Imagining Ravenloft: Horrors Within

 Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is my favorite book in all of 5E. To me, it really does what a campaign setting book should do, which is to outline very clearly and comprehensively what makes that setting different. Ravenloft is a very distinct setting compared to other D&D settings, and its tone and aesthetic is also quite distinct as well.

I was a bit skeptical about Forge of the Artificer when it was announced: certainly getting a 5.5 update for the Artificer made sense after the 2024 core rulebooks came out, but we already had a very extensive sourcebook for Eberron in Rising From the Last War. Arguably, a second Ravenloft sourcebook is even less essential given that it didn't introduce a whole new class that might want a 5.5 update (I like the 5.5 Artificer - it's probably more powerful overall, but I don't fault my Artificer player for choosing to stick with the 5.0 one because of the loss of that amazing capstone. My campaign is at level 18 and I've promised my players that they'll have been level 20 for a bit before it ends).

But I actually think Forge of the Artificer worked, in part because it wasn't there to replace RFtLW (ok, I don't love that shorthand), but rather to supplement it.

Van Richten's was a fantastic book, but there are some things that I did feel were kind of missing, and I wonder if Horrors Within will address those.

First and foremost, let's talk Darklords.

Ravenloft is built around its cast of Darklords, the irredeemably evil masters of their prison domains. Strahd Von Zarovich was both the first of these to appear in D&D, but also canonically the first to be bound to his Domain of Dread, Barovia. We have gotten unique stat blocks for him, but not in Van Richten's (they appeared instead in the two adventures in which he is fightable - Curse of Strahd and Vecna: Eve of Ruin).

The approach in Van Richten's was instead to present a generic statblock for each Darklord, found in the Monster Manual or, in I think one or two cases, Van Richten's itself (Harkon Lukas I think is a Loup-Garou, which is basically a werewolf of equal CR to a Vampire).

This meant that some Darklords are represented by shockingly low-CR stats, like Viktra Mordenheim being a mere Spy.

Now: in fairness, the idea here is that Darklords are not inherently stronger than an ordinary person. The key is that they always come back even if killed and their domain echoes them in strange ways. Viktra Mordenheim, for example (her domain of Lamordia might be my favorite - think the icy frame narrative of Frankenstein as a whole domain) can build remarkable constructs, but is herself not really a warrior.

The terrifying encounter with her is not one in which she fights you directly, but rather when she sends an army of flesh-golems to tear you apart. (Or, as suggested in the book, an encounter in which you find your head removed from your body to be part of a construct, with the only promise of returning to normal being obedience to her commands.)

All that being said:

I'd prefer to have unique, bespoke stat blocks. If for nothing else, this would allow a little more specificity: in Mordenheim's case, there's nothing in the Spy stat block that relates to her engineering and scientific abilities. Having a stat block that feels more like an Artificer would be preferable.

Next, let's talk subclasses:

In an Unearthed Arcana earlier this year, we got "horror subclasses," which included 5.5 revisions of the Bard and Warlock subclasses found in Van Richten's, but also Grave Clerics, Phantom Rogues, Shadow Sorcerers, Hexblade Warlocks, and brand-new Reanimator Artificers and Hollow Warden Rangers.

Now, while I might complain about a bunch of revisions tossed at us, I should concede here that this would be adding two brand-new subclasses just like Van Richten's did, so who am I to complain?

In the case of the revisions, I'm really eager for some of them - Warlock subclasses could all use a revision to allow their Expanded Spell Lists to work now as Patron Spells (something easily home-ruled with pencil-and-paper, to be fair). But there are also some old designs like Shadow Sorcerers having a non-scaling stat block as one of their key features that I'd be happy to see revisited.

Of all of these, I'm least excited about the Hexblade, which I've always felt struggled to have really compelling flavor, and was overpopular because of the massive mechanical advantages it granted (I'd argue even today, using the current version is a more viable way to make a Bladelock because of the armor and shield training it grants you from the get-go, though 5.0's Pact of the Blade not letting you attack using Charisma made this basically the only reasonable choice if you wanted a martial Warlock). The "sentient weapon" idea feels less obviously horror-themed than the other ones here.

I really want the Spirits Bard to be good - conceptually I think it's fantastic, but I hear complaints about its power level.

Now, for the new subclasses, the Reanimator Artificer fits so perfectly with the setting - I'd actually had as a backup character for a Curse of Strahd campaign a Lamordian Artificer who was going to be a battle smith whose Steel Defender was basically a flesh-golem. This subclass would perfectly encapsulate that concept.

I hope that the Hollow Warden gets a good revision - much has been said about 5.5's focus on having Ranger concentrate on Hunter's Mark as opposed to their many other concentration spells, and this is a subclass that doubles down on that idea.

