New “Ravenloft” novel

[Carrion Crow]

Let's translate this into something you might actually want to read...

"A party of Muppets must brave the horrors of Cravenloft in this official Dungeons & Dragons novel!

Five strangers armed with steel and magic awaken in a mist-shrouded land, with no memory of how they arrived: Piggy, a prideful pig wizard; Animal, a crazed barbarian; Pepe, an embittered prawn paladin; Sam, a sardonic eagle cleric; and Kermit, a sunny frog artificer.

After they barely survive a nightmarish welcome to the realm of Barooooovia, a carriage arrives bearing an invitation:

Fairest Friends,

I pray you accept my humble Hospitality and dine with me tonight at Castle Cravenloft. It is rare we receive Visitors, and I do so Endeavor to Make your Acquaintance... and to count you. The Carriage shall bear you to the Castle safely, and I await your Arrival with Pleasure.

Your host,
Count von Count
Mwah-hah-hah!

With no alternative, and determined to find their way home, the strangers accept the summons and travel to the forbidding manor of the mysterious Count. But all is not well at Castle Cravenloft. To survive the twisted counting games of the Count and his haunted home, the adventurers must confront the terrible jokes and find a way to shift from strangers to comrades — before the mists of Baroooovia claim them forever."

Just need Disney+ to make that into a special now...

[Isolde]

The party is more monstrous than most monstrous encounters.

[alhoon]

Let's translate this into something you might actually want to read...

"A party of Muppets must brave the horrors of Cravenloft in this official Dungeons & Dragons novel!

Five strangers armed with steel and magic awaken in a mist-shrouded land, with no memory of how they arrived: Piggy, a prideful pig wizard; Animal, a crazed barbarian; Pepe, an embittered prawn paladin; Sam, a sardonic eagle cleric; and Kermit, a sunny frog artificer.

After they barely survive a nightmarish welcome to the realm of Barooooovia, a carriage arrives bearing an invitation:

Fairest Friends,

I pray you accept my humble Hospitality and dine with me tonight at Castle Cravenloft. It is rare we receive Visitors, and I do so Endeavor to Make your Acquaintance... and to count you. The Carriage shall bear you to the Castle safely, and I await your Arrival with Pleasure.

Your host,
Count von Count
Mwah-hah-hah!

With no alternative, and determined to find their way home, the strangers accept the summons and travel to the forbidding manor of the mysterious Count. But all is not well at Castle Cravenloft. To survive the twisted counting games of the Count and his haunted home, the adventurers must confront the terrible jokes and find a way to shift from strangers to comrades — before the mists of Baroooovia claim them forever."

Just need Disney+ to make that into a special now...

Well.
I would read that. I am not ashamed to say it.

[Igor the Henchman]

Reading it right now. Certainly a very different tone from I, Strahd. The main cast so far feels like a classic 5E party if the players all showed up drunk for Session 0. A bisexual drow barbarian? An orc wizard from Silverymoon? A hairless tressym pet??? And they all seem like they're level 1. Strahd is in for either a hearty chuckle or a splitting headache.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Reading it right now. Certainly a very different tone from I, Strahd. The main cast so far feels like a classic 5E party if the players all showed up drunk for Session 0. A bisexual drow barbarian? An orc wizard from Silverymoon? A hairless tressym pet??? And they all seem like they're level 1. Strahd is in for either a hearty chuckle or a splitting headache.

And now my interest is reading it has evaporated completely…

[tomokaicho]

. A bisexual drow barbarian? .

Relevant to the plot, I'm sure.

[Isolde]

No gothic horror (that would be unacceptable) and no "actual" dark elves anymore. Just some pseudo-actor character in some Omega-tier flick, not even b-movie as they could be fun to watch. This is so lame.

Just a chaotic hurling of trash. Randomity is the name of the game.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Penguin Books Hardcover

30$

Neither for my collection nor my time...

[Igor the Henchman]

No gothic horror (that would be unacceptable) and no "actual" dark elves anymore.

I'm at 50% right now, and despite the ridiculous main cast, the novel seems to at least be trying to aim for gothic horror. It has that 'Jonathan Harker slow entrapment in the spooky castle' thing going on. And zero surprise, one of the heroes is the newest Tatyana. (No, I don't consider it a spoiler given how obvious it is from very early on).

Mostly, I think the novel is trying to say "hey, here's an example of an adventure you can have playing D&D! Interested in getting that Player's Handbook yet?" The same way that Hasbro commissions cartoon series and movies to sell toys.

