Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is finally available, and Dungeons & Dragons players and Dungeon Masters all over the world are getting ready to venture into the Domains of Dread. There, they will find mind-bending horrors, wretched creatures, and melancholic darklords trapped by their own wickedness; to help players deal with these perils, the book provides ample choice of new and reworked options, from horror-themed subclasses to a new spin on Dark Gifts.
One of these subclasses, the College of Spirits bard, is a 5.5 edition update of the 5e version that appeared in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. The subclass went through a lot of playtesting, also appearing in an Unearthed Arcana supplement in 2025. Despite its strong flavor, the College of Spirits bard was unfortunately considered a less-than-subpar subclass for bards. In fact, its main class feature, Spirits from Beyond, was so frustrating in its previous incarnation that it almost made a player at my table quit the campaign entirely.
A bard of the College of Spirits has a special attunement to, you’ve guessed it, the spiritual world. The subclass in Van Richten’s Guide actually had a much more interesting description, showing that bards following this path seek the power inherent to stories; they literally bring tales to life. It wasn’t very horror-coded, but it’s still more captivating than the current “Bards of the College of Spirits conjure legendary spirits to change the world.” Still, both descriptions stress that the bard has only partial control over these spirits and their powers.
In gameplay, this is reflected in the third-level class feature Spirits from Beyond, which allows the bard to summon one of these spirits. In its original incarnation, this ability required the bard to use one bonus action and spend one use of Bardic Inspiration to roll on a table and determine a random effect. These varied from damaging enemies to boosting allies, but they could not be activated immediately. Instead, the bard had to use an action to do so, retaining the “spirit tale” in mind until that moment, or until they used this feature again.
It was not the most effective class feature, to say the least. During my long Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, one of my players multiclassed in warlock and bard, with a specialization in College of Spirits for the latter. However, the lackluster features of the subclass caused them endless frustration.
It was even more disappointing because the progression of the character was perfectly aligned with the roleplay and the campaign’s story. They started as a warlock pretending to be a bard to hide a connection with a dangerous patron. The rest of the players weren’t aware of this, causing hilarious shenanigans every time they asked for a Bardic Inspiration boost. At one point, however, the character distanced themselves from the evil patron and “graduated” to a fully fledged bard, only for all that world to yield lackluster gameplay results. Every time there was combat, the player got so frustrated that in the end they almost wanted to kill the character off to build a new one, but some great rolls of a DM’s most important skills, persuasion and diplomacy, convinced them to stick with it.
It was easy for me to see their point of view. While I never encourage power play at my table, it’s only natural for a player to want their character to contribute meaningfully to the party. The main issue was that the results on the Spirit Tales table were just too random: You could get a healing effect when no one was injured, or trigger melee damage when you’re too far from enemies. It didn’t make much sense to hold onto the Spirit Tales power, either, because you already wasted a use of Bardic Inspiration. In the end, it was always better to spend that Bardic Inspiration as usual to give immediate, tangible boosts to the party.
The Unearthed Arcana version changed the feature so that the Spirit Tale would immediately affect a target. While a step in the right direction, that still wasn’t enough to overcome the randomness of the effect. Luckily for spiritual bards all over the world, Ravenloft: The Horrors Within fixed the issue.
The new Spirits from Beyond feature can be activated for free every time a bard uses Bardic Inspiration. You still roll on the table to determine a random effect, but a player can now unleash it in two ways. The first option is to use a magic action, just like in the first version of the subclass. However, it’s important to note that the use of Bardic Inspiration still has its regular effect, so it won’t feel like you’ve wasted a resource, no matter the result on the table. Even better, there is a second option now, called “controlled channeling”: As a bonus action, the bard can spend a use of Bardic Inspiration to pick the effect from the table when they unleash it, rather than trigger a random effect, giving players the option to use the right effect at the right moment.
The level six feature Empowered Channeling also returns from Unearthed Arcana, giving the bard a little boost to healing and damage, on top of a special use of the Spirit Guardians spell. Level 14’s Mystical Connection also remains the same as in the playtest material.
Overall, these changes make the subclass much more enticing. Picking the effect from the table feels like adding 8 to10 spells to the bard’s toolkit, and Bardic Inspiration is a resource that scales with Charisma, and replenishes after a short rest starting at level five. Having to spend a resource on a random effect, on the other hand, feels like a design flaw. Truly, random effects add a lot of flavor, fun, and excitement to a TTRPG, but it’s very hard to get them right. Players usually want to know what they’re doing, at least when an action or resource economy is involved.
My player once said that using the old College of Spirits felt like playing a gacha machine, praying you would get the five-star prize. I see the fun in that, and it would be perfect for a game like Mörk Borg, where everything is unpredictably chaotic, but it doesn’t really fit D&D’s established classes framework.
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within could be a little controversial for repurposing most of the contents of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but at least for the College of Spirits bard, this was a successful and much-needed update.
D&D’s new Ravenloft book is a worthy companion to its illustrious predecessor
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is a good update of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, despite some typical 5.5e design choices