Monstrous Mondays: FOR1 Draconomicon

For today's Monstrous Monday I want to get back into exploring the Forgotten Realms. I was exploring the early AD&D 2nd edition books when I last left off.  Next on my list is one of the classic books for the Realms; so classic that we will get 3rd, 4th, and sort of a 5th edition versions of it.  I am talking about the Draconomicon. 

FOR1 Draconomicon

1990. by Nigel Findley, et al. Softcover, 128 pages. B&W art with magenta and some full color pages. 

For this review I am considering my original softcover book and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.

Obviously named after the Necronomicon and the more in-universe Demonomicon. I grabbed this one fairly late in my gaming life to be honest. I knew about it, of course, but I never bothered to grab it until my oldest began an interest in D&D at a very young age. He had a copy of the Draconomicon for 3rd Edition that he had carried with him everywhere (he was 5). It was so beat up and abused I thought it might be nice to get him the AD&D 2nd ed one as well, so I grabbed it at the local Games Plus Games Auction a few years ago.  He loved that one too, but took better care of it!

So I suppose, this book really isn't part of *my* collection. 

In any case this book feels more like the "Complete Handbooks" and "Dungeon Master Guides" books than it does an Forgotten Realms one. Thus the "FOR" code vs. the "FR" one. And yes, while there is a lot of Realms specific lore here, it reminds me enough of the old "Ecology of..." article from Dragon to be portable to any other world, save for maybe Krynn. That world has some very specific dragon lore already.

Chapter 1: Reference

This covers some history of how dragons first came into the world. There is an interesting piece on dragon evolution from the early Eodraco to "modern" dragons. Love the supposedly "extinct" line of dragons, perfect for an enterprising DM to come up with their own. We also see the return of the taxonomic nomenclature for dragons from the the 1st Ed. Monster Manual. 

The various "main" dragon species are described in detail, including a "racial preference" table common to the time. 

There are even Draconic Gods other than Bahamut and Tiamat listed. Note Bahamut and Tiamat are not listed here, but Zorquan is. I like the notion that dragons also worship "human" gods, they just appear draconic to them. This honestly makes a lot of sense and helped pave the way for Dragonborn in my mind. 

And to come full circle there is even some information on human who worship dragons. We will see more of this in future books.

Chapter 2: Geography

As expected, this covers the area where the dragons are found, listed by dragon type. Only slightly expands on what has been seen already in the AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendium/Manual.

Chapter 3: Dragon Psychology

A little more detail here, and this feels like the old Ecology of articles more. It discusses what motivates dragons, including their hoarding behaviors, and how to deal with such a long-lived creature. 

Chapter 4: Role-Playing Dragons

This chapter flows, concept-wise, from the previous. That is, how do dragons become (or be) "Dragons." How do they deal other species, how do they learn to fly, talk, do magic, what do they eat. All of these are discussed. There is even some discussion on how to raise a dragon. 

Need to know how long a dragon needs to incubate an egg? That information is here as well. Interestingly enough it mentions that chromatic dragons can interbreed. More on that later.

This chapter is good for an DM that uses dragons in their game and either wants to them be more fleshed out as a character or wants them to be a greater threat in combat. 

Chapter 5: Dragon Hall of Fame

Here we get some unique dragons. Bahamut and Tiamat seem "demoted" here to just special unique dragons. Others mentioned are Lareth, Aurus, Nexus, and Lux to name a few, I recognize. 

Chapter 6: New Dragon Species

We have some tables on dragon interbreeding. This section also has Monstrous Compendium style sheets for you to use. They are not numbered, so I wonder if the idea was you cut them out for use? No chance of that today! I'll just print mine from the PDF. These include the Mercury Dragon (with all of page 65's text on the back side!), Dracohydra, Steel Dragon, and Yellow Dragon. 

Chapter 7: Magic

Spells and magic items. I like the idea that some of these spells are so rare that only dragons know them. 

Chapter 8: Hunter's Guide

I mean, the game is called "Dungeons AND Dragons" so hunting dragons will come up. This chapter has some good advice and role-playing tips for both sides of the DM's Screen. 

Chapter 9: Miscellaneous Information

It covers everything else not touched on in the previous chapters, including details on the in-world Draconomicon itself. There is a bit on dragons and Spelljamming too. 

