I love reviews where the person has clearly engaged with the material and comes away inspired. TK has quickly become the best TH-cam channel for D&D previews.
Ravenloft holds a special place in my heart. When I 1st started to play dnd Ravenloft was the 1st settings I ever played in. I can not wait to get a hold of this book!
If Ravenloft is the first setting you every played in , then dont buy this book. Wokenloft is not the same as the Ravenloft you remember . They made changes to the Domains of Dread as well . But this is the kind of crap you get with diversity hires and not real writers and gamers ....
@@COMICBOOKJEDI1 hello random Stanger on the internet as I do appreciate you saying anything on my post. What's with hate? People that we dont know spent a lot of time and energy in something that they belive and what us a players to enjoy. So why not save the Negativity negativity and let me decide if it is bad or not.
I'm still new to D&D so I wasn't sure what Ravenloft is. Then I got caught up on Black Dice Society and got the itch to either run or play in a Ravenloft game. But after listening to how excited you are about the book I'm 100% hype about it now lol
This book is probably the one I have been most excited about since 5e started. My favorite setting in older editions was the Ravenloft boxed set that I ran many times. I LOVE the dark, horror genre and really enjoy running games in that style. Describing things that make your players cringe always feels great! I have this book pre-ordered and can't wait for mine to come in the mail!
Its been out for a while and around October i always find a way to stick my players in a dark domain for the month. Its so great that you can weave these realms into any campaign for some spooky fun. Van richtens guide has to be one of my favs. Plus undead warlock is my fav warlock
So incredibly excited. It's been about two years since I DM'd CoS for my party and it's sort of a tradition for the DMs in our group (we take turns running campaigns) to have a big "cinematic universe", where each campaign affects the world and each new party has heard of the previous exploits of the adventurers of the past. The CoS party went through an especially emotional tale and the players can't wait to take on more Domains of Dread. This new book means a lot to our group!
I know this video is 6 months old. But I love hearing your thoughts on these books. I love this book! It’s by far my favorite setting that I have yet t get to play in 😭😭😭.
The train as Domain gives me Doctor Who vibes from that one episode. I'm so hyped for this book. I remember freaking a player out by using an asylum as a set piece. Hopefully I can pull from my psych degree and design a Domain to get chills from players.
What I liked about Ravenloft, other than the villages/ towns on the main trade roads speaking the " common " trade language, .. which has to be learned. Each Domain Has it's own language. If and when the PC get lost on the back country roads, there is no one they can communicate with, hence the building of isolation that no one can help you in a horror story. Scarlet Widows which are all female, are shape changing werespiders, they gain their shapeshifting ability at around six years old. Beware of red hair little girls .. lost .. it the forest. Werewolves start their change between the age of 13 to 23 years of age. Point being, be wary of any child/teenager found in the forest.
First D&D book I've been super excited for in awhile! I've been playing in a 5th ed horror campaign where I play a Dhampir who's trying to hunt down his sire. So excited to get more inspiration for a good horror campaign!
They are missing almost all the spell restrictions. In my days, if you were a "visitor" lots of your spells didn't work and that was the end of the debate. If you were "from" the demiplane, you'd ask "What is this Detect Undead, you speak of strange sir?" I would advise 5e DMs to start taking a scythe to some spell lists or it's gonna be a Haunted Mansion trip where the PCs are just going to end up owning the park.
Curse of Strahd was my first campaign and setting I played in 5e and we've played campaigns since then but I still have my level 11 character from the campaign. I'm kinda hoping our DM can use this book to pick up at the end of that campaign, just for the nostalgia
So it sounds like canonically, this book is set post-Grand Conjunction, post-Requiem. That's interesting, since I've been wondering what's happened with Domains that have been abandoned, like Vecna's when he escaped, and Sithicus with its subpar Dark Lord.
@@teknogothyk She was definitely more interesting, but she never quite satisfied me as a Darklord. Soth had an interesting backstory, but as a Darklord he just kind of sat around and moped. No wonder the Dark Powers finally just kicked him out!
