Ravenloft Horror Within - source book set for June 2026

[brothersale]

"Deja vu, I just been in this place before."
At least this time, I don't have the energy to hate it like the prior one. Granted, I expect antics this time around.

i agree, its not like they can screw up any further, albeit having listen to the youtube video i am starting to think they are deliberately trying.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Well Chtulu was referenced to in 2014 Warlock of the Great Old One. And it was in first ed Deities and Demigods. So it is not exactly a stranger.

Respectfully, and keeping in mind that things that read really badly can absolutely play out just marvellously at the gaming table: It's not about whether one might not find creative ways to make Cthulhu fit in Ravenloft, or whether there aren't precedents of Lovecraft IPs ported successfully to even "official" D&D.

But it's all about WotC ditching their own forty, fifty years of content and of shared mythology in favor of bringing in another generally unrelated IP. An IP that just so happens to be the iconic mascot of the world's second bestselling roleplaying game.

From a marketing POV, it's puzzling. Funky new Ravenloft crossovers would surely be appealing to many - but now we get "Strahd vs Cthulhu" before we get "Strahd vs. Vecna", or before "Strahd vs. Drizz't". (Cadderly! ) That sure feels a bit like if Marvel had promoted "Spiderman Homecoming" by stressing that Michael Keaton had previously played Batman.

From an in-game POV, it's also puzzling. An otherworldly entity of god-like powers being or not being "Cthulhu from the Lovecraft stories" will likely tend to be completely irrelevant for any campaign:
Sticking to Lovecraft himself, factions of Cthulhu cultists can only either be depicted using a barrage of 1930s racist stereotypes that WotC say they do not want to use. So, looking at the actual text that Lovecraft wrote: What of it is so unique that it needs to be referenced directly? As opposed to more ambiguous adaptations, like, say, "Thoughts of Darkness"?

-- Again, if you enjoy this stuff, if you can make it work for you, more power to you. Can't stress that enough: What works at your gaming table is none of anyone else's concern.

Now, from my personal point of view, putting together Ravenloft and Cthulhu does seem both low-effort, and fairly impractical: Because then the main "cosmological" question becomes whether the Dark Powers and Lovecraft's Azathoth are to be associated - and my answer, so far, at least, is that for my Ravenloft, that doesn't work.

I guess it can be done, sure: Now, I personally, I started this journey because I liked Dracula and Lord Soth; and those stories, for me, tend to get stronger the more you reduce them. I don't need Cthulhu and the implied cosmology in there, even if I create a story in the style of Brian Keene ("Ghoul", "Dark Hollow") around them. I need stuff that compliments pseudo-Dracula, in Strahd's case. I'm not sure Lovecraft does that, for me at least.

[Mistmaster]

I suppose is a matter of taste then.

[Le Noir Faineant]

I suppose is a matter of taste then.

For sure. You like it, you do it. Same ocean, different waves, mate.

I'm just a bit sad - "sad", not "salty" - that this one doesn't look like it's for me. My hopes were high after the success of a Ravenloft-based podcast, "The Crooked Moon", getting an improbable FOUR-million-dollar Kickstarter for the gamebook version of their campaign. -- Complex and fresh takes on the old setting are still quite clearly in demand, and can be conventionally successful. So, I had hoped that WotC would answer in kind - and I still hope that they will.

[Igor the Henchman]

Most interesting detail for me: this is the first time that a D&D product has hinted that the Dark Powers fulfill a useful function in the D&D multiverse.

While I'm not big on straight up having Cthulhu Mythos in my D&D (unless heavily modified to fit the needs of pulp fantasy, see: the Aboleth, God-Brain, etc.) I'm always happy to see Ravenloft being treated as a "mainstream" part of the D&D experience and occupying a central spot in its cosmology. Even if doing it means making the Dark Powers less inscrutable and using them as more of a pro-active force with a specific agenda. Which is kinda how they've already been depicted in Kas's background text in Vecna: Age of Ruin.

For now, I like the smell of what they're cooking, but needs more Azalin.

[The Dark]

I was trying to think about how I'd implement Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones into D&D, since it is at least mildly traditional (cf the first two printings of Deities & Demigods) but I also agree they don't entirely fit the typical feel of Ravenloft in particular and D&D in general.

I think I would end up tying them into an idea introduced in Die Vecna Die!. That adventure mentions that the Lady of Pain and The Serpent are Ancient Brethren, beings that existed before the current worlds. There's lots of speculation about other potential Ancient Brethren (Asmodeus is a popular one, and others include Ao, Io, and Jazirian). I'd tie the Mythos to that by making them the remnants of the multiverse-that-was before the one that the Ancient Brethren originate from. They're powerful because only incredibly powerful beings can survive that long, and they're deeply weird because they're from multiple realities ago.

