Ravenloft is back in 5e?

[Igor the Henchman]

I'm sorry I missed that barb. I didn't mean to approve of a point made at the expense of another poster, especially Drinnik. That's not right. I apologize.

Also, I've had another disturbing thought. Now that many Core domains are going to be islands, are they going to change the road and river names? Will Dementlieu, Lamordia and Falkovnia still have a river called the Musarde flowing through them? What about the Arden river that's supposed to flow through Valachan and into the Arden Bay near Mordentshire? (I can't imagine Mordent not making it in the book) I initially assumed they would keep domain geography exactly as is like they did with Barovia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Will they rename most of the rivers? Or redraw domain maps completely?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Also, I've had another disturbing thought. Now that many Core domains are going to be islands, are they going to change the road and river names? Will Dementlieu, Lamordia and Falkovnia still have a river called the Musarde flowing through them? What about the Arden river that's supposed to flow through Valachan and into the Arden Bay near Mordentshire? (I can't imagine Mordent not making it in the book) I initially assumed they would keep domain geography exactly as is like they did with Barovia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Will they rename most of the rivers? Or redraw domain maps completely?

Good point Igor (with a Count Duckula pronunciation, I always liked the way he pronounced it). My only theory on that is that hopefully the designers taking account of the Time of Unparalleled Darkness, dismantled the Core after the climax of that event and though the Demiplane wasn't really destroyed as expected, maybe the domains float around sometimes attaching themselves to the Prime Material Plane. So the ToUD is more of the Demiplane affecting the Prime Material Plane like a parasite. So if this is the case the rivers keep their names and probably every river ending or beginning in the domains border is a potential mistway for other domains usually the ones in bordered.

Also on a note I have to say that I was wrong about Barovia being constantly isolated by closed borders, I hadn't slept much when I wrote that post so my brain had leak of cerebral fluid. In fact I always thought the ring of fog around the Village of Barovia problematic, so if the borders where switched on all the time that would be a financial disaster plus most people wouldn't even try to enter the domain. Really unpractical...

[onmyoji]

If your PCs are the type to run away from fear and horror (actually run away, not temporarily retreat to gather their wits and nerve) and you as a DM need to lock them in time and time again then Ravenloft just isn't the best setting for your table. As a detached or floating nightmare (making the idea of a core just about ridiculous), or, pseudo reality, then yes. It makes sense. Otherwise, unless the PCs always personally catch the attention of the dark lords to the point of them actually gunning for their skulls (or souls), then it's just a crappy end of the sandbox after the first closure. Ravenloft is then limited to that of Creature Feature. Cool in one sense, but boring in another.

Obviously the idea works for others. And maybe my brain is too small to actually find value in it, but thst's how I feel. Generally-speaking.

I feel the same way. I only mentioned it because I see congruency between how WotC represented Barovia in CoS and what we can apparently expect in the new VR Guide. Even though Curse of Strahd was my first experience with Ravenloft, I am happily GMing the Core setting with everything attached. I might find some loose nodes of interest in the new guide, but I highly doubt I'll adapt it as-is and change my preferred setting to match. (Though interestingly enough, I found a plausible narrative reason for the Core domains to be split up again in order to explain how Barovia works in CoS, so the split-up Core that we're going to see in the VR guide might actually be congruent to a short stage of my narrative.)

— onmyoji

[onmyoji]

I hadn't slept much when I wrote that post so my brain had leak of cerebral fluid.

Check your teeth. Maybe Dominiani got to you.

[Thrackazoggg]

I'm sorry I missed that barb. I didn't mean to approve of a point made at the expense of another poster, especially Drinnik. That's not right. I apologize.

Also, I've had another disturbing thought. Now that many Core domains are going to be islands, are they going to change the road and river names? Will Dementlieu, Lamordia and Falkovnia still have a river called the Musarde flowing through them? What about the Arden river that's supposed to flow through Valachan and into the Arden Bay near Mordentshire? (I can't imagine Mordent not making it in the book) I initially assumed they would keep domain geography exactly as is like they did with Barovia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Will they rename most of the rivers? Or redraw domain maps completely?

So far, there's no reason to think otherwise but that's the sort of innocuous question that I'd pose someone like Schneider on Twitter; you might get an answer on that one.

I will say that I hope Lord Wilfrid Godefroy gets an official update that gives the guy more teeth than "he was the most evil remaining entity in Mordent after Strahd and Azalin left so he became Darklord by default" kind of origin that he's been saddled with for decades.

