Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani: Ravenloft Accessory RR12:

by David Wise

For All Character Levels:

Over three decades ago, the only child of Dr. Rudolph van Richten was stolen by Vistani thieves and sold to a vampire.

The doctor's efforts to rescue his son and then avenge himself upon that vampire led to a dark new career fighting the terrifying monsters in the Deminplane of Dread.

Now, the sage of Ravenloft turns his attention to the very people who made him what he is today.

In spite of his deepest fears and hatred, Van Richten has passed among the Vistani - the nomads of the Mists - and he has learned much.

Within this book he describes Vistani legends, their everyday life, abilities common to all of them, and some of the fell powers possessed - fortunately - by only a few.

Van Richten also identifies each of the Vistani tribes, their strange and special powers, and their habits and beliefs.

In addition, an appendix is provided for the generation of Vistani player-characters.

Summary of content:

Introduction

1. History and legend

2. Vistani life (rituals, tribal organisation, everyday life, punishments, etc.)

3. Tasques (Kaldresh, Boem, Manusa, Zarovan)

4. Curses and the evil eye

5. Salient abilities and vulnerabilities (prescience, mist navigation, etc.)

Appendix: Vistani player character kit

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Horror

96 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1995

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tabletop roleplaying world was in uproar over the summer. Voices taking Wizards of the Coast to task for their crappy representation finally got some signal boosting and WotC make some milquetoast wishy-washy attempts to address it. One of the standouts from this is the Vistani. Most recently featured in Curse of Strahd. Wizards of the Coast promised to address them in an upcoming Ravenloft release which turned out to be a Curse of Strahd box set.

The result? Was underwhelming. They find-and-replaced a few words and patted themselves on the back. The Vistani have always been drawn from stereotypes of the Romani people. It's only relatively recently that a slur used to refer to them has started to go out of use. And the Vistani being controversial is not new. It's been a problem for awhile.

Which brings me to this book. WotC's efforts in the present day can be best described as half-assed. Though I think it's closer to a quarter, honestly. How did they address it ~25 years ago?

Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani is one of the last of the Van Richten's Guide series which features the titular characters writing down variations and ideas for the various monsters infected the demiplane of dread. So, right off the bat we have a book exploring the Vistani that automatically puts them in the category of monsters by association. That's real bad. On the other hand, the book is using the character's well established enmity for the Vistani as a springboard to try and alter their depiction. So I can see why it's a Van Richten's Guide book but also.. oof.

Van Richten's son was kidnapped by a group of Vistani and sold to a vampire. Since that day he has hated them and when he tracked down the particular family that kidnapped his son he sicced a roving group of zombies on them to kill them. Oof. This event sets Van Richten down the path of becoming the famous monster hunter. He draws a deep hatred of the Vistani from the incident and views them all as untrustworthy thieves, liars, and murderers.

So, we get to this book. Van Richten is met by a survivor of the Vistani family that he killed. The stranger, Arturi, tells him that during the murder Van Richten unknowingly inflicted a curse upon him that haunts him decades later. Van Richten, in turn, has learned that he is also the victim of a curse. His friends and companions have all died horrible violent deaths because of it. Curses in Ravenloft are powerful but not immutable. They can be forgiven. Van Richten says his hatred of the Vistani runs too deep and that while he wants to, he isn't sure he CAN forgive the curse he made. So, Arturi takes him on a tour of the Vistani people so that he might learn. In the end Van Richten an Arturi forgive each other and become blood brothers.

The book takes the view of racism that it would all just be sorted out if we sat down and talked. That misunderstandings are the problem. The Vistani character just has to educate the mistakenly ignorant Van Richten and things are fine. He just has to study them. Like he does monsters. It's not a great depiction of anti-racism. It definitely stumbles. However, for 1995 this is pretty stock standard for depictions of racism and prejudice and it continues today in movies and television. So, it's not much worse than the standards of its day and it IS trying. So, maybe it's a zero-sum game? And at least it's one-sided. There is no indication that Van Richten feels the need to educate Arturi about the giorgios. And the book does make it clear that Vistani's mysteriousness and insular culture has good reason. The denizens of Ravenloft persecute them heavily and so a non-Vistani coming in to their midst is a time for watchfulness and danger. The Vistani have every reason to be cautious of others in their midst. And, at least in the end, Van Richten makes no excuses for what he did and calls it unequivocally wrong. The moral of the story is lacking in that Van Richten never really suffers or has to do much of anything to earn his 'redemption' of sorts but at least it does not attempt to justify Van Richten's actions and hatreds.

Until it kinda does. The Vistani family that kidnapped Van Richten's son is noted as being especially bad and may be the source for all the negative stereotypes about Vistani. Van Richten does note several times that he is incredibly biased and not objective in those observations but.. I don't think that's good enough and I don't think that was even good enough for its time. The book does otherwise note that the Vistani are not evil. But, however, does still give them their cursing and evil eye powers. The book at large seems to have been borne from a desire to have it both ways. They wanted to do a better job depicting the Vistani, and give them a fleshed out culture, but also still wanted to have all the old depictions. And it was the culmination of several steps. Like, Castles Forlorn (released 2 years earlier) features a Vistani who is in no way bad and makes no attempts to trick or deceive the PCs. And, at least, the revelation of how badly Van Richten has mistreated the Vistani on the whole does result in his retirement. The book ends with Van Richten actively resisting the impulses to continue monster hunting (Though there was some excuse making of how he had worked with Vistani on previous missions, yadda yadda, want to have it both ways).

It is a depressingly imperfect attempt to fix some really bad portrayals. But, on the other hand, it was a full release on its own and I don't think it's much worse than comparable attempts of its era. Which tells us a lot about how bad the 90s were, really. And it's certainly leagues better than find-and-replacing a few words and calling it good.

[Lucas Mendes · Rating 4 out of 5]

É muito difícil escrever sobre essa obra, assim como muitos leitores concordo que apresenta estereótipos do povo Romani, e que precisava urgentemente de uma revisão de escritores pertencentes a essa cultura. Porem, a qualidade de escrita e narrativa ainda supera aos dos livros da 5ª edição de DnD.

Durante a leitura, pensava o quanto Ravenloft ganharia se atualmente fosse escrito pela Paizo (editora que publica Pathfinder), eles publicaram, e estão trabalhando em cenários ricamente inspirados em diferentes culturas, com equipe diversa, e acertando em conteúdo não estereotipado e rico em detalhes e material.

Acaba que como sempre sobra aos narradores fazer sobre trabalho para usar os materiais da Wizards.