Mail Call and Review: Hexbound: A Witchy Supplement for 5e

 So this one was a bit of a surprise for me this week. I honestly kinda forgot I backed it over two and half years ago. But it came in yesterday and I thought I would share it.

Hexbound: A Witchy Supplement for 5e

There are a lot of reasons why I have never put together a witch class of my own for 5e. One of the biggest is I have wanted to see what others have done with their own ideas. You know, try and recapture that thrill of discovery that I had back in the 1980s and 90s when I'd find a new witch class. 

Hexbound is the first big 5e "Witch" class Kickstarter I have backed.  So how did they deliver?

I got the PDFs and STLs a while back and they looked great, but I have been waiting on the book.

Here is what I was sent.

The level I pledged at was for the  Collector's Edition cover of the Hexbound Hardcover, a set of Hexbound Reference Cards, two pins, four minis and digital files of the book and minis.

The book is really nice. I love the art and in particular the Art Nouveau style cover. Really fits the vibe I want for my witches in 5e. 

The add-ons are nice. I am a sucker for a deck of tarot-like cards for a game. I want to make a witch character for 5e JUST so I can use these cards.

And the minis are also nice. I am not sure I recall what that big one is, but it is in the book.

Hexbound: The Good

REMINDER: I am always sensitive when I am reviewing someone else's witch material. I am not aware of any RPG author who has written as much about witches as I have, so I need to be careful on how critical I could be. 

Like I said, the book is really attractive. The art is really nice I think I need some dice to go with it to fit the aesthetic (that should have been an option really.) The author of the book, Antonio Demico, is also the illustrator. 

What attracted me most to this book was there was not just one "Witch Class" but rather witch subclasses for each class. And there are some really fun ones here. All are considered "Witches" and they just have different ways of expressing their magics. This is the same idea I have witches but going in the opposite direction.  I have one witch class with a lot of options, aka Traditions which can be viewed as "subclasses." I rather like it to be honest and it would be a fun way to build a coven of witches in 5e. Everyone takes a class and then the witch sub classes. Each one has a lot of unique options to help keep the witches very flexible.

The classes and their witch subclasses are: 

• The Intoner for Bards. I kinda love this one.
• The Medium for Clerics. This one is so obvious that I am kicking myself for not doing it myself.
• Circle of the Brew for Druids. Not how I would have gone, but it is certainly clever. 
• The Witchblade for Fighters. File under "Why the hell didn't I think of that." Well, I guess I do have my Witch Knights.
• Way of the Specter for Monks. Interesting, I'd have to play it to really understand it.
• Path of the Coven for Paladins. Cool, different enough from my Green Knight to be fun.
• Coven Conclave for Rangers. Similar to my Huntsman but more powers.
• Duskwalker for Rogues. This one is interesting. I rarely mix rogues/thieves with witches. So I will have to try this one.
• Coven of Spirits for Sorcerer. This one calls on the magic of family spirits. Pretty much exactly my Family Witch.
• Witch Patron for Warlocks. This one is also pretty obvious, and likely one of the more popular ones that will get played. 
• School of Witchcraft for Wizards. Now this one is both obvious and yet still a lot of fun. It also has conceptual roots going all the way back to the earliest editions of D&D. 
• Path of the Witch for Barbarian. This one was added later on. In some ways it reminds me of my Cowan for the Pagan Witch, OR (better yet) this is how you can play Cú Chulainn (with Scáthach as his witch) OR even like the warriors on their dajemma with the Witches of Rashemen.

So yeah, if you have a witch concept then there is likely a subclass here that will fit your needs.

There are some new backgrounds for your new witch. All look great really. 

We also get some new familiars here too including a personal favorite, the Jackalope. 

There are some new spells, but only 10. That seems to be a bit, well, underwhelming to be honest. 

Part II of the book is for GMs.

This includes magic items (again, there should have been more), some wands (some really fun ones too), and some magical hats.

Part III is called "for the table." This discusses how to run and play a game filled with witches. There are adventure hooks, NPCs (lots of those), monsters, and some adventures to run. 

Hexbound: The Not So Good

While the book is great to look at, it is not without some issues.

I am not going to quibble about how long it took us to get this and how it may (or may not) sitll be compatible with D&D 5.5. That stuff happens and this is likely a one man show. They get a pass from me on that.

Some issues are like the cards above. Great idea, but I'd have to try them out to see how well they work in a game. And as you can see two of the cards went to press with their placeholder art and not the art for their NPCs.

The minis are nice, but they are really too small. As you can see above compared to HeroForge minis; one I printed myself and one I bought color printed. 

I have the 3D printer, I can print new ones if I want to get them to 25/28 mm Not everyone has that option. OR I just redo the characters as halflings, dwarfs, gnomes and/or goblins.

There should have really been more spells. I know all to well that page count is all important when it comes to this Kickstarters fulfilments. But spells are important to the witch, and there should have been a lot more. 

Ok, so I do not know much about the creator Antonio Demico, but I think I have been writing about witches for longer than he has been alive. So I can't hold his work up to the same critical lens I would hold my own up too, but really. Ten spells is not even close to enough. Reduce the font size by a point and get at least 13 in there. Respect the source material. 

One last thing. Antonio Demico is a great artist and he certainly knows someone that is great at layout, there really should have been a redesigned witchy character sheet. I mean that cover BEGS to have a character sheet to match. I mean really, I do love that cover. 

Overall I am happy with the book and the cards. The minis are too small really and the pins, while nice, are largely forgettable. I mean I put them on my gamer bag and will I even remember what they were from next Gen Con?

At the end of the day, I am still happy to have another witch class and book for my collection. Since at last count I had, well, all of them.

Review: Ravenloft Honorable Mentions

 Not full reviews really today, but some honorable mentions of books and accessories you can use with Ravenloft.

X2 Castle Amber (Basic)

I have talked a lot about Castle Amber and how it is a Proto-Ravenloft setting. Droping this into the Domain of Dread seems like a no-brainer to me. 

B7 Rahasia (Basic)

Likewise I have talked about Rahasia and this one come from Tracy and Laura Hickman. Content from this adventure has found its way into official Ravenloft products for 5e.

Heroes of Horror (3.5)

The lack of proper Ravenloft material for 3e can be partially remedied with Heroes of Horror for D&D 3.5. Though this one moves away from Ravenloft's quasi-Gothic horror and looks for something more D&D like.

Dread Metrol: Into the Mists - An Eberron / Ravenloft Crossover (5e)

Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron gives us an Eberron/Ravenloft crossover. Over 100 pages.

