Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft Review

 

FACE YOUR FEARS

The book is a 256 Hardcover book, there is something here for the player and the DM.

 

Chapter 1: Character Creation

This chapter lays out the 3 new types of character lineages you can make, some Dark Gifts (special powers/curses), 2 subclasses, and a bunch of character backgrounds, and a pile of trinkets.

Lineages: “Lineages are races that characters might gain through remarkable events.”

1. Dhampir: Pretty much a vampire, it’s complicated. You can bite people to do damage and heal yourself (if you’re missing half your HP or more).
2. Hexblood: A magic being, often raised or created by hags. You have a telepathic token that you can scry with. You can also cast disguise self and hex once per day. I love the hag lore in D&D.

Reborn: “Individuals who have died yet, somehow, still live.”

Dark Gifts: Characters can be tempted by the Dark Powers, given special boons that also have a drawback. The first one seems very harsh – you gain two proficiencies and one language, but every time you roll a 1 on a d20 something horrible happens (you’re charmed by a creature you can see, or you are incapacitated, etc.).

Subclass Options:

• Bard: College of Spirits: You can commune with spirits, who let you cast guidance, let you use certain tools, and use bardic inspiration for different effects – deal force damage, grant temporary HP, etc. Once you hit level 6, you can conduct a ritual to “…learn one spell of your choice from any class” (must be divination or necromancy).
• Warlock: The Undead: You make a pact with an undead entity (You choose)  At 6th level you no longer need to eat/sleep breathe, at 10th level “…when you would be reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to drop to 1 hit point instead…”
• Backgrounds: We get some quick new backgrounds, along with lists of ideals, bonds, and flaws.
• Haunted One: from Curse of Strahd.
• Investigator, You are a Van Richten Want to Be.
• Trinkets: We get a list of 100 new trinkets.

 

Chapter 2: Creating Domains of Dread

advice and rules on creating Darklords and domains. The part I find most interesting is the idea that a Darklord can’t really die! Defeating them might involve exploiting a weakness, but in the end, the Dark Powers can bring them back.

The biggest change and disappointment in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is how the book approaches the lore of Ravenloft itself. Some Domains and their respective Darklords are given wholesale revisions. In Barovia, the vampiric conqueror Strahd von Zarovich was now lured into evil by the cult of the Priests of Osybus, The Domain of Lamordia was originally ruled by Adam, a flesh golem-like creature created by Doctor Victor Mordenheim. In Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, the region is now ruled by Viktra Mordenheim, a mad scientist tormented by her inability to replicate the Unbreakable Heart device that keeps her reborn lover Elise alive. Some of them have their original lore intact — the realm of Mordent, for example, is mostly unchanged, Darkon is now a Domain in decline after the disappearance of the iconic lich Azalin, while Valachan’s new Darklord Chakuna actually replaced the previous Darklord after a gory ritual that resulted in Urik von Kharkov’s death.

 

Chapter 3: Domains of Ravenloft

This chapter takes up most of the book. It details piles and piles of domains of dread.

The Mists: We get rules for wandering the mists. The Dark Powers can manipulate the Mists, allowing them to open or close borders to a certain domain. If the borders are closed, the Mists look menacing and start dealing out exhaustion left and right until you back off or die.

If the borders are open, you wander for d6 hours and then roll on a chart. It is very difficult… nearly impossible… to emerge from the Mists onto a world on the Material Plane.

• Mist Talisman: These are non-magical objects linked to a specific domain. You can walk into the Mist, use the talisman to focus on that domain, and travel there.
• Prison of Souls: If you die in Ravenloft, your spirit is probably trapped in Ravenloft forever, even if you are raised from the dead.
• Ezra, God of the Mists: Denizens of many domains worship this entity. Travelers in the Mists: This section details NPCs and organizations that might be allies with the heroes.
• Keepers of the Feather: The wereravens from Curse of Strahd.
• Vistani: Includes notes on making Vistani characters.
• Mist Wanderers: We are given extensive descriptions of many NPCs.

 

Chapter 4: Horror Adventures

This gives you tips for running the horror. They point out you should check your players to see what they are and aren’t OK with. Pacing, setting the mood for the horror adventure, and tips for the DM.

Horror Toolkit: Curses and effects of fear. They give you a fear mechanic here, your character has a trigger. Then, when that comes up in the game, they must make a DC 15 WIS save or become frightened until the end of their next turn.

The House of Lament: A 19-page adventure in here. This scenario takes characters from level 1 to level 3. It’s a haunted house-type adventure. I will not spoil anything here, but a few of the things you have to do is interesting and involve a Spirit Board.

 

Chapter 5: Monsters of Ravenloft

The chapter starts out with advice for taking previously published monsters to make them fit Ravenloft, how to describe monsters and what tactics to use to create terror. The monsters chapter contains a 30+ Monsters/stat blocks.

 

There are some great things in this book, and some that just left me saying WTF Is this.

 

Artwork

Once again, I must give some kudos to the art team at WOTC, they chose some amazing art, and it shows all throughout the book.

 

 

A note There is a “limited” edition cover on this book as well as there has been on the past few, I’m not big into this gimmick, and yes I think it’s a gimmick, I like this one. Still not a big fan of them, but this is one of the better ones, I would say.

 

 

I talked about this above, but the changes to the domains of dread are my biggest disappointment with this book, leave the lore alone WOTC.. ugh. The book also does something that left me scratching my head, there are no stat blocks for the Darklords of Ravenloft. Instead, DMs are advised to tweak generic Monster Manual stat blocks to suit their own purposes. Also, it annoyed me to no end that with the new Lineages, everyone gets’s darkvision. They stress the fact this is a horror, and there are dark places, well that sorta takes the horror out of it, if you have darkvision.  I know these are 2 very minor nitpicks, but these just annoyed the hell out of me.

 

Over all with some flaws, this book does offer a lot if you going to run a Ravenloft game, or a horror game, there is enough “meat” here for the DM and the players.

 

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft , can be found at your FLGS, Amazon or other online outlets, also can be found on Roll 20 and Fantasy Grounds.

 

A big thanks to WOTC for providing the review copy for this review, this as always had no effect on the outcome of the review.

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