Adventures

The last 30 or so pages gives us three mini-adventures. 

Dragons should be awe-inspiring, or at least terror-inspiring, in the *D&D game and this book moves us a little closer to that. 

For a book about dragons, it is great. I would have eaten this one up back in 1990, but I would have chaffed under Bahamut (and Tiamat) getting such ill-treatment.  As a Forogtten Realms book tit dosen't push my understanding of the Realms any further save for the fact that there are colleges of scholars who spend a lot of time talking about dragons, but little time actually near dragons! (maybe they are smarter!)

It does help build a world where this is some mystery. What about that extinct line of dragons? Where are they? What were they? Can I learn new spells from dragons? What treasures do they hoard?

Great way to start adventuring in the world.

Catching up with Sinéad

Since I am using my character Sinéad as my discovery point of view of the Forgotten Realms, I think it is time I check in with her and her band of adventurers. When we last left them they had run into some trouble in Waterdeep ("Ill Met in Waterdeep" a year ago!). Since then they have been wandering the lands. With this book, my son and I decided that they see a yellow dragon flying overhead, ala, Ash Ketchum and his Ho-oh Pokémon. We thought that was funny given my son's love of dragons and Pokémon growing up. 

The party consists of Sinéad, the thief Nida, the barbarian Jaromir, Rhiannon the witch (not Grenda's Rhiannon), Arnell the cleric, and Argyle the dwarf fighter. Right now I am still using their 1st Edition AD&D sheets, but I will need to update them soon. There are no real barbarians in AD&D 2nd ed, so I think when I do update, Rhiannon and Jaromir will have moved on. Too bad really, I kinda liked Rhiannon. I will have them show up again when Sinéad and company get to Rashemen. We decided that while Nida and Rhiannon get along well, Sinéad and Arnell do not. Well. Sinéad want to know everything about elves from Arnell, but he is uncomfortable talking to a worshiper of Sehanine Moonbow. I am playing him as having a crisis of faith at this point; his faith vs his attraction to Rhiannon. 

Not sure who is making the cut to AD&D 2nd Edition yet, but I better figure it out soon.

This Old Dragon: Issue #152

I pulled a Dragon for today, started in on it, and got about a quarter through it before I realized it was one I had done already. I had a duplicate in my stack. Ah well. So instead, we go back to December 1989, the Eve of the 1990s. On the radio "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel and "Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins dominate. Gunge is still a little bit away for the mainstream. "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and "Back to the Future II" dominate the box office. And on game tables and shelves everywhere is issue # 152 of This Old Dragon!

My copy lacks a cover, so I grabbed this image off of my Dragon Magazine CD-ROM. All these later and that purchase keeps paying off.

Our cover is by none other than the illustrious and late Jennell Jaquays. 

Letters discuss the issues of the day, namely more about the über-ridiculous character Waldorf and challenges to his title. Hopefully that is the last of that. Nitpicks on Hawks vs. Falcons and some bits on spells and dragon hunting. 

In his Editorial, Roger E. Moore discusses helping others in hard times, which was a novelty then and is talked about more and more now. In particular, he mentioned that gaming conventions rarely give to charity, whereas now that is much more commonplace. 

Forum has some discussions on using other game systems to aid D&D DMs (Marvel Super Heroes is given as the example), a thought that D&D in not really Medieval Europe, but 20th Century Earth where magic has prevented technology from advancing (neat idea really) and some ideas on various humanoids played intelligently. 

Sage Advice gives us some rule clarifications on the NEW AD&D 2nd Edition rules. 

Our Special Feature of this issue is all about the Underdark. Ok, this could be fun. Since I had to switch gears, I am discovering all of this issue as I write.

Up first, a nice surprise, Tony Jones (a name I don't recall) is up with The Ecology of the Umber Hulk. It's a rare (for the time) non-Ed Greenwood ecology article. Also I admit a certain fondness for the Umber Hulk. I think it was because when I first read about him in the Monster Manual, he was so different than other monsters I had seen before. Like all good Ecology of articles the details here can be used in any edition/version of the game. While the Umber Hulk growth table would need to be adjusted per game, the data is still good. There is even a good bibliography. 

Ads for Buck Rogers books and Activision video games. 

