For my group the best way to build tension are the little things. Mage Hand is made out of mist, web has a bunch tiny spiders in it, fires aren't as bright as they should be. Also in combat never say "an xxxx approaches." Always describe it as an absolute nightmare. And yeah I run games outside Barovia all the time.
That’s all very clever. I was already making use of your last piece of advice myself because I didn’t want to sound like a robot, I wanted to be more descriptive than that.
This brings memories, back in 1983 our DM got a hold of the Ravenloft Adventure, but he thoght that it would be too scary for us, so he created his own Domain Master, I dont remember the name of the Domain, but it revolved around a traveling puppet circus and yeah you guessed it, the puppets were animated and really scary. We got hit pretty bad and when we were about to be all destroyed, this gallant gentleman appears with his soldiers and saves us, and invites us all to go back to Castle Ravenloft. I still have nightmares about my poor wizard sad and depressed about being trapped for eternity. Thanks for bringing so good memories
Probably mostly being able to read the signs. The UA always kinda hints what's coming, college of spirits and undead patron, the Dhampir, Reborn and Hexblood, something horror is coming, what screams horror and D&D? Ravenloft. Similarly why a lot of people are thinking something dragon related (probably Dragonlance) is coming soon, given the Drakewarden and Dragon themed monk path UAs, and the recent settling with the Dragonlance authors.
It is so refreshing for your ad breaks to be at logical places between talking points and paragraphs instead of midsentence like other videos have. Also, your content is awesome!
The last campaign I dmed it was a homebrew domain of dread, it was a noir mid 70's setting with connections with our world and other fantasies too (one PC was Dana scully from xfiles). It was a place for refugees controlled by the tormented soul of Vlado Herzog ( a reporter from Europe that was killed in Brazil by the fascism regime ) . It was my first campaign, level 5-20 ... It was awesome
I ran Ravenloft, almost exclusively, for 10 years in 2E. That was the setting where I learned to GM and it did a lot to shape me as a storyteller. The next big setting I moved to, from there, was Planescape - (where I spent the next several years) so you can imagine what my campaigns are like: heavy rp and characterization, with a lot of philosophy and high concept adventures (with a bit of wackiness mixed in with PS).
Should touch on some of the Sword and Sorcery label Ravenloft material. In particular the Gazetteers. They contain a wealth of information on each of the domains.
@@midnightgreen8319 I would have settled if they had just finished the Core, the Seas it haunts me to this day... We had barely touched the Seas in 2nd edition and I was so looking forward to real details about them.
@@nigelhirth2181 You're right, but he says, "The Ravenloft campaign setting is supposedly located in the Ethereal Plane..." Not was, is. It is not in the Ethereal Plane in current canon. He also mentions this after discussing the 5e Curse of Strahd campaign.
In the 90's I was the DM of many Ravenloft adventures in various domains and homebrew Islands of Terror. I still have all of my 2E Ravenloft material, which is most of it, including everything that you presented here. Except I don't have the 1E original adventure. I still DM a 2E game, but my son is the DM of a 5E campaign. I remember when he told me about Curse of Strahd. I broke out the map from the 2E box set and old him that he was just given a tiny piece of what is there. Afterwards, we had many conversations about Ravenloft over the years, most of which involved me saying "You've seen the map." My son called me up all excited when he heard about 5E Ravenloft being released. I am happy for him and all who lay the new game. I hope that it is just as good as the older TSR material.
I have come back to this playlist so much over the past year because I really enjoy the Domains. I know it’s not the up time date setting, but would love to see new videos regarding some other Ravenloft Domains you hadn’t covered before.
Yeah, and when run well, Sithicus is way scarier than Barovia. I suppose that's subjective of any game, though. Depends on the DM. But...SOmething about that domain. It terrified me.
fun fact. Lort Soth was never suppose to be in Ravenloft. Weis&Hickman were none too pleased that TSR just usurped the character and in the Dragonlance setting it is not cannon. this is one of the reasons that Soth and Sithicus will not appear in the new book.
Can I just say, to this day, this is perhaps my favorite D&D story setting and it couldve been an amazing open-world pc game, and I am shocked it seems to have fallen off the radar of importance. Its so rich and complex
I ran a campaign in Har'Akir and it turned out to be one of my groups favorite games. The players started of getting in contact with Van Richten, who was trying to avoid assassination attempts by a dark lord, as Van Richten was known to foil the plots of many dark lords. Van Richten sent the players to basically redeem Har'Akir.
A shiver of disgust cascades up my spine like a bolt of diseased lightning. Please: Richter (ending with an "R" like "Romeo") is a character from Castlevania, being one of the Belmont clan, as Richter Belmont. Ravenloft's hero is Rudolph Van Richten (ending with an "N" like "November"). He is the writer of so many of the Van Richten's Guides which share his hard-fought knowledge of how to destroy the various Children of the Night, whether it's vampires or ghosts or the created. I have no idea why this constant typo (of which you are FAR from the only offender, so I apologize for calling you out specifically) triggers me so, but I figured I'd call it out this time.
I ran a non-Barovia Ravenloft game a couple of years back using X2 "Castle Amber" within the Sword Coast but placing the region of Averoigne within the Ravenloft setting, the province being originally in Medieval France of Gothic Earth before finding itself as a realm just on the edge of the Core realms. Its dread lord was the necromancer Naithaire who I expanded on from his description in the module as a high level necromancer who was in a constant state of decay and regeneration and commanded corpse collectors to assemble his army of undead and a gigantic patchwork undead flesh golem called the Collossus (65' tall zombie made of stitched together corpses). Plus side quests involving twig blights, a corrupted ent, ettercaps and were-spiders, and werewolves (and greater werewolves) while they were trying to gain access to Stephen D'Amberville's tomb in the hopes of getting out of the realm and getting back to Waterdeep.
I've ran so much Ravenloft, my wife told me I'm not allowed to run anymore Ravenloft campaigns after my current one until I run something else, ANYTHING else. I've ran a Grand Conjunction campaign, several solo campaigns and my current campaign is a modified CoS where the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos are trying to break into the wider realms, but they keep getting funneled into Barovia by the Dark Powers. So my players at the moment are caught in the middle of power struggle between Strahd and Nyarlathotep. I've been using the CoS book and Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5E which has some great stuff in it.
I am currently running a Ravenloft campaign set in Darkon. I am using the 2E Domains of Dread hardback, the 3.0 Ravenloft Campaign Setting book, the Secrets of the Dread Realms book, and Ravenloft Gazetteer vol. 2, all published by Arthaus under license from WotC. The 2E and 3.X material needs some finessing to work in 5E, but it's great stuff.
Great series and I hope you keep it up. The original domains were very cool and the various lords that ruled them incredibly powerful. The three hags that rule Tepest and Strahd, of course, are a couple of my favorites, but each lord (or lady) was intriguing in their own right. That Medieval and Renaissance horror, together with the European-like setting, made Ravenloft a gothic treat. In some domains, the "traditional" D&D adventuring could be had. Since any creature, especially humanoid, can get ensnared by the realm, clever DMs could easily weave high fantasy into a party's storyline. Great editing and production!