I've been out of the loop and D&D for some time, recently picked up the new Starter set and am excited. I was intrigued when this video popped up, I've been a fan of Ravenloft since I6. You covered a lot of cool stuff, but what's the word on Liches? Are they still a thing?
Ta for this review! I'm hoping to get this and mix it into my players adventures in Droaam so they can mix with various new frighting monsters! Would have loved an artificer subclass for this where you could be doctor Frankenstein or the Reanimator, maybe playing along side a reborn player 🤣 may have to homebrew it
A Mad Scientist that stitches flesh golems, creates silvered weapons or lobs flasks of incendiary chemicals! It would have been cool if they included a few Ravenloft-inspired Artificer infusions, at least.
I enjoy the horror setting and Ravenloft. I enjoy it so much I have backed stuff like Grimm Hollow and Heckna which I am still waiting for and eagerly awaiting.
Back when 3e first came out, we had a wizard cast Lesser Planar Binding and called in two 4hd Imperial Storm Troopers, they had no ideal what anyone was saying around them, and their blaster rifle rations didn't last them very long. Trooper, " I been on Endor, I had to fight .. Ewoks, but this, this is nuts. " Alternate timelines and realities, Lord Vader shuttle with two squads of special forces 5O1st trooper ( 24 of them ) Came out of hyperspace and flew directly into a fog embankment and landed outside the front gates of Castel Ravenloft. 3.5e core d20 system rules are just wonderful. The Emperor was not happy landing in his new .. home. Strahd, " Ah, Lord Vader, you seem to have a .. breathing .. problem, I can help you with that minor disability."
What about wizard's plans to remove horror from ravenloft? Some of the new Raven loft setting there's a section where they explicitly say that if you scare your players you're a bad DM.
I assume they mean you should tell a horror story rather than attempt to actually traumatize your players. That said, I am not a fan of Wizards gender swapping and race swapping established characters. I’ve heard some bad things about the boom but nonetheless am excited to read it myself.
At my old game store, new comers or old players hated my .. random .. PC murder chart. Besides, some people are just snowflakes. New rules for horror just means new rules for messing with peoples' heads. As the 3.5e core campaign setting book states, if people experience horror or terror everyday, it stops being monstrous and just becomes everyday normal living.
I look forward to using a lot of the stuff. My players are in the middle of a war between Dracula and Stroud. It was supposed to be a one shot to show them what D&D could be..... That was over three years ago. They are now lv. 17 getting close to the end game. One player is a skeleton now and use telepathy to speak and two more that are wizards that are chickens. I made up a table I call the spirit table. Anytime they use magic they roll on the table literally 80% of the table nothing bad happens but the other 20% it gets real interesting that's all one of my players is now skeleton.
so I hear no stats for the dark lords.. odd choice, I'm sure there's a well thought out reason for it that will make sense if someone can weigh in? either way this is a must get for me. CoS is fantastic.
Its something they discovered back in AD&D and especially 3rd Edition... If you put stats to something; the players now have ways to kill it. However, if the DM creates stats, its homebrew and in *their* story, can be killed.
It's the trend of 5e putting more work on the DMs than players. Which I get, from a business standpoint there's more players than DMs so it makes sense to release sourcebooks that are player-focused. But promoting the Darklords as a main buy for this book only to turn around and be like "And if you're a GM, just stat them however" is kind of lame.
@@g0lddustt29 if you're looking for social stats; those you can whip up in a few minutes. If you're looking for combat stat, these are Tier 4+ level entities -- you should really be building an entire campaign around the possibility of crossing its/their paths. That will give you enough time to slowly craft the combat stats.
@@peterhebenstreit451 The Darklords run the gamut from tier 1-4. They had powers that made them unique encounters, but not unbeatable in their own domains. Many would just return due to the Dark Powers resurrecting them because they weren't done tormenting them. However considering the excessive amount of tables this book put in every domain and the waste of pages basically spoon feeding ideas to DMs , they could have given stats to all the Darklords and fleshed out every domain they mentioned. They were just lazy. Don't buy that excuse of it they stat something, the players would kill it, that's DND in a nutshell, kill creatures and take their stuff.