One thing I do think is a missed opportunity here is that the horror-themed subclasses all make the player character a part of the horror. But in gothic adventures (which Ravenloft is arguably closer to - D&D characters are equipped to fight monsters, and horror usually thrives as stories about people who either cannot fight back against the monsters or who must do so despite not being the kind of person who ought to be able to) our heroes are often quite different.

To be fair, there are a lot of existing subclasses that work great in a horror setting. Who better to face a world of all-consuming darkness than a Light Cleric? (I especially like that, given the mix of radiant and fire damage, you can really play a Light Cleric as some zealous inquisitor - the kind of person you generally don't want around unless you've got terrifying monsters threatening you).

Now, I always liked the concept, at least, of the Monster Slayer Ranger from Xanathar's. Not a popular subclass, and some of its ideas were incorporated into the 2024 Hunter subclass. But I've always found that idea of a character who knows everything there is to know about monsters and comes prepared with wooden stakes for vampires and silver bullets for werewolves to be the most compelling version of the Ranger archetype (and aspect that is, if anything, downplayed with the removal of the old Favored Enemy from 2014).

Now, I don't think this was announced anywhere, but it looks like we're also getting updates to the Gothic Lineages, much as we did with the Eberron species in FotA, and like there, we're also getting a new one in the Lupin, which seems to be our playable werewolf species (though you could argue that Shifters were sort of that already). My hope, though, is that they don't tie all of their species traits into some kind of natural weapons (though I'm sure they'll get some). Natural weapons seem cool but unless you're playing in a game where the players lose their equipment often, I think you're almost never going to see it come into play.

But ok, beyond the modular pieces like stat blocks, species, and subclasses, what else might we find?

See, I think Van Richten's was brilliant and pretty thorough. Really you could argue that the only thing missing was a set of bepsoke statblocks for its Darklords. In many ways, the adventure ideas for the various Domains kind of presaged the adventure ideas we got in Forge of the Artificers for various aspects of the setting. Van Richten's gave us ideas for curses and stress mechanics, as well as survivor stat blocks and a whole exploration of different kinds of horror (I love that book so much).

Now, I'd honestly be pretty happy if we just got some new domains (or more details on domains that were only touched on in Van Richten's - I think everyone's imaginations lit up when we heard about the Cyre 1313. I've been kind of obsessed with the Vhage Agency (I'd love to use it as a home base hub for a mist-hopping campaign, where the party is working for Filmira Vhage and slowly discovers her villainous nature).

The book won't be as long as Van Richten's (which was among the biggest in 5E) so I honestly don't even know how much space there will be for other stuff after the character options and stat blocks.

Still, I'm really eager to see this one (also think I've got to get that alternative art cover).

Noteworthy Stuff in Midnight So Far

 WoW is an ongoing story that often hints at big details coming later down the pipeline. In terms of storytelling, the game has gotten better at spreading it out over the course of an expansion: in the early days, you'd get new raids and dungeons, but typically whatever "story quests" you got during that period was pretty thin. Nowadays, each major patch (and many minor patches) come with some notable development to the story.

Still, despite the beefier patches in recent years, we never get a big truckload of lore and story quite like the leveling quests.

Midnight has now been out for nearly two weeks (sort of already two weeks for those with early access) and while the raids haven't opened up, we can at least talk about those leveling zones and the stories within.

Now, a lot of this stuff introduces and resolves a story within itself. I think the plot of "The Amani Trolls reconcile with their Loa" is largely complete (with some asterisks). Frankly, the story of Eversong Woods is largely about setting up the plots for the other zones and Arator's Journey - at least the main campaign plot.

But I wanted to point out a few elements of the plot that have not been resolved and feel like they might be important going forward:

    Something Wrong With the Light:

It's mostly a pretty reasonable interpretation that the dickishness of Turalyon, Lothraxion, and the three paladins who are going to be bosses in the big Voidspire raid is just an example of self-righteousness born from blind faith in the Light.

We've seen examples in the past - like the Scarlet Crusade or the Aarakoa in Draenor - of light-affiliated groups and people doing terrible things in its name. More and more, we're presented with the idea that the Light supercharged conviction - much as the Void threatens to tear apart your mind with ceaseless doubting and believing infinite possibilities are true, the Light can blind you to any possibilities other than the path that you've set down on, and we see very much how the Light's Vanguard seems focused more on defeating and destroying the forces of the Void than actually protecting people that the Devouring Host threatens.

And yet...

Arator's Journey shows us other sides of the Light, including Dezco's fairly pacifist interpretation of it. Notably as well, Liadrin at one point calls out that the Light's Vanguard forces are cold in their faith, heedlessly marching forward and demanding everyone else act in lockstep with them.

