I know that we only just found out about Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in the past week, and frankly, there's a ton of different gaming stuff I'm excited about this fall (I'm trying not to think about how nervous I am about the state of the real world. I'd love to be able to safely and considerately go to other locations without a mask on next year!)
But maybe it's because of been testing out the Revendreth zone in the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Beta or maybe just because I'm super excited about gothic horror stuff, but I'm actually getting pretty excited about the prospect of a Ravenloft book coming out for 5th Edition.
Technically, this would be the second such book, as the Curse of Strahd adventure is, of course, also set in Ravenloft - its Castle Ravenloft is, after all, the namesake of the broader setting.
Before we talk about what I'd like to see in the book, let me get into what the setting is.
The "shadow realm" in D&D has gone through multiple iterations. But in the 5th Edition version of the cosmology (and starting I believe in either 3rd or 4th edition) we have something called the Shadowfell - which I believe was canonically a merging of the Plane of Shadow with some other elements.
Essentially the dark and dreary mirror to the Feywild, where the Feywild is bright, colorful, and filled with energy and emotion, the Shadowfell is drained, depressed, grey, and bleak. While it's home to many monsters, the biggest danger of the Shadowfell is despair - the place sucks the energy and will from people who come there, and leaves them as anxious, depressed, nervous wrecks. Sometimes, a person's negative emotions can take on the form of Sorrowsworn: monsters that embody these types of despair.
The Shadowfell itself, like the Feywild, is a mirror dimension of the prime material plane - a mountain or major city will exist in different versions in each realm, but with different characters, appearances, and feels. For example, where in the material plane on the Forgotten Realms there is the city of Neverwinter, the Shadowfell as a dark reflection called Evernight.
However, that's not quite the Ravenloft setting.
Existing in a sort of foam of dimensional bubbles on the border of the Shadowfell are several realms called the Domains of Dread. Each is a self-contained land surrounded by a dense, impassible (for most) mist.
The Domains of Dread are ruled over by the Dark Powers - godlike but mysterious beings whose exact nature and form are anyone's guess. It is the Dark Powers who choose individuals to the damnation that is becoming a Dark Lord.
Each of the Domains is "ruled" by its Dark Lord, such as Strahd Von Zarovich does in Barovia. While these individuals are theoretically in charge of their lands, and have a great deal of power over them, the truth is that they are actually the realm's primary prisoner. These are the individuals deemed by the Dark Powers to be so evil that they must be locked away.
The Domains of Dread torment these Dark Lords, forcing them into endless cycles of obsession, violence, and frustrated hopes. For example, Strahd is on an obsessive quest to take the reincarnation of the woman he killed his brother over, but even if he were to get her, he would only wind up killing her and starting the cycle anew.
Where adventurers come in is that the Mists sometimes drag outsiders into the Domains, and the goal of any adventurer who arrives there is to fight their way out by slaying the Dark Lord, thus getting a reprieve from the Mists.
The Curse of Strahd adventure more or less functions on that principle, but earlier editions placed the various demiplanes in geographical connections to one another, and allowed for the various Dark Lords to war and feud with one another.
In addition to the Dark Powers, there is a culture of humans known as the Vistani who are able to travel between the Mists, and are not bound by the curses that hold other inhabitants in these realms.
Ravenloft is not only potent for the danger and classic monsters it contains, but it also presents a pretty obvious campaign structure, at least before you get into inter-Dark Lord disputes.
The UA with the College of Spirits Bard and Undead Patron for Warlocks, if it's not simply for Tasha's, seems to suggest that we could get a Ravenloft campaign setting book. I'm all for this, and I think it would be a slam dunk on WotC's part, given how popular Curse of Strahd is.
So what would we like to see?
First things first, I'd like to talk about the Vistani.
The Vistani are a very clear fantasy counterpart culture for the Romani people - to the extent that in the copy of Curse of Strahd I have, they're literally referred to as "gypsies," which is a term is pretty outdated and should be retired. The Romani people have historically been oppressed and targeted with violence throughout history, and much of this treatment has been justified by legends of dark magic and curses.
