Domains of Dread by William W. Connors and Steve Miller is a role playing game supplement published by Wizards of the Coast (originally TSR, Inc.) for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. This is a major sourcebook for the Ravenloft horror setting.
The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a 297-page PDF for $9.99, as a softcover print on demand book for $21.99 or as both PDF and softcover for $23.99. It is also available in the original printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two pages are the front matter, three pages are the Table of Contents and three pages are the Index.
The single page Introduction has some personal words from both of the credited designers.
Chapter One: The Demiplane of Dread has an overview of the demiplane’s nature, the dark powers, what the domain lords are, a history of the demiplane from prior to its creation when the land of Barovia was taken into the Mists, including a complete timeline. This is followed by some brief details on its geography, which, because of the demiplane’s nature, can be rather different, and the different types of Domains. Finally, there are different cultural levels from Stone Age to Renaissance, descriptions of what these mean and examples of Domains that are at different levels.
Chapter Two: Domains of the Core starts with an overview of the Core and its politics, which have been affected by recent events such as the Grand Conjunction. The Core is divided into four regions, north, south, western and eastern seas, and each of the domains in these regions is then described following a standard format, although not every domain has every element covered. These descriptions cover the land itself, cultural level, the folk, notable personalities, the law, what restrictions there are on native player characters, encounters and further reading, which lists any other supplements and novels that are related to that domain. Finally, each domain’s darklord is described, together with an illustration of them. Both seas have a couple of major domains described in detail and many smaller island domains only given a brief overview, although in the same pattern as the more fully described locations. For these locations, the further reading is more important, as the referred to supplements contain more detail.
Chapter Three: Islands of Terror starts with notes on the nature of islands, before describing the islands in the same way as those of the Core.
Chapter Four: Pockets and Clusters starts with notes on the nature of both before describing several Clusters, the domains found on them and several pockets, again in the same way as those of the Core.
Chapter Five: Secret Societies starts with suggestions on using them in game, their goals and structure, before describing various groups. The secret societies are divided into good, neutral and evil, with descriptions on each society, their membership, how members recognise each other, their activities and their headquarters.
Chapter Six: Fear, Horror, and Madness starts with definitions, then Fear Checks and what causes them. It’s noted that role playing fear should take preference to mechanically rolling for it. Horror Checks follow, with rules on when to make them, how to make them, what happens if a check fails, how to recover from a failed check and role playing the fear check. Madness is the final part of this chapter and, again, it covers when and how to make madness checks, the effects of failure, how to recover from a failed check and role playing the madness check.
Chapter Seven: Powers Checks starts by explaining that a powers check is a way of prodding characters away from doing evil. When a character does something that might normally pass unnoticed, in Ravenloft it can call the attention of the dark powers. There are rules on when to make a powers check and the consequences of failure; repeated power checks will lead to repeated failures which will inevitably lead to the PC becoming an NPC, unless they can reverse their progress. The changes a character undergoes as they descend into darkness are covered, and there are terror tracks, with a vampire as an example, which are the gradual gaining of the powers and weaknesses of the creature the PC will become.
Chapter Eight: The Path of the Priest explains that something is providing priests with their spells in Ravenloft, even though they seem unable to contact their deities. It first considers how several types of priest spells are altered before moving onto specific spells and how they are changed; many spells function differently, potentially dangerously or require Ravenloft powers checks. Following this are new priest spells.
Chapter Nine: The Way of the Wizard follows a similar structure to The Path of the Priest. How magical powers in general are distorted, again with some requiring powers checks, are followed by specific changed spells, then new spells.
Chapter Ten: Mazes of the Mind has similarities to the two previous sections, but for psionicists. A section on Errata and Clarifications corrects some errors from the first printing of The Complete Psionics Handbook. This is followed by general details on psionics and the undead, then how various sciences and disciplines have been altered and, once again, some require powers checks when used.