[Strahdsbuddy]

Also, I've had another disturbing thought. Now that many Core domains are going to be islands, are they going to change the road and river names? Will Dementlieu, Lamordia and Falkovnia still have a river called the Musarde flowing through them? What about the Arden river that's supposed to flow through Valachan and into the Arden Bay near Mordentshire? (I can't imagine Mordent not making it in the book) I initially assumed they would keep domain geography exactly as is like they did with Barovia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Will they rename most of the rivers? Or redraw domain maps completely?

This is my fear as well. The weekend in hell tradition had passed by the wayside 25 years ago. Domains of Dread laid the groundwork for the heart of any successful campaign: worldbuilding. It needs to feel alive and there should be relationships between domains. If everyone is staring at walls of Mists around them, it removes the one thing that is necessary for horror to truly work and that’s hope. If it is just dark, the players will never care enough about the setting to defeat the BBEG. The constant threat of Falkovnian invasion unified domains against them. It felt real because that stuff happens in a player’s real experience. Of all the things to mess with, the thing that bugs me most is the geography ( this will surprise no one that has read my posts over the years). In all her travels I cannot think of a single time S mentioned a border closure; that was left behind because the demiplane was on the way to becoming a real world. And this looks like a complete step backwards to the thing that made the setting feel like a gimmick back in its infancy.

Also, the title of the book proves a lack of understanding of the setting. If Van Richten wrote a guide to Ravenloft, it would be a floor plan of the castle because he wouldn’t have referred to his world by that name! All these folks making videos about how this has always been one of their favorite settings should at least pronounce the domains properly!

/grumpyoldman

[Five]

Though interestingly enough, I found a plausible narrative reason for the Core domains to be split up again in order to explain how Barovia works in CoS, so the split-up Core that we're going to see in the VR guide might actually be congruent to a short stage of my narrative.

What reason would that be? ToUD? Just curious. I'm always open to options, even if I don't put them in play.

[onmyoji]

What reason would that be? ToUD? Just curious. I'm always open to options, even if I don't put them in play.

It's not going to work for everyone, but since the campaign is ambitious enough to cover a wide swath of the timeline, there had to be a difference between a united pre-GC Core, a united post-GC Core, and the you-can't-even-step-out-of-Barovia as demonstrated in CoS (which launched this entire campaign to begin with. None of us have any actual experience playing any of the pre-5E stuff. I've just been studying it for the past three years.).

Because Forgotten Realms is kind of the "default" setting in some editions—notably 5E—and it's pretty well organized in terms of dates, narrative, canon, etc., I looked to that for assistance. In 1385 DR, we get a ten-year-long setting-altering event that basically reformats how magic works everywhere called the "Spellplague." One of the Spellplague's main events is the creation of the Shadowfell—the very location where the 5E canon situates Barovia, and presumably the entire Core. As such, even though FR doesn't necessarily have much sway over Ravenloft as a setting, an event this massive responsible for creating the Shadowfell would presumably have numerous effects on the Core and how it functions.

To add to this, I've taken an approach that seems to be rare. While it's occasionally contradicted by canonical sources (cf. Soth), I've decided that for purposes of this campaign, time spent in the Core is equivalent to time spent out of it. If you enter Barovia from FR, spend ten years there and leave, then it's ten years later when you get back. (Otherwise, telling a more epic tale over a longer timeframe has very little bite.

With that in mind, correlating the FR timeline to the Barovian Calendar becomes an interesting exercise. While there are not necessarily any direct equivalents per se, I took some time trying to approximate as best as possible. The Spellplague ends in 1395 DR...... which according to the best of my calculations occurs in 776 BC. Conveniently only one year after the supposed event that ushers in the "Time of Unparalleled Darkness." Since the Spellplague is a single event with ten-year repercussions, though, the effect on the Core can presumably come in the ninth year after without issue. The two events can well be one and the same.

Since the major change to the Core we got in CoS was that Barovia seemed to be eternally bounded by Mists and unable to be traveled into, save by outlanders (though how does RVR get there??), I figured that the creation of the Shadowfell during the Spellplague causes a reformatting of the Core. The powers that be are for once powerless in the wake of this, and as such, if the Core is to continue to exist, it must do so in a more fragmentary form until the Dark Powers have time to recover from their new bounds (after all, if they are part of the Shadowfell now, I take the Dark Powers as having power only over the Core, and their power is directly dictated by whatever magic dictates the laws and functions of the Shadowfell).