Ravenloft was the primary campaign setting for my group for years... I loved that it drew from all the other published settings, and enjoyed nods to, and npc's from those other worlds. It allowed character creation to be much more open and varied(everyone can be from their favorite setting), and the Mists stealing you and stranding you in a scary, hostile place made for easy introductions and reasons to team up/stick together...you might not know the wizard you just ran into, but on top of being just as confused as you about where they are, they're being hunted by the same terrors that stalk you... This needed to be handled delicately, as there was much in those settings that would fly in the face of the Gothic Horror aims of Ravenloft...But this was rarely a problem. Later, the 3.5 stuff really opened up and leaned into playing native "ravenloft" pc's. Generally, Ravenloft's theme of horror and the unknown added a darker vibe to our usual fantasy heroic roleplay. You could generally travel freely between domains of dread(at least in the core), unless a darklord decided they did not wish you to leave. Each darklord had their own way of sealing their borders, only Barovia had the mists(though the mists also prevented escape from the setting itself and the islands and clusters). I also greatly enjoyed the machinations of the various darklords as they sought to understand the Domains of Dread, the dark powers, and their intrigues against their neighbors(Strahd and Azalin's history was very exciting to me). When Lord Soth was brought in from dragonlance...I had a nerdgasm...same with Vecna's later imprisonment. The Knight of the Black Rose novel was so very good, especially Soth's time in Barovia and Strahd's reaction to this powerful arrival in his land. I was saddened to hear they chose to pretty much abandon the non-barovia ravenloft/The Core in other editions... My group is currently finishing up a Forgotten Realms run, we're next going to hit all the Greyhawk classics, and try to get caught up in the timeline of various modules/storylines...but we will be returning to Ravenloft...might take 20 years...but I can't wait.
Jorphdan, While doing your research on the Ravenloft Campaign Setting did you come across any lore on how Clerics get their spells? To my understanding, no deity can interact with the dark world Ravenloft is set in. Instead, it is the Dark Powers that grant Cleric Spells on behalf of the deities (and the PCs & NPCs are no wiser for it).
Yeah it's all really neat! "Ravenloft has a way of corrupting or obscuring the lines of communication between priests and deities, so the results of any spell may be altered." Alternate styles of play for alternate campaign settings, I like this direction :)
I’ve long followed Ravenloft. In fact, I’ve had a Ravenloft campaign going roughly bi-weekly for about a year now, combining the 5e Curse of Strahd with the old 2e Grand Conjunction modules (reset into an appropriate level order for a campaign).
I actually played the CYOA book, it was my fave; I had a bunch of them as it was full on Satanic Panic here in the south. I didn't have die so they recommended using slips of paper with numbers you mixed and chose at random...ah ye olden times Jorphdan I still have mine :) But I lost my character cards :(
FYI: A Creaturewere is an animal that has gained the ability to turn into a human or animal-human hybrid. This is different from a Werecreature, which starts off as a humanoid. An example from 5E are the Jackalwere.
I ran Ravenloft as my campaign world for about 15 years and still love it! I also remember running I6 for Halloween in 83’ when it came out, one of my first forays into DM’ing 😈
I have run every campaign since the early 90s in Ravenloft 2nd edition. Love it. My last campaign had my players working to bring Barovia from 2nd edition into the 5e game. Some much Fun. I'm glad they are planning on new 5e rules soon
So happy Ravenloft was my first campaign setting that got me into DnD. I can't wait to get the new book and run a campaign. Read all the novels, played the pc game.
I grew up in a very small town. The only person who was worth a darn as a DM was a Ravenloft aficionado, so most of our adventures were in Ravenloft, and therefore most of my DND experience is in this world as well. So much so that I don't really know what the rest of the game looks and feels like. Not that this is bad though. The ravenloft world is rich with gothic, occult, and even steampunk culture. It's a blast to playthrough and quite haunting.
Currently running a campaign in Liffe, doing the Aferdale adventure from Book of Crypts. I've been taking a lot of liberty with the material, converting to 5e and also incorporating material from the DMs Guild book Malar: The Beastlord Compendium. I've used Dungeondraft to make all the maps and we're playing via FoundryVTT.
One concept that I thought of to make Ravenloft a darker setting is a pair concepts I call "Arcane Reaching" & "Arcane Corruption." With Arcane Reaching a spellcaster of any class can cast a spell if even if they are out of spell slots, or attempt it if it's a higher level than they can ordinarily cast if they have a written record of it such as a scroll or another wizard's spell book. While called "Arcane" this can work for any form of magic. The problem/price of Arcane Reaching is Arcane Corruption. Arcane Corruption drives the spell caster a bit more into being something ... else I call "The Wizened." The Wizened look like ancient wrinkled versions of their former selves and are basically Hags but in either gender. Why are there no tales of male hags in much of D&D, I'd say with this option you can make Corruption of Offices & Misogyny a thing in your campaign setting. Imagine a High Priest of Pelor, now evil & corrupt but shielded by his office & reputation. This can serve as a constant temptation for spell caster characters, but every time they do it, they must roll a percentile die to avoid slipping temporarily or permanently into a blackout state in which their alignment shifts to Evil, the more often this happens the more ancient they start to appear as until they are fully Wizened and in the blackout state (read have the player roll a new character) full time.
I'm actually making a sequel to CoS for me and my friends since we loved this campaign so much. These new lore videos are SUPER helpful, thank you so much!
Yeah, maybe I'm a bit late to the party... The Black Box was the initial campaign setting, but there was an expansion box set called Forbidden Lore which added a bunch of stuff. The Red Box (the second version of the campaign setting) brought both the original box set and Forbidden Lore together along with restructuring the core. Later, a hardback, Domains of Dread, was released late into the 2E era - right before 3E actually - that tried to rekindle interest in RL. It also attempted to revise the core game world along with adding some new wrinkles. The actual novels came after the campaign setting was released not before. But the gamebook based on the I6 adventure was indeed published before the campaign setting. As for Strahd, he is actually the lynchpin holding the place together as has been suggested in adventure modules and supplements (Hell, going back in time to prevent Strahd turning into a vampire was the plot of a module). If he goes for good (meaning no longer of use to the Dark Powers), then the Dark Powers break up the band.
I have played in several Ravenloft campaigns. And really, Stradd hasn't played much of a role in a few of them. It is always a great time though! One thing I recommend to keep the vibe of the setting alive. Have players give the DM a handful of bullet points about what they fear. This is a great tool for the DM to use to really instill the feeling of dread and urgency to the players actions.
My old group fell so hard in love with Ravenloft that we ended up finding a way/reason for each game setting we played to end up there. West End Star Wars, our characters ended up there (and lightsabers don't work on vampires); FASA Star Trek, out characters were there...etc.. We did discuss how it'd work with Call of Cthulhu but never came to agreements on things.
Would love to see the Domains of Dread covered more. Read through Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and I'm curious about some of the other domains. Like: Odaire House of Lament Or dare I say it, lore on the Bagman.
