Café de Nuit

To be clear: I'm in no way arguing against Jack Karn as a jackalwere. Much the contrary, in fact. His jackalwere nature is one of the very few canonical tidbits that we are given, so I feel strongly that any rewrite should retain that (regardless of how he became a jackalwere).

No, the bit that ...

So, in addition to revisiting Verbrek and Farelle, I decided I wanted to play around with some VERY OLD DnD lore.

Waaaaay back in the halcyon days of 1990, the Mystara's Hollow World subsetting introduced a group known as the Blacklore Elves. Without going into several rabbit holes, they were the ...

I really like that the darklord is a spitefull coward.


Thanks! I figured that it would be something different, since few if any darklords are in such a low position in society. It also makes things interesting because he's more likely to get the villagers to turn against the players, which is a ...

I've been going back to look over older domains, and one that caught my interest recently is Farelle.

As far as I can tell, it only showed up in original sources once, back in the original box set in 1990. It was then dumped unceremoniously when they starting putting out the post Grand Conjunction ...

How they got their spells was one of my favourite parts about the kit. Very unique, and it seemed to work quite well. It would be a cool addition for how a sorcerer "learns" their spells (using the method to focus their mind on the magic) or for a patron to teach a spell to their warlock.

The updated version of the college has two options.

1. You get to have a roll on the table when you give someone bardic inspiration.

2. If you spend a bonus action to expend one of your bardic inspiration dice (not give it to someone else), you get to pick the spirit yourself.

The subclass seems ...

I don't know if this will make me the odd one out or if it's a common opinion I just haven't heard elsewhere, but I'm not a fan of Hala, at least as far as the effort to shoehorn all the witches and warlocks into her worship. I like a little more mystery and uncertainty about where witchcraft ...

There's also Arak, Blutspur, and the Nightmare Lands, which the Black Box didn't provide a dark lord for.


Forlorn also had no known lord at the time.

There were also a bunch mentioned in the descriptions of their domains but not given full(ish) write-ups in the Black Box, namely Ivana ...

Thanks! That's pretty much how I see this version of Alfred. Lots of self-loathing about what he was "supposed" to be and isn't able to. Keeping himself among people who he envies even as they abuse and use him, and constantly afraid because he knows they will turn on him the moment he doesn't fully ...

With Ramya, I think it's the war crimes she committed on her final march against the rebels to get Arijani and Reeva, followed with laying a curse on them. The Mists then rose and Ramya proceeded to rise and start a fitting the skulls of anyone she deemed a traitor into a tower, solidifying her ...

There's also Arak, Blutspur, and the Nightmare Lands, which the Black Box didn't provide a dark lord for.

It's interesting to look back at the original box and see where Ravenloft started, and how drastically they had to rewrite so much of it when it started to get popular. Everyone loved the post ...

I was looking at the section on creating a horror monster from existing stat blocks, and they don't reuse the example of the Bag Man. It's unfortunate that he doesn't appear to be in the book, but they instead use the Living Armor from Children of the Night: The Created .

From the book:
"For ...

I was a big fan of werewolves as a kid, and was always disappointed that Verbrek got the short end of the stick in terms of actual detail in 2e. Then we finally got a good version in 3e.

I get why they let it fall by the wayside in 5e though, splitting the hunt to Valachan and werewolves to ...

Yeah. A lot of original darklords don't have anything that would really qualify. Some committed absolutely horrible acts, others... nothing particularly original when you look at the average low level DnD villain.

Also, regarding Godfrey He never had an "Act of Ultimate Darkness" in 2e and 3e. He ...

The biggest walkback on changes to a Darklord appears to be for Wilfred Godfrey. In VRGTR, he became a ghost and then killed the entire domain when he insisted the alchemist activate the Apparatus.

In life, Lord Wilfred Godefroy was an unremarkable minor aristocrat. He inherited the estate of ...