She is the Ancient: A Genderbent Curse of Strahd (5e)

I reviewed this in detail a while back. Great new take on the classic Ravenloft adventure. 

And a couple of really good map packs. Suitable for any edition: Castle Ravenloft Battle Maps and Tessa Presents 113 Maps for Curse of Strahd.

And that ends my exploration into Ravenloft for this Halloween. Who knows, maybe we will return again next year! Plenty of AD&D 2nd products left to explore.

Review: Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death d20

Ravenloft was doing well from what I can recall so it was only natural that Sword & Sorcery Studios would eventually want to take on Ravenloft's other setting, Gothic Earth. So in 2004 they published the new Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death.

Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death d20

2004. by Jackie Cassada, Claire Hoffman, Carla Hollar, Harold Johnson, Rucht Lilavivat, Nicky Rea, Andrew Scott, and Peter Woodworth. Art by Talon Dunning, Jeff Holt, Marcio, Fiorito, Brian LeBlanc, Jeremy McHugh, Claudio Pozas, and Beth Trott. Cover art by Ron Thompson. 288 pages. Hardcover.

There is no PDF option for this title at DriveThruRPG. So, for this review, I considering only my hardbound copy. 

I LOVED Gothic Earth for Ravenloft AD&D 2nd Edition. To me, it felt like a bold attempt to try something brand new. Plus, I love Victorian Gothic Horror, so it was an easy win. But despite all of that, some of the things in Masque of the Red Death for 2ne Ed just really didn't work. The "new" Masque of the Red Death for the d20 rules fixes some of those problems. But does it measure up?

The background is largely the same, or at least I didn't see anything jump out at me as very different. 

Chapter One: A History of Gothic Earth

This all feels very similar to the AD&D 2nd Ed version. I can't find anything here wildly different.

Like the original, there are sections of "Forbidden Lore" spread throughout the book. 

Chapter Two: An Atlas of Gothic Earth

This chapter covers all the continents in a very brief manner. There is more here than the AD&D set, or at least it is presented with some more information. They still use a "Western" or even "British Empire" point of view here. I feel that this is the right way to do this. Why? The British Empire was at its zenith now, and this was the time when "the sun never sat on the British flag" so coming from this point of view works here. Plus why not add in the horrors of colonialism to it all as well. 

I feel more lip service is paid to the Domains of Ravenloft here, but I am not able to quantify it in any meaningful way. 

Chapter Three: Character Creation

This naturally has the most changes over its predecessor. It also has some changes over the D&D 3.x/d20 Modern rules. The six core classes are Adept, Athlete, Intellectual, Mystic, Sleuth, and Tradesman. For me this is the biggest improvement in these rules. The classes have be redesigned with an Earth-like world in mind. This is much better than trying to fit the AD&D classes into an Earth-shaped hole. 

Each class also has a few sub-classes or specializations. I would recommend keeping a tighter hold on the subclasses. Most can be accomplished with the parent class and some roleplaying. But that is up to individual game masters, really. In truth, all the classes are good fits, and there is plenty of choices here.

Skills are expanded/shifted to cover a 19th-Century Earth environment. Same with the Feats. 

Chapter Four: Money and Equipment

Re-read Dracula, esp. the last third of the book to see how important this is for a Victorian game.  This is not a long chapter but it is an important one.

Chapter Five: The Magic of Gothic Earth

Magic on Gothic Earth is different. It is less powerful and more dangerous to the practitioner than it is in other D&D/d20 worlds.  A bit of history is given, providing the background on why magic works and what is happening when the caster calls on these powers. 

Spells from the D&D 3.x and the Ravenloft Player's Handbook 3.5 are listed for the new classes and some new spells are also detailed. 

Gothic Earth is a magic-seeped world, but that doesn't mean mortals can or even should control it. There are no arch-mages here. Not anymore.

Chapter Six: Combat

Covers the sorts of combat that the PCs are likely to get into. Most importantly this covers the guns of the time.

Chapter Seven: Madness and Mystery

This chapter covers how the supernatural effects everything in the world of Gothic Earth, in particular magic and how people deal with the supernatural. This includes "insanity" rules. Now, I typically have a lot of issues with how games deal with sanity, madness, and psychological trauma. One nitpick here, they use "insanity" instead of madness. I typically prefer madness or even lunacy when doing Victorian-era games since that was the more common term. Thankfully we do not get a long list of mental illnesses here. I would rather see none than horribly wrong lists. 

Fear, Horror, and Madness are all dealt with as a subset of the Will Save. Which actually works well for me.

Chapter Eight: A Practical Guide to the 19th Century

This is a great guide for any Victorian-era game. While Gothic Earth is mentioned, this is fairly system—and setting-free. The timeline of inventions (real) and popular books and music of the 1890s is quite fantastic. 

We get into some "setting" details with the section on Clubs and Cabals. Some are real, and some are invented for this setting.

The "Language of Flowers" section is great addition. If you know your Victorian-era then you know how important this actually is. 

Appendix I: The Villains of Gothic Earth

Ahh...The Usual Suspects! This is the crunchiest part of the book so far and that is expected. Featured here are Dracula, Imhotep, Frankenstein's Monster, Professor Moriarty (still a Rakshasa, not my favorite choice), Xavier Von Tuerin, Madame Delphine LaLaurie, and Sarah Winchester (of the Winchester Mansion). 

Appendix II: Monsters in the World

A brief monster section on creatures unique to Gothic Earth. 

Appendix III: Lairs of Evil

Covers what I would call "Sinkholes of Evil" and their effects. Some specific examples are given. 

Appendix IV: Adventures in Gothic Earth

Covers how to run adventures in Gothic Earth and what makes them different. Several adventure ideas and seeds are given.  One of my favorites is the "Ghosts of Salem."

There is a good index in the back to wrap it all up.

Comparing the Two Masques

Both editions of Masque of the Red Death are wonderful to have. There is a lot more detail for AD&D Second Edition (a boxed set and two more books) compared to the single book for 3.x/d20.

The 3.x/d20 edition "feels" like a better fit for the world. 

What I can't tell is this. Do I like the AD&D 2nd Edition version because of the impact it made on me when I bought it and the 3.x/d20 version pales in comparison to that? Or is the 3.x/d20 quantifiably lacking in something? 

I don't think it is, especially considering that I can use the additional AD&D 2nd ed Gothic Earth books with the 3.x/d20 version. I can also use other supplements like d20 Past, Gaslight, and many other Victorian OGL titles. Not to mention all the Victorian games I already have.

I really need to come back to this world sometime.

