D&D 5E (2024) Ravenloft: The Horrors Within preorder page lists the book's contents

You can now pre-order preorder Ravenloft: The Horrors Within over on D&D Beyond--the ultimate bundle costs $149.99, while the book alone comes in at $59.00. There are pages for the new DM screen, map pack, and Tarokka cards as well. The pre-order page lists the book's contents.

• 16 Domains of Dread, including the new cosmic horror domain Innsmouth.
• 17 Darklords for your party to face or flee from, equipped with challenging stat blocks.
• 7 subclasses (including the new Reanimator and Hollow Warden), 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 2 Origin feats, and 9 Dark Gifts for building tortured protagonists.
• 10 genres of horror from gothic to dark fantasy.
• A bestiary of 41 monstrosities and 10 domain denizens for your party to encounter.
• 47 maps and 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

Tonight, your party’s greatest nightmare... is the one you create.

Bring fear to the table with the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Ultimate Bundle, the complete horror toolkit with everything you need to create a personalized horror campaign – and strike fear into the hearts of your players.

The Ultimate Bundle includes:

• Physical and digital versions of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, containing 16 Domains of Dread, 17 Darklords, 7 subclasses, 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 11 feats, 68 monsters and 47 maps including 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Tarokka Deck for weaving terrifying twists into your campaign with 54 fully illustrated cards.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Dungeon Master’s Screen for keeping your plans enshrouded in mystery.
• Physical and digital versions of the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Map Pack for plotting out eerie encounters for your party.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

 

[Remathilis]

VGR came out in 2021, but there is a roughly two year cycle on these things, so it may have been written in 2019, before Covid, inspired by the Black Death and Poe. It may have been just bad timing.

That's my guess. I'm certain Covid was on their mind while working on it, but the idea probably was worked on prior. Bad timing indeed.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I mean, the original Richemulot was basically Borca-but-wererats. The plague domain was at least original.

3rd Edition Richemulot was building up to a 'lycanthropy as plague' theme.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Resident Evil is about biological weapons and infection but the sales of the last title have been very good. Has anybody watched the 2006 horror movie "Mulberry Street"?

There is a little room for conspirancy plots. You can tell some story about fights among factions but these are soap-opera level. Together all the dark domains are like Rhode Island when I want space as big as Texas. Do you understand? Usually a dark domain is only the capital city, and if you are lucky there is a half-dozen of smaller villages but for my stories I need kingdoms with hundreds of towns. I want a region as big as France but I only have a space as small as Montenegro. It is like if you wanted to play "the lost World" but one month later all the dinosaurs of the region have been hunted by the PCs.

* Could the angel Avacyn from Innistrad to reappear in Ravenloft? Vecna could resurrect her because she knows that in the demiplane of dread she can cause many headaches for the Dark Powers. That would be a good reason.

* Do you remember the ulgurstata and the hullathoin from Fiend Folio 3e?

* A new domain could work like a spin-off of Duskmourn.

What no-canon dark lord do you consider potentially interesting to add to your games?

Category:Darklord - Mistipedia

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I just saw in the new DDB article (maybe this was out there already) that the book will include a way to randomly generate new domains on the fly using the Tarokka deck, which is great. Random tables are not groundbreaking, of course, but giving us more to do with the Tarokka deck rather than pulling it out once or twice in a campaign is great.

I do hope the spirit board from Van Richten's doesn't vanish into history, though. As fun as tarot cards are, I think for a lot of Americans especially, the Ouija board is even more associated with spooky fun.

 

[TravDoc42]

New D&D Beyond Article!
Seems like Ebonbane is one of the Darklords, and Shadowborn Manor has a map, so I wonder if that'll be one of the Domains?

(I ran a homebrewed one shot set in Shadowborn Manor once before; wish I had an actual stat block at that point!)

 

[TravDoc42]

This art has "Ebonbane" as the file name, too!!

 

[Parmandur]

New D&D Beyond Article!
Seems like Ebonbane is one of the Darklords, and Shadowborn Manor has a map, so I wonder if that'll be one of the Domains?

(I ran a homebrewed one shot set in Shadowborn Manor once before; wish I had an actual stat block at that point!)

Some interesting stuff in here, sounds like they are doing some stuff with the Garrockka deck similar to Book of Many Things:

"The tarokka deck has been a part of Ravenloft since the beginning. Ravenloft: The Horrors Within presents new guidance on running tarokka readings in any adventure in the Domains of Dread, providing DMs advice on how to run ominous fortunetelling encounters in any adventure and how to manipulate fate for storytelling purposes."

"In this book, the tarokka can also lead you into new Domains of Dread of your own creation! Revised details on creating your own Domains of Dread allow you to use the tarokka deck to randomly generate entirely new domains."

 

[Remathilis]

I do hope the spirit board from Van Richten's doesn't vanish into history, though. As fun as tarot cards are, I think for a lot of Americans especially, the Ouija board is even more associated with spooky fun.

I REALLY wanted a Ravenloft themed Ouija board when VRG came out. Hasbro owns both, it's free branding opportunities!

 

[Remathilis]

New D&D Beyond Article!
Seems like Ebonbane is one of the Darklords, and Shadowborn Manor has a map, so I wonder if that'll be one of the Domains?

(I ran a homebrewed one shot set in Shadowborn Manor once before; wish I had an actual stat block at that point!)

Hmm. Sounds like it! That's gotta be 16. Sorry Richemulot and iCath.

 

[Remathilis]

What character options are included?
The book includes the following character options:

7 Subclasses: Reanimator (Artificer), College of Spirits (Bard), Grave Domain (Cleric), Hollow Warden (Ranger), Phantom (Rogue), Shadow Sorcery (Sorcerer), Undead Patron (Warlock)
4 Species (Dhampir, Hexblood, Lupin, Reborn)
4 Backgrounds (Haunted One, Mist Wanderer, Investigator, Spirit Medium)
2 Origin feats (Sharp Eye, Survivor)
9 Dark Gifts (Aberrant Anatomy, Echoing Soul, Gathered Whispers, Living Shadow, Mist Walker, Second Skin, Symbiotic Being, Touch of Death, Watchers)

Bolded are new options not based on something from 2014.