And then there's the Lightbloom - evidently in the years since 2.4's Fury of the Sunwell, Eversong has had these groves pop up of light-infused plantlife. But only recently has that plantlife grown hostile and aggressive.

So, what gives? Is it simply Light's Vanguard charging up the Sunwell with Light energy (along with Velen and many other famous holy-magic-users) that is exacerbating this? Or is something else going on behind the scenes? Is someone out there in the cosmos doing something to the Light?

    Naga Still Around:

I don't know how to revisit the Naga after we already went to Nazjatar and fought Queen Azshara as a raid's final boss. But there are a couple of side-quests on the coast on Eversong in which we note that the Naga are pillaging arcane power from Quel'thalas and bringing it with them to the depths of the ocean.

Azshara is alive, after all - we rescue her in Ny'alotha. But she's been awfully quiet in the intervening time. (One of the great never-stated-explicitly stories that I love from Battle for Azeroth is that Azshara is almost certainly the Tidemother that the Kul Tiran sea priests worship, which is a truly Lovecraftian element that I sort of wish they'd leaned into a little harder).

    Zul'Jan and the Isle of Fangs:

When we finish the campaign in Zul'Aman, Zul'Jarra sends us to check in on her screw-up brother. There are a couple things I think are really notable about him: one is that he's the one who goes all in on making Ligthwood weapons, and wouldn't you know it, he becomes a stubborn and zealous extremist convinced that he knows better than his sister. He confesses to us a desire to reestablish the old Amani Empire (which one presumes covered all of Lordaeron - possibly even further in the Eastern Kingdoms though at some point you hit the Gurubashi).

I think it's notable that this actually aligns with a lot of real-world far-right political movements, who seek to establish "Greater 'Insert Your Country Name Here'" harkening back to some supposedly glorious past and with notably little concern with what happens to the people and countries who currently occupy those outlands. Zul'Jan is someone to keep an eye on - while Zul'Jarra seems pretty reasonable, her brother could be a major problem. It's all well and good when we see him going medieval on a Twilight's Blade cultist, but that's clearly not where he'd intend to stop.

Now, we have this conversation with him looking east along a broken bridge to a mist-shrouded mountain island. Evidently (thanks to Taliesin and Evitel for this) there's a dubiously canonical island there called the Isle of Fangs, which is said to house a massive serpent being. In the old TTRPG, this entity was considered even more powerful than a Loa (though given how loose a term that is, we can't be sure what that really means - Loa are usually Wild Gods like the Pandaren Celestials or Night Elf Ancients, but Bwonsamdi and Muehzalla are also Loa).

Notably, though, there's also a pretty key bit of lore from Chronicle, which says that one of the two C'thraxxi generals who pursued Tyr from Northrend (the other being the thing whose body you get Strom'kalar out of in Legion - and for Shadow Priests, whose essence you drain into Xal'atath) was slain and buried in... Zul'Aman. Now, I think I had suspected that that might just be under what we now call Atal'Aman, the until-recently capital temple city that was the raid/dungeon. But given how little we heard about any kind of dark presence buried below the zone in the campaign quests, I think maybe it's under the Isle of Fangs.

We're almost certain to go there in a patch, and probably 12.1.

    Haranir Are the Missing Link:

Not sure if this is going to develop into anything, but it's very clear to be that the Haranir are the "dark trolls" that the Night Elves are descended from. The Haranir combine Troll and Night Elf traits (along with porcupine-like spikes) so it all seems to check out.

Notably, they were apparently antagonistic with Freya and her Titan creations. It's interesting, because Freya is linked to Eonar (though there's honestly a bit of confusion as to where the Titans' souls went after Sargeras killed them - theoretically they went into the Keepers on Azeroth, but then we find them captured in Antoras). The reason that's interesting is that it appears Eonar argued with Aman'thul over whether they should incorporate elements of Primordial Life into their work on Azeroth (according to some texts we find in the Emerald Dream under dream-Amirdrassil in Dragonflight).

    Aln'Hara is Probably Azeroth:

Again, this feels practically spelled out: the "goddess" that the Haranir believe to be missing (and she has been since they first arrived in Harandar) is probably the World Soul of Azeroth. Now, who removed her? Was it the Titans who transferred her from her root-cradle? Or had the Old Gods already done so? Clearly, she's now in some kind of Titan facility.

All that being said, I'll address a fan theory I've heard about, which is that Aln'hara is actually Y'Shaarj. I just don't buy it: yes, both were "plucked" from their spots, but Aln'hara's song is identical to what Magni identifies as Azeroth's, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of Old God corruption in Harandar.