So ready for this. I've started an Eberron campaign and the mourning is a domain being born with the lord of blades being warped into its dark lord and tge other domains are bleeding through. My pcs are part of a investigation group who deal with tge unknown this book is a cherry on the top
@@pitchforksdragon1252 really? Do you think that Dark Sun - with its S&S theme that includes slavery and cannibal halflings where wheelchairs get stuck in the sand, survive WOTC army of sensitivity readers? Would it still resemble what makes it great and interesting?
@@eoinbarry3915 Yes, based on my understanding the Bagman is more of a puzzle encounter because if the Bagman had stats then it’s just another monster and the PCs will find a way to kill it, and it kinda takes away from the Horror of the Bagman if the minmaxed fighter with the Vorpal Sword mulched the Bagman in the first round, the lack of specific stat blocks for the Dark Lords is disappointing however.
Well the Dark Lords don't have any specified stat blocks, but I believe that they have done the whole "use the 's stat block but with the following changes". Also no chapter specifically for the magic items or an appendix, but the magic items I think are spattered throughout the book.
@@teknogothyk I believe the books says to use the Loup Garou stat block, granted I'm getting my info from the q&a Nerd Immersion did when he got his copies
It being 5e D&D probably the occasional wisdom or charisma saving throw. There never was much in the way of mechanics for that sort of thing. It's not Call of Cthulhu after all. When we played in back in 2nd Edition, our DM made it scary by being high stakes. The battles were all uphill, so to speak. The enemies usually came prepared, in greater numbers and set ambushes. Character death was pretty much permanent until our party cleric got high enough in level to raise dead. Even then there was a catch, some changes in personality of the ones brought back. Some dark twist or something like that. Ravenloft, in my opinion, needs to be less epic, and more grueling, so that every small achievement feels like a much bigger one. A struggle against time and darkness, one that the players are supposed to lose. The nice surprise is when they actually survive the adventure or campaign.
Interested in seeing how and/or why Victor Mordenheim was changed to Victra. Family lineage? Just needed another female dark lord? A hat tip to Ms. Shelly? Wanting to know. The sad tale of Victor and Adam always held on to me, was my first introduction to the Domains.
@@teknogothyk but there are quite a few female dark lords/ladies already. 😫 Just do what TSR did and have a one pager on random dark domains and their lords... OR just do what mistapedia did and make a webpage for dark domains. More cost effective and could link it to D&D beyond for DM’s resources.
Should've been "Todd Kenreck's guide to Van Richten's guide to Ravenloft"
I love reviews where the person has clearly engaged with the material and comes away inspired. TK has quickly become the best TH-cam channel for D&D previews.
Ravenloft holds a special place in my heart. When I 1st started to play dnd Ravenloft was the 1st settings I ever played in. I can not wait to get a hold of this book!
If Ravenloft is the first setting you every played in , then dont buy this book. Wokenloft is not the same as the Ravenloft you remember . They made changes to the Domains of Dread as well . But this is the kind of crap you get with diversity hires and not real writers and gamers ....
@@COMICBOOKJEDI1 hello random Stanger on the internet as I do appreciate you saying anything on my post. What's with hate? People that we dont know spent a lot of time and energy in something that they belive and what us a players to enjoy. So why not save the Negativity negativity and let me decide if it is bad or not.
I am just so happy they've brought the Demiplane into modern DnD.
Same here! I've been waiting a long time for this!
Especially after they skipped 4th edition.
I am positively brimming with excitement over this book.
I can’t wait.
I'm still new to D&D so I wasn't sure what Ravenloft is. Then I got caught up on Black Dice Society and got the itch to either run or play in a Ravenloft game. But after listening to how excited you are about the book I'm 100% hype about it now lol
This book is probably the one I have been most excited about since 5e started. My favorite setting in older editions was the Ravenloft boxed set that I ran many times. I LOVE the dark, horror genre and really enjoy running games in that style. Describing things that make your players cringe always feels great! I have this book pre-ordered and can't wait for mine to come in the mail!
