Hey thanks so much for checking it out! Innistrad seems really interesting but I haven't checked it out so much yet, how do you think it compares to Ravenloft?
@@exitsexaminedthey’re not intended to be the same thing, but they are intended to fill the same purpose. Ravenloft is the gothic horror setting of D&D, and Innistrad is the Gothic Horror setting of MTG! It’s probably most similar to Barovia out of every dark domain. You could lift many things from curse of Strahd and run them in an Innistrad setting, and vice versa 😁
I just watched your Dark Sun video and am loving the D&D content. It’s great as a newer DM to have someone break down different worlds so I can steal from them. I’m hoping you could do a Dragonlance video sometime so I can learn more about the history of D&D.
Hey! I've actually done a Dragonlance video! Haha one of my personal favorite settings. It was just slightly older so not quite as long as my more recent videos, but glad you enjoy them!
Something to clarify; Masque of the Red Death is not a Domain of Dread, but an entirely separate Gothic Horror setting based on the idea of roleplaying in Victorian Era Earth secretly being conquered from the shadows by an eldritch entity that may be connected to the Dark Powers of Ravenloft, resulting in magic and monsters existing in the shadows. The two gamelines do cross over, at least two canon Darklords were born on Gothic Earth (as the world of Masque of the Red Death is known), but they're not the *same* setting.
Great point! I think I added a note about exactly that on screen during that section if you were listening on audio only! But good to clarify it in the comments as well!
Well...kinda. The "Red Death" was one of Ravenloft's Dark Powers (very different from the Dark Lords). "He" was exiled by his peers for being tainted with evil - literally, not a good thing. After banishment, the Red Death drifted aimlessly (think Phantom Zone) becoming more and more evil and twisted by isolation - until he was "freed" by the ancient Egyptians and yanked into the world that would become Gothic Earth.
@@williamconnors1510 If you look at the back stories for Maligno and Captain van Riese, the Darklords of Odiare and the Sea of Sorrows respectively, they're explicitly stated to have come from Gothic Earth's Italy and Gothic Earth's Netherlands respectively.
To provide a simple summary of the sourcebooks/timeline... Ravenloft started as the adventure module I6: Castle Ravenloft, which is basically "what if Dracula's Castle was a D&D dungeon", with the addition of the random teleportal mist banks and unavoidable poison mist originally used in X2: Castle Amber to force players to begin and run the adventure respectively. It was followed by I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, another adventure module. These then inspired Ravenloft the setting, which initially began orientated for "Weekend in Hell" gaming style (parties are dropped into a random domain, which functions as a glorified dungeon, then leave upon completing it), but slowly evolved into a full campaign setting in its own right, ala Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms. This 2nd edition version began with the "Black Box" (Ravenloft: Realms of Terror), then was revised with the "Red Box" (Ravenloft Campaign Setting) following the Grand Conjunction adventures, and this was then revised again with Domains of Dread, the first hardcover book version of the setting, which was set after the Grim Requiem adventures. In 3rd edition, White Wolf (via its D&D sub-branch Sword & Sorcery) wrote the Ravenloft 3rd Edition campaign setting, a continuation of the Domains of Dread iteration of Ravenloft - Wizards of the Coast, meanwhile, instead did Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, a 3.5 reimagining of the original I6 that ignored all of the 2e and Sword & Sorcery lore. In 4e, Ravenloft was dropped as a setting, although "Domains of Dread" as a concept were ported into the new cosmology. Finally, 5e gave us Curse of Strahd, yet another reimagining of I6, followed by "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", a brand new take on the Ravenloft setting that clumsily apes the 2e/S&S setting, but is its own distinct setting.
Hey I just think it's so cool that TH-cam is a place where I can put out a 45 minute in depth video on Ravenloft and it finds people like you find it! Thanks for watching though, seriously!
Hey thanks so much for watching! This one was a good amount of work because there is just so much ravenloft content, but it's always fun to untangle the sticky history of DnD!
As a hardcore Ravenloft fan 3/3.5 Edition Ravenloft is it's golden age, don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. Yes the OG module is absolutely wonderful and foundational for the setting. But if we are talking about the setting as a whole it was never more cohesive than after the Gazetteers were released. 2nd edition had lots of good ideas... But really struggled to make the setting its own thing rather than a place the PC's escaped from. The main setting was revised twice after the original black box release during 2nd edition. And near the end of 2nd edition it was inching truly twoards becoming it's own setting. 3rd edition solidified Ravenloft as a place, but unfortunately, two things happened. #1 There were internal fights at Swords & Sorcery(Which was a subdivision of White Wolf.) over narrative and stewardship of the setting causing the best writers for the setting to leave. #2 WoTC has ignored all the amazing worldbuilding from 3rd edition, and did Expedition to Castle Ravenloft during the end of 3.5, ignored Ravenloft during 4th Edition except for the one board game, and basically rebooted Ravenloft totally for 5th edition completely changing the lore. I don't hate everything about 5th edition Ravenloft, there were some cool ideas that I will steal for any Ravenloft stuff I do in the future but for the most part in my eyes Ravenloft died after 3.5
My Ravenloft world is a love letter to all the Universal Classic Monsters. The County of Corvinus, a misty, heavily-wooded valley in the mountains, is the site of the town of Drakkmoor. Thousands of years ago, there was a clash between Green and Black Dragons, and their corpses left a patchwork of thick woodlands, foul bogs, surprisingly fertile fields, and barren moors. The local Baron is secretly an Alpha Werewolf; the local Vampire Lord Count has been imprisoned and replaced with a paid actor; his castle has been taken over by a cabal of criminal geniuses from foreign lands: you have Dr. Frankenstein and Praetorious characters, a megalomaniac that turned himself permanently invisible theough nonmagical means, a disfigured bard with a penchant for elaborate traps and stealthy murder, and an alchemist with a monsterous (and chemically-induced) alter-ego. This cabal keeps numerous monsters imprisoned in the dungeons to experiment on, and they rob graves and commit murders in order to build flesh golems. The also import a ton of Egyptian artifacts, including a grimoire and a locked sarcophagus. Rounding things out is a local stagecoach driver: basically the Gillman if he had the personality of Dr. Zoidberg.
@docnecrotic I played that and ... It. Was. Epic! (Total party kill, but we were all just loving it) The DM ruled that we got pulled in as well, to clarify.
My table is in the middle of our first Curse of Strahd playthrough and it's been amazing I've taken some liberties with the 5e lore and integrated a health portion of the 4e lore. Next, I'm planning on deep diving into the 2e Ravenloft lore so I can build the Dark Powers. Two of my players have already inadvertently made pacts with a couple of Dark Powers The campaign has been incredible so far, and it's one of our favorite settings
I think everyone remembers their first Ravenloft campaign it's always so much fun! Always gotta love those inadvertent pacts haha, hope you guys have a blast with it
If you're moving from 5e into 2 e flavor you're going to find yourself movie from Kitty funland to actual Gothic horror. Death and Insanity should be on the table ultimately the end. Those dark powers should eventually consume the players. When you're playing ravenloft keep Cthulhu in mind.
All your videos are great and I have enjoyed them enough to watch a few of them multiple times! I'm eagerly hoping (awaiting?) a Spelljammer episode, please!?
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! I will 100% do spelljammer maybe for my next DnD video but probably sometime early next year. I actually never had much experience with spelljammer in person so I need to do a to of research!
“Do you like dying?” Been there done that, rather nice actually “ how about being trapped in an endless cycle of torment, misery and despair with ironic punishments from malevolent forces beyond human understanding; all while you are trapped in an unending demiplane trying it’s very best to make you become part of the nightmare” it’s Wednesday and I’m suicidal so…
5th edition Ravenloft is very much a reboot of the setting... one that I can have fun playing through, but still feel like the original was sooo much better.
This setting always makes my brain go brrrrrr, I ADORE this setting, and just like the question 'what is a vampire doing here?', I found myself asking those very same questions Tracy did with decisions made in Curse of Strahd, like, I created a whole culture entwined with Barovia, as a separate domain just on Dusk Elves, and the association of amber and the dark powers in newer content sets me down a path of creative no return!