But I have to at least credit the writer for her thorough setting research. She sticks very close to the canon castle layout (except for one minor error: room K9 isn't supposed to directly communicate with the K64 stairway and the K13 corridor), and I've caught at least one direct reference to Vampire in the Mists.

There are even some clever ideas I could steal for my own Curse of Strahd game: like how Strahd first introduces his vampire brides as pet wolves instead of residents. Or the creepy wandering carrionnette (complete with magic silver needle) that claims to have once been Strahd's childhood toy.

[alhoon]

There are even some clever ideas I could steal for my own Curse of Strahd game: like how Strahd first introduces his vampire brides as pet wolves instead of residents. Or the creepy wandering carrionnette (complete with magic silver needle) that claims to have once been Strahd's childhood toy.

Actually, I love those.

[Igor the Henchman]

Finished the book.

I won't spoil too much, but the plot really goes in an unexpected direction past the midpoint, with the cast having to visit another domain to get a McGuffin that's needed to undo a bad thing done to them by Strahd.

The story is told in the tone of a comic book, which isn't bad by itself, but a stark departure from previous novels. The setting is treated like a horror funhouse, with the main cast hopscotching across various setting landmarks, fighting random things and learning the true meaning of friendship along the way. There are plenty of times when just as the characters look like they might become less two-dimensional, the author has a random canon Ravenloft NPC suddenly jump out from behind a sofa to shoo them towards the next part of the plot. I was disappointed that Strahd and many other iconic NPCs from the Ravenloft setting are either barely-there, or behaving like idiots.

The plot really feels like a standard D&D campaign, with close adherence to the rules. Though admittedly their DM must be really generous with XP, because while the characters start the novel as level-1 adventuring novices who struggle to put down a pair of zombies, by the end of the book they fling lightning bolts and daylight spheres. So I guess beating Strahd Von Zarovich, the most famous vampire in D&D, is meant to be their level 1-through-5 beginner quest.

I couldn't help cringing when the kenku paused in the middle of the final fight in Castle Ravenloft to deliver a speech about how they all learned to be vulnerable with each other and that meant they could overcome anything.

I'll still give it this: the final scene, with its unexpected but cleverly foreshadowed twist, was really cool and felt very Ravenloft, but unfortunately by that time I had already gotten really bored, and was mostly just happy to finally put the book down.

Overall, there is a good story hidden in there somewhere, and maybe if the cast was less cartoonish, and the villains were smarter and more pro-active, and there was more time to actually explore the locations where the story takes place... it could have been exciting. As-is, I wouldn't recommend it to dedicated Ravenloft fans, especially to those who preferred Ravenloft 2E/3E over 5E.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Finished the book.

[...]

As-is, I wouldn't recommend it to a Ravenloft setting fan, and particularly to those who preferred Ravenloft 2E/3E over 5E.

Thank you. I was considering the audiobook, but might now skip/bury it under TBR. Sounds exactly like what the cover suggested, which is "The Legend of Vox Machina (?) goes to Barovia". I don't think that's bad, per se - but it's not the kind of leisure time read that I naturally gravitate to.

I'm not "upset" with the direction modern D&D or Ravenloft have taken: It's just that up to maybe 3e, D&D was, by and large, "children's introduction to Fantasy". The underlying principle was that you had adult-oriented stories that TSR/WotC/WW would simplify to a point where people who didn't know the genre had an entry point.
Now, in modernity, D&D is "Fantasy for children" - it's written to appeal to people of a certain age as they are, and not to help them understand adult-oriented genre storytelling. This seems to have become D&D's main problem, these days, by the way: New D&D is a game you eventually "graduate from", while old D&D was a game you "grew up into". So, players/customers eventually either stop gaming, or shift to other, more age-appropriate games.

-- And that's alright. Kids today are surely looking at Ravenloft with a different reference system in mind than we did. To us, it was Hammer Horror, probably Anne Rice, probably Brian Lumley, probably Vampire Hunter D. To them, today, it's probably Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Dark Souls, and that Netflix Castlevania show. So, it's bound to be different.

Now, does that mean that I will buy this book, in a world that's abundant with other choices? - Likely, "no". ...But it might make a fine gift for my teenage nephews.

[alhoon]

It was more Dracula, Frankenstein etc for us, Faineant.
For me at least, it was not Anne Rice with the sexualized, seductive vampires.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

For me it is both depending on the characters involved. My main inspiration for the atmosphere Ravenloft has, has always been Stephen Fabian. I especially like the armors and clothing the adventurers in his illustrations wear and the misty like way he drew.

[Isolde]

a party of monsters that would normally terrorize peasants and even other monsters....