Note: Messing around with the format to try a more informal style. Maybe I can get some reviews out in a more timely matter this way...
The Ravenloft setting is an interesting departure from the standard D&D norms. Ultimately what peaked my interest in the setting was the oft-heard tale from R.A. Salvatore about why he loves gaming which is cursorily associated with Ravenloft. That got me to investigate further and turned up Sword & Sorcery Studios' 3.x D&D take on Ravenloft. I love setting information so naturally before I've even read the core campaign setting I started working through the gazetteers.
There are five books in the series that cover the world Ravenloft. Each covers a handful of nations from the perspective of a wandering scholar who has been commissioned by a mysterious patron to explore the realms and provide a write-up on each of them. The gazetteer is supposed to represent an real in world artifact that players could conceivably discover making for an interesting tie-in. The write-up also has some commentary from the mysterious patron providing additional insight to specific points.
The first book covers Barovia, Hazlan, Forlorn, and Kartakass with a DM's appendix. The scholar does his best to determine the zeitgeist of a given realm. He details the history, people, culture, geography, and major cities of each. I love general background and setting information and this being the essence of the book I ate it up. Each realm also has it's own unique monster issue which I suspect is exactly what defines each of them from each other. Interestingly while my initial impression of Ravenloft was a setting of isolated horror with each little village and city isolated from everything else by fear the book does a good job indicating exactly the opposite. People go about their lives and trade and travel amongst many of the nations. That's not to say they live without fear, the general populace a superstitious fearful lot, but they persevere on.
My biggest complaint about some of the setting information is how "cities" with a few thousand people are described as having very diverse and separated areas. From reading just the description it feels like a place with tens of thousands and then I get to the population stats and it's 2800 people. I've lived in small cities of less then a 1000 people and they really don't divide much like this. Granted in a fantasy setting set in a more medieval time my perceptions may be incorrect. It just felt like an inconsistency.
I would recommend this book if you like reading about setting information or if you're going to be spending a lot of time in the above mentioned realms. Otherwise it may not provide much use. Just read as a book this is phenomenal. This was one of the books I took for my flight to Japan and I raced through it!
Available: print*
Links: Noble Knight
Up next: Changeling: The Lost
