Like a lot of D&D players, a lot of my experience with the setting comes through D&D 5e's Curse of Strahd. There's a reason he's Ravenloft’s poster child, and Curse of Strahd is one of those adventures that just kind of looms over 5e. But Ravenloft: The Horrors Within does a really good job reminding us that there’s a whole lot more hiding in those Mists than one sad vampire with boundary issues.
The Horrors Within is basically a giant horror toolbox for the 2024 version of D&D. There are 16 major Domains of Dread, 17 fully stat-blocked Darklords, seven subclasses, four species, four backgrounds, Dark Gifts, horror campaign advice, tools for making your own Domain of Dread, adventures, maps, and a big pile of monsters. That’s a lot of spooky stuff crammed between two covers.
Thanks to our friends at Wizards of the Coast for providing review copies of the physical accessories to test out as well as the book itself.
More Than Barovia
What I appreciate most is how quickly The Horrors Within pushes past the idea that Ravenloft begins and ends with Barovia.
Barovia is here, obviously. Strahd is here. But we also get Darkon, Falkovnia, Har’Akir, Lamordia, Dementlieu, Mordent, Sithicus, and plenty more, including Innsmouth and Cthulhu if your preferred flavor of terror involves things from beyond the stars making everybody reconsider their place in the universe. Lord Soth is here too, which immediately got my attention because apparently I am physically incapable of seeing a Dragonlance connection without pointing at it like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme.
The important thing, though, is that these places aren’t just lore dumps.
The Domains have adventures attached to them, maps, villains, locations, and ideas for turning a short visit into something longer. There’s even an adventures-by-level section right up front, which makes the whole thing much easier to actually use instead of merely read.
That may be my favorite thing about the book as a whole. I can flip through The Horrors Within, find something horrifying, and steal it. That is exactly what I want out of a sourcebook.
Shameless Ravenloft Promotion
I've written a couple of Ravenloft titles, myself. The first is Horrific Encounters in Ravenloft, and it's a series of drop-in encounters for 5e that you can insert into any Ravenloft-adjacent story you're telling.
And I did two one-shot adventures for Grim Press's Adventures in Ravenloft. One takes place in Sri Raji, which is unfortunately not in The Horrors Within, and also one in Har'Akir, which is.
A Toolbox for Making D&D Weirder
There’s a lot here for players, too. The seven subclasses include the Reanimator Artificer, College of Spirits Bard, Grave Domain Cleric, Hollow Warden Ranger, Phantom Rogue, Shadow Sorcery Sorcerer, and Undead Patron Warlock. You also get Dhampir, Hexblood, Lupin, and Reborn species, along with horror-themed backgrounds and Dark Gifts.
But I think the DM material is where The Horrors Within really shines.
There are sections on different kinds of horror, establishing atmosphere, using Darklords, creating adventures, and even making your own Domain of Dread. The book covers ten different horror genres, ranging from gothic and folk horror to body horror, slashers, psychological horror, and cosmic horror.
And none of that requires you to pack up your campaign and move everybody into Ravenloft permanently.
You can grab a creepy villain. Steal a Domain. Drop a haunted location into the Forgotten Realms. Pull out one of the short adventures for Halloween. Give your villain a Dark Gift. Use a Ravenloft monster in a dungeon and make your players wonder what horrible decisions led them to this point.
That kind of modular usefulness is something I really value in RPG books.
Look at All These Horrible Little Guys
And speaking of monsters, holy crap does this book give DMs some toys.
The bestiary has 41 monstrosities and 10 domain denizens, and that’s before you count the book’s 17 Darklords. Altogether, Wizards lists 68 creature stat blocks in the main release.
Some are updated Ravenloft favorites like the Cthulhu, Boneless, Brain in a Jar, Carrionette, Dullahan, Jiangshi, Loup Garou, Gremishka, Necrichor, and those awful little Death’s Heads.
But there are also some delightfully nasty new additions.
The Waxwork can steal identities. Mordenheim’s Monster gives Lamordia its own appropriately Frankenstein-y nightmare. The cosmic horror side brings Elder Things, Mi-Go, Nightgaunts, Shoggoths, Gugs, and Yithians into the mix. There are Unspeakable Horrors, multiple varieties of Relentless Killer, strange Star Spawn, new vampires, zombies made out of swarms of body parts, and enough other gross nonsense to keep a DM happily ruining everyone’s evening for quite a while.
This might actually be one of the most broadly useful parts of the book.
I don’t need to run Ravenloft to use a Shoggoth.
I just need poor judgment. And the bestiary gives me plenty of opportunities to exercise it.
This Book Is Ridiculously Pretty
The art also deserves special mention because The Horrors Within is beautiful.
The Domains have their own visual identities, but the whole thing still feels cohesive. There’s gothic stuff, cosmic weirdness, body horror, dark fantasy, and plenty of images that made me stop flipping pages just to stare at them for a bit.
Other reviews have highlighted the visual presentation as one of the book’s strongest features, and I absolutely agree.
And Then There’s All the Physical Stuff
The extra accessories are similarly excellent.
The DM screen feels high quality, looks fantastic, and actually includes Ravenloft-specific material, including a horror encounter generator, rather than just being another pretty wall between me and my players.
The map pack includes five double-sided 22-by-30-inch maps for ten battle maps total, along with monster tokens, traps, and terrain pieces.
Those tokens may honestly be my favorite part of this entire release.
I love physical table stuff anyway, but these are immediately useful. Pop them out, throw them onto the table, and suddenly you have monsters and hazards ready to go. I want more products like this.
The 54-card Tarokka deck is also just fun to sit there and look through. The gothic artwork is excellent, and the book actually integrates Tarokka into its Ravenloft tools rather than treating the cards as Curse of Strahd memorabilia.
And if I ever run Strahd myself, I will absolutely use it. If somebody else is running Strahd for me, I will probably (and totally subtly, I promise) slide the box slowly across the table toward them until they get the hint.
So, Is The Horrors Within Worth It?
If you already own Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, you’re going to recognize material here. That overlap is probably the biggest legitimate criticism of the book, and several reviews have pointed it out.
But taken on its own, I really like what The Horrors Within offers.
This isn’t a book I’d buy just to read about Ravenloft lore and then stick on a shelf.
It’s a book I’d keep nearby while running D&D because there is so much stuff in here I can steal.
Monsters. Villains. Adventures. Character options. Maps. Horror ideas. Entire Domains of Dread.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what I want a D&D sourcebook to be.
A big box of horrible toys.
4.5 out of 5 identity-stealing wax people.
For more D&D horror goodness, check out these one-shots that are truly perfect for Halloween.