From the beginning module to the OG Box set, this was synonymous with edge of your seat freaking the crap out of your players. I really felt that box set Realms of Terror had the right amount of depth without being led around by the nose. It really became a chessboard of political Intrigue where my players were not pawns but Queens❤ And the near limitless powers of each Darklord became null an void once the border to a NEW Domain was traversed. The best was informing the group that it was a little foggy up ahead😂😂😂 whether it was nothing or perhaps a return to some Darklord they left with a bargin unfulfilled. Thank you Tracy and Laura❤
A curse of strahd campaign i briefly was apart of was really altered by the DM. Strahd himself wasn't a vampire that was pineing over a lost love, but infact a wizard/paladin that was secretly serving a ultra powerful fallen god that gave strahd all the powers of a vampire, but none of the weaknesses. Strahd was gonna release him from his prison, betray him, then take all his powers for himself.
@exitsexamined wish I coulda finished that campaign but work got in the way. Now 1 cool battle we had: The hag in the windmill wasn't actually a hag but instead a balrog demon in hiding as a human. Outta 6 players, only 2 were still standing. We only won cause of legendary weapon we had that dealt 2d10 damage to evil, extra 2d6 damage to demonic/devil enemies, and at the cost of a permanent con damage, 1d20 damage per sacrificed con.
As a long time player of the MMORPG Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) i can heartily recommend their rendition of the Ravenloft setting and campaign: It's dark, deadly, extremely well voice acted and a ton of fun! That content pack (must be brought, although the base game is Free2Play) is available for players Level 10-12 or 29-34 (Epic Levels). If you're looking for an authentic D&D 35 Edition video game to enjoy, and don't mind slightly outdated graphics, I really recommends DDO. :-)
Funny. My main D&D character’s name is Raven, and she’s the personal guard of a vampire queen. She also has nightmares that foresee bad things happening. Didn’t even know about this beforehand.
Having played D&D 5e since it came out Curse of Strahd has been my favorite campaign, though I haven't really had the chance to really explore it the way I would personally enjoy doing so. This video helped me understand far more of it's history and honestly I like a lot of the more complex lore. Though it is more of a fun idea kind of lore than something that would be useful all the time.
Glad it could help! It can be surprisingly complicated to understand the different editions and lore because of the sheer amount of just stuff out there, so glad this could help in some small way! Do you think you'll try a Ravenloft proper campaign?
@@exitsexamined I think it would be fun to play in a Ravenloft proper campaign, I don't think I could run it myself. I would probably run a Curse of Strahd game with a strong focus on exploration and a teasing Strahd who awaits to see a challenge.
My first Dnd campaign was Ravenloft homebrew! I love the setting so much, it's so much fun to play around in. My character was a tiefling necromancer who reanimated things with *glitter*. Yes it had a Rocky Horror flavour.
5easy is not Ravenloft. Rocky horror is a costume show. Where is the horror? For a 5e game what you described sounds fine. For myself I prefer the original tone when it was actually Gothic horror. Also The Rocky horror Picture Show is one of the greatest films ever made. But for me that doesn't make a good dungeons & dragons setting. At least not in what should be a horror story.
I think you missed the pt of Ravenloft. Not saying that a Rocky Horror style game is bad, but its NOT a Ravenloft HB cause things like glitter wouldnt mesh. Sure it might good fun, but we need to be clear about what each thing is and is not. Its important to truly convey the concepts.
I was rabid for the books... Kept up on the release schedule for them and read as many as I could get my hands on... I really liked "Vampire of the Mists" (of course), "Knight of the Black Rose", "I Strahd: Memories of a Vampire", ""I Strahd 2: The War with Azalin", "Enemy Within" and of course "King of the Dead" plus "Lord of the Necropolis" which went into a LOT more about the lich Azalin plus those pesky "dark powers" and how there might be multiple factions among them.
5Easy is kiddy funland. I prefer my original box sets where Strahd is an eternal prisoner in his own hell and can never really be defeated. Where the land itself is the true evil. Instead of a theme park with fun jump scares this should feel more like an old school horror film. Madness and death I should definitely be on the table. To a much higher degree than any other lands you may play in. With the possible exception of the Dark Sun setting. I watch a lot of dungeons and dragons I always see the dark Powers playlist some fun little addition to your character to play around in enhance yourself with. But I think the truth fun is when those powers are played as an evil that will eventually consume you.
The best setting content, a la WW and TSR, gets washed under the current WotC shadowfell slop. It's truly sad. But hey, it's up to us fans to preserve the settings and introduce newbies to it.
As a GM trying to run the CoS module right now, I can say that the ridiculously large amount of material for Ravenloft is indeed ... overwhelming! I guess that is what happens when a community goes nuts for a 40+ year old campaign setting.
Hey man honestly wouldn't be able to make archives like it without people like you! Audiobooks were tricky to find for this, although most are on Audible! You can also find "I straud" on youtube for free and a ton of people consider that one of the defining books for the setting. th-cam.com/video/t2kKmTarvTQ/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=npc1
The two Channels you mentioned hour of the raven and travel agent are amazing. They offer basically a bottomless well of ideas,lore,and atmosphere. I've been to both habitually over the I years.
Having DM'ed the two first OG campaigns I would refer to them for more information into "the darkness". Strahd (according to ravenloft 2 house on gryphon hill) was a alchemist/sage. He was quite normal before settling into barovia. He was obsessed with this apparatus he was building which was designed to separate a soul from it's good and evil counterparts. House on gryphon hill was designed to be merged with the first OG adnd ravenloft module. The mist would have players slipping in and out of time. At one point it would be in the present with the dark vampire embraced strahd grip on barovia. At another point it would be in the past with the scientist Strahd building his soul separation device. I personally found it fun to incorporate the idea of it being a occulus infernum strahd accidentally built (eye into hell)
Have you considered a video on the TTRPG called Torg? It's a fascinating setting in my opinion. It's certainly past its prime, but I have fond memories.
Sounds really interesting and I've been itching to do other TTRPGs outside of DnD! By past its prime - do you mean there's been like nothing going on with it in recent years or just slowed down?
@exitsexamined apparently it has been gotten some recent adaptation, but from what I see it is just a shell of what I played as a teen in the 90s. I can point at the Wiki, but I'll gush a tiny bit here. Short version: Earth is being invaded by other realities. When these other realities make a strong enough connection, their paradigm begins to merge with and then overwhelm ours. Paradigms are things like Gothic horror, British isles high fantasy, the Cyberpapacy, and America is mostly a dinosaur and lizardperson filled jungle crossed with WWII technology. There's also the Drama Deck, which was a set of physical cards that you could hold and play to change the game mechanics in various ways. Sorry if I've just sent you down a rabbit hole, though I hope you enjoy it if you do fall in.
I'm playing a sun soul monk in a Curse of Strahd run. I also have a fairy paladin from a separate campaign that encountered Strahd. He staked him with his lance and made earrings out of his fangs.
There actually about a dozen novels on the settings. Dont really play 5ed, but it was always clear there would be a death in the group when someone brought a rogue or a bard. When going to Ravenloft, you really need to do your homework
Go and read Knight of the Black Rose, probably one of the best Fantasy novels ever dealing with our favorite Death Knight Soth. Unfortunately, today it‘s considered non-canon, but well worth the read.
My favorite game ive ever ran involved mixing all of the domains of dread together, i even made strahd a no so evil guy that had to join the heroes and fight a greater evil
You mentioned Ravenloft as part of Neverwinter, but didn't talk about it as an expansion to Dungeons and Dragons Online, which is fantastic. It's my favorite expansion in the game with quest lines to gather the Icon of Ravenloft and the Sun Sword as prerequisites before you can do the raid to fight Strahd.
Very cool channel! I would love to see some Pathfinder content. There was also a series of magic the gathering novels. I think it was weatherlite or something. Those were kind of neat but then they just abandoned those paperbacks.
