D&D Beyond’s Project_Lamordia (Review & Deep Dive)

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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• What is Project_Lamordia?
• What is the setting like?
• What are the character options like?
• How do the rules handle a modern setting?
• What are the adventures like?
• What are the NPCs like?
• What are the monsters like?
• What is the art and design like?
• When was Project_Lamordia released?
• How much is Project_Lamordia?
• What is Lamordia in D&D lore?
• Is Project_Lamordia worth picking up?
• Final thoughts & review score

Last week, Wizards of the Coast released a cryptic teaser trailer for something known as Project_Lamordia. It was billed as a modern reimagining of the titular Domain of Dread known as Lamordia, which has appeared in countless Ravenloft supplements over the years and is home to the Frankenstein-inspired character of Victor Mordenheim.

Now the new digital-only supplement has officially arrived on D&D Beyond. The material is designed for both players and DMs and includes new character options, a gazetteer-style primer on the setting, a selection of NPCs and monsters, plus three adventures that can be run individually or strung together into a mini-campaign.

So is Project_Lamordia worth picking up? Below, I brave the twisted depths of Mordenheim Kinetics to find out. (NOTE: While I often receive review materials from Wizards of the Coast, in this case I picked up the supplement on D&D Beyond at my own expense).

What’s included in Project_Lamordia?

Project Lamordia is described by Wizards of the Coast as an “experimental toolbox and campaign setting” that presents a modern, techno-thriller reimagining of Ravenloft. The supplement takes place in a new realm known as Gothic Earth, which is dark reflection of our own world steeped in occult horror (and a setting that technically first appeared in Ravenloft material for AD&D 2nd Edition).

The focus, however, is on the Domain of Dread known as Mordenheim Kinetics, a “semifuturistic AI research facility” that has been long abandoned and fallen into ruin. The complex – which is surrounded on all sides by the inescapable Mists of Ravenloft – is overseen by its Darklord Dr. Viktra Mordenheim, a reclusive scientist obsessed with achieving digital immortality through her twisted experiments.

The supplement includes the following content geared for both players and DMs:

• Character Options: This player-focused section includes four new backgrounds, four new Dark Gift Feats and a new version of the Reborn species. It also includes rules for creating and playing Lamordian survivors, which are essentially low-level PCs that can be used to simulate a more realistic and lethal style of horror play.
• Mordenheim Kinetics Primer: This DM-only setting guide provides an overview of the abandoned research campus and its dark history.
• Personnel Directory. This DM-only section provides 5 bizarre NPCs that inhabit Mordenheim Kinetics and presents ways the DM can incorporate these villains into adventures.
• Adventures: This DM-only section covers three adventures set within Mordenheim Kinetics. You can run each of these as a standalone one shots or string them together into a mini-campaign framework.
• Creature Database:This DM-only section includes details and stat blocks for 10 monsters found within Mordenheim Kinetics, plus new rules for “kinetic creation” monster traits that combine flesh and technology.

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What is the setting like?

The setting centers entirely on the ruined corporate headquarters of Mordenheim Kinetics, which is essentially a haunted house version of a corporate campus (think Google meets the House on Haunted Hill). Where once the facility featured state-of-the-art laboratories, spacious open-air workspaces and pristine gardens, it has since transformed into a treacherous complex of shattered glass, flooded corridors, abandoned cubicles, derelict server rooms and crumbling laboratories.

Thematically, the setting blends sterile tech with psychological dread. The result is something that’s essentially the Ravenloft version of the Lumen facility from Apple TV’s Severance, with a touch of the liminal horror of The Backrooms and Valve’s Portal thrown in for good measure.

While most of the focus of the setting is on the facility itself, there are also a few external features worth noting:

• Copperbark Hollow: A diseased, rust-colored birch forest where natural wildlife refuses to tread. Instead, monstrous mechanical “kinetic creations” with serrated metal teeth and scalpel-sharp claws prowl the undergrowth.
• The Black Sea & Titanic Leviathans: Towering cliffs border the the facility, plunging down into a charcoal-black ocean where massive, slow-moving leviathans hunt below the surface.
• The Mists of Ravenloft: Perpetual fog blankets the entire perimeter. About 500 feet out into the wilderness, it thickens into an inescapable miasma. Anyone attempting to hike away into the mists or scale the perimeter fences eventually finds themselves mysteriously turned around, stepping right back onto the front steps of Mordenheim Kinetics.

In short, it’s one of the most unique Domains of Dread ever created, and might just be one of the best Ravenloft concepts Wizards of the Coast has created in decades. For a company that often plays it safe, it’s incredible that WotC isn’t just returning to the same well, but instead offering us something genuinely new, innovative and modern.

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What are the new character options like?

