Again and again, I say, "Well done!". I don't think it quite enough praise though. Ravenloft as a whole is one of my favorite settings. Playing AD&D modules and some homebrew adventures in the late 80s & 90s had me convinced that dark horror fantasy was my favorite escape from the mundane. Because of the design of the domains, they could be stand-alone adventures or be inserted into a long-running campaign from any of the other worlds. We even played an Oriental Adventurers campaign one time that took a brief spin-off to retrieve some magic items from Azalin Rex and Ankhtepot. It was a blast being a Drow Ninja moving around in so much darkness.
Ravenloft has been my introduction to D&D back in the early 90s. Only now, nearly 30 years later I realise how good our DM was to slowly strip all hopes and ambitions from my character without me realising it.
Currently running a 2 plus year expanded CoS campaign. It's our 1st game, and going crazy well. I love your work and appreciate this video. Keep it up!
In my groups games you can find a published journal of over of the characters from our CoS game. It's a fun way to immortalize that game in our future games.
A lanky, shivering peasant, clutching the tome and torch, inches forward. The thick fog concealing the dangers of the moor. Silent and barren was the land. The shadows clawing away from the flame. "Where, in the gods, am I?" The peon scan the area. The fog obscures the view. A lone Raven caws, drawing attention. On its foot: a letter. "Ah! Oh, its you," the poor man accuses. He ran up to it. Carefully removing the letter, the familiar blue seal greets him. "Oh! My lord... I am lost." [ It is to my deepest regret, that you are summoned. The entity of the realm has coveted more souls. Among them, yourself. Fear not my dear servant, you are still under my watch...] The peasant breathes out, hope restored. "The Great One still sees purpose in me." [ ... but be mindful of the dark gods and their jailers. They conspire to bind you to these lands. And so, my raven shall guide you. Until my arrival, my familiar will be in your company. Your favored companion and friend, the master of a thousand faces, Nyarlathotep Oh, and one more thing: Stay in the light. ] The peon chuckles. "Master and his strange monikers. He loves to don the identities of others." The raven flies towards a tree, cawing. "I'm coming, Imma coming!" He chases the bird...
Holy hell. I work in Salem, Mass and I have kinda not cared about the history after working there for so long (I grew up in city next over), but that actually made me smile.
I am so very thankful for growing up during 2e. Sure it was insane bloat, but there were so many ideas floating around it was like an all you can eat sampler. Got to play in Krynn, Ravenloft, & Athas as a teenager.
If Shar was able to move Ravenloft to the shadow fell then any major God of her caliber can do the same. Eventually some greater god will tire of some extra planar knucklehead fooling around with their reality. Also it should be noted that there are far worse evil beings not imprisoned then what the mists hold captive.
Canon at my table is that the Amber Temple was constructed as a beacon of Good, which provoked a war between the Temple and the Dark Powers. The vestiges trapped in amber are the casualties of that war. This all happened some time before King Barov named this land Barovia.
Love this lore series every time, Riches and Liches!😍 Wonder what the next episode will be like though. Can't wait to see! It would be great if you could check your inbox by the way. We've sent you an email!🤗
I was definitely looking forward to a Ravenloft video and I will say that this is a nice lore dump when alluding to 5e lore, specifically. However- the dreadlords definitely knew that they were imprisoned in older editions. At the very least, Strahd and Azalin did. We don’t like to talk about the weird offshoot that happened with Strahd and the “Alchemist” in Mordent, because it was a weird storyline in general. But the reason it happened was specifically Strahd and Azalin (begrudgingly) working together to try and figure out a way to escape Barovia. Back when Azalin was temporarily its prisoner as well, before being officially ensnared as a fellow darklord of Darkon. Assuming you haven’t already, I’d read “I, Strahd: memoirs of a vampire” and “I, Strahd: War against Azalin” by P.N. Elrod on the older lore. The Ravenloft novels were very much considered a part of cannon (for the most part. There are books like Lord of the Necropolis that were actually taken out of cannon- because they gave the dark powers too much of a form or a solid idea or concept. And that was against the wishes of the writers of the setting at the time. Though 5e seems to have wanted to go much more all in on giving them more form through what they can do as an entity and through the vestiges. which… I suppose times change?) I think a greater torment though comes from being vividly aware of your prison. Ignorance is bliss, after all. There are many contradictions in the lore, but that is just one of them. Another BIG part of earlier lore, speaking of Azalin- was his prison bust attempt. I’d look into “The Grand Conjunction/The Great Upheaval.”
