Rating: 
Summary: Gothic Horror has returned
Review: I was quite the fan of the old Ravenloft setting. Victorian Horror has always been a favorite genre of mine. When I heard that Sword and Sorcery Press would be reviving the setting for D&D3E under the open gaming liscence I was very excited and S&S came through...Firstly, here's what's inside:
*Chapter One: The World of Ravenloft
- How to use this Book
- The Gothic mystique (outlining the history of Gothic literature)
- The Realm of Dread (giving an overview of the setting)
- History
- Timeline of Events
- Geography of Mists (contains Cultural Levels for the domains of dread)
- Lexicon (terms used in the game)
*Chapter Two: Player Characters featuring:
- Races
:Humans
:Calibans (twisted humans exposed to foul curses)
:Dwarves
:Elves
:Gnomes
:Half-elves
:Halfings
:Half-vistani (a new race)
- Classes
:All of the Core classes are present, with additional rules for each class *Chapter Three: The Ways of the World
- Fear, Horror, and Madness rules
*Chapter Four: The Dread Realms
- Covering each Domain, giving information on Cultural level, Landscape, Major Settlements, The Folk, The Law, Trade and Diplomacy, Characters.
*Chapter Five: Horrors of the Night
- Covering the monsters of Ravenloft.
- Vampires, Ghosts, Liches, Lycanthropes, Constructs (including a new template: the Dread Golem), The Ancient Dead, Fiends, Hags, and the Vistani
- Each entry is detailed much as the old Van Richten's Guides did.
*Chapter Six: The Ravenloft Campaign
- Tips and hints on maintaining a gothic horror atmosphere.
- The book ends with a list of reading and viewing materials in the genre. All in all the book delivers more than enough source material to run a campaign of Gothic Horror in your D&D game and plenty of material to allow for a flawless conversion of your 2nd edition Ravenloft campaign to D&D3E. My only REAL disappointment is the lack of statistics for the Darklords themselves. Hopfully this information will be forthcoming in another Ravenloft supplement, perhaps one that will address the variety of monsters not given. This small flaw is not enough to deter me from giving this product my highest rating. Well done Sword and Sorcery and thank you for my Halloween present...
Rating: 
Summary: MEDIOCRE - DOES NOT LIVE UP TO THE HYPE
Review: I was really looking forward to the new 3rd Edition Ravenloft hardcover book. It really is a big dissapointment, especially if you have all of the old 2nd edition materials. Really, there is no knew material in this book. It litterly looks like a re-print of all the old 2nd edition material. There is nothing new in here that hasn't been printed before.
All of the power checks are the same from 2nd edition, and even the Vampire special abilities are the same. They even ommited some of the really cool ones, like being able to energy drain in gaseous form.
All in all, I was really dissapointed. Especially considering the high price of the book. I would recommend this to someone that does not own any of the old 2nd edition Ravenloft materials. If you do own them, pass on this one; it is a waste of money. Skywise
Dungeon Master - 15 years experience
Rating: 
Summary: a disappointed ravenloft fan.
Review: I'm crazy about ravenloft, but this item isn't so great
for what I payed for it. If you liked Domains of Dread you
probably won't be crazy for this either. It just seems to
explain how you can get a gothic feel to your adventure every
time you play. It gives the history of the land and the population of every domain, but almost nothing about the darklords. Most of them aren't even named. While domains of dread gave each darklord a story and history, nothing is said of
them in this text. The only thing I really liked about this text is that it hails the return of the lich king Azlain. We also find out who the new darklord of Sithicus is. If you are a ravenloft fan I'm sorry to say you will probably be dissapointed as well after waiting so long for this books release.
Rating:
Summary: Usable by players as well!
Review: It has been a long wait, but finally Ravenloft hits the shelves once again. The Ravenloft setting has always struggled for its existance, being torn between the fantasy rules of AD&D it used, and the gothic setting it wanted to be. With this latest edition, the setting is now truly stand alone. The Ravenloft setting is all about horror, with a particular focus on the gothic. It is a nightmarish world full of danger and despair, evil and cruelty. The players' role is to portray a true hero (or anti-hero). Not just one who is physically powerful... The heroes of Ravenloft make sacrifices, face dilemmas, overcome their fear... but ultimately never succeed completely. The evil in Ravenloft is too great to overcome, but it is not invincible. If it wasn't for the many heroes, Ravenloft would be a much more horrible place. Ravenloft is probably the one DnD campaign setting focused primarily on in-depth roleplaying. Characters should never be flat, villains should never be simple killers, and an encounter should never be a random one. This book gives all the basic guidelines on how to play or lead a Ravenloft campaign. It is useful for players and DMs alike, as this book does not reveal too much information about given domains. Few may find this odd, but the book was intended to be very usable by players, without the need for a DM watching over their shoulders to make sure they don't get to read the parts that are supposed to be secret. It is recommended for DMs, though, to get a copy of Secrets of the Dread Realms before starting a campaign, as it sheds light on the true nature of the political leaders of many domains. Just make sure your players don't get to read it! 5 stars-- And don't worry if you've never played Ravenloft before. This book contains all you need to know.