The supplement features a range of new player options, including:

New Backgrounds

There are four new options. The Discredited Neural Tuner lets you play an unethical company technician who narrowly avoided being scrapped in the waste chutes. The Fabricated Mind gives you the perspective of an entirely new synthetic consciousness waking up without a past. The Mutated Commuter is an ordinary nine-to-fiver whose morning commute was shattered by a supernatural event, mutating your flesh and stranding you at the facility gates. And finally, the Reconstructed Runaway turns you into a patient whose consciousness was uploaded into an artificial shell you can’t afford to pay off. All of these are absolutely fantastic and perfectly match the setting.

The Reborn Species

Mechanically, this species is identical to the D&D 5.5E version that recently appeared in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. The only difference is in the narrative flavor. Instead of a stitched-together Frankenstein-like corpse, the Reborn of Project_Lamordia are patients who have undergone radical experimentation and are now a horrifying mix of flesh and steel.

The supplement does, however, include three new “Reborn Origins” tables that provide narrative flavor to your character. These include Biomechanical Augmentations (for example, you no longer have blood or internal organs and the bones in your fingers were replaced with telescoping tubes), Build Specifications (for example, your brain was recovered from your corpse and implanted in an imperfect synthetic replica) and Glitched Memories (when you remember things, everything in your line of sight appears to be subtly melting). All three of these tables are fantastic, although it would have been nice to have a unique species instead of rehashing something we’ve already seen before.

Dark Gift Feats

The book includes four Dark Gifts, which are considered Feats within the D&D 5.5E rules. These include: Aberrant Anatomy, Echoing Soul, Gathered Whispers and Symbiotic Being. It’s worth noting that all four of these are taken from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within and instead reflavored with a random table to match the setting of Mordenheim Kinetics. As with the Reborn species, the flavoring is fantastic. It just would have been nice to see something original, rather than rehashing existing Feats.

Lamordian Survivors

This is easily one of the best parts of the supplement and is a brilliant approach to horror. Rather than playing as epic high-fantasy heroes, players take on the role of “Survivors,” who are ordinary people simply trying to stay alive. This allows DMs to run a much more tense, terrifying and high-stakes adventure where death is much more likely.

Mechanically, this means players choose from one of four pre-made templates, rather than a class. These contain basic stats and a few minor abilities. They are: the Lamordian Evangelist (tech-savvy employees who once believed in Mordenheim Kinetics) Lamordian Infiltrator (someone motivated to break into the facility), Lamordian Mercenary (a security guard or law enforcement officer) and Lamordian Technician (a former IT specialist or engineer at the facility). As survivors overcome obstacles, they can choose from one of eight “Survivor Talents,” which provide bonus hit points and minor abilities. If a Survivor character manages to survive three encounters, they can then graduate into fully fleshed-out player characters. It’s a brilliant subsystem that evokes the high-stakes dread of classic survival horror titles like Call of Cthulhu.

Notably, this isn’t an entirely new concept as Survivor mechanics were first introduced in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, but the concept has been modified for D&D 5.5E mechanics and the Mordenheim Kinetics setting.

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How does the adventure handle modern mechanics?

How does Project_Lamordia adapt the D&D 5.5E rules to a modern setting?

Rather than presenting new rules that convert D&D 5.5E for a modern setting, Project Lamordia takes a simpler approach that’s all about reskinning equipment. Items look and feel like modern or semi-futuristic technology, but mechanically they function just like the traditional fantasy counterparts found in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. For example:

• Flashlights & Batteries: Instead of torches and brass lanterns, characters carry heavy-duty flashlights, which function mechanically as Bullseye Lanterns. Finding replacement batteries uses the same rules for flasks of oil.
• Engineer’s Toolkit: This is identical to the Tinker’s Toolkit found in the 2024 PHB.
• Firearms & Modern Weapons: Modern weapons are included but use existing optional firearm rules found in D&D 5.5E. For example, security handguns and corporate assault rifles utilize the rules for Pistols and Muskets with standard Firearm Bullets, while a simple metal baseball bat uses the Greatclub stat block.
• Armor & Gear: Protective equipment is translated directly into modern defense wear. For example, a Kevlar-style bulletproof vest uses the statistics for chainmail and riot shields use standard shield rules.
• Cost: In terms of cost, 1 Gold Piece is equal to 1 dollar in Gothic Earth currency.
• Technology vs. Magic: Magic is not removed, but instead the line between supernatural occultism and advanced science is completely blurred. Wizards might be known as technologists and Barbarians as brawlers, but their class abilities, spell lists and spell slots remain mechanically unchanged. Spells can be interpreted as lines of executable code, paranormal distortions, or cutting-edge experimental prototypes. For instance, a technician casting Burning Hands or Static Arc manifests those effects via sparking wires and thermal emitters rather than arcane wands.