Thomas M. Kane is up with In a Cavern, In a Canyon. This covers metallurgy in fantasy games, though the emphasis is obviously AD&D here. It is still good and useful information and again, easily adaptable to new versions of the game. 

Another ad for the Science Fiction Book Club, which I am sad to report, has shut down after 70 years.

The Wanderers Below is a good set of random encounter tables from Buddy Pennington. The art is from module S4 by Jim Holloway and the list could be AD&D 2nd ed or 1st, I can't really tell to be honest. Likely works for both.

We break up our feature with Role-Playing Reviews from Jim Bambra. He covers Twilight: 2000, Top Secret S.I. and GURPS High Tech. 

Registration page for Gen Con 1990.

Eric Oppen is back with Servants of the Jeweled Dagger, a bit abotu the lives and habits of the duegar, the gray dwarves. It is a little like an Ecology of article, but less game stats. Not a bad piece at all. I read while thinking about the duegar you encounter in Baldur's Gate 3. It still works. 

None other than R.A. Salvatore is up for the fiction section The First Notch.

Greg Minter is next, is what is a loose interpretation on today's theme, In Quest of Adventure. It covers all sorts of quests, but for me the real treat is the Stephen Fabian art. 

My issue lacks the giant poster advertised. No idea what it was. 

The late Jim Ward waxes philosophical on "what do the simple folk do?" in The Game Wizards. He discusses well, I am not sure, it is a little rambling. 

The Lessers are all back with more video game reveiws in The Role of Computers. They loved DragonWars for the Apple II, and enjoyed The Kristal for the Amiga. They also got in a couple of MS-DOS games like Beyond the Black Hole and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From what I can tell these are graphic (as in EGA) games and not text-based ones. An important distinction at this time that will soon no longer matter. 

TSR Previews gives us the new games and accessories for November and December 1989. A few novels to support the Top Secret, Dragonlance, and Buck Rogers lines.  Monstrous Compendium vol 3, the Bloodstone Lands, Pool of Radiance novel, and Kara-Tur trail maps leave no doubt that the Forgotten Realms is the darling of the time. 

Spider-Man to Wed Vanna White! from Fraser Sherman gives us the best article title of the issue. He discusses how to use real-world events in your Marvel Super Heroes games. I just watched the first two episodes of the Disney+ "Daredevil Born Again" and I can say Marvel does not have an issue using real world events in their tales.

Robert Bigelow has more new miniatures for us in Through the Looking Glass. I rather like the Joker and Batman minis from Grenadier Models. Very much in support of the Batman RPG. They have a real Neal Adams meet Jim Lee feel to them.

The Convention Calendar covers the last bit of 1989 and the winter of 1990. In general, I think there were more conventions back then. Am I wrong? I don't know. The Egyptian Campaign is listed. I can't recall if I went then or not. 

Not to be forgotten, we still have Make the Most of Your Missions from Merle and Jackie Rasmussen. This covers mission starters for the Top Secret SI game. 

Dragonmirth has our comics. Gamers Guide has our small ads. Among the ads is one to allow you edit your IBM versions of characters for Might and Magic and Pool of Radiance games. Just $15! Lots of ads produced on what look like AppleWriter printers.  Walter Moore will also draw your character, also just $15. Wonder if he is still in business?

Back page ads for the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums and Spelljamer. 

So not a bad issue really. The special feature had a lot of material and nearly all of it is still useful today. The tone has shifted completely to AD&D 2nd edition and away from 1st Edition or Basic/BECMI. This will continue until all other games except those from TSR are shut out. Dragon was not unique with this, all game magazines were doing this. 

The underdark features were good and ones I can see myself using. I still love looking at all the old ads too.

Monstrous Mondays: DMGR4 Monster Mythology (2e)

 I want to pick back up my reviews of my collection of Forgotten Realms books, I also want to keep up my exploration of various monsters that have appeared in past versions of the *D&D game. With the lack of "playable humanoids" in the current Monster Manual, I returned to my collection and found a book that fits my needs.  While this means I am skipping over a couple of books in my chronological order, they are all connected to each other, so I can justify it. 

Of note, this is another book I obtained from the Grenda collection. So that is also a good reason to feature it. It can also stand-in as an entry to my "One Man's God" series. 