There were also rules for playing Native to Ravenloft PC's as early as 2nd Edition as there was a hardcover book called Domains of Dread which was the last revision of the core Campaign Setting in 2nd edition(That's right the campaign setting was revised twice during 2nd edition.) which included the first real push towards Native Player Characters in the setting. Instead of solely relying on the Weekend in Hell style adventure (Get pulled into Ravenloft and escape.) that you mentioned in your video.
0:31 Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Greyhawk setting also named after a castle? Castle Greyhawk. Or at the very least Castle Greyhawk was a central place in the setting, like Castle Ravenloft is for Ravenloft.
There is an adventure just for Castle Greyhawk and its dungeons. Below the dungeons it is situated the artifact known as Godstrap, which was developed by the then wizard and now god Zagyg, played by the deceased Gary Gygax himself. Godstrap is an artifact made to trap demi-gods (and maybe lesser deities?). The door that leeds to the Godstrap chamber is made of obdurium, which is a rare metal from Greyhawk that is harder than adamantine.
The changes to magical effects were a defining trait of Ravenloft, and went a long way towards promoting an atmosphere of dread. Especially for characters who weren't from the demiplane. When your magic is suddenly unreliable, all bets are off. I suspect the new book won't keep these mechanics, though. It's just another layer of paperwork. They CAN do some of the old things, however. Like, making creatures of darkness (undead, devils, fiends, fey, etc.) harder to turn, and expanding their power sets so that each monster is unique. Vampires weren't all the same in RL, nor were werebeasts, or liches, etc. The DM could tailor these monsters in unexpected ways so they became unpredictable again. Ravenloft is my absolute favorite of the classic settings. I'm really excited to see it getting revived in 5e.
Really annoyed that I somehow became un-subbed from your channel sometime in the last few months. You always have really great, informative videos and I'm looking forward to more of them again.
I really love playing Ravenloft server in neverwinter nights. It is the best mmo and rp experience I have ever had in video games. Playing it feels like being in a great book that you also write. Also the server has full Ravenloft region map available
One of the best campaign I played involved the group of the played trying to go from Barovia to the Necropolis because we are looking for Vecna to help our own plane. My character was a noble from Barovia with a frankstainish personality.
1:20 there were lots of these made - there was the Endless Quest series, the Hearts Quest series, the New Endless quest series (published 2018), and the one you mentioned which was part of the The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons gamebook series. Fighting Fantasy are still a lot better imo though.
6:11 It's stated that if a spell jammer ship tried to fly to one of the moons in the sky, the mists would simply turn them around. This ironically fits since the Demiplane of Dread is a constructed world.
Eberron Ravenloft domain of Cyre! I shall make thee! The Mournland is just a placeholder for the true conflict within the removed country. Another domain would be in the sea of sorrows, Giff who live on the wreckage of a spelljammer fleet, who fish for food and trade with travelers. The dark lord would be a Giff who started a mutiny upon this massive fleet due to greed.
I ran games in Ravenloft way back in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons days. Had some really good sessions there. Ran some great werewolf stories and one about tha golem Dark Lord called Adam, I think.
I ran a home brewed domain in 2e using the domains of dread, a patch of dwarven land with low rolling hills and necromancy in the air so thick any deceased rose as flesh eating zombies in hours. The locales adopted funeral pyres over burial. There was a book of great necromancy that the locales used to control undead and protect themselves, this didn't help the necromancy in the air thing. This book would give you a class in necromancer just by reading a single line from it and you would find yourself transcribing copies obsessively.
I've run a Domains of Dread campaign. It fell apart when the players got frustrated that they couldn't steamroll everything. Nothing like 10,000 zombies wandering in an area the size of a small town. When the "turn undead"s and "Fireball"s ran out, they struggled to figure out what to do. 5 players, lvl14-17. To this day, I mark it as my turning point as a DM. I took the game seriously. Sadly, more so than my players. It would be years before I learned the phrase, "Murder Hobos", but that was my players. Happily, I eventually found a new group to play with.
Ravenloft is my favorite setting, I feel like after 3rd edition it got the short shrift though. Especially because of all the cosmological changes in 4th edition trying to tie the individual Domains of Dread into the Shadowfell instead of it being a large Demi-plane in the Ethereal like it was in 2nd and 3rd edition. I am glad they are going to be doing a new book for it but I am nervous about how it's going to turn out hoping it returns to its large complete setting roots. The best time for the setting was the 3rd edition books done by the Swords and Sorcery imprint over at White Wolf. The Best of those books by far were the Gazetteers which detailed each land of the Core of Ravenloft. They brought so much fun and deep lore to the settings. The Gazetteers were unfortunately cancelled after the 5th book which did manage to get all the mainland core domains detailed (Missing out on the Seas around the core unfortunately.) It's unfortunate because the Core isn't the only parts of Ravenloft there were the Islands of terrors, individual domains drifting in the mists but still tied to the Demiplane, or the Clusters which had lands tied together with particular horror themes like Middle Eastern/Egyptian, domains tied together in the Amber Wastes. Besides the Gazetteers, in 3e if you check out any of the books of those lines, Legacy of Blood which had rules for playing members of the Noble Houses of Ravenloft, Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends, which was a book full of all sorts of hooks for Ravenloft adventures. And the continued Van Richten series The Guide to the Walking Dead, Guide to the Shadow Fey, and Guide to the Mists all good in their own rights.
no worries CoS is a LONG campaign and the book isnt set for release for a wile. by the time of release you should be into the meat of the campaign and then can incorporate the new book
My homebrew world is kinda a Ravinloft campaign, except instead of Domain of Dread existing in the Ethereal Plane, they form in the material plain, basically flooding into the world and creating isolated spaces of Negative and Dark energy, like the Shadowfell. On top of that, the material plain is warped to fit the new change, some creatures gain mutations (Fallout style), the gravity warps or reverses, dead bodies become zombies if not burned or completely destroyed, and powerful demons, or evil alignment creatures gain a Channel Evil ability that allows them to detect creatures and living things about to 120 feet away and unless the Demons who roam inside are killed, the domain will expand, growing like a cancer, and in turn giving the monsters who live there, more power and mutating reality even more.
The map shown is form the Red Box rather than the Black Box and comes after the event known as the Grand Conjunction. That’s why several of the original domains are missing but the rift and the sea of sorrows are seen.
Hi Jorphdan! Coll video, a good summary of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting. I also have a youtube channel that delves into the lore of Ravenloft. Do you intend to delve into the Darklord's lore and history or just the general context of the setting? What did you think of the Van Richten Guide to Ravenloft? It seems that they will do a radical remake of the know domains.
I look at the Wolf-were like the Tibbit. A Wolf-were is a wolf who changes into a humanoid, like a Tibbit is a cat who changes into a humanoid. Also, it is it's own race, not a curse or affliction so the mechanics are different. It's not just a lycanthrope template to be added to another race.