After many years researching the Dark Powers, I think I have discovered at least a hint toward their identities and motivations. It's nothing concrete yet, and maybe this will prove to be another red herring, but recent evidence suggests one of the Powers may be named Steve. As for motivations... Nothing Ever Really Pleases Steve
Now it’s gonna have generation gap with those who know Prisoner of Zenda and from Balkan Internet memes. Former being inspiration for Ravenloft, Latveria (since early Marvel and DC tend to make homages to pulp genre) and maybe Borat.
Im not sure if anyone else mentioned here in the comments but the Neverwinter Nights 1 Ravenloft server "Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist" is probably the most active server of the game, even reaching 3 digits of players (last when I checked around 2022). Its a heavy RP server, never tried it tho.
@exitsexamined thx for the reply! yeah its amazing how active the nwn community is even after all these years, when I saw 112 concurrent players the fist time I was shocked, the 2nd most active player had like 32 at most. Great game, will probably try it after im done with bg3
Awesome video. Just a heads up; I think whenever you mentioned tracy and Laura Hickman and show a pic, you’re actually showing Tracy with Margarette Weiss. Not Laura, his wife.
Yes thank you for catching that, I added a correction note for this awhile back first thing in the description, I just grabbed the picture from my Dragonlance folder without even thinking haha dumb mistake!
For some reason; never seem to got “street fight in haunted city over magic rocks” module or adaptation. I know I am referencing Mordheim, but DnD never seem to make one for Ravenloft or Strahd setting…not even board game craze of 4E era.
Now speaking of adaptation, part of me now wonder if Cazador and maybe Act 2 was homage to Ravenloft (even involving not!Romani and Act 2 can be interpreted as place that got stuck in Ravenloft).
Yes, Baldur’s Gate 3. Like Cazador and Gur feel like homage on Strahd and Vistani (but with monster hunting instead of Romani in Vampire movies). And Act 2 feel like Dark Domain.
WOTC has altered a lot of the classic stories and details of Ravenloft to appease the woke & overly sensitive demographic of players. They've been making such changes since the early 2000's. There's a reason why I6 is still played by tens of thousands of players each year. Its a classic story that has only gotten better over the years, played as it was originally designed, written and presented. I bought my first copy of the module back in the late 80's and still have it to this day. Ravenloft is dark, cold and unforgiving by its very nature. Strahd is a ruthless, highly intelligent and cunning master of his realm who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. His evil & cruelty are without equal even if he's trapped within an endless circle of fate crafted by his own actions. Voldemort should count himself lucky that he was never taken by the mists, bringing him into the lands of Ravenloft and into direct conflict with Strahd.
Something cannot be both beloved and infamous. Something infamous is well known for being hated or reviled. Something beloved would be famous. So few people seem to understand that famous and infamous have opposite meanings. They’re not interchangeable.
Alright language police, infamous and beloved are in fact **NOT** mutually exclusive. There are plenty of villains in fiction that are infamous, but also beloved. Hell even antiheroes like Deadpool are both infamous and beloved. Hell, plenty of things are beloved BECAUSE of how infamous they are.
I ran a Ravenloft one-shot on Halloween (I took inspiration from the Bloodborne DLC and ran it in Lamordia), and have been wondering what to do for a part 2. How timely it is that this video gets released so I can immerse myself in Ravenloft!
I really want cover Spelljammer supplement but I need to do so much research on it because I never touched it! How was the history of Spelljammer do you think it would make an interesting one of these videos?
Strahd is a blatant take on Dracula, and in the book, Dracula has the Szgany, which were his Gypsy servants. I think the Vistani we're nothing more than a take on that. At least originally. I feel they were treated either stereotypically or not based on the strengths and prejudices of the individual writer who was writing them.
Fantastic video, but I feel your summary of 5e Curse of Strahd really downplayed the huge involvement of Chris Perkins in the project. That was his baby, but I'm not at all implying he was solely responsible
Odiare. "oh-dee-air-ee." Not Odaire.It's a mispelling in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft that they doubled down on, instead of spelling it correctly from previous editions.
My dark lord is Lord Executioner who was tainted by dark powers by murder and blood worship. He becomes blessed by dark powers and the absolute power in his realm. Lawful Evil and his word is Law! The only punishment is death by beheading. “Even kings have lost their heads to the Lord Executioner!” The townspeople are blood and murder worshippers. Everything is very lawful with arranged sacrifice and blood sacrament
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! So cool to see people from a year ago, hope you still like the content as it's changed a little a bit from then!
How is it I’m both a DnD fan and a Necromantia fan but didn’t realize until now that van richten’s guide and crossing the fiery path share cover artwork
I am not sure if this is a complaint about ravenloft or satire....either way, I think that this setting, old school no filter, mess with the players till they break IS PEAK DnD. This is what has been lost in the latest editions, esp 5 and 5.5, which is why older gamers like me mock the real housedwarves of middle earth bs that is going on in the 2024 PHB.
Many of the names of places and people were dowright ridiculous and childish. Examples: Lord Hiregard, one of the bosses in a smaller realm, a malevolent ghost if I reall correctly. The small realm of Har'akir (i) for example. Even Ravenloft itself, oh and of course, Barovia sounding vaguely like Bavaria. There is many more which somewhat break immersion. Many of the vampires were just uninteresting variations of the vaguely slavic theme of vampirism, counts all. None of my players wanted ever to play in Ravenloft in 20 years. It is strange that something so famous had such a bad reputation.
Haha it's funny in my dark sun video people argue that ravenloft is more terrifying and here people argue DS is worse. I guess it's just different types of horror
I don't particularly like the backpeddling WOTC did in the recent Domains of Dread book. (Same stupid thing they did with the space monkey things in Spelljammer actually) Vistani are clearly inspired by Gypsies/Roma and let me tell you something calling them Gypsies is not offensive, they call themselves Gypsies among themselves and in conversations with others and they have no issues with this. (Tigani , from where the Szgany term in Bram Stoker's Dracula comes from and from where Vistani was derived from) Before you call me clueless or racist, I live in eastern europe where there are many many many Roma people, in my Home Town there even is a village only with Gypsies and you are free to come and visit and see for yourself how they live. Spoiler: It's not nice, and yes many of them are thieves and troublemakers sadly to say. Hell why do you think Romanians are called thieves in some countries? Most "romanians" are actually romanian born gypsies who are up to no good in other countries. To return to the Vistani, I have had no issue with them being portrayed the way that they are, the only ones that get offended are privileged white people who have nothing else to do. I hate the new trend modern media is forced to do to make everything "not offensive" Fuck that. It's a fantasy world, there have to be good and bad guys. If we eliminate everything "bad" from the game for fear of offending some group or shareholders who don't even care about it then what are we left with? Nothing interesting, just modern, "safe", consumer bullshit slop. All modern WOTC books have this problem of eliminating any potentially problematic thing from its contents because they want to sell sell sell to every brain washed customers they can get their hands on, that's why old RPG materials are always gonna be better and more fun and interesting, they where not afraid to experiment and to include "problematic" topics. Old Ravenloft was much more fun, even the 5e CoS Book is ok but the "modern wotc" fingerprints are to be seen all over it. Anyway great video! Keep it up! I loved my Curse of Strahd campaign and while I am no longer running 5e games I will try and convert my 5e books (and CoS) to an upcoming DCC c.ampaign
I'm not saying it is the case, but your defence against saying that certain things not being offensive is that they call themselves that? And to trust you because you live in the cultures behind the depictions and they are thieves and troublemakers? I am sure you have your own loved experiences, but it doesn't sound like the most objective view.
@ for sure i am far from an expert but i am more informed than the people at wotc who make these dumb decisions. I have usually found that most often it’s uninformed white guy guilt making these decisions instead of the actual minorities. Every time wotc or any big company “correct” such things it just comes out as forced and stupid.
