Ravenloft Horror Within - source book set for June 2026

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Is Kartakass still bad?

[WatcherJeff]

Yup, to me Kartakass is not right in 5.5. it says Skald is a major commerce hub but to me how can it be if it's no longer connected to any core? Harkon Lucas, now is just cursed with being forgotten.

This is a far cry from the Harkon Lucas from Death of a Darklord or Heart of Midnight

[Tobias Blackburn]

Is Kartakass still bad?

I mean, that's subjective, so depends on what you thought was bad in the first one. They don't do any major reversals of the changes, but things are tightened up.

Art of Lukas has far improved, and stepped away from the more minstrel show version of VRGTR. He's still a loup garou, and his curse retains the change, where he is constantly forgotten and unable to build up his power base so he can take over. (Personally, I think the 5e curse is better, since him wanting to escape so he could take over greater lands felt undercut by the fact he didn't rule over all of Kartakass, just the one city.)

Regarding Skald, it says

The largest community in Kartakass, Skald is a bustling hub of commerce and creativity. The lure of overnight celebrity and fawning crowds attracts the ambitious. Yet behind the facade of creativity and freethinking, business owners and celebrities prey on creativity, while performers struggle viciously over paltry opportunities. Vice, criminality, dark bargains, and supernatural predators flourish amid Skald’s many stages and frequent festivals. Among Skald’s most popular venues is the Old Kartakan Inn and Taverna, owned by the performer and Darklord Harkon Lukas.

So it is the biggest town of the domain, but doesn't suggest it's a major trade hub for other domains. Even the smallest state or province has a place where the majority of commerce and culture coalesce.

[Tobias Blackburn]

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.

VIEW CONTENT:

In life, Lord Wilfred Godefroy was an unremarkable minor aristocrat. He inherited the estate of Gryphon Hill near Mordentshire centuries ago by murdering his father and framing it as an accident. During a bloody night years later, the entire Godefroy family—Wilfred; his wife, Estelle; and their daughter, Penelope—died violently. But instead of passing on to the afterlife, the Godefroys’ souls lingered at Gryphon Hill. In death, Wilfred is haunted by the ghosts of his family, recent and the past generations, who blame him for their deaths and the family’s disgrace.

From there, Mordent was drawn into the Mists following the events of House on Gryphon Hill.

VIEW CONTENT:

He's more powerful and dangerous than in previous editions, since everyone that dies becomes a spirit he has power over. He's also more active, since he has found the Apparatus and is trying to find someone who can make it work properly.

[brothersale]

well, god i finally got hold of a copy to read, and while i can say it is better than the previous attempt, it is a pale attempt to emulate the 2nd and 3rd editions.

VIEW CONTENT:

The darklords don't really leap from the pages with their histories like previous editions did, instead they feel sanitised and bland, often removing any real reason they are the darklord, for example Wilfred Godfrey becomes the darklord because of nothing. This was true in prior editions, but had the extra step of linking it to Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill without the connection nothing in his history indicate that at that point he should become a darklord, there is no act of ultimate darkness.

This lack of act of ultimate darkness seems to be true for several darklords for example Kalakeri enters the mists a full week before what could be considered Ramya Vasavadan's act of ultimate darkness. And the worst offender appears to be Chakuna (Valachan's darklord) the setting's first Netural darklord, yes not Neutral Evil, but True Neutral, despite ritually hunting people.

At best the writers appear to have gone back to their first attempt and tried to fix some of the problems, but these attempts just make it seem like they should have made a new domain instead to trying to memberberry people (and ragebait) from previous versions, for example what is the point in calling the new Falkovia settlements the same names, only one settlement is still standing, the rest are zombie ridden ruins, the domain could have been called anything else and with slight changes to the settlements and the darklord's surname and poof new domain and no negative comparisons. Why call Anhktepot and Har'Akir that, the darklord's background has been completely changed to the point where it should be another character entirely. Why include Elena Faithold and her actions if she is not a darklord and provide no connection from her to Shadowborns without relying of prior editions.

I know that the writers did acknowledge the works of prior writers but based on this slop it feels like more an attempt to point out that its theirs now, and yes they have stood on the backs of giants to create this work, and promptly p****d down their backs

[The Dark]

When did the Act of Ultimate Darkness first get mentioned? It's not in the Black Box, where the "Forming New Lands" section says:

An evil character or creature who has great power or emotion may prompt the formation of a new domain. If he makes his home near the Misty Border, the demiplane may respond to his presence. The Mists recede, and the land around him takes on a form and solid substance that reflects his basic nature...The creature has no control over this process. It happens whether he desires it or not...
Only a powerful character with great emotion or strength of will can arouse the land and make it grow. Lords are passionate creatures driven by remorse, a lust for power, or an insatiable need for vengeance.

