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

 

[tetrasodium]

What was problematic about Vlad Drakov?
About the three hags of Tepest?
How bout Dominic D'honair?
Hazlik and his original curse?
How was the Dark Powers being a mystery a problem?

Changing the Vistani sounds fine and the added diversity is all cool, but it's naughty word to claim all the changers were done because the original was "problematic"

he is well regarded in whatever part of the world he was in power due to successfully standing up for the region. Imagine a dark lord transparently mixing George Washington & some horror monster

 

[Remathilis]

What was problematic about Vlad Drakov?
About the three hags of Tepest?
How bout Dominic D'honair?
Hazlik and his original curse?
How was the Dark Powers being a mystery a problem?

Changing the Vistani sounds fine and the added diversity is all cool, but it's naughty word to claim all the changers were done because the original was "problematic"

sigh

Here, read this. We've been over it already.

D&D General - Reading Ravenloft the setting

So the book announcement inspired me to do a bit of rereading of some of the old Ravenloft material. Heavily focusing on flavor, because that's what's relevant to the upcoming 5e implementation, and the 3e incarnation of the setting, because that's predominately what I own. And since all the...

www.enworld.org

 

[tetrasodium]

This livestream is starting soon. The folks playing the WotC Ravenloft live stream. Go ask questions and come back with answers, please? Cause I cannot.

It's neat where you can clearly tell where a few of those characters draw their roots from to really lean into the ravenloft's mists can pull anyone from from anywhere aspect.

• The front left... endogenous looking elf is some kind of ravenloftized modern style so probably one of the more advanced domains
• The guy on the right rear has an outfit that fits solidly into eberron's late 1800s early 1900s modernstyle that started with rising.
• The guy on the front right looks like pretty classic ravenloft style outfit
• The other three look to be wearing a fairly standard d&d mix of equipment I'm not confident enough it looks like it hails from one setting or another

 

[Remathilis]

It's neat where you can clearly tell where a few of those characters draw their roots from to really lean into the ravenloft's mists can pull anyone from from anywhere aspect.

• The front left... endogenous looking elf is some kind of ravenloftized modern style so probably one of the more advanced domains
• The guy on the right rear has an outfit that fits solidly into eberron's late 1800s early 1900s modernstyle that started with rising.
• The guy on the front right looks like pretty classic ravenloft style outfit
• The other three look to be wearing a fairly standard d&d mix of equipment I'm not confident enough it looks like it hails from one setting or another

They are all from the Black Dice Society Podcast

Black Dice Society | Dungeons & Dragons

The Black Dice Society is an official Dungeons & Dragons stream set in the horror setting of Ravenloft.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Faolyn]

What was problematic about Vlad Drakov?

By law, all nonhumans--and as of 3e, all humans who weren't Aryan enough--are to be captured and enslaved as soon as they enter the domain. That's going to suck hugely for nearly every single party of adventurers. And it's an just a depressing domain; I remember a line from the Gazetteer about "S" seeing a giant pile of dead babies just stacked up and rotting, because nobody cared enough or had enough energy to actually bury them.

Plus, y'know. Nazi domain.

Personally, I would have had Drakov get killed in an ironic manner (maybe one of his hawks attacked him) and had the Darklord-ship pass to the heads of his various ministries, who then effectively cause the domain to implode due to infighting between departments, at which point other domains would swoop in with their own armies... but that's a lot more political than they probably wanted to go.

About the three hags of Tepest?

From what I read, one of the hags turned on the others, which seems more like this is an evolution of the domain than revamping due to problems. No different than there being an uprising against Duke Gundar which "killed" him and caused his domain to be absorbed by the surrounding ones. After all, the hags didn't like each other; it was only a matter of time before their relationship broke down.

How bout Dominic D'honair?

Dominic's main shtick is mass mind control and being absolutely desperate for women. If you're the type of DM who wants the Darklords to play an important part in any particular adventure, then that means that any female PC is at risk of becoming his victim. It doesn't matter that he's not depicted as a rapist per se; they likely thought it was better to not take the risk.

