Creating Domains of Dread - Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Creating Domains of Dread. Ravenloft is a place where your nightmares can run wild, where anything you can imagine in moments of dread or despair can come to frightful life among the Mists. The setting as a whole is made up of countless isolated domains, each one a perfect expression of a particular flavor of the macabre. Creating your own domain allows you to blend legendary evils, unexpected monstrosities, and grim settings into a tailor-made whole, bound together by mysterious mists and buried alive inside your favorite horror genres. This chapter explores how to create such domains, a process that starts by defining a Darklord-the villain at the heart of each sinister realm. Descriptions of various genres of horror also provide details to guide and inspire your creations. The rivalry between Darklords Strahd von Zarovich and Azalin Rex spills through endless ages and countless domains Creating a Darklord Domains are mocking reflections of the evils they confine. Each has a purpose, being a prison designed to torture a deliberately chosen villain. To devise a Domain of Dread, you must first conceive its central antagonist and prisoner: its Darklord. The following sections detail how to develop a Darklord that contrasts your characters and can serve as a central rival in your horror adventures. Sinister Reflections A Darklord's memories, desires, mistakes, and evil deeds shape the domain's twisted lands, inhabitants, and features. You need not create these in a vacuum, though. When creating your own Darklord, consider the relationship that will define their evil in your adventures: their conflict with your players' characters. Just as a Darklord is the inspiration for a domain, players' characters can be a source of inspiration for a Darklord. Consider a Darklord a sinister reflections of those characters. If you explore this connection, have your players create characters then involve them in the process of creating a Darklord in the following ways: What to Re...