@@exitsexamined Horror, especially Gothic horror, is made to challenge the reader/player. It's supposed to feel uncomfortable, to take you out of your safe zone. You're supposed to be weak and powerless in the face of overwhelming darkness, it makes you fighting against it all the more heroic... if that makes sense. 5e turned ravenloft into just another setting.
If you put the entire Core is actually really small, if the entire thing is the size of Germany I'd be surprised. It's like Dark Sun, the entire campaign setting is around 250 miles square.
Really? Interesting! I guess it depends on which version of Dark Sun you're playing some of them expand the scope quite a bit! Which version did you get the Core size from? 2E?
@exitsexamined I got a bunch of the earlier 5e modules and read them at least to some extent. Few were as good as CoS, the next best I can think of is Waterdeep Dragon Heist and Tomb of Annihilation. Curse of Strahd I just liked reading for all the corners. I never got to play it, as I have too much social anxiety to find a group to do so or do it myself, so I have limited play experience. I like the lore. I kind of spent my extra time collecting the information and categorising it. But I didn't even know about Odiare, that sounds fun. Considering D&D lore itself, I do think there is a narrative hole to unify the dark forces that is an undead, a fiend, or aberration, which don't work as the dark forces of the Dread and and Shadowfell, especially like Fey are to the feywild. My idea are Shades, creatures made of the Shadowfell from memories lost there. They could be mistaken as undead from being made of memory fragments but can become Hexblade patrons when they combine with a magic item connected to death and take that identity. They, in turn, become a Dark Power or part of the Dark Powers once they have created a Darklord and added to the Domains of Dread. The punishment coming in as they are made out of the memories of those the Darklord wronged, both hating the Darklords and perpetuating their cruelty onto others. In a meta sense, born from horror, getting joy from inflicting it back on those who inflict it, so ironically enable monsters to punish monsters.
10:30 changed due to woke I'm sure.. 😅 Nice vid by the way.. Ravenloft was my first ever campaign waaaay back when I was a wee lad.. never forgot how epic the adventure is.. 😊
@exitsexamined a great sandbox. Well organized. Scary encounters. Great villians. And open for your own interpretations and changes. Plus, I love horror elements in my D&D games. Now I just wish WotC would bring back the Dark Sun campaign setting.
Well I mean to be fair, if they make a ravenloft action rpg they might need to be careful that capcom doesn't pull a Nintendo and go "hey that's simillar to my franchise how dare you" granted wotc could probably fight back more easily than the indie devs nintendo likes to kick in the nuts but yeah
I love ravenloft, used to DM 2e of it an loved the Richemulot setting. I think Van richten guide 5e is such a waste. Ravenloft to me worked better with the core and clusters, ect... Now it's little domains in the shadowfell that don't have any history or life. You could live a rich full life in Richemulot 2e~3.5e and horror would only find you if you were unlucky or searched for it. Now Richemulot 5e is, AAAHHH he's got the plague run or kill him with fire!
Is dark Sun really that horrific?. Because I want to play a really horrifying setting. Like I want my characters to be like torn apart, and made monsters or have severe faces and body disfigurments.
@ that he is no longer a Wolfwere just a Werewolf and he doesn’t sing he plays the Violin. Why? Why was that necessary? He was a terrifying dark lord with charm and a nasty trick he would use with his cursed sword of berserking. I don’t care what race he is that’s irrelevant but they just overhauled the character for no reason
@@matthewbennett1972 They did this to a lot of the darklords in 5E, it's a travesty. They even had several great ideas that just fell short because the writers dropped the ball. Viktra for example could have easily been Eva Mordenheim trying to bring her dead adopted mother back to life.
@@matthewbennett1972 This. For an example of what the book did right (imo), let's look at the domain of Valachan. They removed Urik von Karkhov by killing him, and having a new darklord take over, so to speak. They ended the story of one darklord, began the tale of a new one, and continued the domain's story, instead of just doing lazy deletions of what they didn't like.
Being a D&D and MTG player, Ravenloft and Innistrad have always been my favorite realms to explore. Thanks Otto for diving in to this for everyone 🤘
Hey thanks so much for checking it out! Innistrad seems really interesting but I haven't checked it out so much yet, how do you think it compares to Ravenloft?
Cheers, thanks for the link👏
@@exitsexaminedthey’re not intended to be the same thing, but they are intended to fill the same purpose. Ravenloft is the gothic horror setting of D&D, and Innistrad is the Gothic Horror setting of MTG! It’s probably most similar to Barovia out of every dark domain. You could lift many things from curse of Strahd and run them in an Innistrad setting, and vice versa 😁
I just watched your Dark Sun video and am loving the D&D content. It’s great as a newer DM to have someone break down different worlds so I can steal from them. I’m hoping you could do a Dragonlance video sometime so I can learn more about the history of D&D.
Hey! I've actually done a Dragonlance video! Haha one of my personal favorite settings. It was just slightly older so not quite as long as my more recent videos, but glad you enjoy them!
Something to clarify; Masque of the Red Death is not a Domain of Dread, but an entirely separate Gothic Horror setting based on the idea of roleplaying in Victorian Era Earth secretly being conquered from the shadows by an eldritch entity that may be connected to the Dark Powers of Ravenloft, resulting in magic and monsters existing in the shadows. The two gamelines do cross over, at least two canon Darklords were born on Gothic Earth (as the world of Masque of the Red Death is known), but they're not the *same* setting.
Great point! I think I added a note about exactly that on screen during that section if you were listening on audio only! But good to clarify it in the comments as well!
Well...kinda. The "Red Death" was one of Ravenloft's Dark Powers (very different from the Dark Lords). "He" was exiled by his peers for being tainted with evil - literally, not a good thing. After banishment, the Red Death drifted aimlessly (think Phantom Zone) becoming more and more evil and twisted by isolation - until he was "freed" by the ancient Egyptians and yanked into the world that would become Gothic Earth.
@@williamconnors1510 If you look at the back stories for Maligno and Captain van Riese, the Darklords of Odiare and the Sea of Sorrows respectively, they're explicitly stated to have come from Gothic Earth's Italy and Gothic Earth's Netherlands respectively.
To provide a simple summary of the sourcebooks/timeline... Ravenloft started as the adventure module I6: Castle Ravenloft, which is basically "what if Dracula's Castle was a D&D dungeon", with the addition of the random teleportal mist banks and unavoidable poison mist originally used in X2: Castle Amber to force players to begin and run the adventure respectively. It was followed by I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, another adventure module. These then inspired Ravenloft the setting, which initially began orientated for "Weekend in Hell" gaming style (parties are dropped into a random domain, which functions as a glorified dungeon, then leave upon completing it), but slowly evolved into a full campaign setting in its own right, ala Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms. This 2nd edition version began with the "Black Box" (Ravenloft: Realms of Terror), then was revised with the "Red Box" (Ravenloft Campaign Setting) following the Grand Conjunction adventures, and this was then revised again with Domains of Dread, the first hardcover book version of the setting, which was set after the Grim Requiem adventures. In 3rd edition, White Wolf (via its D&D sub-branch Sword & Sorcery) wrote the Ravenloft 3rd Edition campaign setting, a continuation of the Domains of Dread iteration of Ravenloft - Wizards of the Coast, meanwhile, instead did Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, a 3.5 reimagining of the original I6 that ignored all of the 2e and Sword & Sorcery lore. In 4e, Ravenloft was dropped as a setting, although "Domains of Dread" as a concept were ported into the new cosmology. Finally, 5e gave us Curse of Strahd, yet another reimagining of I6, followed by "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", a brand new take on the Ravenloft setting that clumsily apes the 2e/S&S setting, but is its own distinct setting.
Pathfinder has a setting in which the original Ravenloft module would fit into quite well.
And this is why we run older lore- sword and sorcery and before. Because that is the good version of the setting. ✨
@@Renly. Truth
@@VikingMale Yeah they have two whole Paths (Carrion Crown and Strange Aeons) set in Ustalav which is basically Pathfinders answer to Ravenloft.