I hope they do have restrictions/alterations to spells and class features, if for no other reason than to show DMs that they're allowed to do that to create a certain tone.
the adventure die vecna die , where vecna escapes ravenloft and enters sigil (which shouldnt be allowed but the Vecna found a loophole or used magic that was equal to the lady) and the final issue of dragon magazine (paper editions back in 2007 or so) basically say the Lady being one of the Ancient Brethren. basically the first beings in the multiverse that came out of the raw chaos energy of magic essence (i guess). Ahriman and Jazirian are 2 others (Ahriman is known as Asmodeus!). So basically these ancients were first. THEN the over gods like Ao, High God, etc for the settings, then the regular gods/powerful beings, etc. the planes also started creation out of that primordial magical essence (this stuff is in The Guide to Hell ... a late 2e source book that basically explained how the D&D universe was created...which much of it was then never mentioned, although hinted at in 3e briefly). I'll paste this here instead of typing: Die Vecna Die describes the Lady of Pain as a member of the Ancient Brethren, a group of omnipotent beings who predated the multiverse and know the Language Primeval, a magic greater than the gods. In the module, Vecna became a god and entered Sigil by countering the Lady's ban of all gods from the city for a time. He was able to do this because some of the Language Primeval was confided to him by the Serpent, another Ancient Brethren whose magics were as ancient and powerful as her own. After Vecna was defeated, the Lady used the Language Primeval to repair the damage he did to the multiverse by rewriting it, causing the transition from D&D 2E to 3E. Now the Serpent, hinted at in some articles in dragon magazine could be Asmodeus/Ahriman or even one of the draconic overgods. That langauge primeval IIRC is mentioned in Vecna Reborn or Vecna lives? cant recall which but it is mentioned (kinda, in the planescape adventure Dead Gods). basically Tenebrous travels to... Pelion, a plane within ...forgot where but you can check, and finds ancient words of magic. He found the Last Word. basically saying whatever that word is in that ancient language of magic, can destroy gods. he uses it to kill multipel gods as he rampages the multiverse. he's looking for something and kills gods and takes their knowledge, etc. Tenebrous is Orcus. thats how he came back after being destroyed (I think timeline was ....during the end of 1st edition or something). the last word was destroying him though cause only beings such as gods or above them (like Lady of Pain, Jazirian etc) can use it, he ends up getting his rod back and goes back to the abyss, in his layer and all that energy (i dont remember this part very well), makes him reform again but he loses the essense of the Last Word (and in 3e, he has a weaker form of it...like a super power word kill, since using the true Last Word would destroy him ). personally, i like this kinda general rules to how the multiple was created. where magic comes from (true magic, etc). I run an epic level 3.Xe campaign, converted from a long running 2e game in the 90s, and my players are interacting with gods and other such beings. messing with the fabric of reality itself, so having a foundation liek thsi is actually useful to me. Currently, they have learned the stuffa bove about magic and thus, they can now cast more like a spell point system with no limits since you really dont need gods to use magic, if you know how to harness that raw energy from existence itself :D :D :D sorry for the long post :( most is probably not useful to you hehhe
Wizards of the Coast should release Ravenloft stuff every Halloween. Not a full book or anything but like a small adventure or a supplement would be nice.
Oh man... I think my older brother had a Knight of the Black Rose gamebook because I distinctly remember the concept and he had a pewter figurine of that knight.
I had a couple of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books and all of the Ravenloft Novels dealing with Strahd, Lord Soth, and The Azalin. When the Black Box first came out I ran a Paladin I had just made for ADD 2nd Ed. That went horribly horrible. The first and only character, I normally DM, I have had that died. LOL
i have played alot of ravenloft over the years and I'm glad that wizards has brought it up to date but i would reeeeeealy love to see something done about the dark sun campaign setting or even spell jammer ... the neglect of these campaign settings and the stripping of epic level play felt like a kick in the yam bag for bolth players and dms alike.
If anyone out there can remember the Planescape adventure module Tales From the Infinite Staircase, the demiplane of Maelost would be an excellent "neighbor" to Ravenloft.
So I'm putting this together in my head as I go, I'm planning to run Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'm thinking Ythren or something towards the end will end in an explosion of sorts, landing the players, Ythren and a large section of the Reghed glacier transported to Ravenloft
For my group the best way to build tension are the little things. Mage Hand is made out of mist, web has a bunch tiny spiders in it, fires aren't as bright as they should be. Also in combat never say "an xxxx approaches." Always describe it as an absolute nightmare.
And yeah I run games outside Barovia all the time.
That’s all very clever. I was already making use of your last piece of advice myself because I didn’t want to sound like a robot, I wanted to be more descriptive than that.
@@fredslipknot9 thanks. Sometimes its the little things that make the difference
nevers tate a monster name, always describe it. It's way more efficient.
@Thatcher Jayceon what's Flixzone?
This brings memories, back in 1983 our DM got a hold of the Ravenloft Adventure, but he thoght that it would be too scary for us, so he created his own Domain Master, I dont remember the name of the Domain, but it revolved around a traveling puppet circus and yeah you guessed it, the puppets were animated and really scary. We got hit pretty bad and when we were about to be all destroyed, this gallant gentleman appears with his soldiers and saves us, and invites us all to go back to Castle Ravenloft. I still have nightmares about my poor wizard sad and depressed about being trapped for eternity. Thanks for bringing so good memories
Thanks for sharing!
Did....Did he plan when this was gonna come out? Like, the same day the ravenloft source book was announced.
I was thinking about this way to long, my bet is he just had the video prepped and dropped it in sync.
The community had a good idea that the new book was going to be ravenloft guess he just rolled the dice on it
The 'ph' stands for 'psychic herald'.
Probably mostly being able to read the signs.
The UA always kinda hints what's coming, college of spirits and undead patron, the Dhampir, Reborn and Hexblood, something horror is coming, what screams horror and D&D? Ravenloft.
Similarly why a lot of people are thinking something dragon related (probably Dragonlance) is coming soon, given the Drakewarden and Dragon themed monk path UAs, and the recent settling with the Dragonlance authors.
It was leaked by Amazon a not too long ago.
I hope this book is as useful as the Eberron book
It is so refreshing for your ad breaks to be at logical places between talking points and paragraphs instead of midsentence like other videos have.
Also, your content is awesome!
Creators can move them around once the video has been uploaded, but it takes work so a lot of people don’t do it.
The last campaign I dmed it was a homebrew domain of dread, it was a noir mid 70's setting with connections with our world and other fantasies too (one PC was Dana scully from xfiles).
It was a place for refugees controlled by the tormented soul of Vlado Herzog ( a reporter from Europe that was killed in Brazil by the fascism regime ) .
It was my first campaign, level 5-20 ... It was awesome
This is perfect. I'm about to be running Curse of Strahd.
hi, Marty McFly speaking, the videos you will release are great, thx
I ran Ravenloft, almost exclusively, for 10 years in 2E. That was the setting where I learned to GM and it did a lot to shape me as a storyteller. The next big setting I moved to, from there, was Planescape - (where I spent the next several years) so you can imagine what my campaigns are like: heavy rp and characterization, with a lot of philosophy and high concept adventures (with a bit of wackiness mixed in with PS).
Thanks for the Shout-out to S P E L L J A M M E R !
Should touch on some of the Sword and Sorcery label Ravenloft material. In particular the Gazetteers. They contain a wealth of information on each of the domains.