Indeed, the connection between the "exoticism" of the Romani and the tropes of Gothic horror is the reason the Vistani exist in the first place, which makes it difficult to excise the stereotype from the setting altogether. As someone of Jewish ancestry whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, I know that I'd be pretty upset if some fantasy game were using "Jew magic" as a game mechanic centered around some group of people you can't really trust. (The use of Golems as a type of monster is something I don't feel quite as upset about, though I know there are some people do.)
I think the idea of a group of people who are exempted from the trapping nature of the Mists is a potent one for a fantasy setting. Indeed, I don't think basing fantasy cultures on real-world cultures is inherently wrong. But I do think that if you're going to base the Vistani on the Romani, you need to do your best to emphasize their humanity - we need to see that their culture is a rich and varied one, and that their culture itself is not some source of evil. At the very least, I'd make sure you had some Romani writers in the creative process to work on the project, as a member of a culture will be far better at identifying problematic characterizations than one who isn't a member.
Moving on:
Naturally, I'd love to see the two subclasses previewed in Unearthed Arcana featured in this hypothetical book as well. While there are some balancing issues to address (I really want to roll 2d10 for every eldritch blast hit, but I realize that might just be OP) I think the overall structure of both subclasses is phenomenally good. Plus, I love the idea of playing a game in which your demiplane's Dark Lord is your Warlock Patron.
Next, I obviously want a great deal of lore for the Demiplanes. Barovia is great, and makes for a good setting, but you can already explore that in Curse of Strahd. What I want is a broader view of not just other realms, but also details on how the realms are constructed so that DMs can homebrew their own demiplanes and Dark Lords.
Given its basis in Gothic Horror rather than Tolkienesque fantasy, Ravenloft tends to have mostly human characters. I think that's fine (I think people are too down on playing humans in fantasy games) but I had the following thought:
Maybe, either as wholly separate races, or as some kind of variant option, you could give people "monstrous character options." This would allow for player characters who are somehow related to the classic gothic horror monsters. For example, a player could be a Dhampir - a kind of half-vampire (one version of how they're created is when a vampire turns a woman who is pregnant, the baby is born with vampire-like qualities, but without its weaknesses.) This would also be a good opportunity to make more comprehensive rules on players as werewolves and other lycanthropes - perhaps creating new rules for resisting the curse's violent tendencies. To round things out, I'd also have some kind of ghostly variant - one option is that your character is actually a revenant (something they played with in other UAs,) or perhaps take the idea of being a "haunted one" more literally - like you've got a ghost that is haunting you.
Like most campaign setting books, we'd also want a big bestiary. In particular, I'd want some higher-CR monsters. I've found that genuinely scaring players when they're past level 8 or 9 is really tough. I'd love to have a vampire villain who can hold their own against a group of tier 3 characters. I also have a homebrew version of werewolves that really, truly, can only be killed with silver weapons or 6th or higher level spells, which I think could make them a lot scarier (and force players to regroup and rethink strategies.) Also, please give us some gargoyle variants!
Speaking of scaring players: I'd love to have a chapter dedicated to enhancing the scariness of your adventures - details and such to make things feel spookier. Among them, I think that some detailed rules on curses would be great - the spell Bestow Curse does have a special note that other curses can be inflicted, but it's sort of an open door for DMs. I'd love to have a section on building compelling and interesting curses (and perhaps giving them a way to persist beyond the simple use of a 3rd level spell to get rid of them.)
On the heroic side of things, I'd also maybe look into ways to incorporate some monster-hunting gear. I know there are already rules for doing things like silvering weapons, but it might be fun to create loot more in line with the 19th century feel of the gothic horror setting - like broader details for the use of firearms (gotta have those silver bullets when the werewolves come!)
Old-school D&D fans have not gotten a ton of classic D&D setting books in 5th Edition, and I think Ravenloft would both be very popular among veterans as well as new players.
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