Review thread of VRGtRL 5e

[alhoon]

IVAN (new hotness)
Appearance – a 60-year-old baby that moves around in a crib shaped like a spider
AoUD – temper tantrums, killed his entire family including his beloved sister in a fit of rage
Domain – mostly confined to his manor home Degravo
Torment (because curse is too strong of a word for this new Ravenloft) – he just wants to be loved, but no one wants to play with him
Wokeness Level – (5) he's handi-capable but also evil so it kinda evens out

The crybaby old man / bully + wants to be loved at all costs is a not subtle reference reference to the perception of a large portion of woke people towards certain modern national leaders past and current. If you think about it, it fits the perception these woke people have of those leaders very well.

That alone should increase his wokeness by at least 2.

[Jeremy16]

The crybaby old man / bully + wants to be loved at all costs is a not subtle reference reference to the perception of a large portion of woke people towards certain modern national leaders past and current. If you think about it, it fits the perception these woke people have of those leaders very well.

That alone should increase his wokeness by at least 2.

That's an interesting take that I never would of thought of!

Now that you mention it... this caricature does remind me of a recently defeated political leader in my own country. But I digress.

[Jeremy16]

The domain of Carnival is up next... sigh...


ISOLDE (old and busted)
Appearance – a pissed off angelic Joan of Arc
AoUD – entered RL in pursuit of the Gentleman Caller
Curse – forever trapped in a demiplane of evil, always seeking but never finding her quarry, her very presence twists those who choose to ally themselves to her
Domain – an assortment of freaks and other societal outcasts who banded together to create a place they can call home
Gothic Level – (6) its members cover a variety of classic horror tropes without being too over-the-top

ISOLDE (new hotness)
Appearance – a woman with big ears and a bigger sword
AoUD – an obsessive need for vengeance
Domain – a regular carnival with strange fey hangers-on... no Skurra, no Twisting, no mention of freaks at all
Torment – always seeking but never finding her quarry, tempted by her evil sword to do bad things (mostly by beheading criminals)
Wokeness Level – (4) she's black now, the first instance in this volume (but not the last) of race-swapping prominent NPCs

NEPENTHE (new hotness)
Appearance – a red lightsaber
AoUD – just evil for evil's sake
Domain – a regular carnival with strange fey hangers-on... no Skurra, no Twisting, no mention of freaks at all
Torment (because curse is apparently too strong of a word) – not mentioned, but it does get to behead criminals
Wokeness Level – (1) an inanimate object as a darklord looks like appropriation to me... Ebonbane's lawyers are waiting on line one!


OVERALL IMPRESSION


Look, I get it, the Carnival is so iconic that it would be idiotic not to include it. But, no one has ever been able to recapture the essence of this domain after its original introduction in 2E. Here we have some weird carnival-swapping scheme mixed up with obtuse Shadowfell politics that I don't really care anything about.

If the sword's the darklord now, then who was the Carnival's darklord before it came into Isolde's possesion? What is its torment? It seems to be having a grand time tempting Isolde and executing criminals. What act of ultimate darkness cursed it with having its own domain – just being picked up by Isolde?

Speaking of which, if Isolde is so righteous, why can't she recognize such an obviously evil weapon? It is Isolde's chase after the Gentleman Caller (oops, I mean The Caller, because masculine pronouns are so yesterday) that used to be the driving force here. Making the sword the darklord is just sloppy and poorly thought out.

If this book is a pale shadow of the Ravenloft I know and love, then this entry is the palest of all.

[alhoon]

While I agree that this attempt doesn't capture the feeling of the original carnival domain, one of the better supplements of 2e IMO, I don't mind at all dropping the entire celestial thing. Isolde can work as well as a fey, which she is in 5e. And since new-Isolde is a fey, she doesn't have to be so righteous and she could be tempted by her sword without breaking the tenet that celestials are perfect creatures of goodness that can never be morally wrong.

[Mistmaster]

While I agree that this attempt doesn't capture the feeling of the original carnival domain, one of the better supplements of 2e IMO, I don't mind at all dropping the entire celestial thing. Isolde can work as well as a fey, which she is in 5e. And since new-Isolde is a fey, she doesn't have to be so righteous and she could be tempted by her sword without breaking the tenet that celestials are perfect creatures of goodness that can never be morally wrong.

But Celestials can fall; Ergo they can also be tempted.

[alhoon]

But Celestials can fall; Ergo they can also be tempted.

Not in Gothic romance / horror, they cannot. They are perfect creatures, incapable of being wrong. The fallen angel thing came later.

