Quoth the Raven #28 review thread

[Rock of the Fraternity]

The Conch Shell of Sorrows:
One nitpick; I wish you'd written out all the character classes instead of abbreviating them, so I'd know what I'm looking at. But that is just one quibble about an otherwise very enjoyable article.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Falkovnia Uber Alles: ...You took the already Nazi-influenced Falkovnia, and gave them their own SS stand in. The author of this article has generative organs the size of a big man's fist, and I applaud their courage.

I am an amoeba, no reproductive organs here
As I have written in other posts in this forum I don't believe that crimes against humanity should be forgotten, lost in oblivion. If we begin to forget what has happened in the past it is easier for these events and racist attitudes to be reproduced. Also Vlad Drakov is more of a monster than most (if not all) monsters in the setting, to still have humans being capable of atrocities similar to the ones of the previous century I believe is educating. To have all these being hidden under a carpet of politically correctness (as was done in VRGtR) I believe helps people to forget that humans can be monsters.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

The Conch Shell of Sorrows:
One nitpick; I wish you'd written out all the character classes instead of abbreviating them, so I'd know what I'm looking at. But that is just one quibble about an otherwise very enjoyable article.

Cedrik Paddock
Trans3/ FoS1/Druid5/MoMF
Transmuter/ Fraternity of Shadows/ Druid/ Master of Many Forms (Complete Adventurer variant, p. 58)

Douglas Danton
Clr5/ AnI4
Cleric / Anchorite Inquisitor (Heroes of Light - pp14-16)

Lady Alinda Crawford
Ftr4/Bld3
Fighter / Blessed Defender (Heroes of Light p.26-28)

Dame Dominique
Brd2/Ari3/Pr3/ ToD4
Bard/ Aristocrat/ Priest / Thrall of Dagon (from Dragon Magazine #349) https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/pr ... Dagon.html

I guess that's all

[Mistmaster]

First of all congratulation to the Fraternity for this great achievement.

Hands Stained With Shadow
Nice idea neatly introduction of new archetypes even without any mechanucs

The Grand Estate Cluster
Not familiar with Darkest Dungeons but I really appreciate this ideas.

A Primer to the Umbra Peoples
Really nice ideas, some of them I will surely use. My only question is why you did not use the regular ability format +2 to one ability and +1 to a second one? To givemore flexibility maybe?

Olerick’s Colloquial Guides Presents…
Very nice intros.

Excerpts from “The Register of Monsters”
Fluff without crunch on one side is a pity, on the other is an opportumity. I lean on the latter these time.

Post-Apocaloft
An interesting idea; post apocalyptic scenarios are not my favored ones, but nice idea.

Cursed Items
Very interesting bits.

Dovehome, the Anti-Ravenloft
Very nice and I'm glad I give a contribute, I will sureuse some of these ideas for my Lightlords.

The Falkovnia Files
Falkovnia Über Alles
Half Nazi party, half Society of Thule very interesting, I might use it in my future take of Falkovnia.

Sins of the Father
Well, Vigo's origins must be different in the Mistworld as my Isabella was not a slave andprobably rejected the GC (the reason he pursued Gabrielle later, ptobablu) but I will take inspuration from this version of him.

Falkovnian Rebels .
Many intersting and usefull bits here

The Spawn of the Lizard
I will need a backround not tied to Krynn, but at least part og your ideas ar valid.

Judgment on Silent Wings
Really interestung this version of the Owlmays.

Lampago
Interesting story with some bit I could use in future about their curses.

City of Ravenloft
Genial idea I would love to assist to a meeting of the "City council"

Scenes from a Starving Land
Interestings bits of lore on a domain I will rewrite soon or later.

The Conch Shell of Sorrows
Very nice idea, any lovecratian reference is nice to me.

Students of Sylvan Sorcery
Nice archetypes for 5 ed; I work with PF but some ideas are workable.

The Conferences of Victor Gagné
Poor Victor survived his adventures? I'm pleasany surprised; nice characters expecially the Rakshasa who is evil but not more then what he must be. The magic chamber bot was pure genious.

Heroes of Chibiloft
Adorable, I genuinly laughted.

[Hell_Born]

First of all congratulation to the Fraternity for this great achievement.
A Primer to the Umbra Peoples
Really nice ideas, some of them I will surely use. My only question is why you did not use the regular ability format +2 to one ability and +1 to a second one? To givemore flexibility maybe?

Judgment on Silent Wings
Really interestung this version of the Owlmays.

Students of Sylvan Sorcery
Nice archetypes for 5 ed; I work with PF but some ideas are workable.

I went with the natural inclinations system for two reasons. Firstly, I like the balance it strikes between being flavorful - aka, the original rational behind racial ability modifiers in the first place - and being flexible; my favorite edition is 4th, which uses a "+2 to a fixed stat, +2 to one of two stats" approach to modifiers. Secondly, it offered more variety than 5e's original fix ed +2/+1 set up does, which was an issue when I was doing the caliban writeup in particular.