Well, though there is the Rift of Aln. Actually, it's kind of awesome to finally see the material-plane equivalent of the Rift of Aln, where we fought Xavius in the Emerald Nightmare raid. That being said, it makes me feel like something more exciting ought to have happened there. I had always assumed that the Rift was some part of the Dream with no equivalent on Azeroth. Perhaps Cenarius and Malfurion also thought that.

One last crazy idea: hey, are we sure that Harandar is actually the natural place for the World Soul either? As we know, six primordial forces vie for control of the World Soul, and while Life is the most consistently good-aligned one of them, it's not like we haven't seen excessive Life magic lead to chaos (as we see in Gorgrond on Draenor, and the backstory of the Botani).

Now, as I understand it, there were no World Trees prior to the War of the Ancients, so it wouldn't have been "their" roots cradling the goddess, but I'm willing to believe there was some complex root system that pre-existed Nordrassil. (Actually, maybe they were the roots of G'hanir).

    And The Rest:

While I think all of these have the potential to point toward elements of the future, there are a couple of notable things that might be more about just fleshing things out than hinting at what is to come.

The world that we know as "The Voidstorm" is actually another planet somewhere that was inundated with void energy. It's not clear if this was the reason, but there are histories you can discover of a master weaponsmith who crafted "the ultimate weapon," which basically destroyed all of civilization there. Did that weapon bring the Void?

I wonder if this was Xal'atath's world when she was a mortal (assuming that the vision she gives Salhadaar is real). As far as I can tell, the only artificial structures are built by Etherals and Dominaar, both of whom I assume came later (certainly the Etherals - but unless the Dominaar became what they are in the aftermath of this destruction and are actually the native denizens, I'd assume they are also alien to that world). There is also, of course, wildlife, but we also don't know if those creatures are indigenous to that planet or if they were brought in.

Another big question I have is where Harandar actually is, relative to the surface of Azeroth. It seems likely that the original idea for Harandar was for it to be in The War Within (on a thematic level, it feels like it could have swapped places with K'aresh, though of course the structure of each zone is very different, so I'd assume if that had ever been a plan, it was only in very early stages of development). I don't think it's necessarily beneath Quel'thalas. If anything, being below Kalmidor feels more likely.

Another question: Sargeras stabbed into the planet with his sword at the end of Legion, and our general assumption was that he was aiming for the World Soul (a kind of "if I can't have it, no one can" - though at least the original pitch for the Burning Legion was that he wanted to destroy the cosmos to prevent it from being corrupted by the Void, so it might have been just a last-ditch attempt to do what he had not yet chosen to do for some reason - honestly, as much as I adore Legion, it did have some story issues: the premise of Antorus being the way that demons endlessly respawn clashed with the idea of Sargeras needing to turn Marduum into a prison world for demons).

Anyway, did Sargeras know where the World Soul was housed? It's heavily, heavily implied that it had been in Harandar previously, but it would have been moved into whatever lay at the bottom of the Coreway - some great Titan facility.

But Sargeras might not have actually known where it was, given that he didn't take part in the Ordering of Azeroth - he was going demon-crazy.

(As a side-note, I think one of the issues we get in the Warcraft cosmos is that beings like Sargeras and the other Titans, or, like, Elune, are so big and powerful and important that the writers seem hesitant to actually write them as characters. I'd really love to actually get some individual characterization of the Titans.)

One thing I've really appreciated about the storytelling in the expansion is its nuance. The Blood Elves are generally good guys, but we really see how Silvermoon society suffers under class stratification. Seems fitting that a culture born out of an exploitative ruling class (the Highborne) would carry those issues forward (even if in theory every Blood, High, and Void Elf is descended from the same upper crust). I was really touched by a story in Zul'Aman of a brother and sister preparing a funeral for their mother - a beloved figure to the community but who was kind of terrible and abusive as a parent, and watching the siblings reconcile with one another as they pursue closure.

I also love all the stuff with the Void Elves, particularly when it gets into the nitty-gritty of what it's like being touched so deeply by the Void. There's a metaphysical thing here that I think is really the great opportunity in fantasy - to make the metaphorical literal - and I really liked a short quest line in which a void elf is haunted by a shade that is a manifestation of his emotions.

Honestly, the Void Elves haven't really had much characterization since they were introduced in the lead-up to Battle For Azeroth. While the other three allied races that released during that latter part of Legion had all been prevalent NPCs, we didn't really have much about the Void Elves. Giving them Voidstorm to really play the primary friendly faction and be the focal point for most of the side quests was a really great chance to get a better sense of them as distinct from "goth Alliance Blood Elves."

