It is back!!! What we do know about VR Guide to Ravenloft?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yeah, we are very keenly aware that everything we publish using wotc ip is done so under their good graces. If they wanted to shut us down, they could. If they wanted to wholesale sell our work as is, they probably could. The policy DustBunny quotes makes it pretty clear. That said, a) I'm skeptical this was intentional. Probably a cartographer Googling for research and not realizing the map they found included unofficial towns. B) if it is a deliberate shout out, cool, I think. C) the FoS is the current host of the map, but only as an archive. The original source for those town names appear to be the Kargatane, Dungeon Magazine, and the MCS themselves: "Waterford is mentioned by John Mangrum in his adventure 'The Man Who Lost His Mind'. Crawford is a village derived from the Dungeon adventure 'The Unkindness of Ravens', by Jason Kuhl. Glenwich is a take on the English Dunwich (a real village on a sandcliff that threatens to be swallowed by the sea)." - Quote from the MCS Mordent map page

ETA: attribution for the quote.

[FiranDarcalus]

Drat. They pushed the delivery of my copy back to thursday...

Lucky you....I'm not getting mine till next week. Stupid Canadian postal service!!

[Joël of the FoS]

Drat. They pushed the delivery of my copy back to thursday...

Lucky you....I'm not getting mine till next week. Stupid Canadian postal service!!

Strange, got a message this morning that it would get to my house tomorrow.

[Igor the Henchman]

After finally getting a better look at the domain maps, I can't help but notice many evocative-sounding place names that aren't described in the text. I get the feeling that someone had to edit down the domain descriptions with a hatchet to meet the required page count. It feels as if whole pages of setting info have been left on the cutting room floor.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Mine isn't arriving at my LGS until tomorrow.

[Zilfer]

My book doesn't arrive until later today though I have access to all of it through DnDBeyond so if anyone has specific questions, without me copying and pasting huge portions I can give you broad strokes here. Might be available around the discord as well if there are specific questions. That being said overall the book does leave a lot of 'wiggle room' for you to develope your own stories and lore in the margins.

Mordent for example has plenty of places that aren't directly mentioned in the text, giving you the change to say what it is. It is very much a book of Domain overall, Darklord overall, and a bit of description but no enough to handcuff whatever you want to do within the domain. Blackburn's Crossing will be added to my Mordent Map for sure since I have like a 100 page word document describing NPC's and the town as I ran it for a campaign. Anyways digressing. I am both a fan of this but also always want 'more details'. The lack of description of all towns in a domain may lean into wanting to allow those who know the old lore to still have that be in place, or could be for room for DMs Guild to create things in the margins.

[FiranDarcalus]

Drat. They pushed the delivery of my copy back to thursday...

Lucky you....I'm not getting mine till next week. Stupid Canadian postal service!!

Strange, got a message this morning that it would get to my house tomorrow.

I ordered through Amazon...what about you? We're both in the Mtl, strange you're getting it so much quicker than I am

[Jester of the FoS]

There’s a post on Reddit saying that they’ve used fab stuff from this site in the book. They only mention place names in Mordent, but even then don’t they have to ask permission to use stuff by other people?

We're using their copyrights and trademarks. Everything we create is derivative and thus owned by them.

[Jester of the FoS]

Mine isn't arriving at my LGS until tomorrow.

My FLGS isn't getting it until Thursday.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I went to my local game shop (the first that introduced RPG games in Greece) and have a peek but they didn't have it yet.

We're using their copyrights and trademarks. Everything we create is derivative and thus owned by them.

But still mention to the credits would be nice.

I am dreaming of a time were everything is Creative Commons CC BY

[Resonant Curse]

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/22 ... -ravenloft

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm pretty pro-diversity and fixing issues in the game but the response to Ezmerelda is eye rolling.
First, I don't know why she's called "Ez" now. Was her name an issue prior? (I saw lots of complaints regarding her hiding her leg and Vistani roots, but I don't recall anything on her name.)
Too hard to spell?

The initial complaints about her artificial leg really did feel like people seeking to be outraged: seeing one character hiding their leg and viewing that as ableism from the company rather than a character trait/flaw. But I respected the decision of WotC to remove that line from Curse of Strahd. It made people unhappy, so excising it made sense.

But the line in VRGtR:

replacing her leg with a splendid prosthetic after a werewolf attack

Groan.
You can just feel the author going "see! see!" and pointing at the text like a child eager for praise over what a good job they did.

It's them really bending over backwards to accommodate complaints and critics. But the people complaining about D&D online aren't going to retract anything or suddenly start liking D&D now. They're going to continue to flame it and write angry tweets and blogs.

[Igor the Henchman]

At the very least it got them that positive article.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

What bothers me is that everything is referred in comparison with CoS while ignoring that Vistani were more diversed in previous editions.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

What bothers me is that everything is referred in comparison with CoS while ignoring that Vistani were more diversed in previous editions.

VRGttV will be ignored because it solves the problem they’re having now 20 years ago, and to acknowledge that would take away the opportunity for them to virtue signal how sensitive their Vistani are.