With owlmays, I went with the decision to offer them as rangers, druids or a harpy-esque caliban race because 1) the original AD&D owlmay, like its swanmay progenitor, was handled using the Race mechanics, despite lorewise being sororities of female rangers, 2) their only available classes in AD&D were the ranger and druiid, 3) there's always been a certain association with rangers and druids in D&D, and 4) finally, it always struck me that an order using fey/nature-based transforming magic in Ravenloft was begging for trouble, given the malicious nature of the local fey and the fact nature is inherently evil in the Demiplane of Dread.

It was actually Pathfinder 1e that inspired me to do that article, in part. Pathfinder simply has done a llot more with the subclass mechanic than 5e has ever dared to bother with, especially in the case of the sorcerer. Add my fascination with the lore behind the Sidhe Scholar variant druid from 3e, and the Forfarian association with fey, and, yeah, it's a bit of a stretch to count this as a "Ravenloft" article, but I felt it couldn't hurt to submit it.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

The Spawn of the Lizard: I really like this article; I've always felt Ravenloft is too humanocentric.

To tell you the truth I like Ravenloft being humanocentric, but I was always intrigued by the Spawn of the Lizard since I read it in Domains of Dread, it kind of made sense why there were kobolts inscribed in the Red Box Domains and Denizens book domain encounters. And although I always disliked dragonborn as a character race I like that this article gives an opportunity to create such a character in Ravenloft. In my campaign though almost everyone would regard a dragonborn character as a monster a member of the Legions of the Night.

The Cyclops's Legacy: I want to say that this article is actually referencing and reworking a number of articles from very old - like, single digit issues - netbooks past, but I can't be certain of it.

True. While searching for instance a few days ago I was checking something in the Book of Sorrows and found the Scientific Zombie it is similar but different, the version I made is an altered version of one I found online and I combined it with elements of the Cannibal Zombie, I don't know/remember another version in Ravenloft netbooks. My main idea was to have zombie resistant to turning and also very lethal and not controllable by Azalin as to give a motivation for their creation. After an encounter with such a creature PC's would think twice before attacking any walking dead

Dark men and Vjorn were introduced in Children of the Night Werebeasts. For Vjorn I created a more appropriate class for him (in 2e he had the stats of a wizard, despite having no arcane training and spells). The Dark Men were described in the adventure introducing Horstman. The psychic Lost ones don't exist as far as I know there are some psychic broken ones in the Shattered Brethren of Bluetspur.

The Rod of Nebenwelt is directly influenced from The Man in the High Castle TV Series with an alternative twist of the Apparatus and a possible bridge between the two Ravenlofts (old & 5th edition) in an effort to deflect a division within the Ravenloft community.

I don't like the idea of the time machine, I just found it interesting for finishing the The Great Escape fiction part of my article.

As it is obvious this article was inspired by computer games like Wolfenstein, zombie movies like Dead Snow and Overlord and Pulp fiction and conspiracy theories about Nazi Technologies. Also the psychic lost one was inspired by the 1985 G.I.Joe episode Operation Mind Menace. Naturally I had the new 5e Falkovnia in mind when I conceived this article, even if I don't like that version.

[KingCorn]

The art of the falkovnian articles is simply fantastic, matching the 2e art style exactly. Bravo!

[Mephisto of the FoS]

The Conch Shell of Sorrows: The individual elements of this article - the cursed relic, the town in which it has come to rest, the individuals surrounding it and the new mechanics, are all really solid and great. But I'll be mogadored if I can figure out how to sum it up in a coheisive whole. But that's ultimately a minor flaw in a very solid article.

Don't forget that all these elements are just suggestions, the whole article was based on an older Olerick’s Colloquial Guide mentioning the town, the resthome, the cult and cult leader in a complete concept, I just expanded it to fit a more Cthullu atmosphere. I added Douglas Danton, Lamar, Soul Searcher Medallion and the whole The Unkidness of Ravens stuff as a way to write the fiction I wanted, you don't necessarily have to combine all the elements. I actually added those almost a year later (I began writing this article right after QtR27 came out, had a long break and continued a week before the deadline for this years issue). I have to say I like what I did with Cedrick Paddock since that character was built from scratch as I wanted this to be some kind of Sea of Sorrows Fraternity of Shadows Report on why the Sea of Sorrows existed a bit more than a century before the appearance of the Relentless and Pieter Van Riese in 740BC. There is the Relentless time travel explanation in the Fraternity's survey on the Sea of Sorrows but I made this alternative theory that doesn't contradict the report it just explains why Van Riese became darklord after the Grand Conjunction collapsed and not in 630BC.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

The art of the falkovnian articles is simply fantastic, matching the 2e art style exactly. Bravo!