So that then explains the isolated Barovia (and presumably other domains). Clearly trade and such is disrupted which will lead to a lot more dread and terror among pretty much everyone. But I'll be damned if it doesn't accidentally pave the way for the isolated Core we're gonna see in the new VR Guide. I haven't quite figured out how players and NPCs will travel from domain to domain in the now-isolated Core, but if Strahd and Azalin can use magic to accidentally escape Barovia and wind up in Mordent, then there's definitely a way it can be done.

Hope that helps answer your question.

Also a note, for other readers — to be clear, this a concept I'm using to frame my own campaign. While it has a basis in canonical sources, it's only partially supported by them. This is just my vain attempt to try to make as much of the conflicting canon "make sense" as I can.

— onmyoji

Edit — We're only one session in, but I might as well plug the site for my campaign for those interested. Maybe the explanation above will whet some appetites. All our campaign info can be located at: http://strahd.wikidot.com/

[Mephisto of the FoS]

What reason would that be? ToUD? Just curious. I'm always open to options, even if I don't put them in play.

It's not going to work for everyone, but since the campaign is ambitious enough to cover a wide swath of the timeline, there had to be a difference between a united pre-GC Core, a united post-GC Core, and the you-can't-even-step-out-of-Barovia as demonstrated in CoS (which launched this entire campaign to begin with. None of us have any actual experience playing any of the pre-5E stuff. I've just been studying it for the past three years.).

I have to say that a timeline already exists in the Fraternity site, written years ago in September 2005 by John W. Mangrum under the article name The Revised, Annotated, and Totally Unofficial Ravenloft Timeline. There he also writes about times or events on other settings. Naturally the timeline is until the end of the 2nd edition. It is unofficial but the writer did a really good job at time lining the events of the 2nd edition. But then there is the timeline in Mistipedia that continues this.

Since the major change to the Core we got in CoS was that Barovia seemed to be eternally bounded by Mists and unable to be traveled into, save by outlanders (though how does RVR get there??)

Rudolph Van Richten was born in Darkon one of the Domains of Ravenloft and I don't think there is a possiblitity that his memory was altered by his stay in Darkon since for many years of his life he has been travelling and had relocated to the domain of Mordent. Also in CoS there is mention of the Thaani, people that have escaped from the domain of Bluetspur that bordered Barovia. Now having CoS in 735 and having it isolated means that for some reason Strahd decided to close his domains borders, the thing is if in the new product continue from that era (maybe though I doubt the designers read only the Black Box and followed the oBlack Box stating 735 Campaign setting starts or something similar, that would be a really big disappointment and a big ....... for all of us supporting the world all these years (meaning as consumers but also as members or posters of the various fan sites during the years). It would be like saying that half of TSR products never happened and the whole series of WotC licensed White Wolf Publishing products never happened and only what is licensed under Hasbro exists, typical corporation gaslighting...

[Resonant Curse]

What reason would that be? ToUD? Just curious. I'm always open to options, even if I don't put them in play.

It's not going to work for everyone, but since the campaign is ambitious enough to cover a wide swath of the timeline, there had to be a difference between a united pre-GC Core, a united post-GC Core, and the you-can't-even-step-out-of-Barovia as demonstrated in CoS (which launched this entire campaign to begin with. None of us have any actual experience playing any of the pre-5E stuff. I've just been studying it for the past three years.).

I have to say that a timeline already exists in the Fraternity site, written years ago in September 2005 by John W. Mangrum under the article name The Revised, Annotated, and Totally Unofficial Ravenloft Timeline. There he also writes about times or events on other settings. Naturally the timeline is until the end of the 2nd edition. It is unofficial but the writer did a really good job at time lining the events of the 2nd edition. But then there is the timeline in Mistipedia that continues this.

Since the major change to the Core we got in CoS was that Barovia seemed to be eternally bounded by Mists and unable to be traveled into, save by outlanders (though how does RVR get there??)