Really great stuff man, ravenloft is such a cool setting and I’ll eat up any content about it
Hey I just think it's so cool that TH-cam is a place where I can put out a 45 minute in depth video on Ravenloft and it finds people like you find it! Thanks for watching though, seriously!
Hour of the Raven is a great source of lore content.
Seriously, we need a Baldur's Gate style game set in Ravenloft.
Very enjoyable. Thanks for the hard work in putting this whole thing together!
Hey thanks so much for watching! This one was a good amount of work because there is just so much ravenloft content, but it's always fun to untangle the sticky history of DnD!
As a hardcore Ravenloft fan 3/3.5 Edition Ravenloft is it's golden age, don't let anybody else tell you otherwise.
Yes the OG module is absolutely wonderful and foundational for the setting. But if we are talking about the setting as a whole it was never more cohesive than after the Gazetteers were released.
2nd edition had lots of good ideas... But really struggled to make the setting its own thing rather than a place the PC's escaped from. The main setting was revised twice after the original black box release during 2nd edition. And near the end of 2nd edition it was inching truly twoards becoming it's own setting.
3rd edition solidified Ravenloft as a place, but unfortunately, two things happened. #1 There were internal fights at Swords & Sorcery(Which was a subdivision of White Wolf.) over narrative and stewardship of the setting causing the best writers for the setting to leave. #2 WoTC has ignored all the amazing worldbuilding from 3rd edition, and did Expedition to Castle Ravenloft during the end of 3.5, ignored Ravenloft during 4th Edition except for the one board game, and basically rebooted Ravenloft totally for 5th edition completely changing the lore.
I don't hate everything about 5th edition Ravenloft, there were some cool ideas that I will steal for any Ravenloft stuff I do in the future but for the most part in my eyes Ravenloft died after 3.5
My Ravenloft world is a love letter to all the Universal Classic Monsters.
The County of Corvinus, a misty, heavily-wooded valley in the mountains, is the site of the town of Drakkmoor. Thousands of years ago, there was a clash between Green and Black Dragons, and their corpses left a patchwork of thick woodlands, foul bogs, surprisingly fertile fields, and barren moors. The local Baron is secretly an Alpha Werewolf; the local Vampire Lord Count has been imprisoned and replaced with a paid actor; his castle has been taken over by a cabal of criminal geniuses from foreign lands: you have Dr. Frankenstein and Praetorious characters, a megalomaniac that turned himself permanently invisible theough nonmagical means, a disfigured bard with a penchant for elaborate traps and stealthy murder, and an alchemist with a monsterous (and chemically-induced) alter-ego. This cabal keeps numerous monsters imprisoned in the dungeons to experiment on, and they rob graves and commit murders in order to build flesh golems. The also import a ton of Egyptian artifacts, including a grimoire and a locked sarcophagus.
Rounding things out is a local stagecoach driver: basically the Gillman if he had the personality of Dr. Zoidberg.
If there's a mention of Spelljammer, I might eat my hat.
This is a spoiler... but the module, Crystal Spheres, ends with the villain being sucked into the Demiplane of Dread
@docnecrotic I played that and ... It. Was. Epic! (Total party kill, but we were all just loving it) The DM ruled that we got pulled in as well, to clarify.
LMAO I thought I was the only one.
@stevensuit3395 you aren't alone. Stay safe in that Flow, my fellow jammer.
My table is in the middle of our first Curse of Strahd playthrough and it's been amazing
I've taken some liberties with the 5e lore and integrated a health portion of the 4e lore. Next, I'm planning on deep diving into the 2e Ravenloft lore so I can build the Dark Powers. Two of my players have already inadvertently made pacts with a couple of Dark Powers
The campaign has been incredible so far, and it's one of our favorite settings
I think everyone remembers their first Ravenloft campaign it's always so much fun! Always gotta love those inadvertent pacts haha, hope you guys have a blast with it
If you're moving from 5e into 2 e flavor you're going to find yourself movie from Kitty funland to actual Gothic horror. Death and Insanity should be on the table ultimately the end. Those dark powers should eventually consume the players. When you're playing ravenloft keep Cthulhu in mind.
All your videos are great and I have enjoyed them enough to watch a few of them multiple times! I'm eagerly hoping (awaiting?) a Spelljammer episode, please!?
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! I will 100% do spelljammer maybe for my next DnD video but probably sometime early next year. I actually never had much experience with spelljammer in person so I need to do a to of research!
@ sounds great! And I’m also diving back into the setting myself. I’m sure you’ll do great! Happy holidays!
May I say again, I love your channel
Hey thank you so much for the kind words! Just so cool to find other people out there into the same random mashup of fantasy / DnD / YA as me!
“Do you like dying?” Been there done that, rather nice actually “ how about being trapped in an endless cycle of torment, misery and despair with ironic punishments from malevolent forces beyond human understanding; all while you are trapped in an unending demiplane trying it’s very best to make you become part of the nightmare” it’s Wednesday and I’m suicidal so…
5th edition Ravenloft is very much a reboot of the setting... one that I can have fun playing through, but still feel like the original was sooo much better.
I can see that! What made the original better you think?
This setting always makes my brain go brrrrrr, I ADORE this setting, and just like the question 'what is a vampire doing here?', I found myself asking those very same questions Tracy did with decisions made in Curse of Strahd, like, I created a whole culture entwined with Barovia, as a separate domain just on Dusk Elves, and the association of amber and the dark powers in newer content sets me down a path of creative no return!
That sounds so cool! Would honestly love to play in a Dusk Elf setting haha if you ever make it public let me know!
Brilliant video thanks a ton for putting it together
Hey, appreciate that! It was my pleasure and so much fun to learn more about the surprisingly huge setting
From the beginning module to the OG Box set, this was synonymous with edge of your seat freaking the crap out of your players. I really felt that box set Realms of Terror had the right amount of depth without being led around by the nose. It really became a chessboard of political Intrigue where my players were not pawns but Queens❤ And the near limitless powers of each Darklord became null an void once the border to a NEW Domain was traversed. The best was informing the group that it was a little foggy up ahead😂😂😂 whether it was nothing or perhaps a return to some Darklord they left with a bargin unfulfilled. Thank you Tracy and Laura❤
Since we're talking D&D campaigns, can we get a video on Castle Amber? I think it's even a demiplane. And it really goes places.
A curse of strahd campaign i briefly was apart of was really altered by the DM.
Strahd himself wasn't a vampire that was pineing over a lost love, but infact a wizard/paladin that was secretly serving a ultra powerful fallen god that gave strahd all the powers of a vampire, but none of the weaknesses.
Strahd was gonna release him from his prison, betray him, then take all his powers for himself.
Sounds like an awesome campaign haha where do I sign up?
@exitsexamined wish I coulda finished that campaign but work got in the way.
Now 1 cool battle we had:
The hag in the windmill wasn't actually a hag but instead a balrog demon in hiding as a human.
Outta 6 players, only 2 were still standing. We only won cause of legendary weapon we had that dealt 2d10 damage to evil, extra 2d6 damage to demonic/devil enemies, and at the cost of a permanent con damage, 1d20 damage per sacrificed con.
This was great! I DMed short sessions into the Mists twice this year, including once to the Dark Sun/Ravenloft crossover setting.
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! How was the Dark Sun Ravenloft crossover? Sounds wild!
Dark sun has entered the chat
As a long time player of the MMORPG Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) i can heartily recommend their rendition of the Ravenloft setting and campaign: It's dark, deadly, extremely well voice acted and a ton of fun! That content pack (must be brought, although the base game is Free2Play) is available for players Level 10-12 or 29-34 (Epic Levels). If you're looking for an authentic D&D 35 Edition video game to enjoy, and don't mind slightly outdated graphics, I really recommends DDO. :-)
Cool video.
Just a quick question did you use The Tango Saloon's Transylvania album cover as a thumbnail purposefully or just an accident?
Funny. My main D&D character’s name is Raven, and she’s the personal guard of a vampire queen. She also has nightmares that foresee bad things happening. Didn’t even know about this beforehand.