Review: Ravenloft 3.0

 We are moving into a new territory now with Ravenloft.  TSR is gone, and Wizards of the Coast is in its place. AD&D 2nd ed is done, and the brand new D&D (no more "A") 3rd edition is out. And there is a new Ravenloft core rules out. BUT it was not being done by Wizards.

Well. It is. Sort of. 

Newly formed Swords and Sorcery Studio is a division of White Wolf and their label Arthaus and its purpose is to publish material for the brand new d20 STL license under the Open Gaming License. They obtained a license from Wizards to produce the new Ravenloft. White Wolf. The makers of Vampire: the Masquerade, now in charge of Ravenloft?!

If you had told me this was going to happen back in 1992 I would have never believed it. But here we are. I remember the very animated discussions on the RAVENLOFT-L mailing lists at the time. 

Ravenloft 3.0

2001. by Andrew Cermak, John W. Mangrum, Andrew Wyatt. Art by Leanne Buckley, Mike Chaney, Talon Dunning, Anthony Hightower. Jeff Holt, Steve Prescott, and Richard Thomas. 224 pages. Hardcover.

Ravenloft 3.0 was one of my favorite books I bought in the new 3.x era and I loved how it looked. I splurged and grabbed the limited edition version from my favorite local game store.

I thought the art was fantastic and loved how well it adapted to the 3.0 rules. But I had already had some experience with 3.0 and had even picked up some Swords & Sorcery Studios books and enjoyed those as well. The races were a nice treat, to be honest. For the first time, I really felt like I could run a Ravenloft game with the likes of gnomes, halflings, and especially half-orcs, now rebranded as Calibans and the new Giogoto.

I think, though, I was expecting more at the time. SSS was part of White Wolf like I mentioned, and I was hoping for some of what made Vampire: The Masquerade so good to be here. In re-reading it now, so many years later, I had unrealistic expectations. In truth, this book is a much better organized and updated version of the 2e Domains of Dread book. 

The nice thing about Ravenloft (and many of the D&D worlds) is that the plot kept moving along despite edition changes. However, there is also a nice timeline included so DMs can do what they want. You don't need to know all the details of say, The Grim Harvest, just know it happened.

This book had a black and white interior, while most others were going full color. This is a feature, not a bug. Ravenloft is a world of shades of grey; the art here helps convey this. The book is an introductory campaign guide including the people, the lands, and, most important for Ravenloft, the horrors of the lands. There are some new feats and skills. No new spells, but suggestions on how magic will be altered by the Mists. There is even a section on the Gods of Ravenloft.

Since most of this book covers the lands, their inhabitants, and the Cultural Level of each, there is only a little crunch. Translation: You can use this with any other version of D&D you like. Even the feats look like they would work well with 5e. Even the "Fear, Horror and Madness" section would work well.

It lacks large foldout maps of the 2e days, but it is a surprisingly good resource to me these days. Well worth picking up.

It is available as a PDF and Print on Demand on DriveThruRPG. I do not have the PoD, so I can't speak to that version. 

At some point the rights to the 3.x versions reverted back to Wizards and now they sell the PDFs/PoDs on DriveThru and not SSS/White Wolf's storefront.

My physical copy is nearly 25 years old (24 years and 1 week, according to the ISBN database), and it is still in great shape. 

Review: Children of the Night Vampires

 We are getting to the end of the AD&D 2nd Ed era of Ravenloft. Well...there are still a lot of products to cover but we are getting to the end of my coverage of them.  

AD&D 2nd Ed was really the golden age of campaign settings. Sure, that gold was only a very thin veneer, maybe even just electroplating.  But instead of focusing on that I want to enjoy what was great about that time and that was the depth of products.  TSR must have known the writing was on the wall by 1996 because the Children of the Night books, starting in 1996, were an attempt to build bridges across the campaign worlds.  

Children of the Night Vampires

1996. By Paul Culotta and Steve Miller with Carol L. Johnson and Jonathan Ariadne Caspian. Cover art by Daniel Home. Interior Illustrations by Jason Burrows. 96 pages.

For this review I am considering the PDF and PoD from DriveThruRPG and my memories of my original print copy.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Nigel D. Findley, who created Rudolph Van Richten. Findley had died of a heart attack at age 35.

This first of the Children of the Night series features 13 unique vampires to challenge PCs. "Challenge" doesn't always mean "fight."

I should point out that this is not the first time we have seen a "Children of the Night" for Ravenloft. The first one was "MC15 - Monstrous Compendium - Appendix II Children of the Night." 

The concept is a solid one. Ravenloft breathed new life (heh) into Vampires with the very first adventure, so it makes sense that it would continue to do so and then expand on that. The book starts out by saying that while these are all unique takes on vampires native to Ravenloft's mists, they don't have to stay there, and they can be added to your own campaign world. 

Each entry includes a stat-block, description and history, usually with how they became a vampire. There is also a mini adventure/plot hook you can use with the vampire in question.

Among the famous, or about to become famous, vampires include Ravenloft's Jander Sunstar, the eleven vampire introduced in the novel "Vampire of the Mists." Jander is a Chaotic Neutral (which as close to Good as it gets) vampire from the Forgotten Realms. He is just as likely to help the PCs fight vampires as he is to want to be left alone. 

Also, here are Lyssa von Zarovich, Strahd's great-niece (or something like that) and one of the members of his family line that was not killed when Barovia was pulled into the Mists. Don't mistake her hate for Strahd as "goodness" she is still quite evil. She will later go on to appear in Curse of Strahd.

We get a desert vampire, Moosha, the Ixitxachitl vampire Myxitizajal, and the vorlog Don Pablo among the others. 

The one I liked the most back then, because the concept was novel to me, was Lady Heather Shadowbrooke, the Druid Vampire. She is quite evil and a tragic character, really. 

I certainly think this is a great addition to any AD&D 2nd Ed game, Ravenloft or not. 

Note about the PoD

The Print on Demand copy I have does show some fuzziness, but all in all it is a very good copy. There are two PDFs you get from DriveThruRPG. Once is quasi OCR and the other is image. Neither seems as clear as the PoD which I find weird. 

This PoD is a worthy replacement for my original book from 1996. 

Children of the Night vs. Vampires

Children of the Night Vampires is not the first time a collection of various vampire NPC/Antagonists has been done for an RPG. The first one I ever bought was Vampires for the Chill RPG (1st Ed). The 2nd edition version is available on DriveThruRPG.

Both books do the same thing for their respective games, and both do it well. I give a slight nod to the Chill one since it came first.  The Ravenloft/AD&D one has 13 vampires vs the Chill's 11 (10 entries), so it has that in it's favor. 

