Earlier last week, Wizards of the Coast teased a number of sites with an image of a woman, drawn in what looked like charcoal, or a heavy black pencil, with a two droplets of blood on her collarbone with a set of drapes that conspicuously looked a lot like fangs. Or you could just head over to The Escapist to take a look at the picture there. The title of the picture was "Innocence" along with the caption (if you're not clicking over), "Innocence is the most delicate gift. To protect it is the highest of virtues. To recognize it within oneself is salvation." Based on the style of art, the title and the caption, myself along with a bunch of others concluded that the new adventure that Wizards of the Coast was going to be releasing in March was going to be Ravenloft based. Others thought that the single circular ornament above the curtains along with the fang shape hinted at something Beholder related.
In a press release today, Wizards of the Coast announced that their new adventure, which will be released on March 15th of this year will indeed be Ravenloft related and be entitled "Curse of Strahd."
To say that I am excited about this release is just a bit of an understatement. Ravenloft was the 2nd Edition AD&D campaign setting that I was attached to. Both the adaptations of stories that I was finding myself interested in as well as the artwork were a huge draw for me. Additionally the fact that the Mists are capable of reaching into any campaign setting to pluck whomever they want and bring them into their own world/setting created a great sense of power for the DM, which I was in full swing in at the time. I also found that the novelizations of the Demiplane of Dread were great to read and I never felt like stories were being dumbed down for a young adult audience; even though I do not recall there being any use of offensive language, although sex was briefly mentioned and there was plenty of blood and ichor throughout many of the stories.
"Van Richten's Guide to the Created" was the first Ravenloft product I owned, a birthday present from my parents if I remember correctly and not really knowing that it was only a source book and not an adventure, I read through that thing like it was a legitimate novel that happened to be filled with information about Dungeons & Dragons.
I realize that I am going off on a bit of a semi-tangent, but really, it's all because I'm exceedingly excited about Ravenloft.
Oh! And to top it all off, the writers of this adventure/quest/module. . .thing, collaborated with Tracy and Laura Hickman, the creators of the first Ravenloft adventure back in 1983. There has also been mention of the Vistani's [Barovia's (the fictional land Strahd comes from based somewhat off of Transylvania and Romania) equivalent of Gypsies] use of the Tarroka deck (the setting's own version of a tarot deck) and I am very excited that one will be included* as I loved the Tarroka deck that was included with the original Ravenloft campaign setting and the Forbidden Lore campaign expansion. I am loving how Wizards of the Coast is treating the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons and this recent move only brings me deeper into their depths. I welcome the Mists.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
*Edit: After reading a number of releases, it appears that the Tarroka deck will be a stand alone purchase from Gale Force 9, who've made a number of 5th Edition D&D products, but my fear is that like a lot of the miniatures they've made for various story lines (Elemental Evil, Tyranny of Dragons, Demons of the Abyss), there will only be a limited number printed; they only made 1,500 of specific miniatures for the above mentioned story lines. But Gale Force 9 also made the Firefly game which I've recently heard some good things about, so here's to hoping that the Tarroka decks they print won't be an exorbitant amount of money, or I might just be forced to use my older Tarroka decks that I mentioned earlier in the article.
P.S. I shall leave you all with the tentative cover art for the book when it is released in just under two months:
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