Its been out for a while and around October i always find a way to stick my players in a dark domain for the month. Its so great that you can weave these realms into any campaign for some spooky fun. Van richtens guide has to be one of my favs. Plus undead warlock is my fav warlock
So incredibly excited. It's been about two years since I DM'd CoS for my party and it's sort of a tradition for the DMs in our group (we take turns running campaigns) to have a big "cinematic universe", where each campaign affects the world and each new party has heard of the previous exploits of the adventurers of the past. The CoS party went through an especially emotional tale and the players can't wait to take on more Domains of Dread. This new book means a lot to our group!
I know this video is 6 months old. But I love hearing your thoughts on these books. I love this book! It’s by far my favorite setting that I have yet t get to play in 😭😭😭.
The train as Domain gives me Doctor Who vibes from that one episode. I'm so hyped for this book. I remember freaking a player out by using an asylum as a set piece. Hopefully I can pull from my psych degree and design a Domain to get chills from players.
What I liked about Ravenloft, other than the villages/ towns on the main trade roads speaking the " common " trade language, .. which has to be learned. Each Domain Has it's own language. If and when the PC get lost on the back country roads, there is no one they can communicate with, hence the building of isolation that no one can help you in a horror story.
Scarlet Widows which are all female, are shape changing werespiders, they gain their shapeshifting ability at around six years old. Beware of red hair little girls .. lost .. it the forest. Werewolves start their change between the age of 13 to 23 years of age. Point being, be wary of any child/teenager found in the forest.
First D&D book I've been super excited for in awhile! I've been playing in a 5th ed horror campaign where I play a Dhampir who's trying to hunt down his sire. So excited to get more inspiration for a good horror campaign!
They are missing almost all the spell restrictions. In my days, if you were a "visitor" lots of your spells didn't work and that was the end of the debate. If you were "from" the demiplane, you'd ask "What is this Detect Undead, you speak of strange sir?" I would advise 5e DMs to start taking a scythe to some spell lists or it's gonna be a Haunted Mansion trip where the PCs are just going to end up owning the park.
so glad the haunted one background is back from curse of strahd
WOOOOT!!! The Loup-Garou is back where they belong. I'm soooo happy.
Awesome Video!
I can't wait to use these tools for a campaign
great review. I loved Todd's enthusiam for the posibilities of Ravenloft. and very eagerly waiting to get my hands on the book. sounds awesome.
Great job Todd! Your love and excitement for this genre comes thru and makes me excited for this book as well!
Rider's Bridge is making me think of the 'Nos4a2" series that ran a few seasons on AMC, and I think is based on something Owen King wrote.
Curse of Strahd was my first campaign and setting I played in 5e and we've played campaigns since then but I still have my level 11 character from the campaign. I'm kinda hoping our DM can use this book to pick up at the end of that campaign, just for the nostalgia
So it sounds like canonically, this book is set post-Grand Conjunction, post-Requiem. That's interesting, since I've been wondering what's happened with Domains that have been abandoned, like Vecna's when he escaped, and Sithicus with its subpar Dark Lord.
Do you mean Lord Soth, or the one that took over when he left? In either case, I agree that Sithicus' Darklord has always been pretty lackluster.
@@teknogothyk She was definitely more interesting, but she never quite satisfied me as a Darklord. Soth had an interesting backstory, but as a Darklord he just kind of sat around and moped. No wonder the Dark Powers finally just kicked him out!
I've been out of the loop and D&D for some time, recently picked up the new Starter set and am excited. I was intrigued when this video popped up, I've been a fan of Ravenloft since I6.
You covered a lot of cool stuff, but what's the word on Liches? Are they still a thing?
Ta for this review! I'm hoping to get this and mix it into my players adventures in Droaam so they can mix with various new frighting monsters!
Would have loved an artificer subclass for this where you could be doctor Frankenstein or the Reanimator, maybe playing along side a reborn player 🤣 may have to homebrew it
A Mad Scientist that stitches flesh golems, creates silvered weapons or lobs flasks of incendiary chemicals!
It would have been cool if they included a few Ravenloft-inspired Artificer infusions, at least.
@@macc.1132 Keith Baker is working on a little something to connect Ravenloft and Eberron, maybe something of the sort could be included!
