D&D General Reading Ravenloft the setting

[Guest 85555]

Right, and the Lord of the Dead who watches over the swamp sounds like a particular Zombie Lord and not an actual deity either.

Lol. Yes true. I always really liked that domain (even the novel set in it was pretty fun). I quite liked Night of the Walking Dead (one of my favorite modules to run)

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the religious lore behind monsters is often so strong, it sometimes might not be such a bad idea for a place like Ravenloft to use real world religions (you can have religions from other worlds too, but crosses and vampires are such an iconic thing). I am thinking of doing this myself if I run another 2E Ravenloft campaign this year. Findley was one of the line's best writers IMO, but that first Van Richten book certainly had quirks (The guide to werebeasts is really stellar and the guide to vampires was wonderful despite its flaws: most of which were just due to it being the first Van Richten book). I distinctly remember there not being a good deal of consistency in keeping Van Richten's voice and perspective straight (for example pretty sure there were moments Van Richten started talking about game mechanics....later books made this distinction a much clearer wall).

I actually like the lack of a consistent and rigid canon early in the line (one of the reasons I stopped playing forgotten realms was the canon got too extensive and canon lawyers became a big thing: much more a fan of GMs putting their own elaboration on a setting or the details being more pick and choose). The Book of Crypts has a character announce "Welcome to Ravenloft" even though it became canon that the world wasn't actually called Ravenloft. It seemed like writers were either given a great deal of liberty on that front or there just wasn't much oversight (I suspect part of it was just finding their footing).

I think that really only happens when you collide with FR style hands on barbrawl in the street type gods & associated religions. In Eberron certainty of the gods existing is deliberately a mystery & the caster's faith is spelled out as the critical component. In darksun I'm not even sure if it has specific gods, but they aren't really believed in & the closest thing to a cleric is people like the elemental "priests" that form a bond with an elemental being from the elemental chaos but there's not really anything akin to organized religions there. I know at least one ravenloft book gives broad strokes on ravenloft religions & there is the unspoken pact to give justification for troubling each of those religious forms in various ways

Spoiler

FR may not try to play with making vampires something other than dracula & strahd himself might not go too far from the mold, but other settings do

Spoiler: we even have a newspaper clipping as evidence of it

 

[Faolyn]

I think the religious lore behind monsters is often so strong, it sometimes might not be such a bad idea for a place like Ravenloft to use real world religions (you can have religions from other worlds too, but crosses and vampires are such an iconic thing).

I prefer to stay away from real-world religions, personally. More out of my lack of religiousness than anything else, personally.

(for example pretty sure there were moments Van Richten started talking about game mechanics....later books made this distinction a much clearer wall).

Yeah, it was weird to see him talking about levels and Hit Dice and the like.

Werebeasts was definitely good, although my favorite is actually Created, followed by Ghosts and Fiends.

 

[Guest 85555]

Werebeasts was definitely good, although my favorite is actually Created, followed by Ghosts and Fiends.

The Created is my favorite as well (and I really liked Ghosts)

 

[humble minion]

Yeah, Vampires was a little bit weak, but they were still finding their way in the first book. Created was really good, i would have liked a little more on non-flesh golems though. The bit of Ghosts that was actually about ghosts was great, but there was a lot of page count taken up with stuff about mediums. Ancient Dead was a bit in the middle. The whole 2e thing about mummies and the positive energy plane took up a bit much space, and I think they could have probably talked about death knights too - that was a bit of an odd omission.

 

[Tonguez]

Right, and the Lord of the Dead who watches over the swamp sounds like a particular Zombie Lord and not an actual deity either.

I wonder has anything been done to look at Darklords as Warlock Patrons? and then just how a Warlock Patron differs fundamentally from a Diety?
Within Sourange is the Zombie Lord a god? (little g)

 

[humble minion]

I wonder has anything been done to look at Darklords as Warlock Patrons? and then just how a Warlock Patron differs fundamentally from a Diety?

It'd depend from darklord to darklord I guess. There will be the new undead warlock patron which'd work for Azalin and the like, and some existing patrons could be appropriate to some Darklords (perhaps the archfey patron to the new fey-centric Dementlieu lord, and Ebonbane is basically the perfect Hexblade patron). But some Darklords just wouldn't be appropriate as warlock patrons, it's not in their personality or power set. Gregor Zolnik for instance, or Gabrielle Aderre. If it was a universal thing you'd run the risk of duplicating some of the boneheadedly worst stuff from books like Champions of Darkness, where the writers seemed to think that every darklord was some ironfisted tyrant who had a small army of platemailed agents stomping around being evilly evil for the sake of evilness.

 

[Guest 85555]

Yeah, Vampires was a little bit weak, but they were still finding their way in the first book. Created was really good, i would have liked a little more on non-flesh golems though. The bit of Ghosts that was actually about ghosts was great, but there was a lot of page count taken up with stuff about mediums. Ancient Dead was a bit in the middle. The whole 2e thing about mummies and the positive energy plane took up a bit much space, and I think they could have probably talked about death knights too - that was a bit of an odd omission.

I have to say I really liked the ancient dead. It took mummies from being stereotypical things like you saw in old movies, to a much more varied array, while providing a pretty good foundational explanation to tie them all together. Another one I quite liked was the guide to the lich. That was great in terms of endless adventure ideas. I just found myself constantly inspired by it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

But Hinduism I allow politeist religions from the real life. In D&D my "monotheism" religion is something like Eru Illuvatar, or a heresy created by false prophets, like Tash from Narnia. Other idea is the cult for the arch-fey as a neo-pagan who want a rebellion against the pantheon, but really they are minions of the titans who lost the wars against the gods in the ancient times. And if there is some divine spellcaster as antagonist this wouldn't be an ersatz of Richeliu or others like him but allegories of historical characters as Robespierre or Jean-Baptiste Carrier (responsible of the horrible drowning at Nantes).

 

[Remathilis]

I honestly found Ezra (from DoD) one of the best additions to Ravenloft as a expy Christian church that is very needed in gothic storytelling. The old cathedrals, exorcists, inquisitions, etc. When domains were flyover country that your primary goal was to not outstay your welcome, it didn't matter what god the local church was, but once you get local PCs, it mattered.

On a side note: I like Hala as well (coming from the 3e era) as a kinda expy Wicca/pagan goddess worship option. Those two fill 90% of the "good" religion needs of the setting and still keep enough mystery to not be completely wholesome. For me, it was nice to have a faith or two you could get holy water from.