[Mistmaster]

Not exactly, Devils are fallen angels and they are part of the Gothic genre from the Monk onward.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) was a source of inspiration and fascination for Romantic poets such as William Blake and Percy Shelley. Paradise Lost was written a century before the first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764) and is the predecessor as well as inspiration for the Gothic literal tradition that Ravenloft is based on. Milton's story has two narrative arcs, one about Satan (Lucifer) and the other, Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other fallen angels have been defeated and banished to Hell, or, as it is also called in the poem, Tartarus.

[Jeremy16]

Just to be clear, Isolde being changed from a celestial to a fey is not my main issue. "A rose is a rose..." after all. The major problem with the entry is making the dang sword the Darklord and eliminating the silent Skurra and the Freaks and their poetic justice type deformities. You change Isolde's nature and now there's no mechanic like the Twisting anymore. That was the coolest element IMHO from the original accessory.

Regarding fallen angels and their gothic roots... I took a quick literary survey, between myself and my wife, and we both come down on the side that fallen angels are not a gothic literature tradition. Only in our post-modern times where it's not uncommon to have a bad guy be a protagonist (see the entire comic series Lucifer for a good example) has that become a trope. Back in the 18th & 19th centuries I believe that view would be labeled as anti-social and dangerous.



P.S. - I love being on a board where my fellow members reference literary classics in support of their arguments about angels and demons and such. You guys rock!

[Jeremy16]

The domain of Darkon is up next...


AZALIN (old and busted)
Appearance – a skeletal wizard with a permanent skowl
AoUD – killed his sole heir because he dared to showed kindness, turned himself into a lich, tooled around with Strahd von Zarovich
Curse – can't learn new spells thus thwarting his sole desire to accumulate more power
Domain – a mix of fantasy races living together under the iron grip of a control freak who created an entire religion just to spy on his own people AND a secret police force comprised of monsters of all types
Gothic Level – (4) liches aren't gothic per se, but they are classic D&D villains

Baron Metus (new hotness)
Appearance – androgynous samurai vampire
AoUD – n/a, thinks she deserves to rule Darkon because she is leader of a Kargat cell based out of Matira Bay
Domain – splitting apart at the seams, halfway swallowed up by the mists
Torment (because curse is apparently too strong of a word) – n/a, but seeks revenge on Rudolph Van Richten (the man who killed her twin brother)
Wokeness Level – (7) did I mention she looks like an androgynous samurai vampire?

Darcalus Rex (new hotness)
Appearance – a necroichor that inhabits a pool of water in Nevuchar Springs
AoUD – n/a, thinks it deserves to rule Darkon because it is the reincarnation of a previous ruler
Domain – splitting apart at the seams, halfway swallowed up by the mists
Torment (because curse is apparently too strong of a word) – n/a, but it's a sentient puddle of goo
Wokeness Level – (2) human sacrifice is too reminiscent of that old school religion

Madame Talisveri Eris (new hotness)
Appearance – The! Amazing! Invisible! Woman!
AoUD – n/a, thinks she deserves to rule Darkon because she's the matriarch of a noble family in Il Aluk
Domain – splitting apart at the seams, halfway swallowed up by the mists
Torment (because curse is apparently too strong of a word) – n/a, but you can see right thru her
Wokeness Level – (3) she turned herself invisible in a misguided attempt to stop herself from getting older (ageist) and pressures others into following her lead (bully)


OVERALL IMPRESSION


Ugh. Are we doing this again? The whole RL community generally agrees that the “Necropolis” version of Darkon sucked. Why return to that well after all the pains taken to put it back together again in 3E?

Lost is the rich descriptions and cosmopolitan flavor of the core's largest and most versatile domain. Any type of adventure or monster could be found there and it wouldn't seem out of place. This is the first instance of an old domain being trashed (instead of merely being retconned) in service of a lame disaster horror conceit, but it certainly won't be the last.

I'm not even gonna comment on the “mystery” of Azalin's disappearance and the King's Tear.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Regarding fallen angels and their gothic roots... I took a quick literary survey, between myself and my wife, and we both come down on the side that fallen angels are not a gothic literature tradition. Only in our post-modern times where it's not uncommon to have a bad guy be a protagonist (see the entire comic series Lucifer for a good example) has that become a trope. Back in the 18th & 19th centuries I believe that view would be labeled as anti-social and dangerous.

By the development of the genre , the gothic villain appears as the main character in a gothic story . The gothic hero – villain characteristics often embody three main types as their model : Milton’s Satan, a rebellious compelling figure derived from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”; or Prometheus ,a mythological character who exceeded his limit by stealing fire from Zeus, the father of gods in Greek mythology, and offers it to mankind ; or Byronic hero, a complex moody, cynical, character derived from the famous English romantic poet Lord Byron, marked by his rejection of traditional values with noticeable intelligence, cunning, intense feeling of passion and strong sensual desires .

