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D&D: Take A Look At Van Richten’s Guide To Ravenloft’s Table Of Contents

3 Minute Read
May 2 2021

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is due out May 18th, and that means previews are already making their way into the wild. Check out the table of contents.

The Mists of Ravenloft open up to reveal a glimpse of the coming horrors due out May 18th. Come and get a look at exactly what awaits you in the upcoming book as we take a look at the table of contents. The table of contents was spotted on Twitter via Lysa Penrose and you can get a look at the full table:

For those of you who want a closer look, here’s the picture in full:

There’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, we now know what Domains of Dread are in there, as well as the name of the Darklords within them, and wow, what evocative names we can see. You’re likely to be familiar with Barovia and its dread vampire darklord, Count Strahd von Zarovich, but what about Bluetspur and THE GOD-BRAIN. That’s probably a cosmic horror domain if I’ve ever heard of one.

Other Domains include Borca with its dual darklords, Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya, a domain known only as The Carnival with Isolde and Nepentha–if you’re looking for a word you last read in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven–the alltime favorite named Dread Domain Darkon which sounds like a bad movie that Sean Connery was in in the 70s.

There’s also:

  • Dementlieu
  • Falkvnia
  • Har’Akir
  • Hazlan
  • I’Cath
  • Kalakeri
  • Kartakass
  • Lamordia
  • Mordent
  • Richemulot
  • Tepest
  • Valachan

And those are just the detailed ones, there are several others that get smaller writeups, including some that look like they’re specific to Eberron, like Cyre 1313, the Mourning Rail–which is a reference to the Day of Mourning, a terrible event at the end of Eberron’s Last War.

Other fun things in the book, new rules for creating your character, and a new trait called Dark Gifts, which are kind of like feats but they come with a Dark Bargain. There are also some known Mist Wanderers–people who are trapped in Ravenloft’s Mists but who aren’t necessarily bound to a Dread Domain and tormented. This is where figures like the eponymous Rudolph van Helsing Richten appear.

Also in the book you’ll get a swath of new monsters–30 pages worth, with some mythological figures from all over the spectrum. There’s Jiangshi:

There are Nosferatu and Strigoi–and my favorite, Relentless Killers which include Relentless Slasher or Relentless Juggernaut, presumably these are for slasher horror movie style stories if you’re looking for a Jason or a Freddy to vs.

We’ll be sure to see more as launch day gets close, so stay tuned.

Happy Adventuring!

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Author: J.R. Zambrano
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