Rudolph Van Richten was born in Darkon one of the Domains of Ravenloft and I don't think there is a possiblitity that his memory was altered by his stay in Darkon since for many years of his life he has been travelling and had relocated to the domain of Mordent. Also in CoS there is mention of the Thaani, people that have escaped from the domain of Bluetspur that bordered Barovia. Now having CoS in 735 and having it isolated means that for some reason Strahd decided to close his domains borders, the thing is if in the new product continue from that era (maybe though I doubt the designers read only the Black Box and followed the oBlack Box stating 735 Campaign setting starts or something similar, that would be a really big disappointment and a big ....... for all of us supporting the world all these years (meaning as consumers but also as members or posters of the various fan sites during the years). It would be like saying that half of TSR products never happened and the whole series of WotC licensed White Wolf Publishing products never happened and only what is licensed under Hasbro exists, typical corporation gaslighting...

If I remember correctly Wizards did that with 4th edition Dark Sun and rebooted the setting after the events of book 1 of the Prism Pentad with Tyr being freed and nothing else from the books occuring. I admittedly haven't dug into the 5e Eberron book yet, but it had also looked like it reset to where the setting had started from the little I saw.

[Five]

If I remember correctly Wizards did that with 4th edition Dark Sun and rebooted the setting after the events of book 1 of the Prism Pentad with Tyr being freed and nothing else from the books occuring.

Yeah, they did. Kalak is down, other city-states scrambling to confirm or deny the rumours and King Tithian has just outlawed slavery.

But again, there is the designers' meddling hands. It's cool that they opted to exclude the novels, as much as I liked them, in that it gives the DM a lot of play in determining Tyr's future. Yet even in that timecut they dud a disservice to DMs from 2E: Kalak is building a ziggurat and is using every resource he has in its construction. Slave are even taken out of the mines and iron production is down. The economy has crashed, merchants and nobles alike are taking the hit and are beginning to plot rebelliion, and Urik and Raam have both sent emissaries to king Kalak to see what the hell is going on with the mine being shut down. All while Rainbow's "Stargazer" is playing in the background https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6CjO0H2j0s

We're left with talk of the final battle between the Royal Guard and the nobles, with Kalak's advantage of magic, and an irony of it possibly being "decided by the lowliest of all Tyr's citizens, the slaves."

What a hook. It's got every major theme a campaign can use all rolled up in one. It's fertilizer for the imagination, notes are being scratched, ideas rolling over each other...and then they take that and use it for their books. Haha

4E reset the books, but not the biggest hook (slaves about to rebel against a sorcerer-king).

Anyway, just thought I'd drop that to further an earlier point. And a hope that this new version of Ravenloft doesn't come in and drop the bomb by overdeveloping the few open-ended tools that the setting provided us with.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm sorry I missed that barb. I didn't mean to approve of a point made at the expense of another poster, especially Drinnik. That's not right. I apologize.

Also, I've had another disturbing thought. Now that many Core domains are going to be islands, are they going to change the road and river names? Will Dementlieu, Lamordia and Falkovnia still have a river called the Musarde flowing through them? What about the Arden river that's supposed to flow through Valachan and into the Arden Bay near Mordentshire? (I can't imagine Mordent not making it in the book) I initially assumed they would keep domain geography exactly as is like they did with Barovia, but now I'm not so sure anymore. Will they rename most of the rivers? Or redraw domain maps completely?

I think they're keeping the Core still, unless they've said otherwise.

In the Falkovnia piece they talk about the darklord being the one to contain the zombie apocalypse and prevent it spreading to the rest of Ravenloft. Which seems more likely if there's still neighbouring lands.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I think they're keeping the Core still, unless they've said otherwise.

You've missed it in the deluge. They've said otherwise.

There is a new issue of Dragon+ containing some more insights and I quote:

"This incarnation of Ravenloft reimagines a great deal of what came before. Past explorations of the setting directly linked many of the domains of Ravenloft into a pseudo-continent called the ‘Core’. We’ve taken the Core, the heart of the Ravenloft setting, and shattered it. In this new interpretation, every domain is a lonely island drifting through the mists."

So, guess we'll have to stitch it together here at FoS. Nonetheless I hope some of the reimaginings or newer domains will be inspiring.
Link to the article: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2021/02/23/in ... ntent.html

I'm guessing they might nod to the core and say that these islands sometimes come in contact (thus explaining Darkonian VR in Barovia)

[Jester of the FoS]

Well... poop.

It's not really going to feel much like Ravenloft then. I wonder if anything is going to stay the same...

[Joël of the FoS]

A large part of the 3e era RL fun was the politics between domains, and that made for many adventure hooks and travel possibilities. All of that is gone, unless they are still connected in a way that we will discover later.

I just hope that efforts to make each domain having its different flavor, isn't turned domains into one-trick ponys.