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.

 

[BruceWright]

Any word on what the shoggoths look like? I'm excited to see them!

Someone will post the artwork, for sure. The painting is not super clear. Eyes and eyes and teeth and teeth and mouths and mouths all devouring a figure in platemail.

 

[spacedarwin]

Any word on what the shoggoths look like? I'm excited to see them!

Very evocative art.

 

[TravDoc42]

Very evocative art.

View attachment 438775

That looks so cool!! Thank you so much!!

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Any word on what the shoggoths look like? I'm excited to see them!

Mini

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think I would want warforged or kalashtar or kenders "watered down" to fit anywhere.

There is a huge demand for a mechanical PC ancestry. If it's not the warforged, WotC will eventually be making another one to fill the niche. Personally, I think the warforged's design is so good -- hammered out over decades of revisions -- that it would be a shame if they felt the need to reinvent the wheel on that score.

Kalashtar don't seem to have the same widespread appeal and kender are just halflings on meth.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Eeeehhhh...

I don't think I would want warforged or kalashtar or kenders "watered down" to fit anywhere. They fit specific niches in their settings. But since lupins are new to Ravenloft, I can see your point. They wanted a lycanthropy species and shifter didn't work (or is too Eberron coated) so they borrowed the idea from Mystara.

Shifters are more like the Thundercats, Lupin 5.5e are more monstrous and inhuman looking. Although I think a Lupin having offspring with a none Lupin would just produce a Shifter (basically Werecreature blood in Shifters are thin, like Celestial blood in Aasimar). Shifters have thinned lut werecreature ancestory, while Lupin ARE werewolves, just ones that went wrong, but got to keep their free will intact.

 

[Selas]

and got stuck in hybrid form

 

[Mecheon]

Looking at the lupin, it shares a name with the Mystara species, but the flavor is very different. But if it eventually shows up in a book like Monsters of the Multiverse, I expect the werewolf stuff to be sanded down and just listed as a possible origin for the species. I think this will eventually be a popular tertiary D&D species.

The anti-werewolf flavour was back in their Mystara days so that is carried through, plus I think back in 2e the werewolf origin was suggested as one of their possible histories

Honestly looking at their 3.5e incantation, the anti-werewolf angle is carried through most of their appearances

Absolutely overdue though, given how Tabaxi went from 'literately who?' to a popular race

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The overall campaigns seem fine, except in some cases, DMs are going have to do a lot of work to fill in the rest of the campaign between PCs initially finding out what's going on and taking the fight to the Darklord. In Tepest, for instance, PCs find out pretty quickly what's going on (hope everyone made a back-up character!), but there are a lot of levels before the finale and it's not clear to me how the PCs will be leveling up enough for that finale. A Ravenloft anthology book with standalone adventures in each domain would be helpful, as would DMs Guild adventures for each domains.

Thinking about it some more, pretty much all of the mystery adventures from @Midnight Tower could probably be slotted into various Domains of Dread.

Well, maybe not the Jane Austen inspired one, which I own, and which is pretty darned upbeat, although there's a "and Zombies" digital enhancement that would make it suitable for Falkovnia.

 

[Remathilis]

So I've had a chance to read my copy briefly and noticed a number of things.

• There is a LOT more nods to old Ravenloft, even going so far as to suggest the option of assembling a Core, using islands of terror, or even a shout-out to Gothic Earth!
• Adam is back in Lamordia, though he's just a bit player for now.
• Innsmouth was NOT what I was expecting.
• Speaking of which: how did the Dark Powers capture Cthulhu? He was weakened and the Stars were right. But his cults are trying to rebuild his power to allow him to break free.
• The give you a bunch of options to explain Soth in Dragonlance and in Ravenloft, from joint custody to getting trapped again as part of his torment.
• The damn book is gorgeous. The Beyond version doesn't do it justice. It's absolutely amazing to look at.
• That said, I'm going to say a lot of VRGR is repeated in different ways. The two books do maintain a lot of separate elements, but there are parts that feel lifted from one and put in the other.
• The bastion rules are great if you like those.
• You can, with DM permission, take Dark Gifts whenever you would take an origin feat. Humans and warlocks rejoice.
• Most of the Dark Gifts are similar, but Mist Walker and Touch of Death got nerfed hard.
• Reading Shadowlands really explained why they wanted hexblade for this book.

What's missing from VGR: the domains themselves get more detail. Four domains got demoted and rules for fear, stress and Survivor PCs are gone, as is the House of Lament.

Final Thought: they really did try to make VGR+, and they mostly succeeded. If you own CoS and VGR, this is gonna repeat id say 50% of what you have. But the remaining 50% is great and the whole package is great.

If Forge of the Artificer feels like a patch for Rising from the Last War, The Horror Within feels like a remaster of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.