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Ravenloft Gazetteer One
The 'Swords and Sorcery' Ravenloft line has been a somewhat dicey project from the beginning in my mind. Arthaus had always been the place that White wolf dumped its 'red-headed step children'. Even its longest running game 'Changeling the Dreaming' had its supplements vary drastically in quality before finally going kapoot. As a fan of the Demiplane of Dread, this worried me immensely. While the campaign sourcebook had been very good, Secrets of the Dread realms had been awful, Van Ritchen’s Arsenal had been extremely good, Champions of Darkness had been abyssmal, and Heroes of Light had been wonderful. Now, the first long-term project of the team would decide whether or not the publishers actually had anything going for them. The Gazetteers would chronicle all of Ravenloft’s domains in detail and see if they could be made realistic and interesting enough not only to satisfy Ravenloft players but also draw in other fantasy gamers who appreciate detail-rich worlds such as Exalted.
If it can continue the quality established in Gazetteer one, then I foresee no difficulties in that.
The book itself is a simple covered black book with the “red gemstone” common cover for the gameline, showing inside of it a map of the regions to be covered. In this case its Barovia, Hazlan, Forlorn, and Kartakass. The art inside is very good quality but its a specific ‘style’ that is somewhat difficult to describe. I suppose the best answer is to compare it to Vampire Hunter D without the anime eyes, surreal Gothic imagery and slightly comic book feel to the portraits. I found it very enjoyable to look at though and usually appropriate for the text. Its total cost was 24.95 US and I felt that was personally very reasonable for the wealth of information inside. At 152 pages there is quite simply everything you ever needed to know about the domains listed in this land and then some.
The book itself takes an interesting conceit in the fact that a scholar, most likely an Arcanist, has been hired by the Lord Azalin to give an exploratory first hand account of all the lands of Dread. While this could have been an interesting opportunity to entirely divorce Ravenloft from its more surreal aspects. Specifically, present an entirely coherent history instead of the strange constantly appearing and disappearing lands. This book makes a great inroad to this by presenting the ‘false history’ of each domain but chooses to make the scholar apparently aware of the fact that the lands are created around the personalities of Ravenloft’s darklords and even able to successfully deduce their identities. I personally am uncomfortable giving anyone this kind of information ‘in character’ and it makes the book impossible for player characters to read ala the Van Ritchen Books without major ramifications.
Barovia is presented first, appropriate since this is the ‘signature’ land in Ravenloft but oddly one I’ve found the very little used for anything but ‘weekend in Hell’ games. Taking most of the information presented in the I, Strahd novels, they present Barovia now as a fairly vast land with a great number of lesser noble families and a good deal of intrigue going on underneath the table. The Gunderak conflict is now much more ambiguous than ‘Barovian oppressors and ‘heroic Gunderak freedom fighters’ which I liked. I cannot positively stand the whole ‘Braveheart-Patriot defense of rebellion’ that seems to pervade many games. Barovia is also given a number of villains more to contend with than the simply invincible Strahd with the return of Leo Dilisyna, the Baal’Verzi assassins, and one Demon dwelling in the Dark Lands. Furthermore, unlike in I6 and House of Strahd, it is possible if unlikely that the players might not even think the Strahd ruling the land is a vampire! More useful information is presented on the races of Barovia including the survivors of Bluetspur and Forfar whom neither were unrealistically portrayed.
The Hazlan section is next and I was very interested in seeing what Arthaus had done with the domain. The land was more or less playing in Forgotten Realms Thay for many Ravenlofters and Hazlik seemed little more than Azalin without the more interesting aspects. Here Hazlan is presented as a much different domain and while hardly as interesting as some in the Land of Mists, it does introduce such badly needed things as opium dens as well as accepted oppression of the masses. Hazilik is also given alittle more edge to his portrayal in the fact the man’s anger in part stems from persecution of his homosexuality. This step towards adult Ravenloft I think makes the game all the better.
The Forlorn section I didn’t expect much from. Forlorn was literally the most useless domain in the Core for the longest time since the only there was a single Castle and no human population. Here the domain’s past is played up and at least one human community is included in the write-up, which gives a slightly larger use for the domain. The Goblyns and Druids also recieve some detail so that they are no longer mere mindless forces of evil and good for the players to do battle with. The addition of the fey also makes it a much more useful ‘celtic’ domain, though perhaps alittle too Earth related.
Kartakass is in my mind the weakest portion of the book but still very well done. The Kartakans are explained as a people who utterly despise rulership of any kind but the source of their strange beliefs about music is never quite detailed. I also didn’t think that the Invidians being former occupiers of the land made much sense given they don’t share a border. However, its section on myths and legends was quite extensive and memorable which befits the bardic people. It did detail however the “Ancesteral Choir” from the novel ‘Heart of Midnight’ and the only good aspect of ‘Death of a Darklord’ in the Mage-Hunters guild.
The Dmed ‘attached notes’ is the meat of anything that is being bought for direct campaign information and it’s a pretty large wealth of information. The section on Necromantic spells alone could fill small book with nasty surprises for PCs. The magical items are both epic and flavored as befitting the setting and curiously a expanded write-up on the werefox is given. The ‘Who’s Doomed’ section more or less renders Secrets of the Dread Realms an entirely useless book in my opinion. The descriptions of the Dark Lords are wonderfully done as are the other NPCs which include the long awaited Madamn Eva and Inajira who no longer comes off as a pompous bureaucrat but powerful corrupting evil. We also see Tatyana’s current incarnation which should get male PCs betting lots to see which mattresses her first if they are anything like my players.
All in all, a spectacular supplement and one that should be swiftly bought. The Kargatane, now Kargat, should be given medals for their work here.
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