We are still in the pre-season period of the expansion, where I've leveled up a ton of characters because there's not a ton to do at the level cap once you have a bunch of adventurer-level gear. But that "smell the roses" grace period is coming to a close soon, so I'll see what thoughts I have when things kick into gear.

Midnight So Far

 We're in the "preseason" period of Midnight, which I think is meant to allow players to level up at a leisurely pace. Naturally, I'm instead using this time to level up as many characters as I can (see the name of the blog).

As I typically do, I leveled up my main, the human protection paladin, through the main campaign story. He was only level 88 when I finished that, so I did a few side quests, and I was sure to hit every delve and dungeon along the way (three are necessary for the campaign). Then, I've gone through my long-established old-school characters I've been playing for nearly twenty years now. Eager to see the Horde-only side of Silvermoon and also encouraged by a far simpler Subtlety spec, I took my Rogue in after the Paladin.

With each of these next characters, I hang around in a single zone to do all the side-quests and get the "Sojourner" achievement. The Undead Rogue stuck to Eversong, and I have to say that the questlines in Silvermoon in particular felt very appropriate for a character I've always imagined as a kind of bitter and cynical spy like something out of a Le Carré novel. Arguably it's a bit more like a Noir detective kind of vibe to these stories, but there's a notable recognition of the fact that the Blood Elves have a deeply flawed society, with a rich elite that exploits the poor. It makes sense - their Highborne ancestors were the powerful elite of Kal'dorei society before they were exiled, and given how long elves live (they weren't immortal like the Night Elves were until the end of the Third War, but I think they're meant to live thousands of years - I can't recall if Dath'remar was Anastarian's father, but I don't think they're all that many generations removed from the War of the Ancients). The quests in Eversong itself are largely less bitter in tone (actually there are some very whimsical ones within the city as well).

My next character in was my Draenei Death Knight, who has historically gravitated most toward Blood, but I've also often played him as Frost, and have focused on that for the most part so far. As a profoundly ancient alien, it seemed appropriate to have him focus on the Voidstorm. While I think a Void Elf Devourer Demon Hunter or Shadow Priest would be truly the most appropriate character to do all the stuff there, I was actually really rewarded for bringing a Draenei, as there's a quest where a lot of the NPCs apparently speak in Draenei and have specific dialogue for them. I'm impressed that they've managed to really come up with some metaphysically weird stuff here. Since their introduction technically toward the end of Legion (though they required purchase of BFA) the Void Elves haven't really had much time in the spotlight to develop as a culture and people. Unlike the rest of that first batch of allied races, we didn't see any during Legion. Voidstorm puts the Ren'dorei front and center, and gives them an opportunity to be defined independently of being "those void-transformed Blood Elves who were banished from Quel'thalas." (Incidentally, I have a Blood Elf Shadow Priest that I've had since BC, and I find it really funny that he'd condemn the Void Elves for what they're doing while being a literal Shadow Priest.)

Next after that is my Tauren Enhancement Shaman, who has been questing around Zul'Aman. Across the board, I've been impressed by the writing of the side quests, with a lot of unexpected and emotionally resonant stories (a story involving the Loa that protects Amani children hit me with a moment that made me wonder who was cutting onions nearby).

These four are the only ones that I've taken to the new content so far, but I'll be rounding out my tour of Midnight when I bring my Night Elf Demon Hunter to focus primarily on Harandar. I'm halfway tempted to level him up as Devourer just so that I have a ranged character in the mix.

I'm pretty loyal to my alts - the original characters of each class have mostly been the ones I actually play and try to gear up, though after Cataclysm, my Worgen Warrior and Draenei Mage kind of took over from the originals (both swapping my "class main" in these to the Alliance, so I lean Alliance a little) and then I couldn't resist the Wicker Man Druid forms of the Kul Tirans, so that one took over for my original Night Elf Druid.

I still like to keep those originals (like my Orc Warrior and Troll Mage) leveled up, but usually I do so toward the end of an expansion and don't put too much effort into gearing them.

But yes, let's talk Midnight.

Thematically, there's a pretty heavy emphasis on the Light being nearly as much of a threat as the Void. We see this in Turalyon's, frankly, dickish attitude toward the Blood Elves and his insistence that the Light can do not wrong, even in the face of pretty clear evidence. Along the same lines, we see Lothraxion succumb to wrathful zeal and we actually have to kill him to keep him from causing massive collateral damage that could destroy Silvermoon. But we also see its effect on nature with the Lightbloom.

Notably, there seems to be something that has supercharged this danger in the Light. It could simply be the effort to pour the Light into the Sunwell to hold off Xal'atath's invasion - after all, it seems that the Lightbloom in Eversong started nearly two decades ago, when M'uru was used to reignite the Sunwell. The effects have been benign until recently.

