Legacy of Worlds: Ravenloft!

At 6 PM Eastern Time on April 16th, 2025, a new season of Legacy of Worlds launches on the Six Sides of Gaming channel on YouTube. I love this season, and I wanted to give those of you who may not be familiar with Legacy of Worlds enough information for you to jump in at this point, even if you haven’t seen any of the previous episodes. 

WHAT IS LEGACY OF WORLDS? 

Legacy of Worlds is a D&D Liveplay show. The players are all game designers and world builders, playing some of our favorite characters from the worlds we love. 

• Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms, is playing Elminster of Shadowdale. 
• Elisa Teague is playing Elise of Lamordia from Ravenloft. 
• Luke Gygax is playing Melf of Grayhawk. Every time you cast Melf’s Acid Arrow, he gets a copper piece. 
• Thomas Gofton is playing Loholt Lynnvander, paladin and prince from his world of Imaria.  

… And I’m playing Merrix d’Cannith, Artificer, Baron, and self-declared supergenius. But the canonical Merrix isn’t a 20th level artificer, nor is he a champion; likewise, when I run an Eberron campaign I prefer to keep the setting isolated from the rest of the Multiverse. The point of Legacy of Worlds is that it’s a WHAT IF scenario. What if Eberron was part of the Multiverse? What if champions from all the settings joined forces to deal with a threat that touches all of our worlds? So the Merrix I’m playing isn’t the canonical Merrix, because it’s Merrix as a player character. And beyond that, to justify the jump to 20th level, I’ve said that my Merrix is from an Eberron that’s advanced to 1018 YK. It’s a possible Eberron, where Merrix is the Baron of a reunited Cannith (even though Jorlanna manages most of the business). And it’s a world in which Merrix has gone from ruthless businessman to would-be hero… even if he’s still always keeping an eye out for profit.

In the first season of Legacy of Worlds the five of us were pulled together by a disaster on Sigil. When the work of the Planar Energy Collective was disrupted by a mysterious villain, arcane power was drained from all of our worlds—wreaking havoc on Magic-dependent Eberron! The drained power was tied to the Deck of Many Things that Elise had been guarding, and the cards were scattered across the Multiverse. So in that first season we went from world to world—to Athas, Toril, Mystara, Eberron, Grayhawk, Imaria, and Aebrynis—tracking down the scattered cards. But there was one setting we didn’t go to: the Dread Domains of Ravenloft. Elise was from Ravenloft, but there were hints that Merrix had spent a significant amount of time there as well—that he and Elise shared a past neither wanted to talk about. In the finale of Season One we learned that we’re facing a villain from Imaria who was drawing on the power of Vecna and the Book of Vile Darkness—and that our only hope of stopping them lay in Ravenloft. 

Can I Jump In With Season Two?

Season Two of Legacy of Worlds launches tonight. The premiere is at 6 PM Eastern time on YouTube, and I’ll be hanging out in chat with other members of the cast. Even if you miss the premiere, after 6 PM tonight it will be up on YouTube! But in answer to the question, yes, you can start with Season Two. The story of Season Two is tighter and more focused than Season One, because instead of going to an entirely new setting every few episodes, we’re spending this entire season in Ravenloft… and we’re not sure there’s actually a way for us to escape! One of the things I enjoy about this season is that Ravenloft itself serves to mitigate the power of our characters. As 20th level characters (and in the case of Elminster, 20+) we’re all very powerful. But in Ravenloft, too much power wielded unwisely can be more dangerous than any enemy. The last thing the multiverse needs is to have Melf or Elminster become a darklord, and that’s always a risk. Beyond that, there’s a tighter, ongoing focus—as well as the questions of Merrix and Elise’s past connection and why they’ve never shared the details with the rest of the party. 

So to jump in tonight, what do you need to know? Here’s the basics. 

• We’re five adventurers from five different worlds. We’re all 20th level characters, remarkable people within our own worlds, working to stop the mysterious Trelyle and/or Vecna from destabilizing reality. 
• Over the course of the last season we established a base of operations on Sigil at the headquarters of the Planar Energy Collective. We got arcane tattoos allowing us to communicate telepathically over long distances. 
• Melf is an elf bladesinger wizard. He has a strong drive to smite evil and hates the idea of moral compromise; he’s often the quickest to roll initiative when there’s a villain in the scene. He carries the Spear of Xagyg, an artifact that lets him fly, turn invisible, and planeshift. 
• Loholt Lynnvander is a paladin, chronomancer, and bard. Time magic plays an important role in the Imaria setting, and Loholt uses subclasses and spells from that setting, so he will do cool things you’ve probably never seen before. He was born into a royal line, but has always resisted accepting a crown, instead fighting to overthrow a tyrannical emperor. He carries the sword Amberfang, a powerful artifact from Imaria, and has a figuring of wondrous power of a faithful pegasus, Banquo. 
• Elminster is… Elminster. Chosen of Mystra, wielder of the Silver Fire (totally different from the Silver Flame of Eberron, and no, that never gets confusing), an archmage with a tower filled with artifacts. He’s an experienced planar traveler who knows the Lady of Pain and Strahd. Between his arsenal of treasures, gifts from Mystra and millennia of experience he’s the most powerful member of the group, especially when he’s on Toril. He usually prefers to use that power sparingly… but he’s not beyond dropping a meteor swarm or disintegrating a villain if the conversation gets boring. 
• Elise is the most mysterious member of the group. She is Reborn, sustained by the power of her Unbreakable Heart. She is a fighter and a cleric, though her divine power is drawn from her Heart instead of a god. She has ties to the Vistani and a knack for cursing enemies. She is also a cartomancer, and frequently seeks glimpses of the future by drawing cards from her oracle deck. I will note that ELISA is actually drawing these cards straight up: her readings aren’t staged in any way, but there’s been some remarkably accurate spreads! Elise and Merrix have shared history in Ravenloft, and are also the most pragmatic members of the group. During a trip to Eberron, Merrix made a Flametongue battleaxe for her, which triggers on the phrase Hello, Hot Stuff. 
• Merrix began his journey long ago being driven purely by profit. Over the last 20 years (in game) he’s slowly been becoming a better person, though he still won’t pass up an opportunity to make a little gold on the side. While he can be a little snarky and smug, Merrix is haunted by the legacy of the warforged and the Mourning and genuinely does want to do good. However, he’s much more pragmatic than Melf and willing to make compromises some of the others wouldn’t accept. Over the course of the previous season Merrix created a homunculus out of an unlicensed Elminster action figure; this is Stinky. Merrix is an artificer using the Maverick subclass from Exploring Eberron, updated for 2024 rules. 

Beyond this, the things you really need to know are that we’ve banded together from different worlds to try to save the multiverse; that Elise and Merrix both have history in Ravenloft that has never been revealed to the other characters; that the villain Trelyle is an ancestor of Loholt’s, and that Loholt has devoted his life to bringing down a vile empire and its Weavebreaker knights. 

I hope you’ll join us on this journey! We’re (mostly) not actors, but we’re game designers playing characters from the worlds we love—and as Keith, it’s my first experience with Ravenloft! I’ll be in chat tonight at 6 PM Eastern Time, and at the future premieres each week. But you can watch anytime—or catch up with the previous season and our earlier adventurers—at the Six Sides of Gaming channel on Youtube!