What if Ravenloft was Dark Fantasy?

[Hell_Born]

Ravenloft, as we all know, prides itself on its Gothic Horror roots, striving to drink deep of Gothic Horror's unique tropes and marry them to those of D&D. Unfortunately, the marriage is somewhat... erratic. Whilst the setting has its gems, such as the legendary Castle Ravenloft adventure concept, there's a lot of mismatches as well. Domains like Forlorn or I'Cath come off as little more than old-school D&D dungeon crawls with a spooky overtone and some difficulty-ramping house rules. Despite its claims towards preferring depth in its monsters, many Ravenloft monsters are little better than their D&D counterparts in terms of just being disposable XP fodder. Look at the bakhna rahkna, for example, which are just white goblins with a little more magic whose "terrible evils" amount to... stealing food and trying not to kill anybody unless forced to. From the earliest days of the setting, many domains were overtly invoking other genres of horror - Bluetspur for Cosmic Horror and Body Horror, Falkovnia for War Horror, etc.

TSR did their best to try and force D&D into the humanocentric low magic low power mold that most people feel "fits" the Gothic Horror motif best. But what if they hadn't? What if, rather than making Ravenloft the "Gothic Horror D&D setting", they'd instead designated that role to Masque of the Red Death, and tried to make Ravenlloft into the Dark Fantasy D&D Setting instead? What do you think might have changed? How would you change Ravenloft to make it more Dark Fantasy D&D?

This doesn't necessarily mean that concepts like darklords, powers checks or alterations to magic would have gone away! Dark Fantasy shares a lot with Gothic Horror. The big difference, in so far as I can see it, is that Dark Fantasy is less humanocentric and more high powered.

[Daisu]

Dark fanttasy would have less fear and horror checks, as hero considered more brave and use to such things. I think of the movie Legend. Playing outlanders from high magic realms feel like this.


While when I think gothic hoŕor i think more of a hero who does not believe in legends and is conforted by it, they have to try to keep their mind as they try to survive the horrors. Call of Cthulhu , where you do not solve by facing evils directly but finding that weakness while keeping sanity.

This is just my sort of idea.

[alhoon]

Ravenloft has dark fantasy domains. You mentioned some. I would also add that Sithicus and Tepest are more fantasy domains, for example. Darkon and Hazlan are perhaps a better example. Frankly, I think most domains have dark-fantasy feel or can be used as dark fantasy.

Dark fanttasy would have less fear and horror checks, as hero considered more brave and use to such things. I think of the movie Legend. Playing outlanders from high magic realms feel like this.


While when I think gothic hoŕor i think more of a hero who does not believe in legends and is conforted by it, they have to try to keep their mind as they try to survive the horrors. Call of Cthulhu , where you do not solve by facing evils directly but finding that weakness while keeping sanity.

This is just my sort of idea.

I would dare say that Call of Cthulu is not gothic horror but cosmic horror.
Gothic horror has more to do with human failings. Soth himself and his castle are Gothic Horror. Sithicus less so and more dark fantasy. Strahd is (unsurprisingly) very gothic horror and Barovia (unsurprisingly) is GH place.
Or at least that's my opinion. I am not a literary expert.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Domains like Forlorn or I'Cath come off as little more than old-school D&D dungeon crawls with a spooky overtone and some difficulty-ramping house rules.

First I have to disagree with you, Forlorn has one of the most tragic and gothic darklord backgrounds in the setting. It also echoes Shakespeare's Macbeth with the treant moving forests and the name of the ruined settlement of Birnam (a tree in Macbeth states that Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill). Castle Tristenoira is infested with ghosts and tragedies and the Lake of Red Tears inhabitant adds to the concept of a gothic version of Scotland inspired by the folkore monster Nessie. The Wild Hunt adds to all these as an ancient god, summoned by druidic rituals becoming something similar to hexensabbat (Witches' Sabbath). I agree with what you wrote about I'Cath, probably the most uninteresting domain in 2e Ravenloft.