YES TO ALL OF THIS the Gazetterers really made the setting breathe to life I am so sad that they never got to do all the domains like they wanted to.
@@midnightgreen8319 I would have settled if they had just finished the Core, the Seas it haunts me to this day... We had barely touched the Seas in 2nd edition and I was so looking forward to real details about them.
Thank you for this tip I will look out for it.
The speed Jorphdan!
You popped this quick
The domains of dread do exist in a single plain. The 5e DMG states that they exist in the remote corners of the Shadowfell.
This. It's part of the Shadowfell, which is not the same as the Ethereal Plane.
It exists in the shadowfell now, it originally was located in the ethereal. The shadowfell and feywild are pretty recent additions to the canon
@@nigelhirth2181 You're right, but he says, "The Ravenloft campaign setting is supposedly located in the Ethereal Plane..." Not was, is. It is not in the Ethereal Plane in current canon. He also mentions this after discussing the 5e Curse of Strahd campaign.
@@nigelhirth2181 He does not mention this, instead saying they are in the ethereal, which is incorrect information as of 3rd edition.
@@JohnThurner he was referring to the original 2e campaign setting LONG before even the thought of the shadowfell
I've always wanted to play in a game in Ravenloft, but sadly have not. I like the idea of dread/dark fantasy. Glad you are covering the world.
In the 90's I was the DM of many Ravenloft adventures in various domains and homebrew Islands of Terror. I still have all of my 2E Ravenloft material, which is most of it, including everything that you presented here. Except I don't have the 1E original adventure. I still DM a 2E game, but my son is the DM of a 5E campaign. I remember when he told me about Curse of Strahd. I broke out the map from the 2E box set and old him that he was just given a tiny piece of what is there. Afterwards, we had many conversations about Ravenloft over the years, most of which involved me saying "You've seen the map." My son called me up all excited when he heard about 5E Ravenloft being released. I am happy for him and all who lay the new game. I hope that it is just as good as the older TSR material.
I have come back to this playlist so much over the past year because I really enjoy the Domains. I know it’s not the up time date setting, but would love to see new videos regarding some other Ravenloft Domains you hadn’t covered before.
Loved Soth in Ravenloft...it just fits.
Yeah, and when run well, Sithicus is way scarier than Barovia. I suppose that's subjective of any game, though. Depends on the DM. But...SOmething about that domain. It terrified me.
fun fact. Lort Soth was never suppose to be in Ravenloft. Weis&Hickman were none too pleased that TSR just usurped the character and in the Dragonlance setting it is not cannon. this is one of the reasons that Soth and Sithicus will not appear in the new book.
Soth is dead.
@@kscott2655 Actually he's "undead". 😏
@@jakesanders269 Nope. Read the 2002 Dragonlance novel "Dragons of a Vanished Moon". Soth is undeniably, unmistakably dead. Forever.
Fastest upload in the west! I just found out about the new book 4 hours ago and you have a lore video ready to go. Keep up the good work dude.
Late night editing for sure lol!
Love Domains of Dread. Played through Forlorn with my brother and cousins in 2nd Ed. as a kid. Nostalgia is real
Can I just say, to this day, this is perhaps my favorite D&D story setting and it couldve been an amazing open-world pc game, and I am shocked it seems to have fallen off the radar of importance. Its so rich and complex
I ran a campaign in Har'Akir and it turned out to be one of my groups favorite games. The players started of getting in contact with Van Richten, who was trying to avoid assassination attempts by a dark lord, as Van Richten was known to foil the plots of many dark lords. Van Richten sent the players to basically redeem Har'Akir.
I love hearing about the Ravenloft setting. I hope we get more about the specific domains and maybe even about Van Ritchter.
A shiver of disgust cascades up my spine like a bolt of diseased lightning. Please:
Richter (ending with an "R" like "Romeo") is a character from Castlevania, being one of the Belmont clan, as Richter Belmont.
Ravenloft's hero is Rudolph Van Richten (ending with an "N" like "November"). He is the writer of so many of the Van Richten's Guides which share his hard-fought knowledge of how to destroy the various Children of the Night, whether it's vampires or ghosts or the created.
I have no idea why this constant typo (of which you are FAR from the only offender, so I apologize for calling you out specifically) triggers me so, but I figured I'd call it out this time.
I ran a non-Barovia Ravenloft game a couple of years back using X2 "Castle Amber" within the Sword Coast but placing the region of Averoigne within the Ravenloft setting, the province being originally in Medieval France of Gothic Earth before finding itself as a realm just on the edge of the Core realms. Its dread lord was the necromancer Naithaire who I expanded on from his description in the module as a high level necromancer who was in a constant state of decay and regeneration and commanded corpse collectors to assemble his army of undead and a gigantic patchwork undead flesh golem called the Collossus (65' tall zombie made of stitched together corpses). Plus side quests involving twig blights, a corrupted ent, ettercaps and were-spiders, and werewolves (and greater werewolves) while they were trying to gain access to Stephen D'Amberville's tomb in the hopes of getting out of the realm and getting back to Waterdeep.
Thanks for the lore! I've only been playing D&D since 2016 and feel like there is so much I still don't know about the lore!
no problem! Hope you enjoy thanks for stopping by =D
I've ran so much Ravenloft, my wife told me I'm not allowed to run anymore Ravenloft campaigns after my current one until I run something else, ANYTHING else. I've ran a Grand Conjunction campaign, several solo campaigns and my current campaign is a modified CoS where the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos are trying to break into the wider realms, but they keep getting funneled into Barovia by the Dark Powers. So my players at the moment are caught in the middle of power struggle between Strahd and Nyarlathotep. I've been using the CoS book and Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5E which has some great stuff in it.
Love it!
This might be controversial but my money is on Nyarlathotep.
Excellent, concise video breakdown of this. Super helpful for research, cheers!
I am currently running a Ravenloft campaign set in Darkon. I am using the 2E Domains of Dread hardback, the 3.0 Ravenloft Campaign Setting book, the Secrets of the Dread Realms book, and Ravenloft Gazetteer vol. 2, all published by Arthaus under license from WotC. The 2E and 3.X material needs some finessing to work in 5E, but it's great stuff.
Thanks for this! i am using Ravenloft as the dystopia in my campaign loosely based on the 12 Monkeys
Great series and I hope you keep it up. The original domains were very cool and the various lords that ruled them incredibly powerful. The three hags that rule Tepest and Strahd, of course, are a couple of my favorites, but each lord (or lady) was intriguing in their own right.
That Medieval and Renaissance horror, together with the European-like setting, made Ravenloft a gothic treat.
In some domains, the "traditional" D&D adventuring could be had. Since any creature, especially humanoid, can get ensnared by the realm, clever DMs could easily weave high fantasy into a party's storyline.
Great editing and production!
Ravenloft was the primary campaign setting for my group for years...
I loved that it drew from all the other published settings, and enjoyed nods to, and npc's from those other worlds. It allowed character creation to be much more open and varied(everyone can be from their favorite setting), and the Mists stealing you and stranding you in a scary, hostile place made for easy introductions and reasons to team up/stick together...you might not know the wizard you just ran into, but on top of being just as confused as you about where they are, they're being hunted by the same terrors that stalk you...
