Ravenloft: The Horrors Within

A DM's First Look and Overview

Wizards of the Coast just released a new 5.5e expansion with an in-depth look at the infamous Ravenloft setting, the other Domains of Dread, and horror-themed content as a whole. The book is more of an expansion on Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft than a whole book of new content, but it does have a lot of new goodies to play with.

As someone who is already adapting another horror-themed setting into 5.5, this book is right up my alley. With 50+ new and updated stat blocks, 16 full Domains of Dread with expanded lore and adventures, and two totally new subclasses (the reanimator artificer and the hollow warden ranger), there is PLENTY to sink my teeth into and pull inspiration from!

Domains of Dread

The Domains of Dread make up the majority of the text here, and for good reason. There are 16 domains with dark lords and some short adventures to run players through. On top of that, there are another 25+ domains if the first 16 didn’t quite hit the vibe you’re looking for. One I’m seriously looking forward to pulling from is the Domain of Innsmouth a Lovecraftian seaside town ruled over by none other than the eternal eldritch horror, Cthulhu.

Atmosphere & Running Horror

Another significant value-add, and one that’s key to running a horror game, is the horror atmosphere and roleplaying material in chapter 3. That said, if you have Van Richten’s Guide I actually prefer how it’s presented there, and it includes fear and stress as mechanics which I use from time to time when the story calls for heightening the PCs’ sense of madness and intense emotion.

On that note: creating atmosphere through your word choice when describing settings, monsters, sounds, and smells is a small thing that completely changes how a moment feels. For example, describing a monster moving as “you hear something moving toward you ominously” versus “you hear the creature’s limbs crack and pop violently as it shambles from the darkness” evokes two very different pictures. Something else I’ve found unsettling is describing something with a word that’s unnatural but also tied to another frightening thing. Try describing a humanoid creature, but instead of words you’d normally use for its motion, say something like “he slithers up behind you.” There’s a lot of mileage in making descriptions unsettling and building unease without relying on jump scares.

The Subclasses

There are only two completely new subclasses: the reanimator artificer and the hollow warden ranger. The flavor of the reanimator is probably the first time I’ve been genuinely excited by an artificer! 99% of the time the artificer is portrayed as a steampunk tinkerer, but it makes a lot of sense that at the core of the idea is taking parts from one thing and making something else out of them. The Dr. Frankenstein flavor is super cool, and I may or may not put one together for a one-shot and try to get someone to DM a session or two!

The hollow warden is another big win for the ranger in 5.5e. They get a lot of Oath of the Ancients paladin-type abilities like smites, vines, and aura buffs. At 15th level they also get an ability in the vein of the orc’s Relentless Endurance, but with more HP when you pop back up, and you can recharge it with a 4th-level spell slot, which is nice. As a capstone it could be better, since the payoff feature deals damage that depends on the target being frightened. It’s still a solid subclass, though I’m admittedly very biased toward anything paladin-flavored.

The Tarokka Deck

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Tarokka deck. You don’t really need the physical cards to use the mechanics as it was designed to work with a standard 52-card deck plus jokers. I, however, am a sucker for props and cool new art pieces. For homebrew items I’ll even write out a physical card, because there’s something really cool about watching your players’ faces light up like it’s Christmas morning when you say they’ve found a new item and pull a card out from behind the DM screen. For me the cards and official art is great way to add immersion. I absolutely LOVE the art on the back and there are SO many little details when you look closely. That said, for most people I’d say it’s probably not worth the $25 USD.

Dark Gift Feats

One thing I think a lot of folks will overlook, but that’s huge for me as a DM, is how they handled the Dark Gift feats. There are two traditional feats, but the rest are “Dark Gift Feats.” The biggest quality-of-life improvement is that they added the prerequisite of being in a Ravenloft campaign. That may sound minor, but it matters these are designed specifically for one setting and aren’t meant to be used everywhere. The most obvious example of where I wish they’d done this sooner is the Silvery Barbs spell from Strixhaven. It was designed for that setting, but pulled out of it the spell is pretty overpowered and easily abused (thankfully a problem I haven’t run into yet). I hope they keep adding things like this, so I don’t have to be the bad guy telling players “no, you can’t have that toy you want” so the prerequisite gives me an easy out.

The Bottom Line

If you already own the 5e Van Richten’s Guide, this new book probably isn’t worth full price unless you want every book and the newest version of every subclass. For me specifically, already running a horror-themed game, and owning the original 5e book plus the Curse of Strahd module it was still a little pricey for my purposes. But between the new 5.5 stat blocks, the extra adventures to pull inspiration from, the cool set of cards, and the two new subclasses, I’ll definitely find useful things sooner than later. Most importantly though I always like making sure my players have access to whatever they need to tell the story they want to tell.

Remember: in the Appalachian woods, if you think you hear something calling your name… no, you didn’t.