What are the adventures like?

Project_Lamordia includes three self-contained adventures spanning Levels 1 to 5 that can be played individually as one-shots or run together as a complete mini-campaign:

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

• Sanctuary (Level 1 or Survivors): The party awakens near nonfunctional elevators at the foot of an overgrown, ruined atrium. Players soon find themselves caught between two opposing forces: a ringing desk telephone delivering cold demands from CEO Viktra Mordenheim, and Adam, a hulking construct housing the corrupted neural patterns of Viktra’s dead lover. The adventure culminates in a tense moral crossroads where players must choose whose command code to enter into Adam’s terminal.
• Deep Freeze (Level 3): Descending into the flooded, freezing Cryogenics sublevel, the party must navigate two feet of standing icy water and thawing pods housing rabid constructs. Escaping requires playing two feuding senior engineers (the cybernetically augmented siblings Hendrik and Gerta von Aubrecker) against one another to secure their keycards, rewire the power grid and restart the mainframe.
• Neural Tuning (Level 5): The party is pushed through a psychological and physical testing gauntlet overseen by Rudolph von Aubrecker (a sinister biotechnical director whose severed brain floats inside an exoskeleton jar). After enduring the testing chambers, characters risk mind-shattering extraction side-effects before a final confrontation in the server room.

The adventures are absolutely amazing. They’re tightly paced, dripping with dread and emphasize environmental problem-solving, moral compromise and desperation over simple hack-and-slash brawling. One thing to note, however, is that only the “Sanctuary” adventure can be run using the Lamordian Survivor rules, which seems like a huge miss. I much rather would have seen more Level 1 options, rather than requiring you to roll up setting-specific Level 3 and Level 5 characters.

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

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What are the NPCs like?

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

There are five NPCs presented in the supplement, each of which gets a detailed write-up, stat block, location, goals, DM roleplaying advice and list of potential monster servants. It’s a quick and easy reference and something it would be great to see in more D&D 5.5E supplements. The NPCs include:

• Dr. Viktra Mordenheim: The reclusive Darklord/CEO of Mordenheim Kinetics is cold, haughty, and single-minded. She views organic bodies as meat cages and treats almost everyone she meets as intellectual inferiors.
• Adam: Viktra’s tragic masterpiece, an autonomous construct implanted with the neuroprint of Viktra’s deceased lover whom she killed before the facility fell to the Mists.
• The von Aubrecker Siblings: Three senior engineers granted free rein over their horrifying personal projects:
  • Gerta von Aubrecker: The towering youngest sibling, outfitted with a plasteel skeleton and weatherproofed chassis to endure the subzero Cryogenics wing.
  • Hendrik von Aubrecker: An insecure, attention-hungry engineer with hydraulic limbs, a carbon-fiber exoskeleton, and a third arm wielding numbing sedative needles.
  • Rudolph von Aubrecker: The eldest and most chilling sibling, having surgically removed his own brain to mount it in an exoskeleton jar.

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

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What are the monsters like?

The supplement includes 10 monster stat blocks. A few standouts are:

• Echoes (CR 1/2): Mannequin-like bipedal vessels forged to house digitized donor minds. When unprogrammed, they wander aimlessly, defending themselves with ear-piercing static screams. Once injected with a neuroprint, they gain the donor’s personality.
• K-Nines (CR 1): Military-grade quadrupedal defense droids built with piston-powered jaws, pack tactics and wall-penetrating X-ray scanning.
• Shattered Echoes (CR 3): These violent husks stalk the halls, mimicking human voices with fragmented memories while blasting intruders with debilitating thunder screams that leave targets deafened and frightened.
• The Created (CR 5): Stitched together from scrap metal, discarded lab coats, microscope lenses and tangled wire. In battle, they absorb lightning damage, erupt in melting plastic or insect hives, and fly into a bloodied berserk rage.

All of the creatures here are fantastic and genuinely creepy, with some solid design and unique concepts, rather than rehashing familiar D&D or Ravenloft monsters.

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What is the art and design like?

Visually, Project Lamordia is one of the most unique Dungeons & Dragons supplements in recent memory. That might be because the art wasn’t actually created by the standard D&D design team, but was instead spearheaded by the team at Skeleton Key, the Wizards of the Coast-owned video game studio.

There are a surprising number of images included in the supplement given that this is a D&D Beyond digital-only product, and all of them are positively dripping with atmosphere and dread. They reminded me a lot of the kind of art we see in Free League’s Alien RPG, but aren’t derivative at all. It’s absolutely stunning work that shows real risk on the part of WotC (and Skeleton Key) to push the envelope and create something new.

The writing from D&D Senior Designer Patrick Renie is also fantastic and the supplement does a great job of building a sense of dread and tension with the lore, while also getting out of the way when it comes to providing the basic mechanics. It’s masterful work and here’s hoping we see more of Renie in the days ahead.