...they have a ghost train.
THEY HAVE A GHOST TRAIN.
Gorillaz start playing in my head
But can you supplex it?
Don't tell million ants.
Thank you sir, great vid; excited to get ahold of this book!
The train is super cool
I enjoy the horror setting and Ravenloft. I enjoy it so much I have backed stuff like Grimm Hollow and Heckna which I am still waiting for and eagerly awaiting.
Back when 3e first came out, we had a wizard cast Lesser Planar Binding and called in two 4hd Imperial Storm Troopers, they had no ideal what anyone was saying around them, and their blaster rifle rations didn't last them very long.
Trooper, " I been on Endor, I had to fight .. Ewoks, but this, this is nuts. "
Alternate timelines and realities, Lord Vader shuttle with two squads of special forces 5O1st trooper ( 24 of them ) Came out of hyperspace and flew directly into a fog embankment and landed outside the front gates of Castel Ravenloft. 3.5e core d20 system rules are just wonderful. The Emperor was not happy landing in his new .. home.
Strahd, " Ah, Lord Vader, you seem to have a .. breathing .. problem, I can help you with that minor disability."
I haven't even seen it yet, and I know it's going to be my favorite book!
What about wizard's plans to remove horror from ravenloft? Some of the new Raven loft setting there's a section where they explicitly say that if you scare your players you're a bad DM.
I assume they mean you should tell a horror story rather than attempt to actually traumatize your players. That said, I am not a fan of Wizards gender swapping and race swapping established characters. I’ve heard some bad things about the boom but nonetheless am excited to read it myself.
At my old game store, new comers or old players hated my .. random .. PC murder chart.
Besides, some people are just snowflakes.
New rules for horror just means new rules for messing with peoples' heads.
As the 3.5e core campaign setting book states, if people experience horror or terror everyday, it stops being monstrous and just becomes everyday normal living.
Can't wait for the release :)
Regarding the Sithicus domain ........Lord Soth ..... he'll be there in my campaign/world :)
This book along with the great stuff in the Grimm Hallow books is sure to make any DM wanting more horror, dark fantasy stuff very happy
I look forward to using a lot of the stuff. My players are in the middle of a war between Dracula and Stroud. It was supposed to be a one shot to show them what D&D could be..... That was over three years ago.
They are now lv. 17 getting close to the end game. One player is a skeleton now and use telepathy to speak and two more that are wizards that are chickens. I made up a table I call the spirit table. Anytime they use magic they roll on the table literally 80% of the table nothing bad happens but the other 20% it gets real interesting that's all one of my players is now skeleton.
so I hear no stats for the dark lords.. odd choice, I'm sure there's a well thought out reason for it that will make sense if someone can weigh in?
either way this is a must get for me. CoS is fantastic.
Its something they discovered back in AD&D and especially 3rd Edition... If you put stats to something; the players now have ways to kill it. However, if the DM creates stats, its homebrew and in *their* story, can be killed.
It's the trend of 5e putting more work on the DMs than players. Which I get, from a business standpoint there's more players than DMs so it makes sense to release sourcebooks that are player-focused. But promoting the Darklords as a main buy for this book only to turn around and be like "And if you're a GM, just stat them however" is kind of lame.
@@g0lddustt29 if you're looking for social stats; those you can whip up in a few minutes. If you're looking for combat stat, these are Tier 4+ level entities -- you should really be building an entire campaign around the possibility of crossing its/their paths. That will give you enough time to slowly craft the combat stats.
@@peterhebenstreit451 The Darklords run the gamut from tier 1-4. They had powers that made them unique encounters, but not unbeatable in their own domains. Many would just return due to the Dark Powers resurrecting them because they weren't done tormenting them. However considering the excessive amount of tables this book put in every domain and the waste of pages basically spoon feeding ideas to DMs , they could have given stats to all the Darklords and fleshed out every domain they mentioned. They were just lazy. Don't buy that excuse of it they stat something, the players would kill it, that's DND in a nutshell, kill creatures and take their stuff.