I gotta say bud, youre pretty entertaining. Subbed.
Hey thanks for watching and enjoying, just cool there are other people out there into all the wacky DnD settings!
As a Forever Curse of Strahd DM that started with Ravenloft 2e, I approve of this video.
Having played D&D 5e since it came out Curse of Strahd has been my favorite campaign, though I haven't really had the chance to really explore it the way I would personally enjoy doing so. This video helped me understand far more of it's history and honestly I like a lot of the more complex lore. Though it is more of a fun idea kind of lore than something that would be useful all the time.
Glad it could help! It can be surprisingly complicated to understand the different editions and lore because of the sheer amount of just stuff out there, so glad this could help in some small way! Do you think you'll try a Ravenloft proper campaign?
@@exitsexamined I think it would be fun to play in a Ravenloft proper campaign, I don't think I could run it myself. I would probably run a Curse of Strahd game with a strong focus on exploration and a teasing Strahd who awaits to see a challenge.
That photo you're showing isn't Tracy and Laura. It's Tracy and Margaret Weis.
Oh my god! I pulled it from my Dragonlance video without even thinking, oh boy... ok time to update the description
@exitsexamined hey, mistakes happen. Just wanted to point it out for you.
No thanks so much for that, glad you pointed it the first day it was published, I updated the description!
Please do more D&D content, these are great! 🙏
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! I'm planning on it. Which series would you want to see covered?
My first Dnd campaign was Ravenloft homebrew! I love the setting so much, it's so much fun to play around in. My character was a tiefling necromancer who reanimated things with *glitter*. Yes it had a Rocky Horror flavour.
haha I love that! Would have loved to play in your Rocky Horror campaign. I think we can all agree we need more tiefling necromancers!
Jesus christ...
5easy is not Ravenloft. Rocky horror is a costume show. Where is the horror? For a 5e game what you described sounds fine. For myself I prefer the original tone when it was actually Gothic horror. Also The Rocky horror Picture Show is one of the greatest films ever made. But for me that doesn't make a good dungeons & dragons setting. At least not in what should be a horror story.
Omg omg omg… 🤦🏻♂️
I think you missed the pt of Ravenloft. Not saying that a Rocky Horror style game is bad, but its NOT a Ravenloft HB cause things like glitter wouldnt mesh. Sure it might good fun, but we need to be clear about what each thing is and is not. Its important to truly convey the concepts.
I had a ton of the Ravenloft stuff including the main and some of the guides: The Created was cool. Man that was a fun time.
Do you still have them? I tried to track some of the obscure 2e stuff and some of it's hard to find!
@exitsexamined No... I really wish I did. It was all left in my parents home that got lost in a fire 😔
Depressing. I had a ton of 2nd Edition stuff.
I was rabid for the books... Kept up on the release schedule for them and read as many as I could get my hands on... I really liked "Vampire of the Mists" (of course), "Knight of the Black Rose", "I Strahd: Memories of a Vampire", ""I Strahd 2: The War with Azalin", "Enemy Within" and of course "King of the Dead" plus "Lord of the Necropolis" which went into a LOT more about the lich Azalin plus those pesky "dark powers" and how there might be multiple factions among them.
5Easy is kiddy funland. I prefer my original box sets where Strahd is an eternal prisoner in his own hell and can never really be defeated. Where the land itself is the true evil. Instead of a theme park with fun jump scares this should feel more like an old school horror film. Madness and death I should definitely be on the table. To a much higher degree than any other lands you may play in. With the possible exception of the Dark Sun setting.
I watch a lot of dungeons and dragons I always see the dark Powers playlist some fun little addition to your character to play around in enhance yourself with. But I think the truth fun is when those powers are played as an evil that will eventually consume you.
The best setting content, a la WW and TSR, gets washed under the current WotC shadowfell slop. It's truly sad. But hey, it's up to us fans to preserve the settings and introduce newbies to it.
As a GM trying to run the CoS module right now, I can say that the ridiculously large amount of material for Ravenloft is indeed ... overwhelming! I guess that is what happens when a community goes nuts for a 40+ year old campaign setting.
Developing an impressive archive guy🤌💯, I never got around to checking out Ravenloft so looking for some audiobooks to absorb🙌🤙
Hey man honestly wouldn't be able to make archives like it without people like you! Audiobooks were tricky to find for this, although most are on Audible! You can also find "I straud" on youtube for free and a ton of people consider that one of the defining books for the setting. th-cam.com/video/t2kKmTarvTQ/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=npc1
The book I Strahd based on Ravenloft by P.N. Elrod is great.
The two Channels you mentioned hour of the raven and travel agent are amazing. They offer basically a bottomless well of ideas,lore,and atmosphere. I've been to both habitually over the I years.
"Wizards of the Coast have pivoted away from..."
Anything resembling a company I want to give money to.
Pity.
I do miss 2nd edition d&d so much.
haha I guess the good thing about it is that we can always go back to it! What about it do you miss?
@exitsexamined The mystery, the adventure of it, but most of all the friends siting around the table.
This video was really good! Thank u
Hey thanks so much for the kind words and watching it!
Having DM'ed the two first OG campaigns I would refer to them for more information into "the darkness". Strahd (according to ravenloft 2 house on gryphon hill) was a alchemist/sage. He was quite normal before settling into barovia. He was obsessed with this apparatus he was building which was designed to separate a soul from it's good and evil counterparts. House on gryphon hill was designed to be merged with the first OG adnd ravenloft module. The mist would have players slipping in and out of time. At one point it would be in the present with the dark vampire embraced strahd grip on barovia. At another point it would be in the past with the scientist Strahd building his soul separation device. I personally found it fun to incorporate the idea of it being a occulus infernum strahd accidentally built (eye into hell)
This is educational! I like it!
Describing the history and world of Kenshi when?
Have you considered a video on the TTRPG called Torg? It's a fascinating setting in my opinion. It's certainly past its prime, but I have fond memories.
Sounds really interesting and I've been itching to do other TTRPGs outside of DnD! By past its prime - do you mean there's been like nothing going on with it in recent years or just slowed down?
@exitsexamined apparently it has been gotten some recent adaptation, but from what I see it is just a shell of what I played as a teen in the 90s. I can point at the Wiki, but I'll gush a tiny bit here.
Short version: Earth is being invaded by other realities. When these other realities make a strong enough connection, their paradigm begins to merge with and then overwhelm ours. Paradigms are things like Gothic horror, British isles high fantasy, the Cyberpapacy, and America is mostly a dinosaur and lizardperson filled jungle crossed with WWII technology.
There's also the Drama Deck, which was a set of physical cards that you could hold and play to change the game mechanics in various ways.
Sorry if I've just sent you down a rabbit hole, though I hope you enjoy it if you do fall in.
I'm playing a sun soul monk in a Curse of Strahd run. I also have a fairy paladin from a separate campaign that encountered Strahd. He staked him with his lance and made earrings out of his fangs.
Sounds awesome where do I sign up to play in your campaign haha
There actually about a dozen novels on the settings. Dont really play 5ed, but it was always clear there would be a death in the group when someone brought a rogue or a bard. When going to Ravenloft, you really need to do your homework
Go and read Knight of the Black Rose, probably one of the best Fantasy novels ever dealing with our favorite Death Knight Soth. Unfortunately, today it‘s considered non-canon, but well worth the read.
My favorite game ive ever ran involved mixing all of the domains of dread together, i even made strahd a no so evil guy that had to join the heroes and fight a greater evil
Sounds awesome haha where do I sign up to join
Fun fact: inspired by brahm strokers dracula, Ravenloft inspired castlevania, Van Helsing (alongside dracula), and many more other pieces of media.
You mentioned Ravenloft as part of Neverwinter, but didn't talk about it as an expansion to Dungeons and Dragons Online, which is fantastic. It's my favorite expansion in the game with quest lines to gather the Icon of Ravenloft and the Sun Sword as prerequisites before you can do the raid to fight Strahd.
