One of the best things about Dungeons & Dragons’ new official actual play show, Dungeon Masters, is that the show is allowed to tease and introduce features that will soon appear in the official tabletop game rules. The first season of the show ties with the upcoming Ravenloft: The Horrors Within book, which will update D&D’s popular horror setting for the current 5.5e rules. Episode 5 of Dungeon Masters just gave fans a peek at what one of the most important rules updates will look like.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for Dungeon Masters episode 5.]
After being introduced in episode 4, Lividity, the Scion of the Three Rogue played by guest star Alex Ward (who is currently a player in Critical Role Campaign 4) takes center stage in episode 5, introducing further strife in the adventuring group of Professor Crem de la Crem (Neil Newbon), his wife Zora Thornska (Devora Wilde), Eloin Emberleaf (Christian Navarro) and Wesley (Mayanna Berrin). Lividity has beef with Eloin, but she still joins the party in their quest to capture three banshees to placate Lord Soth, the Darklord of the realm of Sithicus, where they are currently trapped. Early in the episode, the party stops to take a long rest, and Ward reveals he has to roll for the drawback of Lividity’s Dark Gift feat, Mist Walker.
Introduced in D&D’s best-selling adventure, Curse of Strahd, Dark Gifts represent a tricky bargain between a character and the Dark Powers, the sinister entities that are the true rulers of Ravenloft’s Realms of Dread. In Curse of Strahd, these gifts were accessible only in the Amber Temple, and they required a character to touch one of the mysterious amber sarcophagi present there. Chris Perkins, the adventure’s principal designer, explained that this feature was developed with Tracy Hickman, the author of the original Ravenloft module who also worked on Curse of Strahd. The Dark Gifts were later expanded and integrated into the basic rules of the game in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within turns Dark Gifts into Origin Feats that can be selected by 1st-level characters. The effects and drawbacks were also reworked, and Dungeon Masters gave us a glimpse of how the latter work in the case of Mist Walker. Now, a character with this Dark Gift has to pass a Constitution saving throw with difficulty 13 before attempting a short rest: in case of failure, the effects of the rest are negated. While the full details are unclear from Ward’s brief explanation in the episode, it’s still a major shift from the previous version.
The full version of these rules presented in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within may vary from what is shown in Dungeon Masters.
The principle behind Dark Gifts is that the powers bestowed come at a cost. In Curse of Strahd, this often involved disfigurations or obsessive personality traits (hilarious for DMs, not so much for the characters). However, in Van Richten’s version, the drawbacks of the Gifts were often negligible because they triggered only when the player rolled a 1 on a d20 or in other narrow circumstances. Mist Walker’s new drawback, Poisoned Roots, turns every place where the Gifted player takes a rest into a dangerous area that could sap their vitality, but only after a number of weeks equal to their Constitution modifier. That’s annoying for players who have a base where they spend the downtime between adventures, but unlikely to be a nuisance otherwise.
Using Mist Walker as a reference, we can surmise that the Dark Gifts’ drawbacks will come into play more often, thus balancing the powerful boons granted by the feat. This could also provide further options for narrative development during play, making this a positive rules update. However, it still doesn’t beat the effects of the original amber sarcophagi: nothing challenges a player like learning that “the beneficiary of this Dark Gift must eat bones or grave dirt to survive.” Yuck.