Radical changes in Ravenloft in your campaign

[Speedwagon]

Not to be contrary, but Chris Perkins stated that Vecna was present, though not explicitly named in CoS, most likely as the unnamed God of Secrets in the Amber Temple. Granted, there is an 8 year gap between CoS and the Vecna adventure, (released in May of 2024) but that really isn't that long when you consider they were likely already storyboarding and planning their product timeline. There is definitely merit to the idea that they were trying to capitalize somewhat on stranger things and on CR, but I feel strongly that when they were developing CoS, they already had Vecna: Eve of Ruin in their sights, even if it wasn't fully fleshed out yet. This especially makes sense as vecna was a dark lord before he was a God, and had already appeared in the Ravenloft product lines once before, and CoS was one of the earliest 5e products. Seems like purposeful seeding to me, easily overlooked by the casual observer, but with dots to be connected if you do some digging, and much easier to see in hindsight.

Yeah that makes sense! I suppose I'm just disappointed with how Vecna: Eve of Ruin came out, even if it was in the works for so long. CoS, even with its deviations to 2e/3e canon, is a pretty solid adventure that I've loved to run & play, so it's a shame to see the adventure quality fall-off so much.

I completely understand that sentiment. I don't really play much 5e, because for all it's merits, it feels weirdly corporate and streamlined too much. I feel like it's adventures ignore decades of real world lore and books, and the accessibility en masse isn't a worthwhile trade off for me. But I have a suspicion this was how 1e players felt about 2e, and 2e about 3e, and so on.

I do appreciate the differing perspective. At least here we can enjoy Ravenloft in its different forms. While I love 5e and was introduced to Ravenloft through it, I know it has its flaws and I'm looking forward to trying new systems, especially with the changes to the original 5e design team. And I'm grateful that DMsGuild is still around to allow for me to pour through decades of lore and books, so I suppose the accessibility is a worthy trade off.

[doctornecrotic]

Well, Teravala, I'm right there with you. I say that as an early adopter of 5e (like pre public playtesting in the "D&D Next" era) and was an adamant supporter for the first few years after its release. Now that I have totally 180'd, I'd rather play almost anything else.

Now, in terms of OP's topic and setting HERESY, I ponder how much I've done? I've kept notes on my blog of ideas, past games, etc... weaving my own nutty meta plot and then some. I have "The Mist Gate" as a kind of device that screws with the fabric of the deep ethereal and sometimes acts as a semi stable portal, but at often deep costs and it acts rather volatile. You're better off consulting a certain hag from Darkon.... even though this device is in Darkon. Likewise, the way I use Ramon the Bard somewhat warps a few assumptions. I've toyed with history too. Never liked Azalin doing his Knurl campaign stuff in King of the Dead. I'd rather push that back to Battle of Fortnight's Length, which solidified Aerdy power over Nyrond in Oerth... It would work for Knurl as well. Likewise, I've tossed some domains around to other places. None of that is really major enough though, right? I'd argue retconning Azalin's backstory between two settings counts! I did change Odiare too, as the module left a bad taste in my mouth. For one, an homage to Mangiafuoco as a foil to Mallochio felt like a fun idea to me... basically, twist the puppet master into the DL's Satan. I didn't erase the history, but moved things forward in time... almost have the DL feel like a dusty relic, forgotten by all children, but not the cruel puppet master who has plans for him.

[The Dark]

I don't think this is necessarily a "radical change" since it's more of a gap in the canon, but one lacuna that I'm filling in for my own version of Ravenloft is that the lesser Planetouched (tieflings and aasimars) have minor reality wrinkles. As far as I know, there aren't any of them that are fully canon in Ravenloft, with the closest being an appearance in a 4e Dungeon article. This helps explain why they're nonexistent in earlier canon, since having a reality wrinkle means each domain's Darklord will instantly know where they are, and they (generally) don't have the power of a true fiend to resist a Darklord (or their lieutenants).

As far as my mechanical reasoning goes, while VRgtF only mentions fiends having wrinkles, we know celestials do as well from Carnival. We also know cambions do, since Malocchio has a reality wrinkle in VRgtF, so the planar doesn't have to be full planar to have a wrinkle.