D&D 5E Ravenloft Previews of Dementlieu, Lamordia, and Har'Akir

WotC has been sprinkling previews of individual Ravenloft domains to various websites -- including Dementlieu, Lamordia, and Har'Akir. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is only a couple of weeks away, coming out on May 18th!

Dementlieu​

• Forbes takes a look Dementlieu, which has inspirations like Cinderella, The Masque of the Red Death, and Dark City. "Dementlieu is one of over 30 domains of dread detailed in the book. It’s a sharp contrast to Barovia’s dark forest and looming Gothic castle on a hill. Instead it’s covered in a glamorous sheen of fine clothes and fancy parties. Everyone is dying to be invited to the Grand Masquerade held by Duchess Saidra d’Honaire every week on her private island. And, in many cases, killed if they are discovered at the ball if they’re not supposed to be there."
• Syfy Wire looks at Lamordia, inspired by Frankenstein. "Many of the Domains of Dread are inspired by some horror tale or piece of creepy folklore, and Lamordia definitely has its roots in Frankenstein. But while the Domain is inspired by that classic horror story, its elements are then shot through the lens of D&D adventures and explored to dozens of horrific extremes. Mordenheim's land isn't just about resurrection gone awry, it's also the Domain for all different types of science gone wrong, bizarre experiments, body horror weirdness, and grim tales of society versus a frigid land. Just as there's more to Frankenstein than a scientist who abandoned his child, there's more to Lamordia than stitches and semi-dead flesh."
• Polygon has Har'Akir, an Egyptian-themed domain. "Why is there a Domain that is a desert that is riddled with these ancient, inexplicable haunted monuments and ruined pyramids? How does a Domain like that exist? How does it make sense? To an extent it doesn’t, and it’s going to be the players that come and explore that, who are some of the only people that realize that the entirety of the domain is, to an extent, gaslighting them."

Ankhetop, darklord of Har'Akir

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[Faolyn]

None of that explains why it would be a problem.

The entire point of my post was to say that some people would look it up and see how different it used to be.

 

[Hussar]

Okay. So here are the tombs to be looted in the official adventures - just from a quick skim, where they are actually called out as burial areas by name.
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus - Crypt of the Hellriders, Uldrak's Grave, High Hall Catacombs, Grand Cemetery
Tomb of Annihilation - Tomb of the Nine Gods
Out of the Abyss - no tombs by name
Hoard of the Dragon Queen - no tombs by name
Storm Kings Thunder - (took a little digging, but because I ran it I remembered) Morgur's Mound, Deadstone Cleft, Stone Stand, Flint Rock (could be more)
Princes of the Apocalypse - Tomb of Moving Stones
Dungeon of the Mad Mage - no tombs by name
Rime of the Frost Maiden - Necropolis of Ythryn
Ghosts of Saltmarsh - no tombs by name
Curse of Strahd - Castle Ravenloft catacombs, Amber Temple
Tales from the Yawning Portal - Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Tomb of Horrors

Expand that out to sections of dungeons with burial sections, places not explicitly labelled as tombs, and you get many more.
And then look at lost temples, shrines, ruined cities of lost empires, etc., and I think nearly every adventure features these types of locations.

Just as a question - how many of those tombs do the PC's go into because they want to plunder, and how many do they go into because of other reasons? For example, the tomb in Storm King's Thunder, you go into because you need to speak to the oracle inside. AIR, there isn't really any plunder to be had at all. And, as far as the other tombs go, are they required for the AP plot or just kind of there? The reason I ask is that they didn't feature in the campaign we played.

But, I think my point does rather stand. Tomb robbing isn't really a feature of WOtC modules. Four of the modules you looked at had no tombs at all, and most of them only have one or two, some of which aren't really even necessary to the adventure.

 

[TwoSix]

...That was the entire point of my initial post on this.

That's quite a few posts just to make an observation.

Of course, this post is also just making an observation.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Har'Akir seems like the perfect setting to put all the kind of paranormal/UFO/Conspiracy stuff tied to pryminds/Egypt/Maya/Sumerians that those shows on the history channel show.

Like if the setting is gaslighting you a bunch of weird contradictory conspiracies and cultures to be found in the ruins is perfect. You search one ruin and find a crashed UFO using the ruined pyrimid as a power plant, and the next ruins over look the same at first, but have a completely contradictory mythology to the first ruined pyrimid and your find bigfoot mummies and vampire Elvis. Maybe in the third pyramid you have a unexplainable mix of Eberron and Faerun artifacts.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sorry, but, kissing a person without permission is sexual assault. Full stop. Someone might decide to let it slide or not press charges, but, that doesn't change the fact that kissing someone without permission is sexual assault.

