Café de Nuit

As you probably know by now, the Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft proposes a completely different version of the setting than the 2E/3E books. The domains are more isolated, and act as their own mini-settings. Several darklords have had their biographies rewritten from scratch, taking their stories ...

No idea if they ever corrected it. I remember finding it pretty funny

Anyway, I was never too bothered by it, it's not too difficult to just imagine a generic bug.

If I had to come up with an answer in my own game, I would make the doppelganger become able to assume the form of beasts in addition to those of humanoids, but at the same time suffer from bouts of uncontrollable hunger or bloodlust. Depending on what the adventure is going for, the creature could ...

If you want a shapechanging werewolf, why not simply use a wolfwere?

If you want to remain consistent with 2E canon, you'll need 1) a reason for Azalin to strike the immigrant character's name from the Book of Names (for all we know it's something he might do quite often; canon sources don't say one way or the other) and 2) a way for the spy character to fake a falko...

In 5e, the Keepers of the Feather secret society has a network of "messenger ravens" that can reliably deliver letters between domains of dread, and they offer it as a service to those who are seen as the society's allies. It is implied that these are special birds that only Keepers know h...

It's sometimes easy to forget, but Ravenloft does have a fair share of good people who don't go for child murder.

I guess I will just come right out and ask it specifically... Is there any advantage for a lich to hide their phylactery in plain sight? Or even outside of their lair? I could see that occurring if the phylactery happens to be an object that has an important function besides just being a phylactery...

Huh. Yeah, forgot about the boneclaw. Frankly, I find its current lore to be a bit all over the place, theme-wise: they're the disembodied soul of a failed lich (cool so far), that spontaneously acquires a physical form (!) and immediately bonds with an evil creature that happens to be nearby (the n...

There are two D&D creatures who've been described as coming into being when a spellcaster's lich transformation goes awry: the D&D 3.5 grisgol (a vaguely humanoid amalgamation of scrolls and magic components), and the D&D 5e necrichor (an viscous mass of dark ichor that attaches to peopl...

:? Where does it say that? I have not noticed this in the MM. I mean, it's right there in the MM's description? Soul Sacrifices. A lich must periodically feed souls to its phylactery to sustain the magic preserving its body and consciousness. It does this using the imprisonment spell. Instead of ch...

The rules for lich phylacteries have undergone some changes between D&D editions. AD&D 1st edition didn't provide any game mechanics for how a lich's phylactery worked, only mentioning that it was a necessary component for maintaining the lich's unliving existence. This seemed to imply that ...

4) I also like that they took the setting and advanced the timeline. I didn't need to read, again, that Azalin tried to escape and failed. That's been canon for decades. I really like that something happened in Darkon and we don't know what! Did he escape? Did he blow himself up? I really like that...

direheroics, that was well argued, thought-provoking review, and it got me to see some things in a new light. Thanks for sharing.

It occurs to me to ask, What about the seas? Since they also qualify as domains, how does the new publication address them? The Sea of Sorrows gets a short description in the book. It can briefly attach itself to any domain that has a coastline (Darkon, Dementlieu, Kalakeri, Lamordia, Mordent, Vala...