Ravenloft Horror Within - source book set for June 2026

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

I have to admit I liked the 5e idea of the werepanthers rebelling against Von Kharkov's oppression then accidentally going too far rather than being the ones enforcing it in the first place, mostly because it made more sense with the unavoidable Black Panthers association. I get why it clashes with them being on the darklord's side - either you make Cat-anis too sympathetic to be a darklord, or you end up demonising one of the most important protest organisations in history.

[The Dark]

I see Von Kharkov as a far gothic-horror resemblance to Félix Éboué who built hospitals, schools, and advocated for the advancement of local African elites, but he worked entirely within the brutal framework of the French colonial apparatus. Under his administration, tax collection and forced labor were strictly enforced to maintain economic output, highlighting a rigid adherence to imperial directives regardless of the human cost. Von Kharkov is "loved" by his people even if he is brutal.

Von Kharkov's also one of the many Ravenloft homages to Hammer Horror, although a more obscure one than most. He's based on Emil (Anthony Higgins, billed as Anthony Corlan) from Vampire Circus, a vampire who turns into a (black) panther. It's something horror film aficionados would have been likely to catch at the time, but is less likely now since it's almost 45 years after the film was released and Hammer's B-films don't seem to be very popular these days.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I have to admit I liked the 5e idea of the werepanthers rebelling against Von Kharkov's oppression then accidentally going too far rather than being the ones enforcing it in the first place, mostly because it made more sense with the unavoidable Black Panthers association. I get why it clashes with them being on the darklord's side - either you make Cat-anis too sympathetic to be a darklord, or you end up demonising one of the most important protest organisations in history.

A little bit difficult to rebel against him when you are permanently charmed by him.

Werepanthers are unique to Valachan. They are the elite guards and enforcers of Baron Urik von Kharkov, the nosferatu vampire lord of that domain.
While many vampires have human henchmen to guard their resting places, von Kharkov has created these monsters to do his bidding. The baron, unlike other nosferatu vampires, was once a panther and can assume panther form. When so transformed, his panther bite infects the victim with an unusual lycanthropy. On the next new moon, the victim goes through horrible convulsions as the disease takes its full course. His face and body change so much that former associates do not recognize him, and his skin darkens to an umber hue. Furthermore, he grows stronger and more agile (S 17, D 16, unless scores are already better than this). After three hours of convulsions, the process is complete. The victim can now shapechange into panther form at will, his alignment has changed to lawful evil, and he is permanently charmed by the baron.
...
The werepanthers’ Achilles’ heel is the powerful nosferatu lord who created them. If von Kharkov should ever be destroyed, the werepanthers in Valachan will suddenly collapse and go into convulsions as the mystical bond to their creator is severed. When the convulsions end, they revert to being the persons they were before, but they suffer nightmares and flashbacks to their werepanther days for several years.

From Felkovic's Cat adventure Dungeon Magazine #50

PS
Who is Cat-anis?

[Speedwagon]

I'll admit, even with the entry in Gazetteer IV I was always lukewarm about Von Kharkov and 2e/3e Valachan. I think the gazetteer writers did their best to differentiate it from other domains, with the Pacific Northwest sort of feel I got coupled with the diversity of the Valachani inhabitants, but it never stuck with me. I also understood that part of the appeal of Von Kharkov is the trifold nature and that he succeeded in creating a better-run police state than Azalin (with the werepanthers being under his control so completely and the canned food with his blood meaning everyone is an informant), but I still felt like the things Von Kharkov did were done better by others—Strahd, Bluebeard, and Azalin all covered niches that Von Kharkov also dabbled in, but in a manner I found more engaging and direct. I still liked it more than Verbrek, but all of this is a matter of personal taste, to be sure.