Tying into this, there's speculation that Tharizdun is an Ancient Brethren, but I'd either quietly make him one of the weakest survivors of the Great Old Ones reality or have him be from the Ancient Brethren reality as an ascended cultist of the GOO. Similarly, Cthulhu, for all that he's more than a match for most parties, is "just" a priest of the Great Old Ones, and by their standards isn't a power (naturally, this is the sort of information that gets dropped on a group after they encounter Cthulhu and barely escape with some of their lives).

Basically, I'd have them be a sort of Outside Context Problem for even the great powers of D&D. They're not just inhuman, they think in ways that the gods can't understand. They're not just powerful by mortal standards, their servants can go toe-to-toe with some of the powers. Fortunately, they mostly don't care about mortal reality any more - it's too far beneath them, like paying attention to ants for weeks on end - but every so often one of their servants can get enough of their attention to kick over an anthill, which is a problem if it's your anthill.

[Baron Von Stanton]

I was trying to think about how I'd implement Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones into D&D, since it is at least mildly traditional (cf the first two printings of Deities & Demigods) but I also agree they don't entirely fit the typical feel of Ravenloft in particular and D&D in general.

I think I would end up tying them into an idea introduced in Die Vecna Die!. That adventure mentions that the Lady of Pain and The Serpent are Ancient Brethren, beings that existed before the current worlds. There's lots of speculation about other potential Ancient Brethren (Asmodeus is a popular one, and others include Ao, Io, and Jazirian). I'd tie the Mythos to that by making them the remnants of the multiverse-that-was before the one that the Ancient Brethren originate from. They're powerful because only incredibly powerful beings can survive that long, and they're deeply weird because they're from multiple realities ago.

Tying into this, there's speculation that Tharizdun is an Ancient Brethren, but I'd either quietly make him one of the weakest survivors of the Great Old Ones reality or have him be from the Ancient Brethren reality as an ascended cultist of the GOO. Similarly, Cthulhu, for all that he's more than a match for most parties, is "just" a priest of the Great Old Ones, and by their standards isn't a power (naturally, this is the sort of information that gets dropped on a group after they encounter Cthulhu and barely escape with some of their lives).

Basically, I'd have them be a sort of Outside Context Problem for even the great powers of D&D. They're not just inhuman, they think in ways that the gods can't understand. They're not just powerful by mortal standards, their servants can go toe-to-toe with some of the powers. Fortunately, they mostly don't care about mortal reality any more - it's too far beneath them, like paying attention to ants for weeks on end - but every so often one of their servants can get enough of their attention to kick over an anthill, which is a problem if it's your anthill.

Have you also considered tying in the Obyriths?

[The Dark]

I was trying to think about how I'd implement Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones into D&D, since it is at least mildly traditional (cf the first two printings of Deities & Demigods) but I also agree they don't entirely fit the typical feel of Ravenloft in particular and D&D in general.

I think I would end up tying them into an idea introduced in Die Vecna Die!. That adventure mentions that the Lady of Pain and The Serpent are Ancient Brethren, beings that existed before the current worlds. There's lots of speculation about other potential Ancient Brethren (Asmodeus is a popular one, and others include Ao, Io, and Jazirian). I'd tie the Mythos to that by making them the remnants of the multiverse-that-was before the one that the Ancient Brethren originate from. They're powerful because only incredibly powerful beings can survive that long, and they're deeply weird because they're from multiple realities ago.

Tying into this, there's speculation that Tharizdun is an Ancient Brethren, but I'd either quietly make him one of the weakest survivors of the Great Old Ones reality or have him be from the Ancient Brethren reality as an ascended cultist of the GOO. Similarly, Cthulhu, for all that he's more than a match for most parties, is "just" a priest of the Great Old Ones, and by their standards isn't a power (naturally, this is the sort of information that gets dropped on a group after they encounter Cthulhu and barely escape with some of their lives).

Basically, I'd have them be a sort of Outside Context Problem for even the great powers of D&D. They're not just inhuman, they think in ways that the gods can't understand. They're not just powerful by mortal standards, their servants can go toe-to-toe with some of the powers. Fortunately, they mostly don't care about mortal reality any more - it's too far beneath them, like paying attention to ants for weeks on end - but every so often one of their servants can get enough of their attention to kick over an anthill, which is a problem if it's your anthill.

