omnipotent writer fixing the dialogue, but there were parts where I said to myself "you've already said that, move along".

If it's not obvious, I don't do streaming D&D much, so my ability to critique is limited. But as someone who has listened to a few audiodramas before, I found myself longing for the economy of words...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

* What fan-art dark-lords from the fraternity of the shadow should become canon?

Category:Darklord - Mistipedia

www.fraternityofshadows.com

* If the setting becomes very popular now, and fandom adds a lot of homebred ideas, then the "sandbox" becomes too small, even if some "predators" also hunt as food other supernatural creatures. And teorically one of the main ideas is the most of citizens don't notice the menace of the monsters, at least not the enough, as if the potential demographic crisis wouldn't be enough. Have you thought about the psycological impact in a society with a relatively high death rate? If you have lost a member or more of your family then you don't feel too much to be a "bohemian" but your spiritual inquisitiveness is high.

* If there is a Ravenloft spin-off I don't advice the Gothic Earth again, not now, because you never can know when a new controversy about Victorian age could start. What if the players discover the "secret weapon" to defeat the undead lord is "the Rose of Guadalupe" or the sacred waters from the source in a Catholic nun convent? Or the infernal outsider kills the female anglican exorcist for a failed ritual because "her faith was not enough to stop him"

 

[Urriak Uruk]

* What fan-art dark-lords from the fraternity of the shadow should become canon?

Um... none of them!