When VRGTR was released, I wasn't familiar with the older setting. The new Valachan was interesting to me but I struggled to understand Chakuna's motives beyond a simple (but effective, depending on how it's written and roleplayed) corruption story of a liberator becoming the tyrant they deposed. I became further engrossed within the setting and read Gaz IV and saw how different the two versions of Valachan were. Yet I still didn't mind the difference—unlike Falkovnia or Dementlieu, where I felt a stronger pull towards the older versions of the aforementioned domains, I felt a lukewarm interest in Valachan but nothing further. Again, this is a matter of personal taste, as reading Mephisto's explanation of Von Kharkov gives me more to work with. But what really stuck out to me about 5e Valachan was that it was the first official domain with a Mesoamerican focus. There have been fan-made domains in the Books of S and the Undead Sea Scrolls and other fan-made netbooks (such as Dion Fernandez's Navigaccio and Nebula Obscura books), which dabbled in creating Ravenloft domains inspired by Spanish imperialism in pre-Columbian America. I even recall seeing a version of Valachan in hidajiremi's Savage Worlds conversion of Valachan (it's really cool; go check it out if you have the time) with Von Kharkov being written as the colonial conqueror trying to 'tame' an indigenous land—a very similar status to Von Kharkov in 5e Valachan. So it's funny how now Valachan ended up the way it has. For my own games that use a Core, I figure that 5e Valachan can be renamed to something like Vilocán and placed in the Verdurous Lands Cluster, just south of the Wildlands. I think they play off one another well in that regard. Same thing with putting Kalakeri near Sri Raji—hidajiremi's Savage Worlds conversion volume two has an interesting take on Kalakeri and Sri Raji that does the best of both worlds, in my opinion.

So with the above said (and with new Valachan doing "the most dangerous game" in a manner different than Verbrek), I concur with TheArcaneWeirdo in seeing the reasoning behind his replacement. I'm appreciative of an official Mesoamerican domain as well. However, I also see Mephisto's take on old Valachan, and while I wasn't as drawn to the land by comparison, I think there's space to run both, depending on your game.

And I wasn't familiar with Emil from Vampire Circus, so I'm glad I learned something new. And Cat-anis is just TheArcaneWeirdo making reference to Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games series of books and relating her to Chakuna

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

PS
Who is Cat-anis?

I forgot Chakuna's name for a bit and I was like 'well, she's like Katniss from The Hunger Games turned evil, but feline... So, like, Cat-niss'
I'll show myself out.

[alhoon]

I don't get the black panthers association with the werepanthers... for starters I did really struggle to remember who the "Black Panthers" were. I had to turn to wikipedia and... again, I don't see it nor I see why they can be considered such an "obvious" connection aside that they were black people. The Black Leopards are not anything that resembles communistic...

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

I don't get the black panthers association with the werepanthers... for starters I did really struggle to remember who the "Black Panthers" were. I had to turn to wikipedia and... again, I don't see it nor I see why they can be considered such an "obvious" connection aside that they were black people. The Black Leopards are not anything that resembles communistic...

They're panthers and they're black. That's pretty much it.

[The Dark]

My opinion of 5e Valachan is that it's a domain that becomes weaker the more one probes its inspirations, and would be better served as a new domain rather than trying to be an update of an existing domain. One of its weaknesses comes from the difference between a story and an RPG setting. While it draws from "The Most Dangerous Game," the differences in structure remove a couple of the sources of tension in the source material.

The first of those is the similarities between Rainsford and Zaroff, who are both white-presenting big-game hunters (with the implication of wealth and aristocracy/pseudo-aristocracy of big game hunting). Doing something similar in an RPG is difficult at best, since there are no guarantees of what any adventuring party's make-up will be. The closest would be making the Darklord someone who would be broadly accepted by players as having been heroic, but that would entail the sort of new entanglements between settings that 5e has mostly avoided.

The second is the ambiguity of the ending, where Rainsford kills Zaroff and enjoys his bed. Is this a rejection of Zaroff's ethos and a return to civilization, or an embracing of that ethos and a new apex predator enjoying his conquest? Ravenloft, with its perpetual domain, has to go with the second option in having Chakuna take over from Von Kharkov, but in doing so removes the uncertainty that makes the story worth discussion.

A bigger problem, though, is that the backstory of Chakuna and Von Kharkov opens up the domain to an interpretation of "if the oppressed gain power, they'll be worse than the oppressors," which is an ancient canard used to this day by oppressors to justify oppression. The Trial of Hearts subduing the wildness of the jungle also detracts from the Darklord's evil by slipping towards the "hard people making hard choices" justification for being a bad person. I don't think these were intentional, but I do consider 5e Valachan to be the Land of Unfortunate Implications.

5e Valachan, in my opinion, would need extensive rewriting to make it a domain I'd ever consider using, far more than 5e Dementlieu or Falkovnia. As with most of the "updated" legacy domains, I would have preferred to see them as new domains (the main exception being Darkon because Azalin sabotaging himself is traditional).

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

I actually have an idea for a domain inspired by scraps from the different versions of valachan + some historical anecotes.

