Esteemed members of the Fraternity,
Miladies,
As you all know, we are extremely pleased that Ravenloft's first adventure, 1983's I-6: Ravenloft, got a reboot for 5th edition, in the luscious book, Curse of Strahd. This great new adventure revisits the seminal one, and adds many new layers of intrigue, new places, new adventure hooks, new NPCs, etc.
As a reboot designed to be played independent from the Ravenloft, the setting, it also proposes incorporates elements of the setting, with a few changes.
In fact, we are so pleased by this new adventure that we declare all Curse of Strahd changes to be Ravenloft canon here on our boards and website!
What follows is an incomplete list of these new Ravenloft canon changes. We are working on a complete list, soon to be released.
(if you plan to play this adventure - stop here as the following list contains spoilers!)
- Strahd did built the castle Ravenloft after a war of conquest (and didn't take it as a war prize from the Tergs, as in I, Strahd). This has a minor impact on the Ravenloft calendar.
- the famous enemy of the supernatural Van Richten now lives in Barovia (and not in Mordent).
- Sir Klutz Tripalotsky (Ravenloft's crypt # 33) is retrofitted to be the historical founder of the Knight of Shadows.
- Secret lore from a soon to be released Curse of Strahd companion adventure: the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins are in fact hags in disguise, whose current plot is looking for a third hag to form a coven to defeat Strahd!
- Ireena Kolyana is in fact blonde, but she secretly dyes her hair.
- Everything outside Barovia does not exist. In your books, discussions, and online campaigns here on our message boards, please change any outside location to "Barovia."
We declare that for us this is all canon from now on, and we fully expect that all discussions on our boards will take these changes into account. Please mark these changes in your Ravenloft books, and use them in your current campaign.
Later this April, a complete errata to implement these facts in previous 2nd and 3rd edition Ravenloft books will be made available. You'll be able to correct the Ravenloft books you own manually or with Post-it notes. We hope it won't be a fool's job to implement all these changes in your books, but we are convinced that these changes are for the best for the future interest of the setting.
We need your feedback! Do you think the changes are positives? Please react in this thread!
Again, those in the know, no spoilers for now!
Sincerely,
Joël, for everybody at the Souragne Fraternity of Shadows: David, Joël, Leyshon, Nathan, Ron, Sharon, and Stephen