Review: Van Richten's Guides

 Today I will cover a lot of ground very quickly as a retrospective review. I have talked about these about books off and on over the years here and they stand as some of the best deep dives for monsters I have ever seen for the AD&D game. Yes, Elmimster's Ecologies are very good and the Monstrous Compendiums sat the stage for detailed monster coverage, but where these sources fall short of the Van Richten Guides is the level of detail; in terms of monster coverage, variations of the monster, and of course hunting the monsters.

Van Richten's Guides

The Van Richten's Guides began in 1992 with the publication of Van Richten's Guide to Vampires, which I already covered in detail. The other guides that came after followed a similar format, each detailing a different monster.

They were all largely agnostic in terms of system, though they were all still AD&D books and the fluff was still very much set in Ravenloft. I personally felt they could have been used in any AD&D campaign setting, and I even felt that a few were useful enough to use in any system.  For example, I used the Liches book for WitchCraft/Unisystem to great effect. 

The original Guides were single volumes of around 96 pages each. The product numbering was a little haphazard, they were all "Ravenloft Reference" but Liches also had the code RS and the last two had no codes at all. 

In 1998, after TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the books were combined into a compendium of three monster books, each with a third, Guide to Witches, new. It also had a bit of a different feel than the others. Though it's most similar to the Vistani one.  The books were grouped by theme rather than publication dates. Volume 1 featured the "Classic" Universal monsters. Vol. 2 was undead, and Vol. 3 what can best be described as "occult" related.

• RR3 Van Richten's Guide to Vampires (2e)
• RR7 Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts (2e) 
• RR8 Van Richten's Guide to the Created (2e)
• Compiled in Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Vol 1
• RR5 Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts (2e)
• RS1 [RR6] Van Richten's Guide to the Lich (2e)
• RR9 Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead (2e)
• Compiled in Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Vol 2
• Van Richten's Guide to Fiends (2e)
• Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani (2e)
• Van Richten's Guide to Witches (not published as a single book)
• Compiled in Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Vol 3

I owned all of these back in the 1990s. I recall sitting in my apartment after getting married reading them all. There were subtle differences between the single (TSR-era) books and the compiled (WotC-era) books. Nothing I can recall off the top of my head, mind you, and nothing that was game-changing, save for maybe the notion that Van Richten was dead.

I unloaded all of these after I went over to other games and then later D&D 3. I don't regret it, but I kinda wish I had kept the Compendiums. Unfortunately, the PDFs, while great for reading, are not really good enough for Print on Demand.  Printing them all out for a binder would be fun, but we are talking about a lot of pages (800 or so for the single volumes) and a lot of ink.

Van Richten's Guide to Witches

For obvious reasons, I want to focus on this one. Not only is it germane to this blog and my interests, it is also the odd one out. 

Needless to say, I was really looking forward to this book. Obviously, the Guides to Demons (renamed from Fiends) and Vistani were still top-notch. The Guide to Witches really should have been called the Guide to Hags and Witches because it dealt with both. I'll break it down here.

Guide to Hags

        I really liked this part.  Hags should be part of Ravenloft, and this section did a great job of presenting another monster type in a far more complex light.  It is on par with the Guide to Liches or Vampires.

I would have liked to see more on linking Hags to Night Hags.  I liked the second change idea that other hag types change into Night Hags, but it does not have to be the only way they are linked.  The Monster Manual 2 (1st Ed.) states that the Annis are relative to the Night Hags, and the Greenhag are relative to both the Annis and the Sea Hags.

I liked the Irdra/Ogre link to Hags, but I liked the "Dark Fey" theory much better.  My hag, the Makva (or Wood Hag), is more of a dark faerie type than an ogress.  Plus I don't play Dragonlance, so the Irdra are not part of my worlds.

For Hag reproduction and powers, the Makva are most similar to Greenhags. Except, most Makva only live about 800 years.  Mavka is usually spawned from elves and half-elves rather than humans.  Makva may join Coveys, but there will be only one Makva per covey. In spawning rituals, Makva picks elves or half-elves as victims. They can perform them only on nights of the new moon.

Guide to Witches, Warlocks, and Hedge Magicians

        I was prepared to find witches that were very different than my own, but I did not expect that they would be this different. Witches have had a spotty history with D&D since the beginning, and it seems that every few years, a new rule book comes up that gives us a different vision of the witch.  To begin with, this witch is not a class or a subclass, but a kit.  It is also different from the Complete Wizards Handbook witch kit.  What I did like was the information on the Church of Hala and the acknowledgement that witches could be good or evil, overall I did not like it.

        I am not saying I did not like the new kit, I just do not like them as Witches.  The author, Steve Miller, got the points right about witchcraft being based in faith and I really liked the whole idea of the Weave, I just did not feel that these were the same kinds of witches from fantasy and horror literature. For example where was any mention of the occult? Or how about familiars? These witches lacked a few of the things that made witches special.

The witches and warlocks here are interesting classes, and looking back at them now, a quarter of a century later, I find that I like them a lot more than I did then. Maybe I have seen more witches since then, or maybe my tastes have changed.

All of these books, though, are essential to anyone playing in Ravenloft, a must-have if you are playing a horror game in AD&D, or really any version of D&D, and still pretty useful for other games.

Review: Ravenloft Domains of Dread (2e)

 I am skipping over the otherwise great Ravenloft Campaign Setting, Revised for the last core book of the Ravenloft AD&D 2e line for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I don't have a copy of the Ravenloft Campaign Setting, Revised boxed set anymore. I had the box, but it was lost somewhere along the way. I have the PDFs, but that really isn't the same, is it. Also, the Revised set is just that, Revised. It came out in 1994, only a couple of years after the original boxed set. It takes some details from the Core set and Forbidden Lore plus other material current at the time and gives us a new boxed set complete with more Tarroka cards.

All of this would then be surpased with the publication of Ravenloft Domains of Dread.

Ravenloft Domains of Dread (2e)

1997. By William W. Connors, Andria Hayday, Steve Miller, and Bruce Nesmith. Art by  Paul Carrick, Henry Higgenbotham, Scott Johnson, Robert Lazzaretti, David G. Martin, Val Mayerik, Mark A. Nelson, Arnie Swekel, and Peter White. 288 pages.