These original requirements are evil and some combination of power, emotion, and strong will. Needing an AoUD is a retcon (and one that likely led to some of the rewritten character histories in 2e), but I've never tracked down when it became A Thing.

[Tobias Blackburn]

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

VIEW CONTENT:

He never had an "Act of Ultimate Darkness" in 2e and 3e. He was always just the ghost of a really bad family killing dude who had killed himself long ago and who happened to be haunting around when the Mists reclaimed Strahd and Azalin. The VRGTR Godfrey had an AoUD, but they walked it back to tie him closer to his previous edition. The only real difference between 5.5e Godfrey and 2e/3e Godfrey's backstory is they replaced killing his wife and daughter with killing his father for the inheritance, and that he and his wife and daughter were all killed together as a result instead of him taking himself out due to long term haunting.

[Speedwagon]

I've received my physical copy of the book and the map pack and the DM screen. Honestly, as someone who came into the Ravenloft fan community thanks to Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and then delved into 2e/3e lore, I really love this book! While I understand the complaints from those who liked VRGTR that much of this is reprinted for 5.5e, I think I'm really too blown away by the lovely art to have noticed it as much. I also really like that for the notable locations, some of the mini-areas that were in the VRGTR maps were expanded upon here with juicy plot hooks. The campaign outlines and sample adventure scenarios, coupled with the battlemaps included in the book and the map pack itself, do a lot to help me have a starting point as a DM that I complained about regarding VRGTR.

I appreciate that—to me at least—it feels like the designers listened to the feedback of VRGTR and added both greater mechanical support (Darklord stat blocks and the sample adventures I already mentioned) as well as greater nods to older lore. While it most certainly isn't the 2e/3e timeline that many folks here wanted to see, I do appreciate the shout-outs as the designers continue in the alternate 5e continuity. The book gives me lots of ideas of things I can add to my own Ravenloft games and how I can reinterpret or renovate pre-existing domains that I knew from 2e/3e. For some of my players, giving a different thematic twist on things can throw them for a loop, which is useful for running a horror-type game (you don't want them to get comfortable and expect things too much). So for that alone, the book has done its job. And I appreciate the player support, as I can steer my PCs towards using some of the ideas therein. And I really like how the "creating Ravenloft adventures" section handles things.

All in all, I'm quite satisfied with this. I'm looking forward to seeing more discussion about it, as well as more support on DMsGuild! I want to see more Ravenloft adventure supplements, Adventurer's League content (official or otherwise), just more community engagement in general stemming from the book's release. I think I echo the sentiments of this R/Ravenloft Reddit post here ( and of Tobias Blackburn.

[Tobias Blackburn]

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:

VIEW CONTENT:

"For example, perhaps you’ve got an idea for an arrogant mage who sought to prove he didn’t need his adventuring companions’ protection by constructing a suit of living armor. Considering the bizarre, magical whims of such a character, you choose a Zombie Beholder as the foundation for the mage’s animate armor. To reinforce its nature as a magical creation, you change the monster’s creature type from Undead to Construct and describe it as being made of stitched-together animal parts. Then you give it the Berserk and Magic Resistance traits of a Flesh Golem. The characters’ surprise at unexpectedly facing a beholder might be startling enough, but you add to your story that the mage has become trapped within his living armor as it hunts his former companions. Only by defeating the horror might the characters free what remains of the mage within, represented by the Emissary of Juiblex creature trait from the “Creating a Creature” section of the Dungeon Master’s Guide."

There's even artwork of it, which looks really good. Combine that with the Min'kins in Idlethorp, and Alexandre du Circe (personally in a short adventure) and his House of Wax (as a location of interest) in Dementlieu, and it looks like someone was a big fan of that book.

[brothersale]

Also, regarding Godfrey

VIEW CONTENT:

He never had an "Act of Ultimate Darkness" in 2e and 3e. He was always just the ghost of a really bad family killing dude who had killed himself long ago and who happened to be haunting around when the Mists reclaimed Strahd and Azalin. The VRGTR Godfrey had an AoUD, but they walked it back to tie him closer to his previous edition. The only real difference between 5.5e Godfrey and 2e/3e Godfrey's backstory is they replaced killing his wife and daughter with killing his father for the inheritance, and that he and his wife and daughter were all killed together as a result instead of him taking himself out due to long term haunting.

true, and i did state that his darklordship is more due to events Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill rather than his actions that said, killing his dad, going on with his life normally until every one just dropped for no reason, is so much weaker, than killing his wife and daughter and then taking himself out due to long term haunting, only to be revived as a ghost due Strahd and Azalin's actions in drawing the DPs attention to Mordent.