But it's still something of a mystery: it's not clear if the Paladins and Priests channeling Light into the Sunwell is what is causing this or if there's some hidden threat.

Traveling into Harandar, we learn a couple of things - technically never said explicitly, but implied heavily:

First off: the Haranir are clearly an offshoot of the original "Dark Trolls" that became the Night Elves. Their history tells of having once lived on and under a great mountain (presumably Hyjal) and that their ancestors left there to live underground in the great root-nexus. So yes, I think we can confidently say that the Haranir are a kind of "missing link" between Night Elves and Trolls, and fittingly, they have a mixture of features from both peoples.

Second: the Haranir worship an absent goddess they call Aln'hara, who supposedly rested in a great cradle of roots suspended above Harandar, but she was stolen away. This is, almost certainly, the World Soul of Azeroth. (Notably, there are illusory beings that are imagined into existence by the goddess, and they look exactly like the various World Soul memories we've seen during War Within, which themselves have a similar color scheme to Azerite. Indeed, we have a big part of the quests in Harandar to secure "Aln Dust" which I suspect is just Azertie). And that's actually really interesting! Some force must have moved where the World Soul was located inside the planet. I think we're meant to suspect that the Titans did this in their "Ordering of Azeroth," but let's not forget that the Titans found the world in a state where the Old Gods were trying to corrupt it, so it may have been the Black Empire that stole the Haranir goddess.

I'll also note that the cradle is small enough that I can now actually imagine Azeroth emerging from the planet without killing every living thing on it, which is nice.

Third: we finally have the "material world" location for the Rift of Aln, the part of the Emerald Dream in which we fought Xavius, and which was the wellspring of the Emerald Nightmare. Turns out, the real Rift of Aln is in Harandar! (I'll be eager to explore that area more thoroughly.)

The expansion widely expands the "Quel'thalas Peninsula," though I think it does so primarily by just making Zul'Aman much bigger - the area from the old raid/dungeon is now referred to as Atal'Aman (fitting in the established Troll naming scheme) and is both an outdoor area where you do some of the campaign quests as well as the location of a Delve (there do seem to be a few Delves this expansion that are just alternative versions of outdoor locations - in fact, I think there's one in each zone like that).

Notably, even as Zul'Aman sticks out much farther east than we saw prior to this expansion, there's also a mist-shrouded mountainous island beyond, which many are speculating is a place we'll go in the next patch. Much as the road through Quel'thalas goes all the way up through Silvermoon and along a very long bridge to Quel'danas, there's a giant road and broken bridge that leads to this mountain.

As always, there are tons of details - the game is incredibly dense with lore and little interesting notes. But we've, of course, only scratched the surface so far.

Ravenloft, Arcane Stuff, Thay Books Announced for 2026

 Since the release of the Forgotten Realms books last fall, we've been sitting around waiting to find out what is coming out for D&D next for quite a while. Well, we finally know about some of it!

    Ravenloft: Horrors Within

First off, we have a new Ravenloft sourcebooks. Likely taking a similar approach to Forge of the Artificer, this book will supplement Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft with some 5.5 updates (oh, burying the lede here - 2024 D&D is now officially 5.5).

Horrors Within will give us new and updated subclasses as seen in Unearthed Arcana. Presumably we can expect it to include the Undead Warlock Patron, College of Spirits Bard, as well as the new Reanimator Artificer, along with others, though we don't have an explicit list.

Additionally, the book is expected to have many monsters, including Cthulhu, presented as a Darklord (with estimates of a CR of 25 or so).

It will also include the three established Gothic Lineages as playable species as well as a new one, the Lupin (presumably the closest you'll get to playing as a werewolf). Additionally, Dark Gifts are being redesigned as feats.

I adore Ravenloft as a setting (especially its 5th Edition iteration) and I love horror-themed monsters, so I'm super excited about this.

This is due to release in June (just in time for my birthday!)

    Arcana Unleashed

A "high-magic"-themed book, this will include several new subclasses (I can confirm Conjurer and Enchanter for Wizards, as we have a screenshot of a page with features for them, but presumably we'll get the remaining 4 Wizard subclasses from 2014). We'll also likely get updates to the Arcane Archer, Hexblade Patron, and possibly some new subclasses like Ancestral Sorcery or Tattooed Warrior Monk.

Additionally, we're getting more spells, including a mix of some from previous sources (Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting is seen) as well as some new ones (Battle Familiar is a 2nd level spell that allows you to summon a familiar or upgrade one from Find Familiar to fight in battle, presumably along the lines of the Artificer's Homunculus Servant).

There will also be a number of new feats and backgrounds.

    Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall

This is going to be a new adventure book focusing on the Red Wizards of Thay. We don't have a level range for it yet, but it will apparently be set against the backdrop of a great Wizard War, which sounds exciting.