@@hamanu666 yeah my eyes saw Dark Lord. Brain said Dark Powers. I derped
Charlie the Choo-Choo Train as a domain? (Stephen King Dark Tower reference)
Yes and no.
So ready for this. I've started an Eberron campaign and the mourning is a domain being born with the lord of blades being warped into its dark lord and tge other domains are bleeding through. My pcs are part of a investigation group who deal with tge unknown this book is a cherry on the top
Thank you Todd.
is that a humidifier or incense burner providing the smoke effect in the background?
I can't wait for it's release! And for your future videos on it! :D
It would be weird if it was a love note to Dark Sun.
I'm 90% sure WotC are going to do a dark sun campaign setting after they do dragonlance and spell jammer.
@@pitchforksdragon1252 really? Do you think that Dark Sun - with its S&S theme that includes slavery and cannibal halflings where wheelchairs get stuck in the sand, survive WOTC army of sensitivity readers? Would it still resemble what makes it great and interesting?
Starting a petition to change Dhampir to Revamped.
With Floor Jansen on vocals! :)
Ooo I'm so excited!
Thank you!
Dude is that mist behind you?? :O :D
I honestly got concerned there was a fire for a second there!
I heard that monster stats aren't available in the book, even for Strahd. Is that true?
*Edit:* Spelling
Unfortunately for the Dark Lord's and Bagman, yes.
@@eoinbarry3915 Yes, based on my understanding the Bagman is more of a puzzle encounter because if the Bagman had stats then it’s just another monster and the PCs will find a way to kill it, and it kinda takes away from the Horror of the Bagman if the minmaxed fighter with the Vorpal Sword mulched the Bagman in the first round, the lack of specific stat blocks for the Dark Lords is disappointing however.
They're not supposed to be killable. They're story.
Well the Dark Lords don't have any specified stat blocks, but I believe that they have done the whole "use the 's stat block but with the following changes". Also no chapter specifically for the magic items or an appendix, but the magic items I think are spattered throughout the book.
@@teknogothyk I believe the books says to use the Loup Garou stat block, granted I'm getting my info from the q&a Nerd Immersion did when he got his copies
Can't wait!
Someone should tell Todd the kettle has boiled.
I am curious, what are the actual horror mechanics like?
It being 5e D&D probably the occasional wisdom or charisma saving throw. There never was much in the way of mechanics for that sort of thing. It's not Call of Cthulhu after all.
When we played in back in 2nd Edition, our DM made it scary by being high stakes. The battles were all uphill, so to speak. The enemies usually came prepared, in greater numbers and set ambushes. Character death was pretty much permanent until our party cleric got high enough in level to raise dead. Even then there was a catch, some changes in personality of the ones brought back. Some dark twist or something like that. Ravenloft, in my opinion, needs to be less epic, and more grueling, so that every small achievement feels like a much bigger one. A struggle against time and darkness, one that the players are supposed to lose. The nice surprise is when they actually survive the adventure or campaign.
You do a fantastic job of selling me on this book.
Interested in seeing how and/or why Victor Mordenheim was changed to Victra. Family lineage? Just needed another female dark lord? A hat tip to Ms. Shelly? Wanting to know. The sad tale of Victor and Adam always held on to me, was my first introduction to the Domains.
@@teknogothyk but there are quite a few female dark lords/ladies already. 😫 Just do what TSR did and have a one pager on random dark domains and their lords... OR just do what mistapedia did and make a webpage for dark domains. More cost effective and could link it to D&D beyond for DM’s resources.
I love the passion!
No Vistani playable race?
@@Leiliel1 Can you share a page number? I have the book now and don't see that anywhere.
I’m inspired to buy this book now.And what is the smoke behind Todd?
I was about to pass on this book since it's a "compilation" of adventures/demiplanes. But, damn. Todd Kenreck sold me on this one.
I've wanted this for so long and I'm so glad that it isn't a dud.
Now I all need is a straight 5e conversion of Adam's Wrath.
Adam doesn't exist anymore, they gender swapped him into Elise and Victor Mordenheim into Victra Mordenheim.
Too bad they skewed away from true horror. Oh, and the race swapping is cringe.
Likes for the like god! Comments for the comment throne!