This needed to be handled delicately, as there was much in those settings that would fly in the face of the Gothic Horror aims of Ravenloft...But this was rarely a problem. Later, the 3.5 stuff really opened up and leaned into playing native "ravenloft" pc's. Generally, Ravenloft's theme of horror and the unknown added a darker vibe to our usual fantasy heroic roleplay.
You could generally travel freely between domains of dread(at least in the core), unless a darklord decided they did not wish you to leave. Each darklord had their own way of sealing their borders, only Barovia had the mists(though the mists also prevented escape from the setting itself and the islands and clusters). I also greatly enjoyed the machinations of the various darklords as they sought to understand the Domains of Dread, the dark powers, and their intrigues against their neighbors(Strahd and Azalin's history was very exciting to me). When Lord Soth was brought in from dragonlance...I had a nerdgasm...same with Vecna's later imprisonment.
The Knight of the Black Rose novel was so very good, especially Soth's time in Barovia and Strahd's reaction to this powerful arrival in his land.
I was saddened to hear they chose to pretty much abandon the non-barovia ravenloft/The Core in other editions...
My group is currently finishing up a Forgotten Realms run, we're next going to hit all the Greyhawk classics, and try to get caught up in the timeline of various modules/storylines...but we will be returning to Ravenloft...might take 20 years...but I can't wait.
Jorphdan, While doing your research on the Ravenloft Campaign Setting did you come across any lore on how Clerics get their spells? To my understanding, no deity can interact with the dark world Ravenloft is set in. Instead, it is the Dark Powers that grant Cleric Spells on behalf of the deities (and the PCs & NPCs are no wiser for it).
Yeah it's all really neat! "Ravenloft has a way of corrupting or obscuring the lines of communication between priests and deities, so the results of any spell may be altered."
Alternate styles of play for alternate campaign settings, I like this direction :)
I’ve long followed Ravenloft. In fact, I’ve had a Ravenloft campaign going roughly bi-weekly for about a year now, combining the 5e Curse of Strahd with the old 2e Grand Conjunction modules (reset into an appropriate level order for a campaign).
I actually played the CYOA book, it was my fave; I had a bunch of them as it was full on Satanic Panic here in the south. I didn't have die so they recommended using slips of paper with numbers you mixed and chose at random...ah ye olden times
Jorphdan I still have mine :)
But I lost my character cards :(
Ravenloft is my favorite. So excited for this weekly series. Woot woot!
FYI: A Creaturewere is an animal that has gained the ability to turn into a human or animal-human hybrid. This is different from a Werecreature, which starts off as a humanoid. An example from 5E are the Jackalwere.
and it has more of a "Wolf in sheep's clothing" vibe as opposed to "a chained monster within"
so Like that one chick from the Dresden files
Like Spider-Ham.
I ran Ravenloft as my campaign world for about 15 years and still love it! I also remember running I6 for Halloween in 83’ when it came out, one of my first forays into DM’ing 😈
I have run every campaign since the early 90s in Ravenloft 2nd edition. Love it. My last campaign had my players working to bring Barovia from 2nd edition into the 5e game. Some much Fun. I'm glad they are planning on new 5e rules soon
So happy Ravenloft was my first campaign setting that got me into DnD. I can't wait to get the new book and run a campaign. Read all the novels, played the pc game.
I grew up in a very small town. The only person who was worth a darn as a DM was a Ravenloft aficionado, so most of our adventures were in Ravenloft, and therefore most of my DND experience is in this world as well. So much so that I don't really know what the rest of the game looks and feels like. Not that this is bad though. The ravenloft world is rich with gothic, occult, and even steampunk culture. It's a blast to playthrough and quite haunting.
Currently running a campaign in Liffe, doing the Aferdale adventure from Book of Crypts. I've been taking a lot of liberty with the material, converting to 5e and also incorporating material from the DMs Guild book Malar: The Beastlord Compendium. I've used Dungeondraft to make all the maps and we're playing via FoundryVTT.
I always loved The Nightmare Lands.
edit: If they still exist, that was 2nd edition stuff. Castle Forlorn was also great.
One concept that I thought of to make Ravenloft a darker setting is a pair concepts I call "Arcane Reaching" & "Arcane Corruption." With Arcane Reaching a spellcaster of any class can cast a spell if even if they are out of spell slots, or attempt it if it's a higher level than they can ordinarily cast if they have a written record of it such as a scroll or another wizard's spell book. While called "Arcane" this can work for any form of magic. The problem/price of Arcane Reaching is Arcane Corruption. Arcane Corruption drives the spell caster a bit more into being something ... else I call "The Wizened." The Wizened look like ancient wrinkled versions of their former selves and are basically Hags but in either gender. Why are there no tales of male hags in much of D&D, I'd say with this option you can make Corruption of Offices & Misogyny a thing in your campaign setting. Imagine a High Priest of Pelor, now evil & corrupt but shielded by his office & reputation.
This can serve as a constant temptation for spell caster characters, but every time they do it, they must roll a percentile die to avoid slipping temporarily or permanently into a blackout state in which their alignment shifts to Evil, the more often this happens the more ancient they start to appear as until they are fully Wizened and in the blackout state (read have the player roll a new character) full time.
I'm actually making a sequel to CoS for me and my friends since we loved this campaign so much. These new lore videos are SUPER helpful, thank you so much!
I loved the Knight of the Black Rose: Lord Soth in Barovia was so awesome
Yeah, maybe I'm a bit late to the party... The Black Box was the initial campaign setting, but there was an expansion box set called Forbidden Lore which added a bunch of stuff. The Red Box (the second version of the campaign setting) brought both the original box set and Forbidden Lore together along with restructuring the core.
Later, a hardback, Domains of Dread, was released late into the 2E era - right before 3E actually - that tried to rekindle interest in RL. It also attempted to revise the core game world along with adding some new wrinkles.
The actual novels came after the campaign setting was released not before. But the gamebook based on the I6 adventure was indeed published before the campaign setting.
As for Strahd, he is actually the lynchpin holding the place together as has been suggested in adventure modules and supplements (Hell, going back in time to prevent Strahd turning into a vampire was the plot of a module). If he goes for good (meaning no longer of use to the Dark Powers), then the Dark Powers break up the band.
I have played in several Ravenloft campaigns. And really, Stradd hasn't played much of a role in a few of them. It is always a great time though!
One thing I recommend to keep the vibe of the setting alive. Have players give the DM a handful of bullet points about what they fear. This is a great tool for the DM to use to really instill the feeling of dread and urgency to the players actions.
My old group fell so hard in love with Ravenloft that we ended up finding a way/reason for each game setting we played to end up there. West End Star Wars, our characters ended up there (and lightsabers don't work on vampires); FASA Star Trek, out characters were there...etc.. We did discuss how it'd work with Call of Cthulhu but never came to agreements on things.
Would love to see the Domains of Dread covered more. Read through Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and I'm curious about some of the other domains.
