No WotC book for us RLers this year...

[Catman Jim]

- Unless they add something, the only interesting books would be *Exemplars of Evil* (yawn) and *Elder Evils* (double yawn).

I picked up "Exemplars of Evil" yesterday, and yes indeedy, there was actually a reference to Ravenloft. [drumroll] The name Strahd appears once.
In the Introduction, it starts " Acererak. Eclavdra. Iggwilv. Rary. Strahd. Warduke. Vecna. Manshoon. Artemis. Bargle. Dragotha. Kitiara. These names & others like them have great meaning to fans of the D&D game."

Well, we placed fifth anyways. I saw no other even vague reference to Ravenloft. The book was actually an interesting read, about a third devoted to defining various villain types, motivations, feats, & spells, and then the rest to detailing eight villains that could be dropped into campaigns. Of those, two seemed to have potential for Ravenloft. "The Tolstoffs" seems to be quickly relevant, perhaps a bit more "Book of Vile Darkness"-based for some, but would require only a few modifications to use this vile brother & sister team. Also, "Emmara Ishandrenn" could be adapted readily for Ravenloft & those that like a tale of outsider possession (really would just need to replace the minotaur clerics!).
A fun little book, but not everyone will agree that it's worth the $30 US pricetag. I'm wondering how well sales will be of any new hard cover following the announcemnt of the upcoming 4th Edition, after all, how much more are folks willing to invest in 3E?

[LordGodefroi]

From the product list, the only product that interests me is the Rules Compendium. It looks like it'll be the last new v3.5 D&D product I will buy.

[HuManBing]

I just got Exemplars of Evil too, and I'm thinking about giving it back for a refund. There are some nifty ideas in the first chapter, but then you have one-villain-a-chapter deals afterwards, and few of the villains are particularly original. (I liked the first villain, the orc-turned-civilized-general, but that's about it.)

I'm still divided though. The first chapter was pretty decent, with the new feats and rules on henchmen/lackeys. The problem is do we really need rules on these, given that they're DM creations anyway?

[Adam]

For what it was, I didn't think Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was that bad. It's not really a Ravenloft module, but, frankly, I6 isn't a very Ravenloft-y module either. Yes the hag Madam Eva was odd and the Knight of the Raven thing made no sense either, but there were some high points. The "Strahd is going crazy" plot line I found particularly interesting as a furtherance of the original plot and, if adapted properly, could be implemented in RL.

I'll use the module, I'm sure. Just maybe not in a RL campaign.