Rating: 
Summary: Few if any spoilers! Good for Players and DM alike
Review: It seems to me a lot of the reviewers for some reason were surprised by the fact that this book is encyclopedic in nature. Was anything else to be expected from a new publisher and new edition? They had to address people who couldn't get their hands on older materials, and they have no ability to produce that older material themselves without incurring the same costs. Better to update it overall I say. It is probably true that people with previous materials can give this a miss, but I think you are missing out on a great sourcebook that you can hand to your players and let them read a section or two (i.e. you are starting a new campaign with characters all from the Ravenloft world, you can let each player read the section on their home domain). As to gamers who expect fancy artwork...I'm one of those who actually prefers to see cheesy artwork. I'd rather see a page of text than a page with a picture on it and I'd rather see more money go to the authors than to illustrators.
Rating:
Summary: Dry.
Review: Much of the book reads more like an encyclopedia than a game book, with large swaths of details reduced to two-word phrases. The game mechanics are alright, but this book by itself isn't enough to run a good Ravenloft game. If you have older books (Domains of Dread or either of the two original box sets), this will be more than enough to update your Ravenloft game to the d20 system. If not, give this book a miss, as it is sorely lacking in detail and (un)life.
Rating:
Summary: Some good news, some bad news . . .
Review: Ok, so it is a great book. It is the world that i have in my heart from D&D. But way much information is gone. Vampires, ancient dead, lycantrophy... it's all there. But where in the hell is Strahd ? Azalin ? Lord Soth ?!?!?!?
They're gone... for the mists i bet ;)p
Anyway, Vistani looks good, and the races and classes are ok too.
I miss some especific prestige classes, and many ohters things. It seems to me that they want to publish a lot of other books covering especifics domains and villains.
But even then it has some lot of information to begin with. Just don't dream too high before you get it !
Rating:
Summary: Good but use caution
Review: Recently purchasing this book I was excited because I could not get it in my area (Windsor, Ontario, Canada) no matter who I called, I had to finally order it special online. When I got it however it said it was printed in Canada, well it said Canda. There are many spelling errors in this and quite unprofessional of a publishing company I must say. Anyway after reading the book through I came to some conclusions. First its a good read, It reads like a book rather than a gamers guide. The stories are really good if you like the old time gothic horror. There are long quotes and you get more of the tale as you read through it. Second its not helpful, usually when you buy something to help you as a DM you want the information so you can apply it to your game, but in this case it gives your more questions than answers. The book speaks in riddles and hints at things but does not tell you what you need to know to. If you wanted to run a campaign and have the players uncover the secrets you would have to make them up because it does not tell you all you need to know. For instance there is a part where the book is describing a domain and it says something like this. "This is a barren realm with no life, but if there was something intelligent under the earth it would surely be a mystery." So what does this mean? Does it mean they know there is something and they are not telling us or is it up to the DM to create this? One other part that got me was when they were talking about two domains side by side and one did not have any one running it that could be seen, but there was a house that had lights at night in the forest. Ok so? Does a dread lord live here? Which one? What is he? The questions just pile up. Thirdly There is a lot of extra talk in here that could have been cut out to save on money, we do not need to go over the races and spells that are already in the DM guide. The monsters guide has all the statistics on the vampires and ghosts already and there is really nothing to new here, I was expecting there would be. The book is neat and if you like Ravenloft you should have it if for no other reason than as a collectable and a good read but don't look for it to help you run a great campaign or give you all the answers.
Rating:
Summary: should have been better
Review: The book does an okay job of updating to 3rd edition. However it fails to add much information to the campaign. And why are there no prestige classes? This is not worth buying if you already have one of the earlier Ravenloft editions. Its far from a 5 star rating but is decent for people new to Ravenloft.
Rating:
Summary: Many information missing
Review: The book is great but For the people who owns other older Ravenloft settings and want to know how the date line continue there is a big lack of information... How exactly Azalin Returns? How Can Lord Soth die? Vecna existed or was a mirage?The Nightmare Lands never existed?What's the matter with Loth and the Shadow Elves?Avengers, Arcanist, ang gypsies are missing too, will they be prestige class?WHO IS THE SOUL TRAPPED IN THE STONE OF THE FRONT????? Many holes...Too Much
Sorry for my poor english.
| 
