Review: Ravenloft Carnival

One last AD&D 2nd edition Ravenloft product before moving on. This one is unique for me for a lot of reasons. First off, I never owned the original print version. I wanted to, but at the time it came out (1999), I was pretty much out of D&D completely. I made a comeback at the end of the year with my "Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" and soon would come back fully with D&D 3.0.  Secondly, I also don't have PoD version of this since there isn't one. So it is just the PDF this time.

Carnival (2e)

1999. by John W. Mangrum and Steve Miller. Cover art by Todd Lockwood. Interior art by Kevin McCann. 64 pages.

Carnival, if memory serves me correctly, was the last Ravenloft product produced. It's banner is "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" with the late 90s "Advanced" part reduced in size, and "For use in Ravenloft" as a subtitle.  It is also one of the TSR Silver Anniversary branded books. Strange that there is as much time between now and this product's publication as there is between it and the publication of the original D&D rules.

This product covers "The Carnival," a traveling side show/carnival with some not-so-subtle horror elements.

The product gives the players some background on this carnival and very detailed NPC descriptions. As with many of the later-day Ravenloft products, this one is heavy on the "fluff," and the "crunch" is typically presented in boxed text.  The entire product is given from the point of view of the Carnival Barker. It a way it reminds me of the Planescape setting.  Though there is a fair amount of Ravenloft background here, ie. some language used in the previous Vistani sources are used here: "Vardos" instead of "wagons."

This can also be seen in the Mistress of the Carnival herself, Isolde is an Ghaele Eladrin from the Planescape setting. 

The vast bulk of this book covers the various people and things found in the Carnival. This is actually a good thing since the attraction of the Carnival is it's, well, attractions. The people that work for it. 

While there are implicit plot hooks spread about these pages, the adventure ideas and campaign only uses the last four-five pages of the book, along with Isolde's stats.

Honestly, despite that, there is a lot here.

This covers every concept from Tod Browning's "Freaks (1932)," to "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (book and movie). I would also say there is a little bit of the 7th Doctor serial "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" here. There has always been something a little unsettling about a carnival. Hell, Rob Zombie has made a career out of it.  

I feel like it accomplishes more in fewer pages than "The Wild Beyond The Witchlight" does. However, both products could benefit from notes from the other. Both could benefit from ideas from Baldur's Gate 3's Circus. 

This would be a great product to have as a PoD, but at 64 pages it is not unreasonable to run off on my home printer and put it into a three-ring binder. I could then scribble notes on my changes.

Maybe I could even port over the clowns Dribbles or Thaco.  

I just need a good place to use it. I am certainly not at a loss of ideas here.

Advent-ure Dice: Day 22

  Day 22

Two d2s! "Drink Me" and "Drank Me." Nice. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Wolf-Man

 Making up for lost time (ok, not really) but thought I dip into some classics.

The Wolf Man (1941)

"Even a man who is pure at heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms
And the moon is full and bright."

I mean really? Has there been a better quote for a horror movie?  I had mentioned in my interview last night that I think I knew the name "Lon Chaney" before I even knew the name of the President.  So I think it behooves me to re-watch this one.

This is the story of Lawrence "Larry" Talbot, a man who becomes a were-wolf when the moon is full. 

We have had a number of werewolf and wolf-man movies over the years, some of which are really good. But this one is the original, as it were, and it is a really great story. Yeah, maybe it is a bit slow by today's standards, but still very watchable.

The Wolfman (2010)

This newer one, with big name stars like Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving is a remake of the 1941 movie. 

It is slick and it is stylish with updated special effects.

And it is nowhere near as good. Though it is better than I remembered.

Featured Monster: Lycanthropes, Werewolves

Werewolf legends predate movies. But there is no doubt that the original 1941 had an impact on the AD&D game. In fact Van Richten Monster Compendium Vol 1 features the "big 3" Vampires, Flesh Golems, and Lycanthropes. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2024
Viewed: 30
First Time Views: 14

GREYHAWK - Special Guest: Timothy Brannan on Gabbin #323; Witches & More!

So I didn't watch a horror movie last. So no post last night, but I did do this instead.

I was a guest on Lord Gosumba's GREYHAWK Livestream to talk about witches, Greyhawk, Mystara, and more.  Plus, a special announcement.

Check it out.

I had an absolute blast doing this. Can't wait to get back on. 

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. 

Advent-ure Dice: Day 21

  Day 21

Spider venom d20

Advent-ure Dice: Day 20

  Day 20

Ok. This is new. Not the sparkly purple, but a true black die with moon phases on it. Very cool.