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

 

[Voadam]

I feel like a Therapist subclass could really help transform Ravenloft.

Nah, it would just feed into the self curse to have help they could turn to, but do not do so.

Plus if history is any judge they could end up like this guy:

 

[Bedrockgames]

I feel like a Therapist subclass could really help transform Ravenloft.

I think it would play out like the Sopranos lol (where it just made them more effective evil-doers)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Nah, it would just feed into the self curse to have help they could turn to, but do not do so.

Plus if history is any judge they could end up like this guy:

View attachment 135299

Also, how does one effectively serve as a counselor to a dark lord? It's like being a celebrities doctor times a million.

 

[Remathilis]

I feel like a Therapist subclass could really help transform Ravenloft.

Paging Dr. Daclaud Heinfroth...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dom's mom died in childbirth

Maybe the new darklord is Dom's mom?

 

[Remathilis]

Black Dice Society episode 2 hints.

The group spends most of the episode in the Carnival (a traveling pocket domain) that seems fairly faithful to it's 2e version. A half-giant strong man, and a tiefling fortune teller among the newer characters.

Darkon is mentioned with "The Hour of Ascension" has happened. In Darkon lore, this is when the dead would come and claim Darkon from the living. Azalin's whereabouts are unknown to the general population, (but he's clearly alive) and the nation is fractured. It sounds like they are borrowing some ideas from the Requiem and Necropolis, but maybe not Death? Either way, Darkon is "a kingdom without a King".

Soth is described again as lord of Sithicus. It is referenced he is beyond the Mists.

Two episodes in, and it's hard to determine what is the DMs reinterpretation of old cannon and what is new cannon. If you said this was the old setting 10 years advanced in the timeline, I'd probably agree.

Still, more to chew on I suppose...

 

[Faolyn]

Black Dice Society episode 2 hints.

The group spends most of the episode in the Carnival (a traveling pocket domain) that seems fairly faithful to it's 2e version. A half-giant strong man, and a tiefling fortune teller among the newer characters.

Darkon is mentioned with "The Hour of Ascension" has happened. In Darkon lore, this is when the dead would come and claim Darkon from the living. Azalin's whereabouts are unknown to the general population, (but he's clearly alive) and the nation is fractured. It sounds like they are borrowing some ideas from the Requiem and Necropolis, but maybe not Death? Either way, Darkon is "a kingdom without a King".

Soth is described again as lord of Sithicus. It is referenced he is beyond the Mists.

Two episodes in, and it's hard to determine what is the DMs reinterpretation of old cannon and what is new cannon. If you said this was the old setting 10 years advanced in the timeline, I'd probably agree.

Still, more to chew on I suppose...

I don't mind getting rid of Death, or at least, getting rid of Necropolis, the city. Having a City of the Dead is a cool idea, but not if you can't even enter it. Still, it'll put a crimp on my desire to play a cleric of the Eternal Order. It does sound like they're going back to the time when Darkon became Necropolis, the country.

I just hope they got rid of the memory wipe. I always felt that it wouldn't actually work they way they planned, and nobody would ever go into Darkon, or at least not further in than a day or two's travel, if they realized that anyone who stayed too long in the country would likely never come back.

Odd that Soth is the DL but also "beyond the Mists." I wonder if he's stuck between worlds like Gwideon is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't mind getting rid of Death, or at least, getting rid of Necropolis, the city. Having a City of the Dead is a cool idea, but not if you can't even enter it. Still, it'll put a crimp on my desire to play a cleric of the Eternal Order. It does sound like they're going back to the time when Darkon became Necropolis, the country.

Darkon wasn't my favorite domain in the core, but what they ended up doing with it, made it feel completely unusable to me. I definitely would say bring back something more like the old darkon (because that was a domain I could at least wrap my head around and understand as the players went through it). A land of the dead is certainly cool in concept, but I think it probably needs to be built up from the ground up and explained better to the GM (I just never knew how to use something like Necropolis in play). I am sure other people had different reactions. But this was one big hurdle I remember feeling strongly as they developed that meta plot

 

[Bedrockgames]

I just hope they got rid of the memory wipe. I always felt that it wouldn't actually work they way they planned, and nobody would ever go into Darkon, or at least not further in than a day or two's travel, if they realized that anyone who stayed too long in the country would likely never come back.

This was one of those really cool feature of the domain that was extremely hard to execute, and didn't tend to work in practice (something about telling the player they now realize they have always been in Darkon and aren't who they thought they were before: or that details of their biography aren't what they thought.....feels very odd in practice). I feel like it worked okay if players made characters native to ravenloft and had them be from daikon, because then you could play around with it more (but found it harder to do in the opposite direction). It is a cool idea. I would hate to see it totally vanish. But this is also a place where I think there is opportunity for vast improvement and might be good for them to try to get right (like if they can come up with a procedure, GM advice, or parameters for it that work)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Odd that Soth is the DL but also "beyond the Mists." I wonder if he's stuck between worlds like Gwideon is.

They could go all Doctor Who and have this be Soth earlier in his timeline (and have ravenloft exist outside of normal time).