@Renly Thank you for your feedback and taking the time to watch the video. I read War Against Azalin over 20 years ago, and do recall that Strahd learned Barovia was drawn into another dimension. However, I always took that as non-canon since nearly all other sources contradict the novel. Even if we took that as canon, I would maintain - at least for my table - that Strahd (nor Azalin) would have interacted with the Dark Powers, only a vestige. I know that the vestiges were not introduced until 5e, but I am personally convinced that the original designers never wanted the Dark Powers to be anything but vague, so that DMs can craft their own narratives. That takes nothing away from your comments, though and I thank you for sharing. As for the Great Upheaval, that was part of the 1994 Red Box and i will be covering that in the series. Finally, I never played but did read through Ravenloft II back in the day, it was too "jeckle and hyde" for my tastes. Rich
@HoosierJedi Well technically Borca and Ivana Boritsi did have a slide in the video, but your point is still valid. If you are a Borca fan, then you will be pleased to know that will be included in volume 2 as one of the few domains outside of Barovia (Vol 2 is dedicatd to Strahd and Barovia) and Borca will recieve significant coverage in Vol 3. Thank you for the watch and feedback!
Again and again, I say, "Well done!". I don't think it quite enough praise though. Ravenloft as a whole is one of my favorite settings. Playing AD&D modules and some homebrew adventures in the late 80s & 90s had me convinced that dark horror fantasy was my favorite escape from the mundane. Because of the design of the domains, they could be stand-alone adventures or be inserted into a long-running campaign from any of the other worlds. We even played an Oriental Adventurers campaign one time that took a brief spin-off to retrieve some magic items from Azalin Rex and Ankhtepot. It was a blast being a Drow Ninja moving around in so much darkness.
Ravenloft has been my introduction to D&D back in the early 90s. Only now, nearly 30 years later I realise how good our DM was to slowly strip all hopes and ambitions from my character without me realising it.
Currently running a 2 plus year expanded CoS campaign. It's our 1st game, and going crazy well. I love your work and appreciate this video. Keep it up!
In my groups games you can find a published journal of over of the characters from our CoS game. It's a fun way to immortalize that game in our future games.
A lanky, shivering peasant, clutching the tome and torch, inches forward. The thick fog concealing the dangers of the moor. Silent and barren was the land. The shadows clawing away from the flame.
"Where, in the gods, am I?" The peon scan the area. The fog obscures the view.
A lone Raven caws, drawing attention. On its foot: a letter.
"Ah! Oh, its you," the poor man accuses. He ran up to it. Carefully removing the letter, the familiar blue seal greets him. "Oh! My lord... I am lost."
[ It is to my deepest regret, that you are summoned. The entity of the realm has coveted more souls. Among them, yourself.
Fear not my dear servant, you are still under my watch...]
The peasant breathes out, hope restored. "The Great One still sees purpose in me."
[ ... but be mindful of the dark gods and their jailers. They conspire to bind you to these lands. And so, my raven shall guide you. Until my arrival, my familiar will be in your company.
Your favored companion and friend, the master of a thousand faces,
Nyarlathotep
Oh, and one more thing: Stay in the light. ]
The peon chuckles. "Master and his strange monikers. He loves to don the identities of others."
The raven flies towards a tree, cawing.
"I'm coming, Imma coming!" He chases the bird...
This will be a great series.👍👍👍
Holy hell. I work in Salem, Mass and I have kinda not cared about the history after working there for so long (I grew up in city next over), but that actually made me smile.
I am so very thankful for growing up during 2e. Sure it was insane bloat, but there were so many ideas floating around it was like an all you can eat sampler. Got to play in Krynn, Ravenloft, & Athas as a teenager.
You can still play in all those places. I've been running a huge Dark Sun game for my group for years now.
Excellent narration as always!
These books are absolutely wonderful
Glad you a re feeling better. One more great work publish.
Thank you so much 😀
33:07 You know, if you think about it, the closest thing to the Dark Powers are the authors designing the Modules and the DMs running the games.
Oh man i didn't know i wanted you to cover ravenloft but now i can't wait for the next two parts!
Psyched for this 👍👍
I read almost all the dragonlance books and had no idea Tracy Hickman and his wife wrote ravenloft (I’m a late convert to D&D)
I haven't a chance to play D&D tabletop in any form, but at least in online game Ravenloft is my favorite expansion.