DMGR4 Monster Mythology (2e)

1992, by Carl Sargent. Art by John Lakey, Laura Lakey, Keith Parkinson, Terry Dykstra. Softcover, blue&white and full color art. 128 Pages.

This book was the fourth in the DMGR, or Dungeon Master's Guide Rules, series for AD&D 2nd edition. I did not purchase many of these when they were new. At this point, most, if not all, of my gaming money went to Ravenloft-themed products. 

This book covers, not monsters really, but their gods, demigods, and heroes. The format is simialr to that of new Legends & Lore book for 2nd Edition, and it would be a prequel of sorts to various Forgotten Realms "Faiths & Avatars" books, with Demihuman Deities being its direct descendant. 

Now to be fair, Monster Mythology is not a Realms book per se. A lot of what goes on in this book will later get adopted to the Realms. Author Carl Sargent, also know for his Greyhawk From the Ashes boxed set, makes many mentions of various Greyhawk secific gods. It seems that he felt these two products would work together. And they do, quite well in fact, but the Forgotten Realms are also explicitly mentioned. 

What does this book actually have in it?

There are gods for the Elves (including sea elves), Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings, specifically for the Forgotten Realms, though we have seen these before in one form or another. There are "Goblinoid Deities" of the orcs, goblins, bugbears, kobolds, and others.  

There are the Gods of the Underdark: For Drow, Underdark Dwarves, Illithids, Beholders, Myconids, and Deep Gnomes. 

Gods for the Giants, for other monsters, and many more are also mentioned. This includes the Elder Elemental God, aka the Elder Elemental Eye. This book does nothin to clear up that confusion, but that is fine. I like my gods messy. Case in point, the Demon Lord Juiblex is listed as a Lesser God here. Indeed, one man's god is another man's demon.

In addition to Juiblex, other demons are mentioned and get deity-level treatment. This includes Demogogn, Yeenoghu, Kostchtchie, Baphomet, and Lolth (naturally). Additionally, other "monsters" get god-like treatments, such as Bahamut and Tiamat. 

Vampires, liches, and even hags get gods. Though I am not sure I'd ever use them as gods and more as "powerful examples" of each type. 

It is an interesting mix, especially rereading it with 2025 eyes. Some gods were ported over from the various Gods of the Demihumans articles from Dragon magazine, and others from previous Realms-based books and earlier as well. The Underdark gets more detail. It's no surprise; the early 1990s were all about the Underdark and Drow in particular.

All gods get mentions of their Specialty Priests. So in general, this book has more value to the game than does the Legends & Lore book proper. 

A couple of thoughts, though, of my own.

I'm not sure what happens with the gods of the Kobolds as they became less "goblin" and more "dragon."  I am likely to say that these gods were once powerful kobold heroes that fell into a sort of ancestor worship. 

I also can't see the Illithids or the Beholders having gods. For the Illithids, I say that their two gods, Ilsensine and Maanzecorian, are not real beings but rather constructs of the Illithid shared mindscape, something akin to a Tulpa. The beholders, on the other hand, have their "Great Mother," who I say is not so much a divine figure, but actually the mother of all beholders. So in a way she is more akin to Vlaakith of the Githyanki. 

The book is flexible enough to be used in any campaign setting, and it mentions just about every campaign setting from that time. 

While the book has been superseded by newer AD&D 2nd Ed books in the Forgotten Realms and by shifts in the pantheons in different editions, this is still a solid book.

The details on specialty priests alone makes it worthwhile.  

The R. Michael Grenda Collection

 This past weekend I went downstate to see my family and celebrate my Dad's 95 birthday. Yeah, he still doing great at 95! I also stopped by my old friend Michael's house, where his widow gave me a bunch of his old D&D stuff.

There is so much here. That black grocery bag is filled with character sheets dating back to 1981. There were a lot of duplicated books too. Much to my surprise and delight, a few of them were mine!

I have always talked about here how in the 1990s I lost a lot of my Basic and 1st Ed AD&D collection in various moves. I know where some of it went. I guess I lent some of it to Grenda back then.  There was my Fiend Folio, Manual of the Planes, Tales of the Outer Planes adventures, a bunch of other modules, and more. My oldest got my replacement copies, and I reclaimed my originals. 