And as for the Act of Ultimate Darkness (its tied to power checks in 2nd ed but not called that [DoD], that term come in 3e IIRCC), most Darklords have them (those that don't usually have some form of metaplot reason, [im looking at you Gwydion, Kas and Vecna], or have never truely been explored [Godbrain and nightmare court]), for some its a slow progression (Tristen ApBlanc for example), for others its one big action (Strahd) resulting in their domain. The odd ones out tend to be the ones that are grabbed by the mists and dropped in another domain, these ones often tend to be close to getting darklordship (The DPs just want to test them a bit more), but are often potentially capable of pulling back at that time (Azalin and Soth are examples of this [see King of the Dead and Knight of the Black Rose], but it is also likely that Jander Sunstar and Gondegal at the time of their entry were being similarly tested)

[The Dark]

There are explicit "Acts of Ultimate Darkness" in Domains of Dread (page 160). They're just Powers Checks with a 50-100% chance of failure. One of them will move a character 1/10 of the way toward being a Darklord, and they're not necessary to become a Darklord in DoD's system; the Descent Into Darkness just requires 10 failed Powers Checks, with an AoUD counting as one. I had been looking at the overall Descent system recently because one of the homebrew domains I'm working on interacts with it, but I had forgotten there was an AoUD section.

A number of early Darklords don't have one in their original write-ups. A lot of them were retconned in later.

In general, I think it's fine for Darklords to have them, but making it mandatory removes some of the mystery of Ravenloft and some of the unease for players. If there must be an AoUD to become a Darklord, then the vigilante anti-hero can always say "well, at least I'm not that bad" and feel sure they aren't descending into darkness. In my ideal version of Ravenloft, little evils should still be risky, even if it's a low chance of drawing the attention of the Powers. The Domains of Dread system is a little too rigid for my taste, but it's at least pointed in the right direction - major acts will contribute to a fall, minor acts might contribute to a fall, but even minor acts can be enough to fall.

Going over those Black Box Darklords and their descriptions just in that product (ignoring any later revisions except where I comment on them):

Gabrielle Aderre seems to have just become Darklord when she killed Bakholis. Later stories tried making her responsible for the death of her mother, but that's not in the original write-up.

Azalin entered the Mists fleeing mercenaries hired to kill him and after teaching Strahd he chose to enter the Mists again to force them to create a domain for him. The whole thing with Erik came in later products.

Dominic d'Honaire was evil, but it was the "petty" evils of turning people against each other, with no specific acts called out. He convinced his father to enter the Mists and they created a domain for him.

Ivan does have a fairly clear AoUD in poisoning his sister, but he's not granted a domain until 10 years later per the Black Box's family tree and description of when Dorvinia formed. It's also possible that poisoning his mother was the AoUD, since that happened later.

Vlad Drakov was drawn in after "looting and pillaging," but that sounds fairly normal for his "ruthless and brutal" mercenaries, with nothing called out as unusual.

Godefroy became Darklord for being the most evil thing in Mordent after the events of House on Gryphon Hill drew it into the Mists.

Hazlik swore vengeance and was drawn into the Mists while searching for an ingredient. It was later retcons where he actually got revenge.

Harkon Lukas was Misted for wanting to become a ruler of men in Cormyr. His "thoughts of tyranny and despotism" were enough.

Frantisek Markov has a clear act in making his wife his experiment.

Adam plausibly does in whatever happened with Eva and Elise, although we only get Victor's journal entry about it in the Black Box.

Yagno Petrovna tried (but failed) to sacrifice his sister's child to his god. That might count.

Jacqueline Renier murdered her grandfather, the previous Darklord. There's not a lot of detail about it.

Alfred Timothy was Misted for promising not to harm "gypsies" and then trying to attack one. Like Yagno, he failed.

Nathan Timothy wandered the lands randomly killing people, and was granted a domain after entering the Mists out of boredom.

Strahd has a clear qualifying event for an AoUD.

So out of the 15 Darklords in the Black Box, 3 have clear AoUD (Strahd, Ivan, and Markov), 4 have varying levels of "maybe" (Adam, Jacqueline, Yagno, and Alfred), and 8 have no significant event.