The villain of a story who either 1) poses as a hero at the beginning of the story or 2) simply possesses enough heroic characteristics (charisma, sympathetic past, physical attractiveness) so that either the reader or the other characters see the villain-hero as more than a simple charlatan or bad guy. Two closely related types exist:

Satanic Hero: a Hero-Villain whose nefarious deeds and justifications of them make him a more interesting character than the rather bland good hero.
Example: The origin of this prototype comes from Romantic misreadings of Milton's Paradise Lost, whose Satan poets like Blake and Shelley regarded as a far more compelling figure than the moralistic God of Book III of the epic. Gothic examples: Beckford's Vathek, Radcliffe's Montoni, Wordsworth's Rivers (in The Borderers), Polidori's Ruthven, and just about any vampire who is not of the Nosferatu ilk.

Promethean: a Hero-Villain who has done good but only by performing an over-reaching or rebellious act. Prometheus from ancient Greek mythology saved mankind but only after stealing fire and ignoring Zeus' order that mankind should be kept in a state of subjugation.
Example: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is tellingly subtitled the "Modern Prometheus."

Courtesy of Douglass H. Thomson, Department of Literature and Philosophy of Georgia Southern University

[Mephisto of the FoS]

About Baron Metus... seeks revenge on Rudolph Van Richten (the man who killed her brother).

Were they twins too?

I have already written a (bad) review for VRGtR but the comparison Sir Jeremy16 offers makes my eyes bleed from frustration... Why?... WHY?...

It's good that Jeremy 16 goes little by little comparing the old with the new, it kind of shows that in the new Ravenloft the writers have taken a distance form the traditional Gothic literature and take their inspirations from contemporary pop culture.

I have to say that the Carnival is poorer now loosing all the elements it previously had, probably because they wanted to connect VRGtR with The Wild Beyond the Witchlight for commercial reasons.

[alhoon]

John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) was a source of inspiration and fascination for Romantic poets such as William Blake and Percy Shelley. Paradise Lost was written a century before the first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764) and is the predecessor as well as inspiration for the Gothic literal tradition that Ravenloft is based on. Milton's story has two narrative arcs, one about Satan (Lucifer) and the other, Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other fallen angels have been defeated and banished to Hell, or, as it is also called in the poem, Tartarus.

As you say: THey have already fallen in times immemorial.
In Gothic horror, fiends and angels are creatures of greaaaat age. If they were capable of corruption, they would have been corrupted and fallen already, when Lucifer rebelled and Fell. The ones that remain, cannot be tempted by things a mortal can do or understand.

To bring it back to Isolde, an angel that has not fallen for 50 thousand years, after countless missions and fights against evil, would not be tempted by the power of a malevolent sword.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

As you say: THey have already fallen in times immemorial.
In Gothic horror, fiends and angels are creatures of greaaaat age. If they were capable of corruption, they would have been corrupted and fallen already, when Lucifer rebelled and Fell. The ones that remain, cannot be tempted by things a mortal can do or understand.

To bring it back to Isolde, an angel that has not fallen for 50 thousand years, after countless missions and fights against evil, would not be tempted by the power of a malevolent sword.

Being not corrupted for thousands of years doesn't make one immune to corruption, my comment was on Gothic tradition more than in the current discussion about Isold though.

But Celestials can fall; Ergo they can also be tempted.

Not in Gothic romance / horror, they cannot. They are perfect creatures, incapable of being wrong. The fallen angel thing came later.

My comment was that the fallen angel thing was always there.

Also because of the different morality of celestials and Isolds Chaotic Good nature, she can truly be seen as an evil character by some like Prof. Pacali, her otherwordly morals seem maliscious sometimes to me too

But as you wrote, it is easier for a fey to be corrupted than a celestial, in that I agree, but that doesn't mean that I agree with Isold being a fey just to make an excuse for the appearance of Ebonbane's cousin. One weapon darklord (Ebonbane) and one dagger pommel domain (Aggarath) are enough for me, especially when the new totally evil darklord sword (Nepenthe) misses a good background and a curse.

The biggest regress in the Carnival is that because Isold is not an outsider anymore she doesn't have a reality wrinkle and so the Twisting does not exist, the actual element that made Carnival so exciting, adding to that the Carnival is now a moving doman and not a moving element to save people (even PC's) from imminent doom. Even describing L'Morai as the domain would be far better than this sword moving domain.

VIEW CONTENT:

Also think about the imp since she doesn't protect it from her nemesis there is a big hole in Isolds motivations to protect the Carnival

[alhoon]

Ahh... I liked the twisting. But that could be a property of the Carnival instead of Isolde. As for Isolde being a celestial or fey, I think it has more to do with how we are used to her. I remind you that in the original Carnival product Isolde could have been a fiend. It was in 3e that Isolde being a celestial was made the canonical option.

But: I like the twisting and I am used to Isolde being a celestial. Still, fey works better in my opinion of the Carnival as it has that fairy-tale theme.