Despite its claims towards preferring depth in its monsters, many Ravenloft monsters are little better than their D&D counterparts in terms of just being disposable XP fodder. Look at the bakhna rahkna, for example, which are just white goblins with a little more magic whose "terrible evils" amount to... stealing food and trying not to kill anybody unless forced to.

As for the Bakhna Rakhna the name comes from Yumboes, supernatural beings in the mythology of the Wolof people, most likely Lebou of Senegal, West Africa. They closely resemble European fairies. Their alternatively used name Bakhna Rakhna literally means good people, an interesting parallel to the Scottish fairies called Good Neighbours. To me the Ravenloft bakhna rahkna resemble more the Balkan folklore monster kallikantzaros, a malevolent goblin in Southeast European and Anatolian folklore. Believed to dwell underground but come to the surface during the twelve days of Christmas, from 25 December to 6 January (from the winter solstice for a fortnight, during which time the sun ceases its seasonal movement).

It is believed that kallikantzari (kahl-lee-KAHNT-zah-roh-ee) (plural of kallikantzaros) stay underground, sawing the trunk of the world tree so that it will collapse, along with the Earth. However, according to folklore, when they are about to saw the final part, Christmas dawns and they are able to come to the surface. They forget the tree and come to bring trouble to mortals. Finally, on the Epiphany (6 January), the sun starts moving again, and they must return underground to continue their sawing. They see that during their absence the world tree has healed itself, so they must start working all over again. This is believed to occur annually. They were not considered purely malevolent creatures but rather impish and stupid, resembling more the D&D bakhna rahkna

According to legend, any child born during the twelve days of Christmas was in danger of transforming into a kallikantzaros during each Christmas season, starting with adulthood. It was believed that the antidote to prevent this transformation was to bind the baby in tresses of garlic or straw, or to singe the child's toenails.

Kallikantzari are the subject of the 7th episode of season 4 of the supernatural drama television series Grimm, "The Grimm Who Stole Christmas".

So to me kallikantzaros is a monster connected with dark stories about Christmas and bakhna rahkna is the D&D equivalent of that monster, so it is not as "shallow" as you describe it. Also the fore-mentioned folklores could be used to flesh them out, maybe these monsters (bakhna rahkna/kallikatzari) appear in specific days of the year in domains like Tepest, Hazlan, low CL parts of Darkon, Invidia or Nova Vaasa. Also instead of using them as canon fodder they can be used as in a mystery for low level adventures or an ongoing yearly mishap that plagues a village which can be traced to a curse or the Tree of Life folklore.

How would you change Ravenloft to make it more Dark Fantasy D&D?

To answer your question, I prefer Ravenloft as a low magic, humanocentric setting if I wanted it to be Dark Fantasy I would buy the 5th edition VRGtR.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

When I think Dark Fantasy I think of purple smurfs Countess Bathory style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB2UUvRWxE0
in Hungarian...

Dark Fantasy Zombie Apocalypse for kids

[The Lesser Evil]

As alluded to above, dark fantasy is briefly discussed as as genre, with some random ideas for villains, locations, and plot threads, in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

As far what I'd think Ravenloft would be like if it fully embraced a fantasy horror, I can think of a few implications:
-closer connections to its D&D roots and perhaps the other D&D settings. Certain D&D-esque tropes would be assumed and perhaps subverted more often. The presence of adventurers would allow for associated themes and trappings (the path of destruction left in their wake, for example) to be more fully explored. Likewise, the archetypes associated with non-humanoid PC races might be more fully explored, and there might be more of a role for them rather than being shut out of most of the domains.
-more uniform a spread between scales of power of the darklords/villains. Many of Ravenloft's darklords seem to hail from worlds where fantasy and epic heroism are rare to nonexistent. The scope of the crimes, powers, and influence of these low fantasy individuals can seem limited or humble compared to some of their more fantastical kindred even within the same Core- compare Adam or Godefroy to Azalin and Strahd or even more Gwydion.
-to go with the above, perhaps less of the Nobody to Nightmare trope, with characters of modest origins (Godefroy, the Three Hags, Misroi, Pieter van Riese, etc.) becoming vastly more empowered after becoming darklords as to before.