We are nearing the dawn of several eras. The end of the 90s, the end of the 20th century, and the end of TSR. Wizards of the Coast had just recently purchased TSR and saved it and D&D from bankruptcy oblivion. The changes were subtle at first, but one of the first clues was the shift in trade-drees and art for the Ravenloft books. Domains of Dread was a new hardcover, the first, for Ravenloft. I am not sure when the hardcover novels (and I think it was just "I, Strahd") were published.

For this review, I am considering my PDF and Print on Demand versions from DriveThruRPG and my memories of my original hardcover.

This is a good-sized book of the sort that was popular in the waning days of TSR. Notable about this one is the copyright page which includes the address for Wizards of the Coast, located in Renton, WA and not Lake Geneva, WI, and the use of the website www.tsrinc.com. You can still buy that if you like.

This book covers the same ground as the two previous core Ravenloft sets and updates them to reflect the recent events in the lands. 

I am happy to report that this one does indeed have 13 chapters and extra appendices to cover all the matieral. For example Darkon was gone and The Necropolis was in it's place

There are subtle as well as overt changes here. Some Domains are gone, others sent off to be Islands of Terror, and all due to the Grand Conjunction. Now I have mentioned this in terms of some of the adventures I have covered this month. If you buy this version, as opposed to say Realms of Terror, it is going to assume that the meta-plot of the Grand Conjunction has already happened. Does that mean you can't run say, Feast of Goblyns or Ship of Horror? No, but they are not going to work the exact same way.

I think this was one of my big disappointments with this book.  By 1997 I had began to not play much AD&D at all. So a lot of the Grand Conjunction and later plots were still new to me when they were old news to everyone else. While this was certainly the shape of all AD&D settings at the time it did make entry, or re-entry a lot harder.

That all being said if you are new to AD&D Ravenloft OR you don't care about the meta-plots then this is a great place to start. Everything is revised and brought upto date with all the other Ravenloft rules published. It is the book I recommended to my oldest when he wanted to read more about Ravenloft in AD&D.

Of most use here to all Ravenloft players and DMs are the appendicies which cover various character creation rules. This helps with creating Ravenloft-native characters. Ability scores, races, and classes all get an individual appendix. New races and classes are also covered. Among the new classes are Avengers, new rules for Elementalists, Arcanists, and Anchorites. There is even a new "Gypsy" class as well as Psionicist.

There is also a fairly robust index.

About the PoD version

The PoD version is actually rather nice. It compares well to the original hardcover version to be honest.

Review: Night of the Vampire (2e, Mystara)

 A side step today, but one that is important to me. I have been talking about how I believe that Barovia, the core domain of Ravenloft, was originally part of the World of Mystara and from Glantri in particular. Today I am providing some more fuel for that fire, but with the runner-up land of Karameikos. 

Night of the Vampire (2e)

1994. Adventure Design: L. Richard Baker III. Editing: Michele Carter. Project Manager: Andria Hayday. Cover Art: Jennell Jaquays. Interior Art: Dan Frazier. 32 pages. 

This review is considering the PDF file from DriveThruRPG only.

A couple of points about our creative team. First, more art from the legendary Jennell Jaquays. Rich Baker would go on to have a very good career at TSR and then Wizards working on D&D 3.x, D&D 4, and Gamma World. Andria Hayday, who does not often get mentioned (she is not even on the DTRPG page for this) would later go on to be one of the main developers of the Ravenloft: Domains of Dread hardcover. 

I never owned this boxed set, but after buying it from DriveThruRPG, I really wish I had. It is, CD-Audio aside for the moment, a fun adventure for low level characters.

The task set before Richard Baker and his designe team was to created a low-level (levels 1-3, or possibly 4-6) adventure where the big bad was a vampire. A daunting task. A well-played vampire can wipe out a party of even mid level, and an exceptionally well-played one is a challenge to higher level characters, especially in what is now a Post-Ravenloft I6 world.

Baker gets by this issue by having some magic items available to the PCs to use. And even provides some rules for grappling and taking down a vampire en masse. 

The adventure starts with a shipwreck trope, in which the PCs end up on an island off the coast of Karameikos. Now, there are a lot of ways to spin this; my choice? The shipwreck is not about the sea but instead the Mists of Ravenloft. 

The adventure is a bit rail-roady and there are a LOT of NPCs to keep track of. The vampire-plot is reminiscent of the Strahd-Sergei-Tatyana tragedy so much that this adventure could be used as stand-in prequel to I6. Granted, there is a LOT more going on here. Namely all the NPCs, but an enterprising DM could re-mold it into this prequel. Great for heroes and players familiar with the tale of Strahd already in a strange time-travel adventure.

About the PDFs

Ah, the 90s. There was a lot of role-playing, and that often meant lots of handouts. The PDF allows you to print out all the handouts you want.

Plus, printing out the PDFs also allows me to edit them as I need. For starters I would make the PCs higher level and get rid of some of the aids given to them. The pages are all filled with color so 

About the Audio Tracks

There are 72 audio tracks on the CD, which is not included with the PDF. BUT you can find them on YouTube. 

The pros include proper pronunciations of the names of the various NPCs and some eerie background music. 

The cons include audio tracks putting words into the PCs mouths and it doesn't always jive with the adventure itself. It's not a perfect fit. For example the PCs are treated as well known heroes in the tracks. At 1st to 3rd level this is not really likely. Also, there are some spoilers in the audio tracks. Personally, I would listen to them all first and be a little more selective. That is if I used any of them at all.

Despite the shortcomings, this is a rather interesting adventure with a lot of potential. It also satisfies my desire to use Ravenloft and Mystara together. 

The layout and trade dress are very good and bright, which is typical of the Mystara products of the time. I rather love them, to be honest. It is a shame everyone was fighting online (at the time) about Forgotten Realms this or Greyhawk that while Mystara fans were off on their own enjoying some really fun products.

I think my FLGS might have a copy of this in the store now that I think about it.

Review: Ravenloft Gothic Earth Gazetteer and A Guide to Transylvania

 Today I continue my exploration of Ravenloft's Gothic Earth. But first I want to set the proper stage. These next two products were released in 1995 and 1996, respectively. I had moved to Chicago already and I had gotten married. I moved to the suburb of Mt. Prospect, the point? Well, after years of buying my Ravenloft material from Carbondale's Castle Perilous, I was buying again from Games Plus, a place I had mail-ordered from since the 1980s. I bought my copy of Chill Vampires via mail order from Games Plus, so buying these two from their physical store seemed like a sort of homecoming. 

This is also when I  began to feel the shortcomings of the AD&D system. I loved the idea of Gothic Earth, I wanted that to be a world I played in, but that AD&D 2nd Edition rules just didn't quite cut it for me. I began to go back to Chill, this time the 2nd Edition, and most importantly to CJ Carella's WitchCraft RPG. But before I get to that, let me talk about these two products and why I still love them. 

