There is no denying that Fred Fields’ cover to RQ2: Thoughts of Darkness is pretty amazing. I’m not sure a mind flayer had previously been portrayed with an exposed brain before, but I like it. Stephen Fabian, who I will defend as the defining artist of Ravenloft till the end of days…well, he does the interiors and, I dunno, he just isn’t suited to the old squid heads I guess. They look far too comical for me. Which is hilarious, just, not what I was on board for.

The adventure itself is really something else. There’s an Elder Brain that’s a dark lord and a powerful mind flayer who wants to take over. There’s so much psionics. There’s a descendant of Strahd who is also a vampire — she’s helping the mind flayer in a scheme to become a vampire in a bid to overthrow the dark lord. Turns out it is really hard to turn a mind flayer into a vampire, so they’re using the Apparatus that original appeared in I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill. Also, it’s gauged for levels 12-15, making it maybe the highest level Ravenloft adventure (I’m not looking that up, though). Wildly, this module follows RQ1: Night of the Walking Dead (which I covered last October) and that’s for characters level 1 to 3!

At least we got that cover.