First of all, I'm not a fan of the d20 system, but that's a debate for elsewhere. I *am* a major fan of Ravenloft - I've been with the campaign world since it was released in 1992, and began DMing adventures not long after - so I eventually caved in and took a look at the d20 version of it. Thankfully, the Kargatane have saved Ravenloft from becoming totally extinct, but this book will be of limited interest to those familiar with the campaign setting.

It uses the same timeframe outlined in the Domains of Dread hardcover released in 1997, post Grand Conjunction and post Grim Harvest. That means there is very little (read: nil) new information in this book as far as the Ravenloft "canon" goes. In fact, this book is intended to be a "player's guide" (even though it deals with powers checks and other DM-only phenomenon), so it has only sketchy information about domains and zilch about the Darklords. Want that information? Get ready to shell out for ANOTHER hardcover book (two of 'em, if you want all of them...) The rest of the book is devoted to making 3rd edition characters using some of the customized character rules and races (half-Vistani, for example) from the DoD book.

So its safe to say that there's very little to interest the longtime Ravenloft gamer here. Converting 2nd Edition to d20 isn't impossible - in fact, there are several freeware programs one could download to do all the hard work. For those of us who have all the old material, and can play 2nd Edition AD&D without a book because we know the rules so well (and yes, I DO have a life), there isn't much to interest us. Since it's actually cheaper to scrounge most of the 2nd Ed. materials, I say go with those, unless you are dead-set on running 3rd Ed. In that case, you better be rich...

Final Grade: D+ (it's Ravenloft, I can't flunk it outright!)

NOTE: I bought it anyway, because I'd like to see the Kargatane keep Ravenloft alive. Something to consider when making your decision...

>>Yes, this book could be perfect. Almost everything you need to run a RAVENLOFT campaing is there. Many things I missed in the 2nd. Ed. are here, like the rules to play with Clerics (religion, gods, domains, etc...), and the answer for: "how can I travel from Barovia (Core Domain) to Bluetspur (an Island of Terror)?". Chapter 5: Horrors of the Night, simple pays the book, in this chapter you'll find lots of information on how to advance creatures like vampires, ghosts, liches, lycanthropes and others, and make them more powerful, and special rules for lycanthropy. The chapter dedicated to the domains is good too. All domains are very well described, with useful information like important cities (and population), percentage of the races in a given domain... Well, the darklords are missing, but there's SECRETS OF THE DREAD REALMS (another book describing them). So, RAVENLOFT 3rd. Ed. is a very good book. The only problem is: "WHERE IN [HECK] IS THE POSTER MAP?!" Can you belive that Arthaus simple didn't include a poster map inside the book? The only thing you have is a terrible two pages map inside the book! And you'll need glasses to read it! Ah! And it's black&white! For the Dark Powers sake, where's the poster map?... The only thing left is to pray for the Dark Powers... Maybe someday Arthaus realize the mistake, and give us a decent poster map (like the Forgotten Realms one! That's a great map!). After all said... I recomend this book! Enjoy!

The Kargatane did an excellent job, in my opinion, of releasing information in the first 3e Ravenloft book that should have been available to players. I'm not a HUGE canon freak, but I do like to control what information my players have... and this work does that very well. The "DM only" information derided by previous reviewers does belong in players' hands, because the Van Richten's Guides were published in Ravenloft for the common person to read. Fear/Horror/Madness checks are logical, and with the popularity of studies of psychology in the time period represented, people would have as much of a concept of how this works as a rudimentary glance-over would allow a player to recall.
I won't game without it, but having an autographed copy ain't hurting my enthusiasm.

While a few of the painting included are quite nice, none are breath taking or even exceptional. As long as the artist sticks to landscapes or panoramas the works are okay, but as soon as characters are added the pieces take on a very unrealistic cartoony feel which I doubt is consistent with how most fans visualize Middle Earth. Tolkien's Word: paintings of Middle-earth is a much nicer work, still for a collector of all things JRRT, you may want to pick it up if you can find it cheap.