For this review, I am considering the PDFs from DriveThruRPG and my originals purchased in the mid-1990s.

The Gothic Earth Gazetteer (2e)

1995. by William W. Connors. Cover art by Robh Ruppel. Interior art from Dover Publications. 64 pages, detached cover and poster map.

I want to state out of the gate that this is an indispensable guide for playing in the 1890s. While some Ravenloft-isms are here, I have used this guide with countless Victorian-era RPGs. 

The Gothic Earth Gazetteer goes into greater details than the similarly named sections in the Masque of the Red Death boxed set. 

We start with an Introduction and an overview of the 1890s in the form of Headlines. A set of bullet points covering the biggest news items around the world from 1890 to 1899 and The Spanish-American war. Even in the days prior to easy to access resources like Wikipedia (and I practically wore out my copy of Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia CD-ROM looking all this up back then!) there is enought here in the first 16 or so pages to keep an enterprising Game Master* busy. Sorted by date and then by continent. 

I say Game Master instead of the more accepted Dungeon Master here for two reasons. Gothic Earth is really a significant step away from the dungeon-crawling ideas of Dungeons & Dragons. While yes there could be dungeons here, that is not what Gothic Earth does best. The back street of London, Paris, or New York is where this game does well. Also, I have already mentioned that this guyid can be used anywhere. This first section typifies what I mean. You can just as easily use this in Victorian Age Vampire, Cthulhu by Gaslight, or any other later Victorian-era game. 

This section is then expanded in the next section with other events more closely tied to the setting. Events of the 1890s covers The Ghost Dancers (and man, did I ever want to make ShadowRun the future of Gothic Earth!), Arctic Exploration, Railroads, Spiritualism, and a lot more.  Each section gives a real world background, and then in true Ravenloft fashion some "Forbidden Lore."

We then have a similar section, Who's Who on Gothic Earth, that covers specific people. There are more people covered than events, so the section on each is smaller. Not everyone has a Forbidden Lore section, but enough to keep any Game Master busy. This book + a little research would allow the GM to create even more if they wanted. If there is a figure from the Late Victorian era you can think of, then they are likely covered here. Sadly one of my favorite figures from the time, Harriet Tubman, was not listed. Maybe I could fix that.

Our last section covers various groups and cabals active in the 1890s (and beyond) on the Gothic Earth. 

The original print copy has a poster of the calendars for the 1890s, complete with images of ephemera from the time. At the time of publication, it was an amazing resource.  The only thing it is missing are moon phases.

There are no AD&D stats or rules in the book at all. It still assumes AD&D and the Ravenloft universe, but the book itself has no "crunch" only "fluff." But it is extremely useful fluff.

While similar details are to be found in other Victorian Era games, I still find myself going back to this one time and time again.

It is a resource I highly recommend. 

A Guide to Transylvania (2e)

1996. by Nicky Rea. Developer and Editor Steve Miller. Cover art Dawn Murin, interior art Val Mayerik. 96 pages.

This is another book I have used with many games. For some reason that I can't quite figure out, this one feels more like a Ravenloft core book than the Gothic Earth Gazetteer does. Maybe because Dracula's Transylvania was the model of for Strahd's Barovia and thus the core of the Ravenloft concept. While I stand by my assertions that Barovia is from Mystara, I have entertained the idea that it was really from Gothic Earth. 

A little more stage-setting, this was released after the wildly successful and critically acclaimed "Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)" while the author and developers do a very good job of sticking to the novel and history, the movie still casts a long shadow.

The book's dedication is to various noted Dracula scholars; Radu Florescu, Raymond T. McNally (In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires), Dan Richardson, Tim Burford (Guide books), Rosemary Ellen Guiley (various encyclopedias), and Julian Hale (Historical guidebooks). 

Chapter One details the history of the lands in and around Transylvania with a bulk of this covering the conflicts between the Roman Catholic people of the area and their struggles against the Ottoman Turks. Special attention is given to the family of Vlad Dracul and Vlad the Impaler.  As with previous works the text is largely game-stat free and has only a few mentions of the Red Death and other "Ravenloft" details. More "game" details are given in the Forbidden Lore boxed text.

Chapter Two is a "current" sketch of Transylvania with entries on the geography, cities, and various landmarks such as the various castles. It reads like an 1890s travel guide, with Forbidden Lore boxed text. 

Chapter Three covers the peoples of Transylvania. This includes the various native Romanians, Magyars, Szeklers, and Germans as well as the Romanii and Jewish populations. Language is covered a bit which is good since this place really does feel like a crossroads of Eastern Europe just before one enters the East. There is even a bit on vampires in this land.

Chapter Four, Personalities, has the most Game-related information in the book. For example, it has stats for all sorts of highly detailed NPCs. In addition to Gothic Earth's particular flavor of AD&D 2nd ed stats, there is Forbidden Lore boxed text. We learn that Jonathan Harker is a 6th-level Tradesman, Dracula is a 13HD Vampire, and Van Helsing is a 12th-level Metaphysian. Dracula's write-up is similar in feel to the write-up Count Strahd got in Ravenloft I6. 

Finally we end with an AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous compendium style page for the Dhampir.

There are maps throughout the book and on the inside covers.

Both books are still quite serviceable today and work well with any Victorian era game you might want to play. 

Review: Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales

Very few games or game products have had *lasting* profound effects on my gaming. Oh sure there have been a LOT of great games that I have played or used over the years, but only a handful that have been a sea change for me. 

They are: 

1. The AD&D 1st Ed Monster Manual
2. D&D Basic Moldvay Edition
3. 1st Edition Chill
4. CJ Carella's WitchCraft RPG
5. Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales

This last game combined everything I wanted into one game. Horror? Check. AD&D? Check? Gothic Victorian Earth? Double check.

For the longest time, it was the perfect game for me. I had to write an entire other game, Ghosts of Albion, just to get what I wanted, and then again with NIGHT SHIFT.

But before I go there, let's go back—not to the 1890s, but rather to the 1990s, when this game came out.

In the theaters, we saw Lost Boys, Near Dark, The Crow (okay, not a vampire movie, but still. And the 1994 version, not the 2024 one), and most of all, a big-screen adaptation of Dracula that was the most faithful to the book yet. In the game stores, Vampire: the Masquerade reigned supreme. AD&D had started the decade doing well but had begun to flounder by the middle. Soon, it would be all but dead; we didn't know it then.  Amidst all of this, we were given the gift of Gothic Earth. 

Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales 

by William W. Connors, D. J. Heinrich, Shane Lacy Hensley, Colin McComb.

Art by Ned Dameron, Stephen Fabian, Robh Ruppel, David C. Sutherland, III.

Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales is nominally released under the Ravenloft line and you will need one of the Ravenloft core books to be able to play this along with the AD&D 2nd Edition rules.  However if you know the AD&D rules well enough you might be able to get by.  The premise of the game it rather a simple one. What if the Dark Powers from Ravenloft found their way to Earth?  Well...I should state out and out that they never actually say that, but imply it rather heavily.  The is a dark, malignant force controlling things on Earth, known here as The Red Death, and this Earth of the 1890s certainly has a lot more in common with Ravenloft.

Pretty much from the time it was published to the onset of the new 3rd Edition rules, Masque of the Red Death was my campaign world of choice.  I still played AD&D2 in Ravenloft, or rather, I ran AD&D2 in Ravenloft, but the lines between Ravenloft proper and "Gothic Earth" became very, very blurry.

For this review, I am considering my original boxed set from the 1990s and the PDFs from DriveThruRPG.

This package from DriveThruRPG includes five PDFs, which correspond to the four books and the DM's screen found in the Boxed Set.

Book I is the main Masque of the Red Death book.  It is 130 pages of a high quality, OCR scan.  Some the images are fuzzy, but I feel that is more due to the source images rather than the scan itself.  The scan comes in at just over 35 meg.

We begin with an overview of what this campaign guide is about.  I might be mistaken, but this is the first official AD&D product to take place on Earth.   This followed up with a history of Gothic Earth.  Things began to go downhill for everything around 2700 BC when Imhoptep (yes, same as the Mummy movies) began experimenting with darker magics.  The next dozen or so pages bring us to the present day (1890s).  The history is a fast read and I would not ignore it. It sets the tone for the entire game.

Chapter II details character creation.  There are different methods used than the PHB to reflect that characters are not your sword wielding barbarians of a bygone age.  So characters are more average.
There are rough parallels to all the classic AD&D classes, Soldiers, Adepts, Mystics, and Tradesmen.  The AD&D Proficiency system is used here as well.  Interestingly the system seems make more sense here (since skills are really what sets characters apart) but also shows its wear and tear.

Chapter IV also details money and Equipment. Interestingly, this is one of the few Victorian-era games in which the default currency is American Dollars rather than Pounds Sterling.
It should be of note that this is also the book that adds guns to AD&D2.  Quite a number of guns are detailed here as well.

Chapter V covers magic, and you need the Player's Handbook for this section.

Chapter VI covers the changes to combat.
Getting back to what really makes this special is Chapter VII, An Atlas of Gothic Earth. I should point out at this point that the large poster-sized map that came with the boxed set is not included here. It gives a brief overview of the world. This section is done much better in the full-fledged product that shares its name.

The first Appendix covers various character kits.  If you remember 2e at all, you remember kits. Quite a few interesting ideas are detailed, but you could also do these with the base four classes and good roleplaying.

 
Appendix II covers some villains of Gothic Earth. There are plenty of old favorites here and some new takes on old characters.  Though I will admit the one thing that still gets on my nerves is Moriarty re-done as a Rakshasa.  In my games, he was human. And yes, Dracula is there as well.

Finally, Appendix III covers the adventuring of Gothic Earth.

Book II is an adventure in three parts by future Pinnacle Entertainment head honcho Shane Hensley and features the rock star of Gothic fiction, Dracula. What is the advantage of this PDF over my boxed set copy? I can print it out and make changes to it. Yeah, it is a good adventure, but it is a pastiche of Hammer and Stoker's original work.

Book III is a Jack the Ripper adventure, Red Jack. Unlike Moriarty's change into a supernatural creature, this adventure makes "Jack" into something more mundane.  Normally, I would be fine with this, but the name of the adventure itself and some of the elements BEGS it to be tied to the old Star Trek episode The Wolf in The Fold and Redjac.

Book IV is The Red Death, an adventure based on elements of the Edgar Allen Poe story.  Some details have been changed and added, but the spirit is the same.  Again, I am tempted to make the main antagonist, Prospero, the Prospero.

Book V is the DM's screen.

Part of me wants to get the Print on Demand version, just to see how it is, but I know it will not live up to my boxed set. 

In any case, boxed set, PDF, Print on Demand, this is still one of my all-time favorite Ravenloft products and changed how I wanted to play my games. I spent a lot of time talking to the late Johnathan Thompson and we both agreed had it not been for MotRD there would not have been his Gaslight nor my Ghosts of Albion games. 

Review: Islands of Terror (2e)

We are slowly moving through the 1990s and coming up on our next Ravenloft accessory.  This one expanded on the idea of realms not connected to the core, but rather as "islands" in a sea of mist. You ended up in these realms largely by chance aka DM's whim. But the notion does fit with the idea of Ravenloft. As expected, some of this island would later cease to exist. Was it because their Darklords were defeated? Not as evil as the others? Or some other darker fate? Questions like these filled the old RAVENLOFT-L email list for a long time. 

RR4: Islands of Terror (2e)

1992. By Scott Bennie and Colin McComb. Cover art by Jeff Easley. Interior art by Ron Hill, John Knecht and Jaime Lombardo, art and maps by David C. Sutherland III.

For this review I am only considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG. There is no Print on Demand copy yet and I lost my original a long time ago.

This book contains new "island" domains and their darklords. Many pulled from or influenced by other TSR campaign worlds. 

Nidala. This realm is the domain of a Lawful Good Paladin turned crazed zealot. She is now just a Lawful Evil fighter and rules her land with an iron fist. Of course she still sees herself as acting for the good of all. I liked this one because I played a lot of Paladins in my time, and Elena was a great example of her "Lawfulness" overpowering her "Goodness." Plus she still thinks she is a Paladin because the Dark Powers are now granting her her former paladin powers. 

Elena Faith-hold is connected to Kateri Shadowborn from the Darklords book (Ebonbane). Given the descriptions of each and their lands, I am inclined to say they were all from Oerth, the World of Greyhawk.

The Wildlands. This is an African-influenced, fable-like, domain full of talking animals. The animals act like humans in other domains and they are all terrified of the land's Darklord King Crocodile. This darklord is a huge crocodile with the abilities of a 12th-level fighter. 

Scaena. This domain is a theatre controlled by its author-lord, Lemot Sediam Juste. It is a "travelling show" that floats from place to place. It can appear as anything that Juste wishes (writes) it is just a theater building. The obvious influence here is Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera movie. 