Like:
Odaire
House of Lament
Or dare I say it, lore on the Bagman.
As someone who remembers when Ravenloft was merely a module, a big one, far before it became what it is now, I really love this video.
There were also rules for playing Native to Ravenloft PC's as early as 2nd Edition as there was a hardcover book called Domains of Dread which was the last revision of the core Campaign Setting in 2nd edition(That's right the campaign setting was revised twice during 2nd edition.) which included the first real push towards Native Player Characters in the setting. Instead of solely relying on the Weekend in Hell style adventure (Get pulled into Ravenloft and escape.) that you mentioned in your video.
0:31 Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Greyhawk setting also named after a castle? Castle Greyhawk. Or at the very least Castle Greyhawk was a central place in the setting, like Castle Ravenloft is for Ravenloft.
There is a Castle Greyhawk which is located east of the "Free City of Greyhawk" :D
There is an adventure just for Castle Greyhawk and its dungeons. Below the dungeons it is situated the artifact known as Godstrap, which was developed by the then wizard and now god Zagyg, played by the deceased Gary Gygax himself. Godstrap is an artifact made to trap demi-gods (and maybe lesser deities?). The door that leeds to the Godstrap chamber is made of obdurium, which is a rare metal from Greyhawk that is harder than adamantine.
I, Strahd: Memoirs of a vampire, and I, Strahd: The war against Azalin. Were my first experience with Ravenloft.
Love Your videos, Bro. Keep up the amazing work and all that you do. I support you all the way.
if you read up on the Domains of dread they are pocket plains in the plain of shadow.
so they are in a certain plain.
The changes to magical effects were a defining trait of Ravenloft, and went a long way towards promoting an atmosphere of dread. Especially for characters who weren't from the demiplane. When your magic is suddenly unreliable, all bets are off. I suspect the new book won't keep these mechanics, though. It's just another layer of paperwork.
They CAN do some of the old things, however. Like, making creatures of darkness (undead, devils, fiends, fey, etc.) harder to turn, and expanding their power sets so that each monster is unique. Vampires weren't all the same in RL, nor were werebeasts, or liches, etc. The DM could tailor these monsters in unexpected ways so they became unpredictable again.
Ravenloft is my absolute favorite of the classic settings. I'm really excited to see it getting revived in 5e.
Really annoyed that I somehow became un-subbed from your channel sometime in the last few months. You always have really great, informative videos and I'm looking forward to more of them again.
Welcome back!
I really love playing Ravenloft server in neverwinter nights. It is the best mmo and rp experience I have ever had in video games. Playing it feels like being in a great book that you also write. Also the server has full Ravenloft region map available
One of the best campaign I played involved the group of the played trying to go from Barovia to the Necropolis because we are looking for Vecna to help our own plane. My character was a noble from Barovia with a frankstainish personality.
I finally warched every single FR lore videos, took me like a year. Worth it though.
1:20 there were lots of these made - there was the Endless Quest series, the Hearts Quest series, the New Endless quest series (published 2018), and the one you mentioned which was part of the The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons gamebook series.
Fighting Fantasy are still a lot better imo though.
My friend is actually working on a hack of the Fighting Fantasy System, called AZAG
twitter.com/DankDungeons/status/1361699356525490177
@@Jorphdan sounds cool!
Knew you’d come up with a series the moment the setting book was mentioned. Keep up the good work Jorphdan!
Thanks!
@@Jorphdan No! Thank YOU!
Thanks for sharing this video, looking forward to more lore on Ravenloft!
I've been waiting for you to do this series! So this, along with the new Ravenloft book, has made my week!!!
heck yeah!! :D
@@Jorphdan seriously, keep up the great work!!!🧛♂️
Another home run 👍
Thanks for the great work!!
6:11 It's stated that if a spell jammer ship tried to fly to one of the moons in the sky, the mists would simply turn them around. This ironically fits since the Demiplane of Dread is a constructed world.
Eberron Ravenloft domain of Cyre! I shall make thee! The Mournland is just a placeholder for the true conflict within the removed country.
Another domain would be in the sea of sorrows, Giff who live on the wreckage of a spelljammer fleet, who fish for food and trade with travelers. The dark lord would be a Giff who started a mutiny upon this massive fleet due to greed.
What y'all think about these ideas, I'm sure it's not too original.
I ran games in Ravenloft way back in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons days. Had some really good sessions there. Ran some great werewolf stories and one about tha golem Dark Lord called Adam, I think.
I ran a home brewed domain in 2e using the domains of dread, a patch of dwarven land with low rolling hills and necromancy in the air so thick any deceased rose as flesh eating zombies in hours. The locales adopted funeral pyres over burial. There was a book of great necromancy that the locales used to control undead and protect themselves, this didn't help the necromancy in the air thing. This book would give you a class in necromancer just by reading a single line from it and you would find yourself transcribing copies obsessively.
I've run a Domains of Dread campaign. It fell apart when the players got frustrated that they couldn't steamroll everything. Nothing like 10,000 zombies wandering in an area the size of a small town. When the "turn undead"s and "Fireball"s ran out, they struggled to figure out what to do. 5 players, lvl14-17. To this day, I mark it as my turning point as a DM. I took the game seriously. Sadly, more so than my players. It would be years before I learned the phrase, "Murder Hobos", but that was my players. Happily, I eventually found a new group to play with.
Ravenloft is my favorite setting, I feel like after 3rd edition it got the short shrift though. Especially because of all the cosmological changes in 4th edition trying to tie the individual Domains of Dread into the Shadowfell instead of it being a large Demi-plane in the Ethereal like it was in 2nd and 3rd edition. I am glad they are going to be doing a new book for it but I am nervous about how it's going to turn out hoping it returns to its large complete setting roots.
The best time for the setting was the 3rd edition books done by the Swords and Sorcery imprint over at White Wolf. The Best of those books by far were the Gazetteers which detailed each land of the Core of Ravenloft. They brought so much fun and deep lore to the settings. The Gazetteers were unfortunately cancelled after the 5th book which did manage to get all the mainland core domains detailed (Missing out on the Seas around the core unfortunately.) It's unfortunate because the Core isn't the only parts of Ravenloft there were the Islands of terrors, individual domains drifting in the mists but still tied to the Demiplane, or the Clusters which had lands tied together with particular horror themes like Middle Eastern/Egyptian, domains tied together in the Amber Wastes.
Besides the Gazetteers, in 3e if you check out any of the books of those lines, Legacy of Blood which had rules for playing members of the Noble Houses of Ravenloft, Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends, which was a book full of all sorts of hooks for Ravenloft adventures. And the continued Van Richten series The Guide to the Walking Dead, Guide to the Shadow Fey, and Guide to the Mists all good in their own rights.
So true, WW did some great work. I still have my Van Richten's guides they were so good!
Ravenloft, a light in the belfry was my introduction to the setting so many years ago.
I ran a Ravenloft game bofore not in Barovia!
The players traveled from Necrololis to Dementlieu in a battle between undead and dark-fey!