Both Arcana Unleashed books are likely coming out some time in the Fall.

Midnight!

 Out of a combination of peer pressure and a D&D session getting cancelled, I caved and got early access to Midnight. Yeah, I don't love it, philosophically, though I also do wonder if it also staggers people getting into the game. While things were pretty good yesterday, I've been having crazy lag today. It's also insanely hot in LA today, which might have something to do with it.

Tonally, the expansion launches in a state of desperation. Xal'atath's invasion of Quel'thalas is in full swing, and our fight to secure the Isle of Quel'danas is a desperate one.

Let's talk big plot elements:

Liadrin prays to the Light to send defenders to the Sunwell, and we, along with the Army of the Light, answer that call. We do manage to secure things, but it's tenuous: basically most of the most powerful light-aligned NPCs are spending every waking hour channeling into the Sunwell to hold off the Void. Quel'danas is effectively under Army of the Light control, and decidedly not the control of the Blood Elf government in Silvermoon. While Lor'themar remains a somewhat even-handed and pragmatic leader, tension abounds: Many of the Blood Elves are not happy about having a ton of Alliance folks in their city, to start (there are parts of the city Alliance players are forbidden to enter) but on top of that, both the Army of the Light and Grand Magister Rommath are adamant that the Void Elves are not allowed anywhere near the Sunwell (I'm curious to take a Void Elf character into this, though that will probably not be for a long time,) so Magister Umbric has been forced to do his research into the Void in Tranquillien.

In War Within, we touched a bit on the less flattering side of the Titans, and there's a bit of that as well (especially a pretty big deal when we get to Harandar) but we're seeing a lot of zealotry on the side of the Light, especially in Turalyon, who is not coming off, you know, great in this.

While it's not nearly as extensive as a whole zone's worth of story quests, we do get an extended questline with Arator, where he learns a little more about what made his dad the way he is, and also different perspectives on what it means to be a paladin. This is kind of cool: the sort of quest line you'd expect to get as a kind of side-thing in a .x.5 or .x.7 patch, but in this case it's key to setting up Arator's story.

There's an interesting question being raised: is the Light really no better than the Void? Or is there something strange going on with the Light on a cosmic level?

Certainly, WoW has always been about balance, where taking anything to an extreme can lead to pain and suffering (even Life as a force can get too powerful, as we saw on Draenor). It's interesting to me that we're seeing negative sides of the Titans and the Light, which for so long were mainly thought of as positive forces in the Warcraft cosmos (though to be fair, we had the Scarlet Crusade in Vanilla, and also the Mogu showing us that the Titanforged weren't always so nice).

I'm currently level 87 and questing through the Voidstorm. Unless it's a very long zone, I suspect that I'll have to do some sidequests to actually hit 90.

It's interesting: we have some choice on the order in which we do our quests, but everyone starts in Eversong Woods (which now includes the former Ghostlands as well) and then you can choose the order in which you do Zul'aman, Harandar, and Arator's Journey (that's the order I did them in) before you get the quest to go into the Voidstorm.

Joke's On Me! Back in the RCPD

 Welp, that didn't last long. Well, it sort of did: after escaping the RCPD garage, we go down into the sewers with Ada, and even wind up playing as her for a brief segment (here I think I had deaths 2 and 3, the first because I realized too late that I was trying to do the timed incinerator puzzle backwards, and the second time because Mr. X got me and Ada does not get any healing items).

Anyway, we're not quite into the high-tech laboratories, but it's very industrial and labyrinthine. Getting a tool to turn these particular locks, I should have realized that I was going to come back and use it in the old building (it mostly just lets us go back via the Goddess Statue).

Yeah, naturally the zombie outbreak is coming from a lab underneath the police department we've spent most of the game in, and they all integrate into one big map. I'm not sure there's been a loading screen (there have been cutscenes, and I'm sure there are some cheats).

Anyway, I have some film to develop back in the RCPD darkroom, and hope now springs anew that I will get my hands on that final Heart key.

Inventory management is pretty rough, though: I had to leave behind the Stars badge in a place where I got an enhancement for the magnum weapon (though here's betting that I'm just going to finally get back there only to discover that it's now got that red checkmark next to it).

I've also gotten a lot of blue herbs and have yet to encounter the poisoned condition. I'm curious to see what happens if you mix all three herbs together - in RE4 it of course boosted your max HP while also being basically a full heal.

Maybe I'm just playing smart, but I've found that I've got a surplus of healing items. Or maybe the game's going to get a lot tougher and I'll be thanking my past self for that later on. I'm on standard difficulty and wondering if the game has any adaptive difficulty - the way that Alan Wake II and Silent Hill 2 both let you find more ammo and healing items if you're struggling. (AWII I think does it a little awkwardly by letting Taken/Fadeouts drop little cubic boxes).