I'Cath. This land is obviously from Kara-Tur and one of the few I had used from this book. 

Saragoss. This watery domain is from the Forgotten Realms' Sea of Stars. BUT I misread it back in the day and though it was from Krynn. Remember it was 1992, not much of an internet yet and I did not have ready access to either Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms books. The darklord here is a Pirate Captain who can change into a shark and is a Priest of Umberlee. It is an interesting one and I wanted to use in my failed nautical AD&D 2nd Ed game.

Timor. This is a large, Victorian-like city where the darklord is the Hive Queen of the Marikith. We would see something similar with the 10th Doctor in the Doctor Who episode, The Runaway Bride. The city of Timor is filled with food, no one goes hungry. Why, because the Hive Queen wants to keep the populace fattened up for her children to feed on. Outside of Ravenloft this would make for a nice scary one shot.

Pharazia. While not specifically stated, this land could have originated in the Al-Qadim setting. The darklord, Diamabel is an interesting sort. He sees himself as not just good, but the embodiment of goodly virtues. He is where he is because he has been betrayed by the entire world. 

Staunton Bluffs. I am not sure this one was needed. It does a lot of things that other domains also do. Gothic. Ghosts. We have seen this all before. A man jealous of his brother and his brother's position in the the family. BUT there is a little clue here that gives me some hope. One of the nearby duchies on their homeworld was Avergne. Now this could be the Auvergne of France OR the Averoigne of Glantri and Castle Amber. I am inclined to go with Glantril and Mystara here. Especially since there was a great magical rite performed by the would-be darklord Torrence Bleysmith (also cribbed from Strahd).

Bleysmith is now a ghost. He leaves his people alone, likely due to guilt, and their lives are better for it. 

Nosos. In a horror tale a little too close to reality, this is the land of what happens when the wealthy control everything. It is a vast industrial wasteland of pollution and disease.

We wrap-up the book with four "new" monsters. I say "new" because we have seen some of these before, but with new Ravenloft writeups. One, the Sea Zombie was first published in the AD&D 1st Ed Greyhawk Adventures book with AD&D 2nd Ed stats.

Over-all a good set of new domains and darklords for your Ravenloft game. Like a lot of the Ravenloft books the game stats are limited, so you could adapt this to and edition of Ravenloft you are playing with little to no effort at all.

Review: Forbidden Lore (2e)

By 1992, Ravenloft was going full speed, though we would later learn that all of the settings were contributing to the eventual demise of TSR. I am not even sure if Ravenloft was ever profitable. I made my best efforts to make it profitable, even on a Graduate student budget. I bought a lot Ravenloft material. The Forbidden Lore boxed set was one I purchased back then. I loved the idea of my own Tarokka Cards and Dikesha dice sets. The material included was a mixed bag of course.

I sold off my boxed set many years ago, likely in my big move in 1997 or maybe in 2001-2002. Do I regret it? Hard to say. The material is not not needed to play in Ravenloft, and while having those cards would be nice, I have since acquired other Tarokka decks and even other tarot decks that work great.

Forbidden Lore (2e)

1992. Design by Bruce Nesmith and William W. Connors. Box cover art by Clyde Caldwell, Booklet cover art by Stephen Fabian, interior art by Stephen Fabian and Bob Klanish.

The boxed set originally came with five booklets, each covering a different aspect of the game. Reading these you can see that it is a collection of errata, material that didn't quite make it to the Ravenloft boxed set, and updates to cover the evolution of the AD&D 2nd Ed game and other game worlds; for example psionics. 

While the books could be used in any order. I am going with the order used in my Print on Demand copy. 

Dark Recesses. Psionics.

Much like magic, this section deals with how psionics are changed. The psionics used here are the same as featured in the The Complete Psionics Handbook. If you are not using that book, or don't have it, then you can ignore this book. Well...sort of. Even if you are not using "AD&D Psionics" this is a good resource on any sort of psychic powers or visions when used in Ravenloft. Psychic ability has been a horror staple forever, even if the psychic ability is "magic" there is still great advice here.

This includes an appendix for Dark Sun characters coming to Ravenloft.

Nova Aracanum. Magic.

This covers new magic spells and items. The conceit here is that some of this new knowledge comes from Strahd himself. I liked the idea that Strahd, the former warrior, was turning to necromancy and wizardry to find ways out of his prison. It certainly helped separate him from his origins as a "Dracula-clone."  Had there been rules for it I would have given him Alchemy instead, but hey, it works. 

This book covers more altered spells and gifts from the Realms, Wild Magic, Elemental Magic and Meta Magic. 

There are 14 new wizard spells, 7 new priest spells, and 5 new magic items.

Oaths of Evil. Curses.

This book is based on feedback from Ravenloft players it seems. This covers curses and dark powers checks. Giving clarifications and some edits on material presented in the Ravenloft core boxed set. 

Of note, the Apparatus of the Alchemist from module I10 makes an appearance here, though only in art, not in text.

We also get three very cursed and very evil objects that have found their way to the Demiplane of Dread.  

Cryptic Allegiances. Secret Societies.

What is horror without some secret societies? Here, Ravenloft takes a page from the Forgotten Realms. We get guidance on how to create and use secret societies in Ravenloft. We are given the examples of six secret societies. Of these, the Kargatane would spin off into a real-world group I was active in to develop new Ravenloft material. 

The Waking Dream. Fortune Telling.

This final book covers fortune telling and Vistani. This gives us the description of the Tarokka deck and how to use it. There are 54 cards in a Tarokka deck, so a standard deck with two jokers works in a pinch. 

The next section covers the Dikesha dice. A bit on how to use and read the portents of the dice. They are standard d6s, so they can also be replicated. You need five d6s, one each of red, yellow, orange, green and black. The PDF of the dice can be used and numbers added. OR if you feel particularly crafty you can get get some d6s of the correct colors and print out the PDF and glue these faces on the dice. 

Of the two, I, and I assume most people now, used the Tarokka decks over the dice. The fact that you can still find and buy Tarokka decks from various editions of Ravenloft lends some weight to my claim. 

There was also a large poster map included in the Boxed set. It was not printed with the Print on Demand version, but it is available as a PDF along with a PDF of the Tarokka deck and the Dikesha dice.

The Print on Demand version of this set is nice. It is clear to read and is a better scan than most. 

Do I miss my boxed set? Well, I have to say no. The boxed set was great yes, but this makes for a good substitute. It is also only $5 more than the list price, so not bad after 32 years of inflation.