Have you also considered tying in the Obyriths?

I'm not really familiar with Obyriths, since I (mostly) stopped buying WotC stuff in 2005 when my 3e group broke up, and they were introduced in Fiendish Codex I, which was released in 2006.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

Another thing I'd like to see is a 'survivour' stat block that covers the niche bards fill in normal DND classes. Like, not necessarily with bardic magic, but the communicator, the face of the party, the one who brings people together.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Have you also considered tying in the Obyriths?

The question that I'd have is: Between Tharizdun and those guys, where do you place the Dark Powers? How would one of them behave in Ravenloft, and how would it be markedly distinguishable for the players from other, outwardly similr threats?

Like, say, could an Obyrith kill Gwydion? Could Tharizdun bite a chunk out of Ravenloft, like he did in my twenty-year-old PBP here? And if those powers are at play, for what are the players needed, except as witnesses?

[Igor the Henchman]

Like, say, could an Obyrith kill Gwydion?

Depends on which Obyrith. I could see Pazuzu or the Queen of Chaos being able to do it. Maybe Obox-Ob or Pale Night on a good day. Your average run-of-the-mill sibriex? Probably not.

Could Tharizdun bite a chunk out of Ravenloft, like he did in my twenty-year-old PBP here? And if those powers are at play, for what are the players needed, except as witnesses?

I've always assumed Tharizdun is dangerous because he knows about some secret means to unmake the multiverse as a whole. I didn't imagine him going around destroying it one small chunk at a time, but I guess it's a valid take.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

My two cents about the Cthulu discourse:
- I think a big part people miss about 5e canon is that it attempts to diversify the setting.
Not just in a 'let's make Harkon Lukas black and give darkladies other motives than hating men' way.
They're trying to bring into the setting diverse horror subjenres.
Like, yeah, Ravenloft started from gothic horror. But it doesn't have to stop there.
The logic is 'Hey, how about we treat Bluestpur like the cosmic horror domain it is instead of trying to fit a peg with impossible geometry that will drive you mad if you examine it for too long into a square hole?', 'Hey, isn't Valachan more of a slasher-horror setting?', and then 'Crazy idea, guys - what if we Falkovnia into a storming zombie apocalypse?'.
I think that's the drive behind a lot of the changes. I think it can bring in more new fans and give the setting more spotlight in the wider geek community, but there's also the danger of losing its initial flavour. You can like it or not, but once you understand this, the idea of Cthulu joining in makes a lot more sense.
That said, I generally don't like it when we copy existing villains from outside of DND into the setting. Notice how the two darklords the fandom keeps arguing about - Adam and Malken - are two of the most obvious, overly-specific expies: That's what happens when you copy something iconic for the sake of having an iconic thing without thinking whether or not what's considered iconic actually fits your story.

[The Dark]

Even 2e Ravenloft went beyond Gothic Horror, even if mostly in its monster descriptions. Just off the top of my head, there were homages to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Doppleganger Plant), the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Reavers), and Night of the Living Dead (Cannibal Zombies), in addition to the cosmic horror of Bluetspur and whatever the Marikith were supposed to be (I run them like Aliens, but apparently that wasn't their inspiration). Gothic horror was emphasized but not exclusive.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Depends on which Obyrith. I could see Pazuzu or the Queen of Chaos being able to do it. Maybe Obox-Ob or Pale Night on a good day. Your average run-of-the-mill sibriex? Probably not.

I've been thinking about runng Tepest/Shadow Rift for a while, perhaps to "Dark Souls" the story up a bit because my players like those and appear there as well. Let's go back to this concept at a later point if you like. You might be on something there.

I've always assumed Tharizdun is dangerous because he knows about some secret means to unmake the multiverse as a whole. I didn't imagine him going around destroying it one small chunk at a time, but I guess it's a valid take.

In my defense, I was 22, then, and owned two "pure" Ravenloft books, next to the GE stuff. Sometimes, you just gotta roll. Like with Cthulhu, I generally think "uber-gods" and Ravenloft shouldn't mix, if only because it takes away from the Darklords and the setting formula.

(Now, in the context of this thread and the new product: Any good DM can make any idea work; not judging, just putting this in order for myself. Especially younger guys doing Ravenloft 5.5 - as I said above, very much just roll with it. The secret of being a good DM is being comfortable with your material, and making your players feel that; all else is secondary.)

[alhoon]

As for the night of the walking dead, I think they WERE gothic. The reavers possibly too.