Very cool channel! I would love to see some Pathfinder content. There was also a series of magic the gathering novels. I think it was weatherlite or something. Those were kind of neat but then they just abandoned those paperbacks.
Hey thanks so much! Pathfinder looks interesting and I put it on the list! What about do you think would be good to mention / is interesting about it?
After many years researching the Dark Powers, I think I have discovered at least a hint toward their identities and motivations. It's nothing concrete yet, and maybe this will prove to be another red herring, but recent evidence suggests one of the Powers may be named Steve. As for motivations... Nothing Ever Really Pleases Steve
DnD’s version of the balkans
Honestly kind of yeah haha especially with the whole war background on the original RL setting
Now it’s gonna have generation gap with those who know Prisoner of Zenda and from Balkan Internet memes.
Former being inspiration for Ravenloft, Latveria (since early Marvel and DC tend to make homages to pulp genre) and maybe Borat.
Im not sure if anyone else mentioned here in the comments but the Neverwinter Nights 1 Ravenloft server "Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist" is probably the most active server of the game, even reaching 3 digits of players (last when I checked around 2022). Its a heavy RP server, never tried it tho.
No one mentioned it before that's interesting! Good to know for people out there
@exitsexamined thx for the reply! yeah its amazing how active the nwn community is even after all these years, when I saw 112 concurrent players the fist time I was shocked, the 2nd most active player had like 32 at most. Great game, will probably try it after im done with bg3
The Sword and Sorcery years were my favorite. The writers were fans of the setting.
Awesome video. Just a heads up; I think whenever you mentioned tracy and Laura Hickman and show a pic, you’re actually showing Tracy with Margarette Weiss. Not Laura, his wife.
Yes thank you for catching that, I added a correction note for this awhile back first thing in the description, I just grabbed the picture from my Dragonlance folder without even thinking haha dumb mistake!
For some reason; never seem to got “street fight in haunted city over magic rocks” module or adaptation.
I know I am referencing Mordheim, but DnD never seem to make one for Ravenloft or Strahd setting…not even board game craze of 4E era.
Started with B3 and X2 scenarios..being trapped until mystery solved.
Now speaking of adaptation, part of me now wonder if Cazador and maybe Act 2 was homage to Ravenloft (even involving not!Romani and Act 2 can be interpreted as place that got stuck in Ravenloft).
Interesting! In BG3 right? Maybe some elements! Still would do anything for a bg3 mod that was proper Ravenloft haha
Yes, Baldur’s Gate 3.
Like Cazador and Gur feel like homage on Strahd and Vistani (but with monster hunting instead of Romani in Vampire movies).
And Act 2 feel like Dark Domain.
WOTC has altered a lot of the classic stories and details of Ravenloft to appease the woke & overly sensitive demographic of players. They've been making such changes since the early 2000's. There's a reason why I6 is still played by tens of thousands of players each year. Its a classic story that has only gotten better over the years, played as it was originally designed, written and presented. I bought my first copy of the module back in the late 80's and still have it to this day. Ravenloft is dark, cold and unforgiving by its very nature. Strahd is a ruthless, highly intelligent and cunning master of his realm who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. His evil & cruelty are without equal even if he's trapped within an endless circle of fate crafted by his own actions. Voldemort should count himself lucky that he was never taken by the mists, bringing him into the lands of Ravenloft and into direct conflict with Strahd.
Something cannot be both beloved and infamous. Something infamous is well known for being hated or reviled. Something beloved would be famous. So few people seem to understand that famous and infamous have opposite meanings. They’re not interchangeable.
Alright language police, infamous and beloved are in fact **NOT** mutually exclusive. There are plenty of villains in fiction that are infamous, but also beloved. Hell even antiheroes like Deadpool are both infamous and beloved. Hell, plenty of things are beloved BECAUSE of how infamous they are.
Vecna made out of it alive, reached divinity, and possibly tilted the axis of the universe out of its original balance in the process
Strahd is an incel, that is literally the opposite of being a gigachad.
I ran a Ravenloft one-shot on Halloween (I took inspiration from the Bloodborne DLC and ran it in Lamordia), and have been wondering what to do for a part 2. How timely it is that this video gets released so I can immerse myself in Ravenloft!
Ravenloft + Bloodborne sounds incredible haha. If you ever need players for that let me know!
I have a LOT of the 2nd Edition Ravenloft supplements but not all.
I do, however, have every single Spelljammer supplement.
I really want cover Spelljammer supplement but I need to do so much research on it because I never touched it! How was the history of Spelljammer do you think it would make an interesting one of these videos?
Was there ever a sequel to vampire of the mists?
Strahd is a blatant take on Dracula, and in the book, Dracula has the Szgany, which were his Gypsy servants. I think the Vistani we're nothing more than a take on that. At least originally. I feel they were treated either stereotypically or not based on the strengths and prejudices of the individual writer who was writing them.
That photograph isn’t of Tracy and Laura Hickman. That photo is of Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss.
Leviathan’s realm from Hellraiser, or a steampunk labyrinthine factory, full of twisted workers of various forms.
Sounds actually like a great addition to the planescape universe haha
Fantastic video, but I feel your summary of 5e Curse of Strahd really downplayed the huge involvement of Chris Perkins in the project. That was his baby, but I'm not at all implying he was solely responsible
There was a lot to cover even at 45 minutes haha, maybe in the future I'll do a longer video covering all aspects in more detail!
@@exitsexaminedFair enough! Thanks for the insight 👍
Odiare. "oh-dee-air-ee." Not Odaire.It's a mispelling in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft that they doubled down on, instead of spelling it correctly from previous editions.
Dark Sun is worse because it's a choice between Survival or Good.
I think both are pretty terrible in their own special fun ways 【≽ܫ≼】
My Favorite! I wish BG3 was set here instead. Any of them.
Well yeah with the success of BG3 hopefully we do finally get way more DnD games, a bunch of the settings haven't seen games since the 90's
My dark lord is Lord Executioner who was tainted by dark powers by murder and blood worship. He becomes blessed by dark powers and the absolute power in his realm. Lawful Evil and his word is Law! The only punishment is death by beheading. “Even kings have lost their heads to the Lord Executioner!” The townspeople are blood and murder worshippers. Everything is very lawful with arranged sacrifice and blood sacrament
An episode on Guardians of Ga’Hoole would be dope!
Loving your content btw, was shocked when I saw the subscriber count. I was here before the channel blew up!!
Hey thanks so much for the kind words! So cool to see people from a year ago, hope you still like the content as it's changed a little a bit from then!
How is it I’m both a DnD fan and a Necromantia fan but didn’t realize until now that van richten’s guide and crossing the fiery path share cover artwork
Started DMing in 79. By 83, I was writing my own.
Very Poe/Lovecraft/Bierce/Stoker
Oh you make your own ravenloft settings you mean? Sounds really fun, I never had the chance to try but maybe one day!
@exitsexamined created an entire world. Still running
I am not sure if this is a complaint about ravenloft or satire....either way, I think that this setting, old school no filter, mess with the players till they break IS PEAK DnD. This is what has been lost in the latest editions, esp 5 and 5.5, which is why older gamers like me mock the real housedwarves of middle earth bs that is going on in the 2024 PHB.
Would love a Ravenloft Castlevania mod
Oh how did I not think of that, that would be awesome! Someones had to have made something like it over the years
Many of the names of places and people were dowright ridiculous and childish. Examples: Lord Hiregard, one of the bosses in a smaller realm, a malevolent ghost if I reall correctly. The small realm of Har'akir (i) for example. Even Ravenloft itself, oh and of course, Barovia sounding vaguely like Bavaria. There is many more which somewhat break immersion. Many of the vampires were just uninteresting variations of the vaguely slavic theme of vampirism, counts all.
None of my players wanted ever to play in Ravenloft in 20 years. It is strange that something so famous had such a bad reputation.
