Ravenloft
Ravenloft is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. It is an alternate time-space existence known as a pocket dimension or demiplane, called the Demiplane of Dread, which consists of a collection of land pieces called "domains", brought together by a mysterious force known only as [|the Dark Powers]. Each domain is tailored to and mystically ruled by a being called a Darklord who is forever trapped and surrounded by magical mists surrounding the domain. Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire in the original AD&D ''Ravenloft I6 module released in 1983, became the first Darklord, both ruler and prisoner of his own personal domain of Barovia. The story of how Count von Zarovich became Darklord of Barovia was detailed in the 1993 novel I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire. As originally established in the Ravenloft: Realm of Terror boxed set known as "the Black Box" released in 1990, the Ravenloft campaign setting was located in the Ethereal Plane. As a physical manifestation of that plane, lands, monsters and even people were created out of the mysterious mists, and the realm acted as a prison where one could enter or be transported, but means of escape were few. Other Ravenloft Domains and Darklords were eventually added in various AD&D'' 2nd edition products establishing a core continent attached around Barovia which could be traveled to by others if their respective lords allowed entering or leaving their borders; while some Domains remained isolated in the mists and were referred to as Islands.
Creative origins
In 1978, Tracy and Laura Hickman wrote adventures that would eventually be published as the Dungeon & Dragons modules Pharaoh and Ravenloft. Strahd von Zarovich was created by the Hickmans "after Tracy returned home from a disappointing session of D&D. Back in First Edition, the game was less of a storytelling game. It didn't make sense to why a creature like a vampire was just sitting around in a random dungeon with oozes, goblins, and zombies. So he and his wife set out to create a vampire villain with fleshed-out motivations and history". When the Hickmans began work on Ravenloft, they felt the vampire archetype had become overused, trite, and mundane, and decided to create a frightening version of the creature for the module. They play-tested it with a group of players every Halloween for five years on their own game system with the adventure titled Vampyr. However, the Hickmans kept being asked about their "Ravenloft game", and so the Ravenloft name stuck. The duo eventually caught the attention of D&D's original publishers. They were hired to adapt it into the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and it was released as Module I6: Ravenloft in 1983 by TSR.Publication history
1st edition
The first appearance of the setting was in Ravenloft, a stand-alone Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure module, published in 1983. In 1984, it won the Strategists' Club Award for Outstanding Play Aid. It was popular enough to spawn a 1986 sequel, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, and an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Gamebooks novel, Master of Ravenloft, the same year.2nd edition
Ravenloft was launched as a full-fledged campaign setting, for AD&D 2nd Edition, in 1990, with the Realm of Terror boxed set, popularly known as the "Black Box", and winner of the Origins Award in 1991 for "Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1990".The campaign setting was revised twice during AD&D 2nd Edition: first as the Ravenloft Campaign Setting or "Red Box", then as the Domains of Dread hardback.
In 1994, Ravenloft spun off into a sub-setting called Masque of the Red Death, set on Gothic Earth, an Edgar Allan Poe-influenced alternative Earth of the 1890s, where fantasy creatures and magic exist in the shadows of civilization.
TSR also published a series of novels set in Ravenloft. Each was typically focused on one of the Darklords that inhabited the Ravenloft world, with several focusing on the figure of Count Strahd von Zarovich. Many of these early novels were by authors who would later receive wider fame as horror/dark fantasy authors. These authors have included Elaine Bergstrom, P. N. Elrod, Christie Golden, and Laurell K. Hamilton.
3rd and 3.5 edition
A major revision of Dungeons & Dragons was released in 2000, the first edition published by Wizards of the Coast. In the same year, Wizards of the Coast licensed the Ravenloft brand to White Wolf Publishing. Under its Sword & Sorcery Studios, White Wolf Publishing released the 3rd Edition d20 System Ravenloft Campaign Setting and the 3.5 Edition Ravenloft Player's Handbook.The campaign settings published by White Wolf introduced a number of alterations, many due to conflicts with existing Wizards of the Coast intellectual property. Specific references to D&D-specific deities were replaced with new names in the White Wolf Ravenloft settings. The license to the Ravenloft trademark reverted to Wizards of the Coast on August 15, 2005, but White Wolf retained the right to continue to sell its back stock until June 2006. The timing of this reversion meant that the Ravenloft supplement Van Richten's Guide to the Mists did not see print. Instead, it was released by White Wolf as a free download in late September 2005. The majority of the Van Richten's Guide series had already been published by TSR in the 1990s, before White Wolf's involvement.