There is so much more here too. 

In addition to a bunch of city books, I found a ton of his notes on our house rules for playing in cities and urban environments. By the way, other than some box damage, that Haven set is in fantastic shape. 

Maybe our "Urban Survival Guide" will see the light of day. 

There are also hundreds of characters here—so many that I don't even know what to do with them all. Some of the main ones, the ones I remember from our time playing, are going to get some airplay here. 

I found maps of our shared world, maps (so many!) of his city, the Riddlemaster, Shadowmaster, Beastmaster, and Starmaster classes—they were so overpowered, but it was a blast when we were teens. Details of his Greyhawk campaigns into CY 800—just so much stuff.

It is also sad. I would have loved to have gotten this stuff out there for others to enjoy while he was still alive. I could have asked him about these complex family histories and the differences in these maps. 

There is so, so much here. It is like walking into a past I only vaguely remember. It is also a reminder of how long ago some of this actually was.  

I tend to think of my University days as being "not that long ago."  Maybe because I am still hanging out with the same girl I was then (best friend. totally married her). But it really was. There is sadness in that. It is sad to know that Warluk, Adnerg, Danis, Finn, Tali, and Alix will never have their stories continue. Well, they can, with me I suppose, but that is really not the same is it?

I do take comfort and joy in the fact that my oldest has been converting over to AD&D 1st ed and will use all of this stuff and my own stuff with his group.

I'll spend more time with all this material and see where it takes me. 

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.

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: 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. 

Monstrous Mondays: The Ravenloft Monstrous Compendiums

 I have been covering the AD&D 2nd Ed version of Ravenloft all this month. I have also been covering the the Forgotten Realms and currently in the AD&D 2nd Edition era. One thing they both have in common is that a few of the books feature new monsters in AD&D 2nd Monstrous Compendium format.

I reviewed the Ravenloft Monstrous Compendiums sometime back. Since I have been reviewing the various books I have been printing out the Monstrous Compendium pages and adding them to my three-ring binder for Ravenloft.

As I run across a monster page for these reviews OR from Dragon magazine in my This Old Dragon feature, I print them out (or cut them out as the case may merit) and add them to my binder.

It has taken 30+ years but I feel that the Monstrous Compendium concept is finally living up to its potential for me.

I have been doing the same thing with my Forgotten Realms monsters as I talked about a while back.

Again, I might start mining my other MCs to see what would fit here. I already have one filled with demons and devils, so I wont add those, but I am considering taking the Death Knight from Krynn and putting in this one.

The truth is I am not likely to play AD&D 2nd ed Ravenloft again. BUT my son is running his 5e group through Castle Amber using AD&D 1st ed. So it is possible I could run an AD&D 2nd Ed game again one day. I have mentioned that I am running an AD&D 2nd Ed Forgotten Realms game with my oldest, though we have not played in a while. So I guess never say never.

Despite my concerns with Ravenloft under AD&D 2nd ed, it was my game for the 90s. 

In any case I feel like an archivist in some dusty library, collecting tomes for my own pleasures. 

This is another entry for my RPG Blog Carnival for October!

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.

In Search Of...Barovia (Ravenloft)

 I have been talking about the AD&D 2nd Edition campaign setting Ravenloft. Every domain in the Land of Mists / Domain of Dread is a copy of some land from one of the other campaign worlds. Darkon and Tovag are copies of old Oerth. Hazlan and I'Cath are from the Forgotten Realms; Thay and Kara-Tur specifically. Sithicus and Falkovnia are from Dragonlance. Lamordia seems to be from an Earth-like world given it has the same months we do. Even Eberron creator Keith Baker has a Domain in Ravenloft from his world. 

But there are two notable exceptions. 

1. First, there are no core domains from Mystara. 
2. Secondly, the black heart of the Core Domains, Barovia, does not have a "home world."

Why? Because Barovia is from Mystara!

Now, please keep this in mind. None of this is supported by real-world evidence at all. There was no secret cabal of ur-Developers at TSR deciding this was true and leaving breadcrumbs for me to find. This is less than circumstantial evidence. This is full-on Conspiracy Theory, tin foil hat territory. No, this makes conspiracy theories look like rational arguments. This is conclusion shopping at its lowest.