[Tobias Blackburn]

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-Grand Conjunction Core, but the original Core was a bit of a mess. Barovia next to Blutspur. Players could just walk into the Nightmare Lands.

The Red Box and Domains of Dread both got flake for changing things, and adding in lore issues as a result. The 3e Campaign Setting was better received, as the community was really excited that the Kargatane were the writers behind it. But even that had an issue that, unlike the previous books, you HAD to buy more books to be able to run the setting, as the Darklords weren't even named in in the Campaign Setting.

Secrets of the Dread Realm did catch some flack as a result, especially for changing Strahd's alignment from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil.

5e/5.5e has done rewriting, seemingly based not just on updating for changing norms (which is fair) and also to make the darklords both more active and their backstories more dramatic. The latest book even discusses the importance of bringing the darklord to the fore, and not just saving them for the climactic battle - and discusses options to use without just making it a combat to kill the party.

[Speedwagon]

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-Grand Conjunction Core, but the original Core was a bit of a mess. Barovia next to Blutspur. Players could just walk into the Nightmare Lands.

The Red Box and Domains of Dread both got flake for changing things, and adding in lore issues as a result. The 3e Campaign Setting was better received, as the community was really excited that the Kargatane were the writers behind it. But even that had an issue that, unlike the previous books, you HAD to buy more books to be able to run the setting, as the Darklords weren't even named in in the Campaign Setting.

Secrets of the Dread Realm did catch some flack as a result, especially for changing Strahd's alignment from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil.

5e/5.5e has done rewriting, seemingly based not just on updating for changing norms (which is fair) and also to make the darklords both more active and their backstories more dramatic. The latest book even discusses the importance of bringing the darklord to the fore, and not just saving them for the climactic battle - and discusses options to use without just making it a combat to kill the party.

I think, both because I came into the setting with 5e and because of how much rewriting the setting has received since its inception, that's a major reason why I'm not as bothered by setting resets. Granted, had I been involved in the setting since 2e or 3e (when I was not born and when I was an infant), I'd have way more mixed feelings. But as it is, I feel the same way I felt regarding something like Disney Star Wars. While I disliked the direction things went in, I still had my Expanded Universe books and could talk to others about that timeline/canon, while sampling what I like from new canon (Andor FTW) and remarking on the times new canon takes from old canon ("Hey, this trilogy really reminds me of Dark Empire; a shame because I disliked Dark Empire").

Even this discussion now about Darklord AoUDs reminds me of just how much of Ravenloft was made as people went. I remember reading Gazetteer I and coming upon Harkon Lukas' section. I disliked that Harkon Lukas had nothing but "thoughts of tyranny and despotism" and just got drawn into the Mists, and went out of my way to make a measured descent of darkness for him. Reading VRGTR, I enjoyed that he had a AoUD, even if it wasn't the same Harkon Lukas I knew. I at least saw the dramatic moment and felt like the moral rules of the setting & the Dark Powers weren't as arbitrary or sloppily-written as in prior editions. However, VRGTR still continued in not giving certain Darklords direct AoUDs anyway---see Ramya Vasavadan. And while I think that's unfortunate and definitely worth criticizing the new material over, I also know that I can go about fixing that the same way fans did (and still do): with my own headcanon and interpretation that works for my campaign/my table and can be shared online for others.

[Tobias Blackburn]

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 position as the darklord over her treacherous siblings.

A less stated option is that, during the weak she was dead, she made a deal with something for her chance at vengeance, and that's why she came back as an undead. Maybe whatever is tied to the Drowned Altar.

It's kind of funny to imagine the Dark Powers looking at the situation and going, "Look, one of these three assholes is going to end up on top. Let's just take the land now and make bets on who gets it."

[The Dark]

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, Gundar, the banshee of Keening (nameless at this time), Malken, Soth, the hags of Tepest, and von Kharkov.

For them, what we get in the descriptions of their domains is:

Ivana somehow took control from her mother, Camille.

Gundar found a temporary gate to Ravenloft and couldn't leave after he'd entered.

The banshee's spirit fled into the Mists after she was killed in Arak, and it wound up in Keening.

Sir Hiregaard is cursed to be Malken.

Soth followed what he thought was Kitiara's voice and wound up in Ravenloft.

The hags are only known through legend and myth, with no history.

Von Kharkov was a nosferatu exiled to the Ethereal Plane who stumbled into Ravenloft after decades of wandering.