In October 2006, Wizards of the Coast released Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, a hardcover version of the original 1st Ed. adventure, updated for the Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 rule set. This version includes maps from the original Ravenloft adventure, and new character-generation options. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is a stand-alone supplement set for any D&D worlds, and only requires the three core books for usage. This book's setting is distinct from the Ravenloft of the White Wolf product line. Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, highlighted that by 2006 people were beginning to wonder if Wizards of the Coast might be preparing a fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons and stated that "the release of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft might just have offered another clue to the changing winds that lay ahead. First, it was a new line for 3.5e, suggesting that their original series of 3.5e books was coming to an end. Second, it was a fond look back at one of the most notable adventures from the AD&D days, just the sort of thing that Wizards published in the waning days of 2e". Appelcline later noted that, once fourth edition was officially announced, "the Expedition books that had begun publication in 2006 were revealed to indeed be part of Wizard's slow slide into 4e".
4th edition
In 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced the printing of two new Ravenloft novels for 2008, Black Crusade and The Sleep of Reason, fueling more speculation. A short story by Ari Marmell, "Before I Wake", based on the realms of Darkon, Lamordia, and Bluetspur was released on October 31, 2007, on the Wizards of the Coast website as a special for Halloween; it featured characters inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.In 2008, Ravenloft was revealed to be re-introduced to 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, as was depicted in the October issue of the Dragon online magazine. The Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition supplement Manual of the Planes established that in the retconned cosmology, the Domains of Dread were now located within the Shadowfell, a mirror-plane of death and gloom lying adjacent to the mortal realm. While a 4th edition update to the Ravenloft setting was announced at Gen Con 2010, the product was never released.
In 2010, Ravenloft was the setting for the Castle Ravenloft Board Game. Ravenloft also appeared in official magazine articles, such as, Dungeon #207 "Fair Barovia" and Dragon #416 "History Check: Strahd and Van Richten".
5th edition
In 2016, Barovia was the main setting for adventure module Curse of Strahd which acts as an adaptation of the original Ravenloft module for the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The adventure states: "The lands of Barovia are from a forgotten world in the D&D multiverse . In time, cursed Barovia was torn from its home world by the Dark Powers and bound in mist as one of the Domains of Dread in the Shadowfell". The module was developed in-house by the Wizards of the Coast team, led by Christopher Perkins, with story contributions by original creators Tracy and Laura Hickman. Charlie Hall, for Polygon, explained that "instead of reinventing the wheel, designer Chris Perkins brought in the module's original writers — the husband and wife team of Tracy and Laura Hickman — to create the very best version of the famous module yet. Tracy and Laura have been hosting nearly annual sessions of the original Ravenloft at their home, for friends and family, over the course of decades. When Perkins asked for their input, they flew out to meet with the team. The result was a torrent of ideas for new locations, characters and encounters". Ravenloft was also the setting of the limited series comic Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows of the Vampire written by Jim Zub, and illustrated by Max Dunbar and Nelson Daniel.Wizards of the Coast released a new edition of the Curse of Strahd module, entitled Curse of Strahd: Revamped, on October 20, 2020. This module is the first released with the publisher's new focus on diversity and inclusion. Wizards of the Coast stated that "the adventure includes the latest errata and a revised depiction of the Vistani" who are based on stereotypes about the Romani people.
Wizards of the Coast released a new Ravenloft campaign sourcebook, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, which introduces other Domains of Dread to the edition. It was published on May 18, 2021. The limited series comic Ravenloft: Orphan of Agony Isle, by writer Casey Gilley and artist Bayleigh Underwood, then featured the mad scientist Viktra Mordenheim, the Darklord of Ravenloft's Lamordia domain introduced in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. The novel Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd, by Delilah S. Dawson, was the first Ravenloft novel to be published in 17 years.