But at least it makes more sense than some conspiracy theories. So adjust your tin foil hat, make sure your webcams are turned off, and your phone is nowhere near because we are going down a rabbit hole.

Evidence From the Novels

The Ravenloft novels...were a wild bunch. But we can at least assume they were canon. In the first one, "Vampire of the Mists," Strahd does not know about Faerûn when he meets Jander Sunstar. Jander also does not know about Barovia.  Likewise, in "Knight of the Black Rose," Strahd has never heard of Krynn or Lord Soth, not something that would been true for someone of Strahd's age and position. Everyone knew about Lord Soth. The best evidence comes from "I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire," where Strahd describes his lands and also mentions he has never heard of Azalin (Azalin Rex) or Oerth. 

These are all strikes against Oerth, Krynn, and Abeir-Toril.

Most of the novels in the Ravenloft line are self-contained, so no mention either way of what worlds they might be from originally. 

Evidence from the Campaign Worlds

Going the other direction, we know that the Gods of Krynn keep a pretty tight hold on their world. So much so that Spelljamming and Outer Plane travel to and from Krynn is very difficult. One more strike against Krynn.

The Forgotten Realms have nearly ever square inch of their world map accounted for. If it had been the Realms, we would have heard about it by now. One more strike against Abeir-Toril. OR at least the Toril part, "Forgotten Abeir" might be a different story.

Dark Sun's Athas is a desert wasteland filled with Psionic-enhanced creatures. So there is no way it is from there.

The World of Greyhawk's Oerth has a LOT of land that is unaccounted for. So, we need to find a way to rule it out based on the campaign setting.

Eberon was not created yet, so that one is out as well. 

None of this tells us where Barovia and Strahd are from. It just tells us where they are not from.

So, what does Mystara have to offer us? Well, a lot really.

Mystara

While Tracy Hickman is best known for Dragonlance, that is also one-half Margaret Weiss. So, I am not ready to say Ravenloft is from Krynn based on the Hickman connection alone. But there is another Hickman publication, and it is from Tracy AND Laura Hickman, just like Ravenloft. That is Rahasia.

Rahasia was written by the Hickmans and features body-snatching undead witches, a strong horror trope. Even in the 5e era, The Curse of Strahd adventure, lists Rahasia as an influence. Plus, there are some other solid connections, like finding the same wines in Rahasia's Wizard Tower and in Ravenloft Curse of Strahd. Rahasia is a solid Mystara, or at least a BECMI adventure.

There is also Castle Amber. This Expert Set adventure is explicitly Mystara with the inclusion of Glantri. It also reads like a "Proto-Ravenloft."  I have discussed the Castle Amber/Ravenloft connections before. 

• Ravenloft / Glantri connection
• Averoigne via Ravenloft
• On the Road to Averoigne
• Castle Amber by Candle Light
• Castle Amber, Butterbeer and the Order of the Platinum Dragon

Averoigne was later added to Glantri and the Amber family is said to have come from Old Earth. In many ways the Earth of the Ambers is very, very similar to the Earth of Ravenloft's Gothic Earth.

So, another set of near-evidence is connecting Ravenloft to Mystara. What else do we have?

The vampires of Mystara are more diverse than vampires of other game worlds. This collection of Vampiric Bloodlines at the Vaults of Pandius attests to that.

Immortals vs. The Dark Powers

Mystara and Ravenloft are both settings largely devoid of gods. There are the Immortals of Mystara that cover the same role as gods, but are explicitly not gods. Ravenloft has its Dark Powers which are also not gods. In fact, there is even some evidence that gods worshiped in Ravenloft might only be reflections of the Dark Powers. This all runs pretty counter to most D&D worlds, especially Krynn and Abeir-Toril where the gods are important and very active in the affairs of mortals.

Could the Dark Powers be Chaotic Immortals? I think that is a question best left un-answered, but it has, to quote Stephen Colbert, a bit of Truthiness to it.

Another factor. Both the Immortals and the Dark Powers have a history of scooping up land, countries, even entire civilizations and hiding them away. The Immortals do this with the Hollow World, and the Dark Powers do it with the lands of Ravenloft.

Barovia could have been scoped up and planted elsewhere, and both the Dark Powers and Immortals could have covered it up.  Which does lead into my next point.

