Review – D&D Ravenloft: The Horrors Within

Dungeons & Dragons has often had forays into darker stories and settings with its many trips to Barovia or with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. But even in that iteration, the scares and dangers felt PG-13. In Ravenloft: The Horrors Within they attempt to dive even deeper into the setting, making it scarier and darker than ever before. Ravenloft is shown for what it truly is: a loosely interconnected series of planes, ruled by Nightmare Logic, Dark Powers, and deadly Mists. Read on if you dare to learn more about the dangers, Domains, Darklords, and devious evils that lurk there!

Content Guide

The usual D&D warnings apply, but even more so in this book. Depending on what realm you end up in and what your DM sets up for you, players could encounter: necromancy, skeletons, zombies, undead, vampires, werewolves, curses, evil swords, ghosts, otherworldly monsters like Cthulhu, carnivorous plants, inquisitors, cultists, or anything else evil that they can think up. 

On the pages in the book there is an uptick in blood, violence, decapitations, and generally messed-up drawings; tie goes to either the full image of Strahd showing dead and bloody bodies at his feet, or the picture of the hag Mother Lorinda standing over a facedown child-shaped victim, either about to or just having sacrificed them. 

Points towards the positive: the writers of the book make it clear that you should be scaring the characters, not the players, and they go out of their way to state that if you’re doing body horror around actual disabilities you’re doing it wrong. 

Review

After a brief introduction explaining how the Domains of Dread work (the mists let your DM do whatever they want, so be scared), Chapter 1 gives you some Character options should you want to roll up someone new who would feel right at home in a horror setting. With 7 different class options to choose from, you could be anything from a Reanimator (Artificer who uses Necromancy like Dr. Frankenstein) to a Warlock with an Undead Patron like a Lich or Vampire. It also gives 4 different new Backgrounds (Haunted One, Investigator, Mist Wanderer, Spirit Medium), and 4 new Species. Players can choose from Dhampir, Hexblood, Lupin, and Reborn (think Frankenstein’s Monster) and also choose from new Feats and Dark Gifts to spice things up. 

Chapter 2 is the biggest section, going into the different Domains of Ravenloft, the different Darklords, and giving 17 different adventure hooks ranging from level 2-16, but they aren’t in order in the book. Luckily the Contents section also has a small “Adventures by Level” section. Each Domain is also given a Tarokka Deck card assignment, if players want to acquire and use that as an accessory. There’s a section at the back of the book explaining how to use it, which is also repeated in the deck explainer as well. Of all the regions, the Shadowlands were my favorite because I liked the idea of sending players up against a BBEG only for the rug-pull moment of them realizing it was the Sword that was in charge of all the evil happening around them. Also it’s worth noting that even though he features prominently on the books and other materials, Strahd is only a small part of this book—it isn’t just about Barovia.

Chapter 3 briefly gives you ideas on how to make your own campaigns in Ravenloft, and Chapter 4 details how to make your own Domain and Darklord, as well as explaining the different types of horror (Body, Cosmic, Dark, Gothic, etc.). Chapter 5, Denizens of the Mists, is essentially a bestiary full of nope. Things you’d never want to run into, with the occasional classic Zombie or Vampire sprinkled in. 

Shipped along with the Ravenloft book were a map pack, DM screen, and Tarokka Deck to round out the horror setting. The map pack has 5 double-sided maps that unfold to about 30” by 22” and also includes 93 creature and terrain tokens to use in your horror campaign. The Tarokkoa Deck is basically a tarot deck tied to the different domains, done in a creepy style that even makes the Paladin card look like bad news. The standout accessory for me was the DM screen, which has a foil-like sheen to it that looks more like an oil slick than something made out of cardboard. Pictures don’t do it justice. And to top it off, the inside even has a D100 table to roll on for Horror Encounters in case you need a danger to drop on your players quickly. 

The Horrors Within felt like it might have been just a retread of Van Richten’s Guide, but WotC have clearly made choices to steer into the scary skid here. It’s darker, grittier, and looks a whole lot scarier than its predecessor, even though it does have some of the same settings. If your D&D group is the type to want to dive into scary or macabre story hooks, you should definitely check out Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. 

A review copy of all products mentioned were provided by the publisher.