The most horrifying to me is still Dark Sun though
Haha it's funny in my dark sun video people argue that ravenloft is more terrifying and here people argue DS is worse. I guess it's just different types of horror
I don't particularly like the backpeddling WOTC did in the recent Domains of Dread book. (Same stupid thing they did with the space monkey things in Spelljammer actually)
Vistani are clearly inspired by Gypsies/Roma and let me tell you something calling them Gypsies is not offensive, they call themselves Gypsies among themselves and in conversations with others and they have no issues with this. (Tigani , from where the Szgany term in Bram Stoker's Dracula comes from and from where Vistani was derived from) Before you call me clueless or racist, I live in eastern europe where there are many many many Roma people, in my Home Town there even is a village only with Gypsies and you are free to come and visit and see for yourself how they live. Spoiler: It's not nice, and yes many of them are thieves and troublemakers sadly to say. Hell why do you think Romanians are called thieves in some countries? Most "romanians" are actually romanian born gypsies who are up to no good in other countries.
To return to the Vistani, I have had no issue with them being portrayed the way that they are, the only ones that get offended are privileged white people who have nothing else to do. I hate the new trend modern media is forced to do to make everything "not offensive" Fuck that. It's a fantasy world, there have to be good and bad guys. If we eliminate everything "bad" from the game for fear of offending some group or shareholders who don't even care about it then what are we left with? Nothing interesting, just modern, "safe", consumer bullshit slop.
All modern WOTC books have this problem of eliminating any potentially problematic thing from its contents because they want to sell sell sell to every brain washed customers they can get their hands on, that's why old RPG materials are always gonna be better and more fun and interesting, they where not afraid to experiment and to include "problematic" topics. Old Ravenloft was much more fun, even the 5e CoS Book is ok but the "modern wotc" fingerprints are to be seen all over it.
Anyway great video! Keep it up! I loved my Curse of Strahd campaign and while I am no longer running 5e games I will try and convert my 5e books (and CoS) to an upcoming DCC c.ampaign
I'm not saying it is the case, but your defence against saying that certain things not being offensive is that they call themselves that? And to trust you because you live in the cultures behind the depictions and they are thieves and troublemakers?
I am sure you have your own loved experiences, but it doesn't sound like the most objective view.
@ for sure i am far from an expert but i am more informed than the people at wotc who make these dumb decisions.
I have usually found that most often it’s uninformed white guy guilt making these decisions instead of the actual minorities.
Every time wotc or any big company “correct” such things it just comes out as forced and stupid.
Ravenloft was completely neutered for 5e.
What made it so neutered? You think like with the brutality?
@@exitsexamined Horror, especially Gothic horror, is made to challenge the reader/player. It's supposed to feel uncomfortable, to take you out of your safe zone. You're supposed to be weak and powerless in the face of overwhelming darkness, it makes you fighting against it all the more heroic... if that makes sense. 5e turned ravenloft into just another setting.
If you put the entire Core is actually really small, if the entire thing is the size of Germany I'd be surprised. It's like Dark Sun, the entire campaign setting is around 250 miles square.
Really? Interesting! I guess it depends on which version of Dark Sun you're playing some of them expand the scope quite a bit! Which version did you get the Core size from? 2E?
The first module was the best.
I read the 5e Curse of Strahd module book back to front.
The books really are gorgeous! Did you ever get any others? The 2E has it's own awesome style
@exitsexamined I got a bunch of the earlier 5e modules and read them at least to some extent. Few were as good as CoS, the next best I can think of is Waterdeep Dragon Heist and Tomb of Annihilation. Curse of Strahd I just liked reading for all the corners.
I never got to play it, as I have too much social anxiety to find a group to do so or do it myself, so I have limited play experience.
I like the lore. I kind of spent my extra time collecting the information and categorising it. But I didn't even know about Odiare, that sounds fun.
Considering D&D lore itself, I do think there is a narrative hole to unify the dark forces that is an undead, a fiend, or aberration, which don't work as the dark forces of the Dread and and Shadowfell, especially like Fey are to the feywild. My idea are Shades, creatures made of the Shadowfell from memories lost there. They could be mistaken as undead from being made of memory fragments but can become Hexblade patrons when they combine with a magic item connected to death and take that identity. They, in turn, become a Dark Power or part of the Dark Powers once they have created a Darklord and added to the Domains of Dread. The punishment coming in as they are made out of the memories of those the Darklord wronged, both hating the Darklords and perpetuating their cruelty onto others. In a meta sense, born from horror, getting joy from inflicting it back on those who inflict it, so ironically enable monsters to punish monsters.
Ah yes, Strahd van Zaravich.
10:30 changed due to woke I'm sure.. 😅
Nice vid by the way..
Ravenloft was my first ever campaign waaaay back when I was a wee lad.. never forgot how epic the adventure is.. 😊
CoS is the best module for 5e hands down.
Haha yeah I heard that all the time while researching! What makes it the best you thikn?
@exitsexamined a great sandbox. Well organized. Scary encounters. Great villians. And open for your own interpretations and changes. Plus, I love horror elements in my D&D games.
Now I just wish WotC would bring back the Dark Sun campaign setting.
thanks
What happened to Ravenloft? WOTC got their hands on it, and took a giant sh!t on it.
Well I mean to be fair, if they make a ravenloft action rpg they might need to be careful that capcom doesn't pull a Nintendo and go "hey that's simillar to my franchise how dare you" granted wotc could probably fight back more easily than the indie devs nintendo likes to kick in the nuts but yeah
Sadly, even the Van Richten Compendium wasn't one book but actually 3. Too much to put in one, I guess.
You should look info paksenarrion by Elizabeth moon
That series looks right up my alley! I put it on the list, what about do you think is interesting?
I love ravenloft, used to DM 2e of it an loved the Richemulot setting. I think Van richten guide 5e is such a waste. Ravenloft to me worked better with the core and clusters, ect... Now it's little domains in the shadowfell that don't have any history or life. You could live a rich full life in Richemulot 2e~3.5e and horror would only find you if you were unlucky or searched for it. Now Richemulot 5e is, AAAHHH he's got the plague run or kill him with fire!
10:25 Ahhh, a misinformed tourist i see.
Meh. Amateur.
Dark sun is DnD most horrifying setting. Ravenloft is horryfying only in pun sense.
Is dark Sun really that horrific?. Because I want to play a really horrifying setting. Like I want my characters to be like torn apart, and made monsters or have severe faces and body disfigurments.
@@MishaDalila Slavery, canniblasim, giant hostile insectoid fauna and postapocalyptic inhumane world insead of bleh ima 80's dracula boo!
@ Thanks! 👍👍
@ feels like sarcasm)
I don’t like some of the changes made to existing Dark lords. Especially Harkan Lukas
I think that's totally fair! What about Harkan Lukas changes didn't you like?
@ that he is no longer a Wolfwere just a Werewolf and he doesn’t sing he plays the Violin. Why? Why was that necessary? He was a terrifying dark lord with charm and a nasty trick he would use with his cursed sword of berserking. I don’t care what race he is that’s irrelevant but they just overhauled the character for no reason
@@matthewbennett1972 They did this to a lot of the darklords in 5E, it's a travesty. They even had several great ideas that just fell short because the writers dropped the ball. Viktra for example could have easily been Eva Mordenheim trying to bring her dead adopted mother back to life.
@ the sex swapped Vlad Drakov too. Can we have representation without the need to change existing characters?
@@matthewbennett1972 This. For an example of what the book did right (imo), let's look at the domain of Valachan. They removed Urik von Karkhov by killing him, and having a new darklord take over, so to speak. They ended the story of one darklord, began the tale of a new one, and continued the domain's story, instead of just doing lazy deletions of what they didn't like.
Comment for the algorithm
Strahd is not a giga chad, he is an incel, that is basically the opposite of it.
Uhmm...He's got 3 wifes and a 15 yrs old maid.
Lol yes I read your mind lol
are you implying that Bela Lugosi wasnt sexy!!
Oh my god that is the LAST thing I meant to imply haha Lugosi was the sexiest