D&D 5E Meet Ravenloft's Harkon Lucas and Rudolph Van Richten

WotC has shared some artwork from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, featuring the titular vampire hunter himself, and the darklord of Kartakass, Harkon Lucas.

"Rudolph Van Richten prepares for his next expedition, watched over by the spirit of his son, Erasmus."

"A born liar and shape-shifter, Harkon Lukas orchestrates elaborate manipulations.
He's rarely seen without his signature wide-brimmed hat; wolf's tooth necklace; and violin, which he calls Bleeding Heart."​

 

[Estlor]

I find it refreshing that this thread turned into an argument over clothing in fantasy RPGs and not an angry tirade over the lazy race-swap they did on Harkon himself. At least with the gender-swapped Darklords they appear to have massaged their backstory enough to make them unique takes on the trope. Since they went through the trouble there, if they were looking to add a Darklord of color, I would have preferred they went a bit farther to make an actual, new character to replace Harkon. Oh well.

That said, his new race plus his attire plus him being a "loup garou" and not a wolfwere is giving me strong Creole vibes for this domain.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I am going to tell you a secret: If a jedi is blinded by the rage and she kills a dark lord by the hate, and not only by legitime self-defense, then the jedi will fall in the dark side of the Force and possesed by the spectre of the dark lord (and the dread domain will be rebooted, altering everybody's memories, even by the own new dark lord).

 

[opacitizen]

If a jedi

are you sure this is the galaxy you're looking for

 

[imagineGod]

To get a consistent art aesthetic, the D&D art directors need a genre filter.

 

[imagineGod]

Also to support the point that artistic consistency in fantasy is a useful tool for immersion, just consider the fantasy RPG Legend of the Five Rings.

I just received the last book of the 5th Edition L5R (not D&D) from Fantasy Flight Games. Notice the cover features a female military commander in samurai aesthetic styled armour. She is not dressed like a musketeer nor an American Revolutionary War soldier.

Contrast the above consistent aesthetic for the fantasy Rokugan with the lack of internal art consistency among and within current D&D sourcebooks. D&D is suffering from a lazy lack of artistic research by both hired artists and art directors.

 

[jgsugden]

Why is Harkon Lukas wearing a 1970s leisure suit?

A better question is why aren't we all?

 

[R_J_K75]

A better question is why aren't we all?

I wouldnt be caught undead in one

 

[jgsugden]

Am I the only one who don't see anything "gothic" or "horror" or "dark" in the art of new Ravenloft book? It is too colorful, too bright for my taste. The whole aesthetics could be in Forgotten Realms or in Eberron...

Gothic and horror do not require everything to be murky, dark and drab. Dementlieu is intentionally bright and festive, but sinister and evil to the core, for example. You're walking into a party, bright and festive, where a whim can end a life in a moment.

Gothic horror conveys dread, fear and - most likely - an unhappy end. If your heroes win in Ravenloft, it is not really Gothic Horror. If they survive and escape, but bear the scars of their passage, it is more in line with the concept of Gothic Horror.

The drab brown backgrounds behind Van Richten convey sadness and futility. The smile on his dead son is also haunting in multiple ways if you play it right.

Harkon is a wolf in sheep's clothing. You're likely to meet him as a bard and like him ... trust him ... until he turns on you. Why portray him as grim dark when that isn't supposed to be your first impression?

 

[Jaeger]

This makes me remember a thing about the old far west movies. We can't notice the difference of the Western wear when a movie is from 1950's or from 1990's. The real cowboys were used to wear...bowler hats! But you don't see this in the movies.

D&D is based in lots of works from Western speculative fiction, and the goal never was to show historical ages. Even today historical movies wouldn't wear clothings like the real from that age because today the audence would think they are ridiculous.

I disagree.

There is a marked difference in style an quality of costume between She Wore a Yellow Ribbon for 1949, and Dances with Wolves in 1990.

As for bowler hats, you must not remember Young Guns from 1988.

And that's just from the top of my head.

D&D doesn't need to show any specific historical age. Just pick an aesthetic that works for the genre like the Game of thrones tv series and be consistent in its portrayal. Why would that be so hard for each D&D setting?

@Jaeger, as someone who bangs this drum about the depictions of ships in D&D, I feel your pain. It's jarring when you see something that is really, really anachronistic in the game and no one else seems to notice it at all. ((No, an 18th century English Ship of the Line is not really plausible in a D&D level technology. And, FFS, at least don't draw the bloody gunports on the thing))

The occasional anachronism is not inherently a bad thing. Lots of settings have them, WHFRP is one. (Still agree about the ships though...)

But at least WHFRP is consistent in how it depicts them in its unique art and style!

Lo5R is another great example - it is a far east pastiche in many respects. Yet it takes those influences and has a unique yet consistent art design for the game.

I just fail to see the reason that the most profitable RPG in the hobby cannot manage to do this.

I find it refreshing that this thread turned into an argument over clothing in fantasy RPGs and not an angry tirade over the lazy race-swap they did on Harkon himself.

LOL! Your right!

I'm not touching that talking point with a ten foot pole!

If people think we're getting all hot and bothered over D&D's lack of art direction...

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Contrast the above consistent aesthetic for the fantasy Rokugan with the lack of internal art consistency among and within current D&D sourcebooks. D&D is suffering from a lazy lack of artistic research by both hired artists and art directors.

This is nonsense... comparing Legend of the Five Rings (which I'm not dissing, it's great) which has a very carefully curated niche of Japanese/Chinese fantasy to D&D (which is much broader than even European fantasy) and chalking it down to laziness... a disingenuous argument in many respects.