I just had the session 0 for my CoS game last night! We should've waited a few moths. Ugh!
no worries CoS is a LONG campaign and the book isnt set for release for a wile. by the time of release you should be into the meat of the campaign and then can incorporate the new book
Boss Nass voice "You must go through... the planet core.... HBRUBRUBRUBRUBRRR"
My homebrew world is kinda a Ravinloft campaign, except instead of Domain of Dread existing in the Ethereal Plane, they form in the material plain, basically flooding into the world and creating isolated spaces of Negative and Dark energy, like the Shadowfell. On top of that, the material plain is warped to fit the new change, some creatures gain mutations (Fallout style), the gravity warps or reverses, dead bodies become zombies if not burned or completely destroyed, and powerful demons, or evil alignment creatures gain a Channel Evil ability that allows them to detect creatures and living things about to 120 feet away and unless the Demons who roam inside are killed, the domain will expand, growing like a cancer, and in turn giving the monsters who live there, more power and mutating reality even more.
It will be interesting to see what the new book from WoTC does with Ravenloft
Possibly a shattered Core also.
I'm about to run curse of strahd and i'm half tempted to have a spelljammer casually crash towards the end to give em a cool way of leaving
The map shown is form the Red Box rather than the Black Box and comes after the event known as the Grand Conjunction. That’s why several of the original domains are missing but the rift and the sea of sorrows are seen.
Hi Jorphdan! Coll video, a good summary of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting. I also have a youtube channel that delves into the lore of Ravenloft.
Do you intend to delve into the Darklord's lore and history or just the general context of the setting? What did you think of the Van Richten Guide to Ravenloft? It seems that they will do a radical remake of the know domains.
Great timing Jorphdan!
I look at the Wolf-were like the Tibbit.
A Wolf-were is a wolf who changes into a humanoid, like a Tibbit is a cat who changes into a humanoid. Also, it is it's own race, not a curse or affliction so the mechanics are different. It's not just a lycanthrope template to be added to another race.
I hope they do have restrictions/alterations to spells and class features, if for no other reason than to show DMs that they're allowed to do that to create a certain tone.
Exactly! I hope so too.
Awesome dude. Well done.
Considering Mr. Rhexx's recent video about the planes I wonder if your PC is considered an Outsider in Ravenloft.
Good stuff 👌🏽
Theory: the Lady of Pain is the same kind of entity as the Dark Powers
the adventure die vecna die , where vecna escapes ravenloft and enters sigil (which shouldnt be allowed but the Vecna found a loophole or used magic that was equal to the lady) and the final issue of dragon magazine (paper editions back in 2007 or so) basically say the Lady being one of the Ancient Brethren. basically the first beings in the multiverse that came out of the raw chaos energy of magic essence (i guess). Ahriman and Jazirian are 2 others (Ahriman is known as Asmodeus!). So basically these ancients were first. THEN the over gods like Ao, High God, etc for the settings, then the regular gods/powerful beings, etc. the planes also started creation out of that primordial magical essence (this stuff is in The Guide to Hell ... a late 2e source book that basically explained how the D&D universe was created...which much of it was then never mentioned, although hinted at in 3e briefly). I'll paste this here instead of typing: Die Vecna Die describes the Lady of Pain as a member of the Ancient Brethren, a group of omnipotent beings who predated the multiverse and know the Language Primeval, a magic greater than the gods. In the module, Vecna became a god and entered Sigil by countering the Lady's ban of all gods from the city for a time. He was able to do this because some of the Language Primeval was confided to him by the Serpent, another Ancient Brethren whose magics were as ancient and powerful as her own. After Vecna was defeated, the Lady used the Language Primeval to repair the damage he did to the multiverse by rewriting it, causing the transition from D&D 2E to 3E. Now the Serpent, hinted at in some articles in dragon magazine could be Asmodeus/Ahriman or even one of the draconic overgods. That langauge primeval IIRC is mentioned in Vecna Reborn or Vecna lives? cant recall which but it is mentioned (kinda, in the planescape adventure Dead Gods). basically Tenebrous travels to... Pelion, a plane within ...forgot where but you can check, and finds ancient words of magic. He found the Last Word. basically saying whatever that word is in that ancient language of magic, can destroy gods. he uses it to kill multipel gods as he rampages the multiverse. he's looking for something and kills gods and takes their knowledge, etc. Tenebrous is Orcus. thats how he came back after being destroyed (I think timeline was ....during the end of 1st edition or something). the last word was destroying him though cause only beings such as gods or above them (like Lady of Pain, Jazirian etc) can use it, he ends up getting his rod back and goes back to the abyss, in his layer and all that energy (i dont remember this part very well), makes him reform again but he loses the essense of the Last Word (and in 3e, he has a weaker form of it...like a super power word kill, since using the true Last Word would destroy him ). personally, i like this kinda general rules to how the multiple was created. where magic comes from (true magic, etc). I run an epic level 3.Xe campaign, converted from a long running 2e game in the 90s, and my players are interacting with gods and other such beings. messing with the fabric of reality itself, so having a foundation liek thsi is actually useful to me. Currently, they have learned the stuffa bove about magic and thus, they can now cast more like a spell point system with no limits since you really dont need gods to use magic, if you know how to harness that raw energy from existence itself :D :D :D sorry for the long post :( most is probably not useful to you hehhe
@@StarFyreXXX Thanks for the info - I found it interesting to read :)
I love this setting! Unfortunately the party I'm hosting would hate it 😭👍
There was a really cool Ravenloft box set back in AD&D 2nd Ed. that your characters become undead. Always thought that was a neat idea.
Masque of the Red Death was my favorite. I hope they include it in the new Ravenloft Source Book.
Wizards of the Coast should release Ravenloft stuff every Halloween. Not a full book or anything but like a small adventure or a supplement would be nice.
Oh man... I think my older brother had a Knight of the Black Rose gamebook because I distinctly remember the concept and he had a pewter figurine of that knight.
I had a couple of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books and all of the Ravenloft Novels dealing with Strahd, Lord Soth, and The Azalin. When the Black Box first came out I ran a Paladin I had just made for ADD 2nd Ed. That went horribly horrible. The first and only character, I normally DM, I have had that died. LOL
i have played alot of ravenloft over the years and I'm glad that wizards has brought it up to date but i would reeeeeealy love to see something done about the dark sun campaign setting or even spell jammer ... the neglect of these campaign settings and the stripping of epic level play felt like a kick in the yam bag for bolth players and dms alike.
If anyone out there can remember the Planescape adventure module Tales From the Infinite Staircase, the demiplane of Maelost would be an excellent "neighbor" to Ravenloft.
This new Ravenloft module can't come out soon enough! I needs my gothic action adventure, especially with those new sub-race Unearthed Arcana!
So I'm putting this together in my head as I go, I'm planning to run Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'm thinking Ythren or something towards the end will end in an explosion of sorts, landing the players, Ythren and a large section of the Reghed glacier transported to Ravenloft
i like that series!
Loves me some Domains of Dread!
My favorite setting.
Were-Wolf - A human (typically cursed) that can turn into a wolf or human/wolf hybrid.
Wolf-Were - A wolf that can take on a human form.