You are the only way I will get a peak inside these worlds! 🙏🏻
Please Please Please do a segment on Falkovnia & the Zombies that plague the domain monthly!??
@dannyakins7677
You can count on it... Falkovnia is easily in my top 5 personal domains, maybe top 3 :)
Classy as always
Strad zombies unturnable, genius move by the creators of this fantastic Vampire lord
My second home of D&D after Dragonlance.
Oh Ravenloft, my home sweet home.
Well done!!!
If Shar was able to move Ravenloft to the shadow fell then any major God of her caliber can do the same. Eventually some greater god will tire of some extra planar knucklehead fooling around with their reality. Also it should be noted that there are far worse evil beings not imprisoned then what the mists hold captive.
@wreid4995
True on both counts!
Great feedback, thank you for sharing.
Maybe the vessitges are dark powers that the other dark powers have imprisoned as well.
That is an excellent theory!
Canon at my table is that the Amber Temple was constructed as a beacon of Good, which provoked a war between the Temple and the Dark Powers. The vestiges trapped in amber are the casualties of that war. This all happened some time before King Barov named this land Barovia.
Omg yes more lore
Love this lore series every time, Riches and Liches!😍 Wonder what the next episode will be like though. Can't wait to see! It would be great if you could check your inbox by the way. We've sent you an email!🤗
@Mega_Evolution_
My apologies for the delay, I will respond shortly.
@@RichesandLiches Thank you so much for your reply to my comment and email! I really appreciate it.🤗
I was definitely looking forward to a Ravenloft video and I will say that this is a nice lore dump when alluding to 5e lore, specifically.
However- the dreadlords definitely knew that they were imprisoned in older editions. At the very least, Strahd and Azalin did. We don’t like to talk about the weird offshoot that happened with Strahd and the “Alchemist” in Mordent, because it was a weird storyline in general. But the reason it happened was specifically Strahd and Azalin (begrudgingly) working together to try and figure out a way to escape Barovia. Back when Azalin was temporarily its prisoner as well, before being officially ensnared as a fellow darklord of Darkon.
Assuming you haven’t already, I’d read “I, Strahd: memoirs of a vampire” and “I, Strahd: War against Azalin” by P.N. Elrod on the older lore. The Ravenloft novels were very much considered a part of cannon (for the most part. There are books like Lord of the Necropolis that were actually taken out of cannon- because they gave the dark powers too much of a form or a solid idea or concept. And that was against the wishes of the writers of the setting at the time. Though 5e seems to have wanted to go much more all in on giving them more form through what they can do as an entity and through the vestiges. which… I suppose times change?)
I think a greater torment though comes from being vividly aware of your prison. Ignorance is bliss, after all. There are many contradictions in the lore, but that is just one of them.
Another BIG part of earlier lore, speaking of Azalin- was his prison bust attempt. I’d look into “The Grand Conjunction/The Great Upheaval.”
@Renly
Thank you for your feedback and taking the time to watch the video.
I read War Against Azalin over 20 years ago, and do recall that Strahd learned Barovia was drawn into another dimension. However, I always took that as non-canon since nearly all other sources contradict the novel.
Even if we took that as canon, I would maintain - at least for my table - that Strahd (nor Azalin) would have interacted with the Dark Powers, only a vestige. I know that the vestiges were not introduced until 5e, but I am personally convinced that the original designers never wanted the Dark Powers to be anything but vague, so that DMs can craft their own narratives.
That takes nothing away from your comments, though and I thank you for sharing.
As for the Great Upheaval, that was part of the 1994 Red Box and i will be covering that in the series.
Finally, I never played but did read through Ravenloft II back in the day, it was too "jeckle and hyde" for my tastes.
Rich
Aw, not even a mention of Borrca?
@HoosierJedi
Well technically Borca and Ivana Boritsi did have a slide in the video, but your point is still valid.
If you are a Borca fan, then you will be pleased to know that will be included in volume 2 as one of the few domains outside of Barovia (Vol 2 is dedicatd to Strahd and Barovia) and Borca will recieve significant coverage in Vol 3.
Thank you for the watch and feedback!
Yes it's dark. But is it 40K levels of dark?
Used to be
@@KS-PNW Now they turned it into Dragon Age: The Veilguard