Contents
Chapter 1: Character Options
[image: The Weathermay-Foxgrove Twins, Gennifer and Laurie, along with Savra Sunstar and Ez d'Avenir, explore the infamous House on Gryphon Hill]
Whether for a night or an eternity, the Mists of Ravenloft pit heroes against their greatest nightmares. This chapter presents resources for players creating and playing characters in horror adventures, including new x, x, x, and x. These character options supplement the rules presented in the Player's Handbook.
Haunted Heroes
This section highlights ways you can create a character prepared to participate in horror adventures.
Before You Begin
Who is a horror adventure supposed to be scary for: you as the player or your character? Is it suspenseful like a mystery story or frightening like a slasher movie? What do you not want to see in a horror adventure? Align with your group's DM and other players on topics like these before participating in fear-focused adventures. Horror tales cover broad swaths of content. What some might find unsettling, others might shrug off. If you are the DM, consult the "Ensuring Fun for All" section of the Dungeon Master's Guide for guidance on setting expectations about your game.
Building a Horror Hero
[image: Characters in horror adventures are often haunted by greater terrors than the monsters they face]
While playing a horror adventure, you participate in building a sense of dread. If your character laughs in the face of every danger, they undermine the adventure's atmosphere. Consider how past events might haunt your character and contribute to the mood of horror adventures.
Prepare to Be Scared
Knowing what frightens your character provides insight into their past and can motivate their behavior. A character's fear of cats might stem from a terrible sight they witnessed at their grandmother's home, while a fear of earthquakes might tie back to the experience of being trapped after a tremor. Consider two or three things that unsettle your character and how those fears shape your character's past and present.
Courage isn't the absence of fear, but how one deals with and overcomes it. Consider this in the context of your character. How might they react to a startling scene before rallying to overcome it? Does your character scream and flee, freeze in place, or jump recklessly into battle? Record a default fear reaction on your character sheet to help you respond when shocking events occur.
Fear Stays in the Game
Understand the difference between scaring characters and scaring players. For example, if you know another player has a fear of spiders, never employ that knowledge when contributing to a creepy scene. The Dungeon Master's Guide offers guidance (see "Hard and Soft Limits") to ensure your group has a method for raising concerns mid-game, in the event that things become too intense or go in directions you don't want to explore. If something in the game leads you to consider scaring or otherwise involving another player's character, ask that player's permission before acting. Their enjoyment is more important than shock value.
Sinister Secrets
Many characters in horror adventures have shadowy pasts: a harrowing experience that haunts their dreams, a bargain with sinister forces they keep hidden from others, or some other nefarious secret. How a character engages with such internal darkness can make for exciting conflicts. Be sure that your choices allow your character to remain a reliable part of your adventuring group, though, and not a near-villain other heroes only tolerate.
If you'd like your character's secret to have mechanical implications, Dark Gifts (detailed later in x) grant characters supernatural abilities in return for sinister consequences.
Enjoying the Struggle
Not everyone can escape a horror story unscathed. While your character should do everything they can to triumph over challenges, any scars they gain along the way are part of what makes the horror meaningful and memorable.
Consider your goals as a participant in a horror adventure. Are you aiming to ensure the party's survival or just your character's? Or do you simply want to create a memorable experience for the other players? Let your goals evolve during an adventure. If these goals lead to greater tension, drama, or sacrifice in ways that echo your favorite horror tales—and that don't undermine other players' enjoyment of the game—embrace them. Your character's actions have great influence in creating exciting and impactful horror adventures.
Subclasses
This section presents seven new subclasses: the Reanimator (Artificer), College of Spirits (Bard), Grave Domain (Cleric), Hollow Warden (Ranger), Phantom (Rogue), Shadow Sorcery (Sorcerer), and Undead Patron (Warlock). The Artificer class is detailed in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer.
Backgrounds
This section presents backgrounds exploring origins suited to characters in horror adventures, using the same format presented in the Player's Handbook.
Two of the backgrounds, Mist Wanderer and Spirit Medium, offer x rather than Origin feats; these feats appear at the end of the chapter. The Haunted One and Investigator backgrounds provide a choice between an Origin feat and a Dark Gift feat, so you can tailor your character's relationship to sinister forces in their past.
Species
Remarkable events and supernatural horrors have transformed individuals, creating species that spread throughout the Mists and the multiverse. A character might have been born as a member of one of the species in this section or transformed into one after harrowing events.
Feats
This section presents new feats tailored for characters adventuring through Ravenloft. Included are a handful of new feats in the Origin category, as well as a new type of feat: x, which represent sinister bargains a character might make with mysterious forces.
Dark Gifts
The Dark Powers influence many who struggle within their clutches, tempting both the innocent and the ambitious with whispered promises. These sinister bargains come in dreams or mysterious visions. Their terms are always clear and their prices terrible.
With the DM's permission, whenever you would gain a feat from the Origin category, you can instead gain a Dark Gift feat. A DM can bestow a Dark Gift feat on a character during the course of an adventure, representing an insidious deal with a Darklord or some other malevolent force.