Another very cool feature is that the D&D Beyond material has been formatted to resemble a computer interface, complete with a custom font and even a “ReadME” file at the very start of the supplement. The material also includes several player handouts in a similar 90s computer style. It’s a subtle yet clever touch in building out the setting and making it feel alive.

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When was Project Lamordia released?

The adventure was officially released on October 13th, 2026 just in time for Halloween. That being said, the timing is a bit odd as Ravenloft: The Horrors Within was released back June 2026 as part of the Season of Horror (which itself ran from April to June).

How much is Project Lamordia?

The supplement retails for $14.99 USD on D&D Beyond. That might seem like a bit on the pricey side, but compared to other recent releases (like the somewhat disappointing Astarion’s Book of Hungers) it’s an absolute steal and well worth the cost for the amount of content you get.

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What is Lamordia in D&D lore?

Lamordia is a bleak, lifeless Domain of Dread known for its pursuit of science through dark sorcery and steampunk technology. The geography is a bleak and inhospitable realm of snow-covered forests, impassable mountains and frozen seas. The few settlements in the Domain resemble the real-world European Renaissance-era in terms of culture and technology.

In the original lore of Ravenloft, Lamordia was also known as the dwelling of Dr. Victor Mordenheim, a Dr. Frankenstein-like figure who constructed the flesh-golem-turned-Darklord known as Adam. The domain’s lore, however, was recently updated in 2026 and its Darklord is now Dr. Viktra Mordenheim, who resurrected her lost love Alice using an artificial heart.

Over the years, Lamordia has appeared in numerous official D&D products across editions. It was first detailed in the 1990 Realm of Terror boxed set for AD&D 2nd Edition, which established its geography, society and Darklord. The domain was then further fleshed out in the 1994 adventure Adam’s Wrath by Lisa Smedman and its sequel adventure The Awakening, which came out a few months later. A Ravenloft novel written by Chet Williamson entitled Mordenheim and also published in 1994, adding further backstory to Victor Mordenheim and the domain.

Lamordia appeared again in the 2001 Ravenloft Core Rulebook published by Arthaus/White Wolf for D&D 3.5 and was later revised in 2021 for Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. More recently it appeared in the 2026 supplement Ravenloft: The Horrors Within which saw a major overhaul of the Domain and its lore.

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Is Project_Lamordia worth picking up?

Pros

• A bold departure from D&D: The move from traditional high fantasy to corporate techno-horror and liminal sci-fi brings a genuinely fresh perspective to the Domains of Dread and it’s amazing to see Wizards of the Coast take this kind of risk.
• Unique low-level play: The Lamordian Survivor mechanics provide a brilliantly tense, low-prep framework for authentic survival horror without the safety net of heroic class abilities.
• Exceptional art and design: Skeleton Key’s atmospheric illustrations, paired with the immersive D&D Beyond interface and smart writing make the setting feel alive in a way we haven’t seen from many other supplements before.
• A solid value: Past D&D Beyond products have felt a little overpriced. Project_Lamordia, however, is one of the few digital-only releases that actually feels like it’s worth the price tag.

Cons

• Rehashed character mechanics: The Reborn species and Dark Gift Feats rely almost entirely on preexisting mechanics from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, only altering narrative tables rather than introducing new mechanical options.
• Limited survivor adventure support: The Survivor rules are easily the best part of the book, yet only one of the three adventures supports this innovative system, which feels like a major miss.
• Potential pushback: I love the concept of a Domain of Dread being brought into a modern liminal horror space, but could see grognards and old-school Ravenloft fans pushing back against the idea.
• An unfinished idea: There are so many brilliant ideas packed into Project_Lamordia that presenting it in a slim, digital-only supplement feels like a missed opportunity. Honestly, this deserves a much larger setting book. It’s that good.

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Final thoughts & review score

Wizards of the Coast frequently gets criticized for playing it safe. In fact, that’s something we definitely saw with Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, which felt more like a reprint of 2021’s Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, rather than exploring any new ground.

Project_Lamordia, however, proves that Wizards of the Coast is actually willing to take some big swings. It’s easily one of the most innovative and unconventional D&D products in decades and feels like a bold creative leap forward for 5.5E. Much of this is likely due to collaborating with the artists and designers at the Skeleton Key video game studio. And while the supplement does cover some familiar ground (particularly in terms of the Reborn species and Dark Gifts), the art, lore, mechanics and narrative are unlike anything we’ve seen from D&D before. The end result is a creepy cubicle crawl worth logging in for.

Final score: 19 out of 20

You can pick up Project_Lamordia for yourself now on D&D Beyond. Below is also my complete review on the official Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics YouTube channel.

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