Lands

Mystara is a strange patchwork of cultures and lands. Vikings live right next to a Khanate, and on the other side of these steppes is fantasy Wales with bits of Renaissance Italy. These lands only make sense when you realize the Immortals have a hand in moving people around.

Same is true for Ravenloft. Only here, there is less movement. 

Barovia is also small, only 24 miles East-West and about 10 miles North-South. This makes it smaller that an average hex on many Mystara maps. A place like could come from anywhere. More to the point it could go missing from anywhere.

Like Mystara, Ravenloft is a hodge-podge of lands and cultures. 

Time Lines

Additionally, I can use some dates from the novels to narrow some ideas down. Now, a note about time. Time seems to run differently in Ravenloft, so I can't put an exact formula for it. There isn't one. I just have to try to deal with it. The only hard and fast rule I will adhere to is that there is no travel to the past.

WORKING: Timeline

This timeline is a work in progress with changes being made all the time. 

I will add and move details around as I discover them. I am using the Forgotten Realms DR calendar here since many worlds have had interactions with the Realms so it helps with the dating. Any date in Red is a fixed date, one I have confirmation of.  I have squared all the dates yet. Part of the issue is that Mystara's year is different from the other worlds.  Some of the dates do not line up right yet, I am working on those.

This shorter timeline is based on these works: 

• John W. Mangrum's epic Ravenloft timeline.
• Timeline of Ravenloft adventures, found on Reddit.
• The Unofficial Timeline of Mystara
• TIMELINE for Mystara, "Twin Campaigns" version

I still have a lot of work to do on these and some funky math to make them work. This is, of course, assuming that time passes the same way in all the realms, and I am not making that assumption.  I could hand wave and say "it fits" but I at least would like to find a large enough whole for Barovia in Mystara to fit.

The Art

This one is a little more interesting in my mind.

Both the early Mystara Gazetteer line and the Ravenloft line share the same artists. Now this is not a huge surprise. There were a lot of books being pumped out by TSR in the AD&D 2nd Ed days and only a few artists. But they typically were used on various projects in various combinations.

Both Mystara and Ravenloft shared the same cover artist, Clyde Caldwell, and the same interior artist, Stephen Fabian. And some of the parallels are striking.

Count Strahd (Ravenloft) and Prince Voszlany (Glantri)

Victor Mordenheim (Ravenloft) and Rafiel (Mystara - Shadow Elves)

Count Strahd and Prince Voszlany look like they are related, and Victor Mordenheim and Rafiel look like they went to University together.

The Caldwell covers are fairly part-and-parcel with the look of Ravenloft from the start. So seeing all the books side by side they do "feel" right together.

Likewise the Stephen Fabian interior art has a dark spookiness to it and his style is so unique that when I picked up a 1990 copy of Anita and saw his art I knew it right away.

Maybe I need to make a witch, named Anita, (or Anita Tina, I always wanted a character with a palindrome name) from Mystara, Glantri in particular, who gets stuck in Ravenloft. I like this.

--

Of course, none of this is true. But it feels true, and isn't that better than the truth? At least that is what Leonard Nimoy, the Patron Saint of "In Search Of," has to say.

 

Links

• Ravenloft / Glantri connection
• Vaults of Pandius Mystara/Ravenloft timeline
• The Unofficial Timeline of Mystara
• Nu-Ravenloft and Mystara: Cosmic Parallels
• Ravenloft / Karameikos map alignment (huge file)
• The Piazza Board
• Strahd von Zarovich was from Mystara?
• Strahd's Home Plane?
• Mystara Connections in Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft?
• Reddit: What world was Barovia originally a part of?
• Barovia
• Ravenloft wiki
• Eberron wiki
• Forgotten Realms wiki
• Plansescape wiki
• Dragonsfoot with my original posting from the 90s.
• Fraternity of Shadows with a possible DragonQuest connection

Products

• Basic and First Edition
• I6 Ravenloft
• I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill
• B7 Rahasia
• X2 Castle Amber
• GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri
• GAZ13 The Shadow Elves
• Second Edition
• Ravenloft, Realms of Terror
• Ravenloft, Forbidden Lore
• Night of the Vampire (2e)
• Mark of Amber (2e)