I do feel like I should revisit Alan Wake II after playing all of these predecessors (or at least remakes of predecessors). I adored that game's narrative, and kind of tolerated its gameplay, but now that I'm getting a little more accustomed to Survival Horror as a genre, I wonder if I'd do significantly better. For example, I was always trying to just maximize damage in Alan Wake II, and now I wonder if there's the same sort of staggering mechanic with shots to the legs.

I will say, RE2's Zombie don't seem to be slowed much by anything other than a headshot, though.

Out (Maybe For Good?) Of the RCPD

 Another update in Leon's terrible night in Raccoon City:

After solving the Goddess Statue puzzle ("puzzle") the next real challenge is to fix the electrical wiring in the jail in the basement (fitting that a police headquarters would have a holding facility. I have, luckily, never been inside of a real police station. Is it normal to have them in basements?) The cells are all filled with zombies, and I think there's a reasonable strategy to try to take them down while they're in their cells, because when the power goes back on, they all come out.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our foray into the basement is actually a bit short. However, it also has the first of what I imagine are a pretty small number of boss fights - a horribly mutated person with a giant eyeball growing out of his distended shoulder comes after us. Given how many eyes I shot or stabbed in RE4, I knew to focus my fire on this. Like zombies, the key was to get some distance, fire, and move before he could catch up with me.

After this, we emerge into the parking garage, off of which there are places like the shooting range, jail, a morgue, and a kennel, which gives us our first freaking zombie dogs.

We also meet Ada Wong, who in this game is introduced as an FBI agent, even though I know we find out later she's nothing of the sort.

Once we get the power running again, we can head up the stairs and back into the east wing of the RCPD, and with some key items we find there, we can open up a bit more of the building, finally putting out the fire set by the crashed helicopter.

However, doing so introduces us to Mr. X.

I'd already seen his introduction in online videos, but it's a fantastically understated intro: you go through a door to find the tail of the helicopter blocking your way. Then, helpfully, a massive ogre of a super-zombie in a trenchcoat and hat (though literally the first time I saw him I blasted him in the head with a shotgun, which removed the hat and netted me an achievement - and he has been hatless since).

Until this point, the game has been about slow, careful traversal of the RCPD. There are moments where it's best to run from the zombies, but they don't follow for very long.

Mr. X will, I think, continue hunting you down until you open up significant distance from him, and even then, he continues to roam the building. Even the main hall, our safe home base (oh, except when Martin Branagh turns into a zombie, which we all knew was coming) is fair game for Mr. X to chase you. He hits hard, but is overall pretty simple - he just walks quickly toward you, and you can stagger him with a couple shots (a headshot seems to do nicely) and run past him.

Still, it's good that we spend the first couple hours of the game creating a mental map of the RCPD, because that slow and careful exploration goes out the window when Mr. X is on our tail.

Getting the final part we need to restore power to the jail, we get into the cell of the journalist who was trying to expose Umbrella (before his skull was crushed by Mr. X - actually before we have that first proper meeting) and get the keycard off of his body, along with a recording of his attempt to get information out of an Umbrella scientist. Of course, when the cells all open, we not only have like a dozen zombies, but look who's here! Mr. X comes to follow as well!

Getting past them is a bit tough (I've had a lot of stockpiled healing items, so I kind of just brute-forced it after taking a lot of attacks from zombies) but once you do, Ada shows up and rams Mr. X with a SWAT van, which she then detonates with some explosives.

I'm assuming Mr. X is still around, but it gives you the opportunity to leave.

There were a handful of rooms I wasn't able to explore in the RCPD, and I wonder if these are just for Claire's story. I never got the Heart key, though I was able to open all the Spade, Club, and Diamond doors.

While the game is very scary, I think I've only actually died once (maybe twice?) And I actually think that this is appropriate: again, horror lives in tension, and even if it's a negative outcome, dying releases some of that tension. Thus, the difficulty of the game feels less about fending off zombies (and other, nastier things) but more about figuring out where to go next and what to do.

The combat in RE4 is for sure more satisfying, but I think you could make a very solid argument that this is fine, because RE2 is trying to do something very different. Fittingly for a game from 1998, RE2 feels old-school.

I really like that the layout of the RCPD is not totally implausible but also a little absurd. And I like the way that the game uses the space. Our familiarity with its layout is one of the tools we develop in our arsenal.

Now, of course, I'm heading to the underground labs in the sewers. I wonder if this will have a similar feeling of let-down to RE4's move to the island after the excellence of the Village and Castle.