Chapter Eleven: Forged of Darkness is on magical items. In general, an item that imitates a spell will be changed in the same way as the spell. There are some general changes for types of items, an explanation as to how magical items will be less common in treasure, how intelligent weapons are affected – evil weapons gain ego – and that artifacts and relics are generally too powerful for Ravenloft to affect them. 25 specifically altered magical items are then covered.
Chapter Twelve: The Whispered Evil is on curses. Curses are divided into different types with spellcaster’s curses – and this includes such as wish – being the least powerful. Then there are self-induced curses and curses of vengeance. There are guidelines on phrasing curses, invoking them, tailoring them to fit, constant and triggered curses, escape clauses and how strong the curse is. Curses frequently result in powers checks and there are also details on resolving a curse and PCs laying them.
Chapter 13: Tenets of Terror is on horror games, with tips for such, including in fantasy horror, where characters can often defeat monsters more easily. There are tips for creating campaigns, scenarios and scenes.
Appendix: Enemies of Darkness starts with Appendix One: Ability Scores. This covers the six standard ability scores, including a few minor changes for the setting.
Appendix Two: Character Races explains that demihumans are far less common. Minimum Ability Scores and Racial Ability Limits is followed by details on dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, half-Vistani and humans. Each has a description, physical characteristics, aging effects, personality, ability scores and special abilities listed. Half-Vistani also have tribal abilities listed.
Appendix Three: Character Classes starts with an overview of the five groups, warriors, wizards, priests, rogues and psionicists. For all but psionicists, there are several classes, some of which are unique to Ravenloft. An overview of each group, with details common to all classes, is given, then each class is then gone through in detail. The rules on multi- and dual-classed characters are gone into, then how those classes that aren’t allowed for Ravenloft natives but which those who have entered Ravenloft from other locations could have are altered.
Appendix Four: Character Alignments has overviews of the nine alignments, including what happens if an alignment is changed, then weapon and nonweapon proficiencies.
Finally, there are eight pages of colour maps that cover buildings to domains.
Domains of Dread in Review
The PDF is reasonably well bookmarked, with major and subsections linked, although not minor sections. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked, as is the Index. Navigation would be decent for a book of this size if it wasn’t for one major problem; the text isn’t searchable. Given the size of the PDF, this is a rather severe detriment to usability. The text maintains a two-column two colour format and is largely free of error. There are a number of illustrations and filler art, most either black and white or brown and white, with the exception of the colour maps. Presentation is decent.
D&D is often not well designed for horror, as it is hard to be horrified or scared of things you can easily kill, and PCs in D&D have, over the years, gone up against gods and won. This can make it difficult to play a true horror game. Ravenloft attempts to fix this in a number of ways. One tip is to emphasise role playing rather than stats; for the DM to describe things in detail, rather than in game parlance. There are also a host of modifications to the base game that curtail the power of characters to a degree, whether by making certain things totally ineffective, or making others dangerous to use, through the Ravenloft powers checks. Mechanical changes to the system include the various fear, horror and madness checks, which make characters significantly more vulnerable. Ravenloft actually does a decent job of turning D&D into a horror game; characters may still be powerful, but not when compared to almost any domain lord.
There are a references to a lot of other supplements through the text. The domain descriptions refer to adventures, novels and setting books throughout for more information in many cases. The spellcaster chapters make frequent reference to the Requiem rules; these are optional, though. This is not a complete system in a book, even though there are quite a lot of game mechanics; at the very least, player, DM and monster books will be needed, as well as various older Ravenloft supplements to flesh out locations.
One problem with this supplement is it’s a combination of DM and player material, all in one single book. Players really can’t be given the book, because there is too much information on the setting in it, yet they will need access to a good chunk of the material. It would have been better to have had this in at least two separate supplements, rather than one large one.
Domains of Dread is a useful addition for Ravenloft that contains a good amount of setting material, but it isn’t complete in and of itself, nor is it intended to be. Instead, it updates and compiles a lot of material for the setting into a single supplement. Domains of Dread can be found by clicking here.
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