Let's talk about the wild, homebrewed, shake-n-bake mashup of D&D rulesets in Dungeons & Dragons Online—3.0, 3.5, 4e, 5e, all blended like a dragon's smoothie. I dig the creativity, but let’s get real: Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is a hot take used in Ravenloft campagins, not in general D&D, and I’m wonderin’ if its dark gifts and Strahd-style bargains make sense beyond the foggy dread of Barovia.
Like, does this gothic horror vibe work in the Forgotten Realms, where gods like Mystra are slingin’ spells, or in Eberron, where dragons are basically runnin’ the cosmic show?
In Barovia, the dark gifts and bargains with the Dark Powers, creepy, reality-warping entities that keep Strahd von Zarovich on his vampire throne, and there they make total sense. The Van Richten’s Guide lays it out: these powers are tied to the Domains of Dread, isolated pockets of misery where the Dark Powers play puppet master. You take a deal, you get some edgy boons, but you’re also cursed with a side of eternal torment. It’s flavorful, it’s thematic, it’s like hot sauce on a gothic taco. Strahd’s realm is built for this, Barovia is a prison plane, cut off from the multiverse, where the Dark Powers are the ultimate shot-callers.
But let’s teleport outta Barovia and into the Forgotten Realms. This is where things get shakier than a gelatinous cube on a trampoline. The Realms have their own cosmic order, Mystra’s Weave powers magic, gods like Bane and Cyric scheme, and events like the Spellplague and Mystra’s death shook the world harder than a tarrasque's fist.
The Dark Powers? They don’t have a foothold here. The lore of Van Richten’s says they’re tied to the Domains of Dread, not the broader multiverse. Trying to shove their bargains into all of DDO feels like trying to fit a lich’s phylactery into a paladin’s backpack. A Forgotten Realms or Eberron player making a deal with some shadowy entity would more likely be dealing with a devil like Asmodeus or a demon from Khyber, not some ambiguous Ravenloft force. The lore just doesn’t mesh.
Eberron is even more clear cut than Faerun, where the cosmic landscape of Eberron has its own power structure: the Draconic Prophecy, the dragons Above, Below, and Between, and the Progenitor Dragons Siberys, Eberron, and Khyber controlling the ENTIRE stage. Even the Demon Queen of Spiders, Lolth herself, can’t just waltz in and rewrite Draconic Prophecy. She had to use lackeys and was stuck schemin’ with dragonshards in Khyber’s depths. The Dark Powers of Ravenloft? They’d be as out of place as a beholder in House Cannith. Eberron’s lore is about the fallout, both physical and mental of the super destructive Last War where a doomsday weapon literally obliterated an entire section of the map. Now that is the cursed Mournlands where the Lord of Blades and rogue warforged live, unfettered as masters because any living being that goes into the Mournlands dies. Go back in time in Eberron a few thousand years and theres the sacrifice of the Giants that obliterated the 13th moon. We all know that story from playing DDO over the years.
A dark gift in Eberron would feel like a random plot device, diluting the weight of both Eberron and Faerun's setting, unique history, mythos, lore and etc - like the Day of Mourning or the fall of Xen’drik were events that actually shifted power in a big way. In Faerun, Mystra was killed - she was the god of all magic, and she doesn’t exist in Eberron, the Spellplague never happened in Eberron because spell power comes from the Dragons, not Mystra or the Weave. The Dark Powers have no cosmic jurisdiction out of Ravenloft. It’s a different multiversal zip code. You could retcon and homebrew a story where they do, but does that make DDO a better game? Does that make player characters more engaged or is it just a gimic? From what Ive seen of the bargains presented, they all are no better than the Guidance of Shar trinket and anyone who knows DDO knows that trinket is a hard skip. At best, i think these powers, rather than a class build point, should be on gear, perhaps all as trinkets or gear sets or a landscape curse for Ravenloft - basically once you enter ravenloft you accept or reject the dark bargain, but warping out to Eberron or FR should (really) negate it.
Van Richten’s Guide is awesome for Ravenloft campaigns. The dark gifts add that extra layer of “oh crap, I’m doomed” flavor that makes Barovia Barovia. But porting them game-wide, into settings with their own rich lore, is like trying to use a vorpal sword to cut a birthday cake, it’s overkill and messes up the existing vibe and lore of the game. Forgotten Realms has its own great backstory, the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague, and the mythals of Myth Drannor carryin’ the narrative weight. In Eberron, the Last War, the Draconic Prophecy, and the fallout of Xen’drik.
Slappin’ Ravenloft’s mechanics onto these settings dilutes their unique lore, like watering down a dwarf’s ale. And dwarves do not like watered down ale. The Dark Powers don’t “spill over” into other planes, they’re explicitly tied to the Domains of Dread, per the lore in Van Richten’s and older Ravenloft books like Domains of Dread (2e). So, while I respect the homebrew hustle in DDO, I’m sayin’ Van Richten’s Guide should stay in Ravenloft and vote for these dark gifts be only available in ravenloft content and instead of 'feats' be made into gear or some environmental effect that the player agrees to when they arrive, say after they complete the first quest in ravenloft like into the mists.
Anyway, my 2 cents as a writer. Maybe its a hot take, maybe not. That's it. See you.