Thank you! I believe Stephen Fabians 2e illustrations were great both for Ravenloft and other TSR products. I tried to do something in that style also borrowed many elements by him as the frames and Vigo Drakov's portrait is based on a portrait by SF. I believe that his images although not realistic, as some resent illustrations in D&D products are, really capture the atmosphere of Ravenloft and I really like the clothing styles and armor designs he uses for the characters he creates. My favourite Ravenloft cover artist is Robh Ruppel.

[tomokaicho]

Falkovian articles: I was trepidatious about Nazi tropes for Falkovnia, but the Falkovnia articles are interesting enough that I that I ended up enjoying the articles. I also appreciate that the author has properly returned Drakov back his to Dragonlance origins, something that was completely lacking in the licensed products. The 3.5e mechanics were also welcome.

Post-Apocaloft: Red Death meets Escape from New York. Even Snake Plissken is in it. This is one of these times where you think you are going to say "no, no thank you", but end up saying "would you mind racking up another line of coke for me?".

Dovehome can't be used by me as written, but you could easily say that the mirror image good versions of the Darklords contained therein could be copies created via The Apparatus.

Conferences has concluded. What an epic. Slight quibble with the statblock for Ciphramir. While Ciphramir is a Rakshasa, and can naturally cast sorcerer spells, not being a sorcerer at all he cannot advance his sorcerer spellcasting through ultimate magus until he has at least 1 level in the sorcerer base class. I appreciate the use of 3.5e stats, and the inclusion of new magical items and spells. The Merchant Venturer prestige class will eventually be published, I hope. I've seen many attempts at merchant PrCs, both official (such as the one in Power of Faerun) and unofficial, but haven't seen anything that really works. Send me your alpha version and I can critique it.

Being lengthy, I am still in the process of reading the rest.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Some (probably) editing mistakes, page 362 the adventure idea: The Shadow Kingdom is from another article (haven't checked if it was my mistake though).

Vigo Dragov alignment in his stats on page 205 are written (chaotic evil) that is my mistake, I forgot to correct that, he is Neutral Evil.

Then there are some "mistakes" because of different fonts/sizes as in page 232 the image is that of Bakiliskis but it accompanies the section titled Basilisk the Freedom Fighter and is a bit confusing. I suggest if it possible to move the image to page 231 before the Dread Possibility: An Ancient Bloodline and move the illustration with the reptilian eyes maybe to page 234 under the The testimony of Niklaus Kaiserhof, I believe it can fit there. If not maybe the reptilian eyes may fit in page 245. If that isn't possible too then if you replace the small lizard on page 236 (on the left under the Dread Possibilities) with the eyes, I am sure it fits there and and erase that small lizard from the article. Then again you can let it as it is, the portraits are obvious in the character stats anyway.

Page 258 the quote is by ― Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil (the "L" is missing in Brazil)

Overall very nice editing work. Thank you guys for all the time you've spent working on it.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Heroes of Chibiloft
Adorable, I genuinly laughted.

Thank you kindly. ^_^

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Dame Dominique
Brd2/Ari3/Pr3/ ToD4
Bard/ Aristocrat/ Priest / Thrall of Dagon

Is "priest" a distinct class from "cleric"?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Dame Dominique
Brd2/Ari3/Pr3/ ToD4
Bard/ Aristocrat/ Priest / Thrall of Dagon

Is "priest" a distinct class from "cleric"?

Nope...

That was a mistake caused by playing too much 2e as both terms were the same thing game-wise but normally a cleric is a clergy member while priest is a religious clergyman who is trained to perform services or sacrifices at a church or temple.

By the way Chibiloft characters rock!

[Jeremy16]

Here's my first hot take on the issue (usually my reviews take from days to weeks to fully form). I'm a slow reader, so I'm starting with the smaller articles and working my way up to the mammoth ones (looking at you Victor Gagne!).

Hands Stained with Shadow

I recently became aware of the Grim Hollow RPG after perusing the FoS forums and was interested to see what this article would bring to the table. While GH may seem like just another fantasy horror setting focused more on the fantasy instead of the horror, after wading through VRGtR this year I am much more appreciatie of genuine efforts at creating dark worlds with a flavor all their own (as opposed to revamping or watering down previous product lines).

But I digress. Let's take a closer look at these character classes...

Overall, it's a mixed bag. Some are pretty neat (the Green Reaper, Plague Doctor and the Circle of Mutation are my favorites), others are good for NPC backgrounds only (anything to do with Sangromancy and both warlock entries), and a few have already been done elsewhere (the Vermin Lord and Inquisition Domain remind me of 3E prestige classes). Not that that's the writers fault, they're simply adapting the material for Ravenloft.

I would have liked to see a couple NPCs outlined just to better illustrate what could be done with these things. But, at least it got my creative juices going. I can just picture a Borcan mercenary Green Reaper who sells their services to anyone who wants to get their hands on rare poison ingredients, a Mutation Druid bursting out of Vechor to spread the word of his "divine" revelation, or a Plague Doctor from Lamordia that travels the Core as an infectious disease expert who is considered a wizard by most people he encounters all the while protesting that his work is entirely based on science!