There's also only so long you can continue the stalemate between Dominic and The Brain without one of them getting the axe.

Personally, I have a feeling I'm going to pull a Borca and split the domain between him and the new DL, or perhaps just rename the new Dementlieu and keep them both (my choice of names is Asile, meaning asylum).

Hazlik and his original curse?

He was tattooed with symbols of femininity to mock him. No matter what you want to make his sexuality or gender identity, that's not cool.

How was the Dark Powers being a mystery a problem?

It looks like they might not have been defined after all. And I plan on ignoring that section completely.

Changing the Vistani sounds fine and the added diversity is all cool, but it's naughty word to claim all the changers were done because the original was "problematic"

And yet, that was likely the case. I think

 

[Mecheon]

Changing the Vistani sounds fine and the added diversity is all cool, but it's naughty word to claim all the changers were done because the original was "problematic"

Not all of the changes were done because of diversity, some were done because the originals were just, boring and they probably wanted to put some more life into things.

The three hag sisters barely had enough content between the three of them from the start so its no surprise they were just put down as one, and "Let's just name a guy blatently after Vlad Dracula" has always had that perception of laziness to it

 

[darjr]

One of the authors has a long Twitter thread talking about the book and a bit about his bonafides and contributions.

 

[JEB]

What does Old Dementieu have going for it besides tradition that makes it worth keeping?

Answer me that, and maybe I'll buy that they miscalculated in changing it to the faux Cinderella ball by way of Masque of the Red Death. But right now, between the two versions, I'm far more inspired by the new version then I ever was by the old.

1) Folks already indicated upthread why they did in fact find value in the old Dementlieu, even if you didn't.

2) Once again, it didn't have to be a choice between the two. They could have had this domain as something 100% new, without it taking the place of the old Dementlieu, and I don't doubt it would have had the same appeal to you and everyone else. With the added bonus that fans who liked the old Dementlieu, and prefer to adventure in the "official" canon, aren't being asked to choose between editions, and would have no motive to dislike Saidra's dark-fairy-tale domain on sight.

Mind, I was personally OK with the new Dementlieu as an evolution of the old Dementlieu, especially with that Dominic Easter egg that invited questions about how he was deposed by Saidra. (My head-canon would be that she's Dominic's daughter, but turned out to be better at mind-control than he was...) But just because I'm not alienated by that change doesn't mean I won't question the decision. It has more downsides than the alternatives.

Even Strahd's "unique" stat block in CoS was the MM vampire with the spellcaster variant option, a slightly higher Int score and a few swapped spells.

Which was one of the big disappointments for me in Curse of Strahd, honestly. (That and the Amber Temple.) The darklords deserve stat blocks with unique legendary actions and other abilities reflecting their nature. So them doing even less in this new book is a bummer.

 

[JEB]

It's the standard for major NPCs in the Adventure books as a whole, really.

Minor NPCs in 5E, yes. Major NPCs, no - most major NPC writeups in books through 2020 got full, unique stat blocks. I can attest to this because I went through all of the adventure books when assembling the 5E monster list on the D&D Lore Wiki.

However, it's possible this may have changed in Candlekeep Mysteries, which I haven't fully paged through.

 

[JEB]

I suspect someone told WotC that some of these prominent domains needed to have their names in print, just to keep them as part of their protectable product identity. I'm not sure I would have gone to the mat for some of the lesser ones they're keeping in the mix, but for all we know, that was part of a mandate on high.

That's an interesting theory, actually. If they were required to use the classic domains, and found they didn't work, and were forbidden from adding in new domain concepts they liked better... they might have got their new domains in anyway by replacing the old domains. Meanwhile, upper management wouldn't care, as long as they had the trademarked names.

However, wouldn't the old Ravenloft books being in digital "print" on the DM Guild have been enough to maintain trademark protection? (Though I don't know enough about trademark law vs. digital publication to be sure.)