A mesoamerican-style domain where the darklord is a vampire, and everyone knows it. That is, everyone knows ey* is immortal as long as ey drink blood.
However, they also learned the hard way that killing em would make the domain dissolve into mist (it happened once. Fortunately they managed to resurrect em.) The vampire explained it as em being the god of that realm, eir life tied to that of the land, which not everyone believe - but all agree that there's no choice but keeping em alive using a constant supply of human sacrifices. Nobody wants that or think it's fine, but no one wants to risk the land's ruin either. Travelers would assume this to be a cruel, primitive superstition, but the horror is that it's pretty much facts.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

פך

A bigger problem, though, is that the backstory of Chakuna and Von Kharkov opens up the domain to an interpretation of "if the oppressed gain power, they'll be worse than the oppressors," which is an ancient canard used to this day by oppressors to justify oppression.

I think (as someone who's anything but conservative) that sometimes it's a legitimate concern. Mostly for violent revolutions, and it really gets ridiculous when people are more afraid of it than of the actual existing oppression, but it can and did happen, and I think labelling any discussion of it as propaganda risks stifling self-criticism inside the movement fighting against the oppression and increasing the likelihood of it actually hapenning.

Also, Ravenloft is by default more prone to this trope than the real world, cause the darklord has to be replaced for the domain to stay around.

[Jeremy16]

My opinion of 5e Valachan is that it's a domain that becomes weaker the more one probes its inspirations, and would be better served as a new domain rather than trying to be an update of an existing domain. One of its weaknesses comes from the difference between a story and an RPG setting. While it draws from "The Most Dangerous Game," the differences in structure remove a couple of the sources of tension in the source material.

The first of those is the similarities between Rainsford and Zaroff, who are both white-presenting big-game hunters (with the implication of wealth and aristocracy/pseudo-aristocracy of big game hunting). Doing something similar in an RPG is difficult at best, since there are no guarantees of what any adventuring party's make-up will be. The closest would be making the Darklord someone who would be broadly accepted by players as having been heroic, but that would entail the sort of new entanglements between settings that 5e has mostly avoided.

The second is the ambiguity of the ending, where Rainsford kills Zaroff and enjoys his bed. Is this a rejection of Zaroff's ethos and a return to civilization, or an embracing of that ethos and a new apex predator enjoying his conquest? Ravenloft, with its perpetual domain, has to go with the second option in having Chakuna take over from Von Kharkov, but in doing so removes the uncertainty that makes the story worth discussion.

A bigger problem, though, is that the backstory of Chakuna and Von Kharkov opens up the domain to an interpretation of "if the oppressed gain power, they'll be worse than the oppressors," which is an ancient canard used to this day by oppressors to justify oppression. The Trial of Hearts subduing the wildness of the jungle also detracts from the Darklord's evil by slipping towards the "hard people making hard choices" justification for being a bad person. I don't think these were intentional, but I do consider 5e Valachan to be the Land of Unfortunate Implications.

5e Valachan, in my opinion, would need extensive rewriting to make it a domain I'd ever consider using, far more than 5e Dementlieu or Falkovnia. As with most of the "updated" legacy domains, I would have preferred to see them as new domains (the main exception being Darkon because Azalin sabotaging himself is traditional).

Are you saying that 5e Valachan is a patchwork of pastiches and ill-fitting tropes that are done much better elsewhere in the campaign setting? Well... Huzzah! At least the writers are carrying on that fine tradition of the domain from its 2e roots!

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

Are you saying that 5e Valachan is a patchwork of pastiches and ill-fitting tropes that are done much better elsewhere in the campaign setting? Well... Huzzah! At least the writers are carrying on that fine tradition of the domain from its 2e roots!

Legit
Just because a problem is the Franchise Original Sin doesn't make it justified, though. It just means maybe there are better domains to play in.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

Just out of curiousity, is Falkovnia the same as it was in VRGtR?

[Speedwagon]

Just out of curiousity, is Falkovnia the same as it was in VRGtR?

Mostly, yeah. It's for the most part a reprint of VRGtR but with a bit more lore for the locations on the map.

[alhoon]

So... it is a completely "fight zombies in the apocalypse" type and civilization would end within a few months as the siege is persistent and relentless, with mounting casualties from a small population. Not just unsustainable and hopeless, but the end is within sight. Which makes the tyranny secondary since the dead are literally knocking on your door.

At least, Attack on Titan had HUGE walls so that civilization COULD continue inside them even if there were a few losses that the population could absorb.
In Falkovnia, having a population of a few thousands besieged in a city, losing 20 to 50 people per week means they will run out of bodies within a year. As for food production, even forcing people on the farms to feed the city means increasing casualties.