Wonderfull paintings of the LothR. The artist followed Tolkiens descritptions faitfully. The paintings are mainly sweeping landscapes, giving us Rivendel, Minas Tirith, the Balrog, Helm's Deep and Issengard, to name a few. The paintings are beautifully done and compliments the books nicely. Some of the best Middle Earth artwork I have ever seen.

These paintings are absolutely gorgeous! Someone should put them on the Internet.

I've had an ongoing Ravenloft Campaign now for over 10 years. We started with the old Realm of Terror boxed set for AD&D when it came out in 1990. When 3rd edition came out, we decided to look at the Ravenloft twist and what they had done with it. The core book was decent, yet it left out the darklords. Upon reading through the book, we found out that we would need to purchase this book to get information on those darklords.

We never did buy the book. After all the reviews we read it doesn't appear to be money well spent, more like money wasted. To hear that not all the darklords are even described is disheartening, as that was the only reason we looked to buy this book.

For those of you that are simply looking for information on the darklords, this product wouldn't be worth it. Not enough of them are described. In the transformation from 2nd ed. to 3rd ed., the basic lands all but stayed the same. Only one or two from the Realm of Terror failed to reappear in 3rd edition. And those that did make the transformation still have the same basic lords. There are a few new ones that "took over", and if they're depicted then it might be worth it. But on the whole, I'd advise something more.

If you can get your hands on the old Realm of Terror boxed set, do so. It has the description and personalities of the darklords. Of course, Realm of Terror is 2nd ed, so you'd have to do a little of your own work to transfer the darklords stats into 3rd edition playability.

And if you can get your hands on the 2nd ed module, "When Black Roses Bloom", you'd also find stats for Azreal in that adventure packet.

Just some alternatives, else you'd have to get this thin product.

I really liked the d20 Ravenloft book, but this one fell short. It only covers about half of the lords and includes a prestige class that should have been in the first book. Here, the class just takes up space that could have been better used with more darklords. Or, better yet, they could have made the book bigger to include more of the lords. I would have gladly paid more for a more complete work.

On a positive note, the updated stats for the lords are useful and necessary for a Ravenloft game. And we do get new artwork for Azalin and Azrael . . .

In all honesty I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book, because the book bills it as "nasty tricks to use on your players" when it really should have been... "The semi-complete list of darklords." I have no idea why the witch-hunter prestige class was in this book, as it was completely out of place, but the rest of the book was actually very well done, with a map (albeit small) showing which domains were controlled by which darklord and then a listing of the darklords.

These listings make up the meat of the book and are definitely worth the price of admission for those who do not have the older 2nd edition info. They tell you the history, personality, looks, powers, current position, and weaknesses of the darklords. Every single entry was done to my satisfaction and merited 5 stars for that information alone. The reason the last star dropped off is that the information wasn't complete. They show you the list of all the darklords in Ravenloft and then give you info on only half of them. I would have paid for another hardcover overpriced S&S book if it had just listed them all.

The only other issue I have with the book is the stats on the darklords themselves. As a DM I have been running Forgotten Realms campaigns for many years now and have become accustomed to incredibly powerful NPC characters that the PCs are in mortal fear of. No player is going to bum rush Elminster, even if he is wielding a +5 sword. Forgotten realms contains epic level characters using the WotC Epic Level handbook to full effect. The Secrets of the Dread Realms lists Azalin as an 18th level lich necromancer. Perhaps I am just jaded from my other campaigns, but isn't that a tad weak? Why didn't they bump up the power level of the darklords to reflect the new source material from WotC?

In any case, it was well worth the money I spent, but it could have been much better. The DM shield was actually quite handy as well, and definitely more appropriate for a Ravenloft campaign.

This was very unique. As two popular foltailers came to life to play baseball. Paul Bunyan {Stong Giant} and John Henry {Steel Worker} play America's favorite sport with a blind umpire. It has...interesting results.

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.