-----

See, the biggest problem with these kinds of discussions is that people act like any criticism of a work means that the work is now garbage and anyone who likes it must be garbage too. Nothing could be further from the truth. I LIKE the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. They're fun. They're entertaining. They're a great way to kill a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. I would certainly watch them again. And have watched them all multiple times.

But, that in no way makes them above critique. Just because I like something doesn't mean that I get to pretend that it is now above all reproach. Far from it. It is entirely possible to recognize the failings in something and still really enjoy it. Heck, look at the Lord of the Rings movies. The fact that every single protagonist is white, and the only white antagonists that we see on screen are the leaders of characters that are played by non-white actors. This is problematic. Does that mean that the LotR movies are racist or that Peter Jackson is a closet KKK member? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. But, at the same time, we can recognize that yes, the works are a product of their time and going forward, maybe we can try to do better.

The same goes for WotC going forward and bringing these settings into the now. Changing the setting so that your character will be a local seeking to improve the lot of the locals rather than a foreign invader bent on plundering tombs avoids the rather uncomfortable tropes of the original setting. Why is that a bad thing? If you want to play a tomb plunderer, go right ahead. No one is stopping you. The only difference now is that that isn't the baseline assumption. Again, why is that a bad thing?

People have a strong tendency to essentialize. If a piece of media has bad things in it, that must mean the media is bad. If the media is bad, people who like it must be bad. Obviously that’s not true and the reality is much more complicated, but it’s an easy mindset to slip into.

 

[Charlaquin]

Har'Akir seems like the perfect setting to put all the kind of paranormal/UFO/Conspiracy stuff tied to pryminds/Egypt/Maya/Sumerians that those shows on the history channel show.

Like if the setting is gaslighting you a bunch of weird contradictory conspiracies and cultures to be found in the ruins is perfect. You search one ruin and find a crashed UFO using the ruined pyrimid as a power plant, and the next ruins over look the same at first, but have a completely contradictory mythology to the first ruined pyrimid and your find bigfoot mummies and vampire Elvis. Maybe in the third pyramid you have a unexplainable mix of Eberron and Faerun artifacts.

I don’t think ancient aliens is a better look at all...

 

[Hussar]

People have a strong tendency to essentialize. If a piece of media has bad things in it, that must mean the media is bad. If the media is bad, people who like it must be bad. Obviously that’s not true and the reality is much more complicated, but it’s an easy mindset to slip into.

I agree. But, it does make any discussion largely pointless as any criticism, no matter how mild, is immediately seen as an attack on the person. Which is totally not meant. But, the tendency to conflate personal taste with objective value is very prevalent.

 

[Parmandur]

My wife and her friends (all of them millennials brought in to 5e via Critical Role) all fondly remember the Brendan Fraser Mummy films. It's like a cultural touchstone, guilty pleasure.
Moreover, they recognize the classic 1930s Hollywood depiction too.
Anyone saying modern D&D audiences don't recognize those tropes is wrong.
I'm not saying Wizards shouldn't try to do something different, put their own spin on it, or try to be more culturally sensitive. But the trope is still there, recognized, and familiar to their target audience.

Yeah, the Brendan Fraser movies were very popular, and the Universal Monster movies still get play.

 

[ChaosOS]

My two ceramics as someone who started in 3.5 is that reboots of settings should be expected and are good for a large variety of reasons - just because a TSR author cranked out a product in ninety days doesn't mean it's the pinnacle of writing and should never be changed. New authors can lend new perspectives that will resonate better with modern audiences and give more care to aspects that were undercooked in the original publication. I'm running a Dark Sun game using the 4e continuity and loving it, because my players have their own agency and aren't bound by the 2e metaplot. Ravenloft has even better reasons with the whole Dark Lord business! I'll just say it - people saying these domains shouldn't see updates are coming off as crusty grognards.

Oh, and I love the Brendan Fraser movies.

 

[M.L. Martin]

The perfect being the enemy of the good is what will kill future Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Dark Sun releases. Adapt or be consigned to the dustbin as WotC releases yet another MTG setting...

Everything I'm seeing suggests that they're taking out a lot of the elements I liked (classic monster archetypes, the Gothic atmosphere, the moral underpinnings of the setting, the product aesthetics), doubling-down on elements I didn't like (the real-world fortunetelling elements, the Gnostic/Sadean idea of the world as fundamentally evil and irrational), and suffusing the whole thing with the trademark feeling of 5E D&D, which I've never much cared for. Thus, the product holds no appeal to me beyond a certain morbid curiosity.