Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd Cover, Synopsis Revealed

The cover and synopsis for Penguin Random House's new Dungeons & Dragons novel has been revealed. This week, Penguin Random House revealed the official title and cover for Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd, a new novel by Delilah S. Dawson. The new novel is due for release in April 2025. The new novel follows a group of adventurers who arrive in Barovia under mysterious circumstances and are summoned to Castle Ravenloft to dine with the infamous Count Strahd. This marks the first Ravenloft novel released in 17 years.

Penguin Random House has slowly grown its line of novels over the past few years, with novels set in Spelljammer, Dragonlance, and the Forgotten Realms released over the last year. Characters from The Fallbacks novel by Jaleigh Johnson also appears in art in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.

The full synopsis for Heir of Strahd can be found below:

Five strangers armed with steel and magic awaken in a mist-shrouded land, with no memory of how they arrived: Rotrog, a prideful orcish wizard; Chivarion, a sardonic drow barbarian; Alishai, an embittered tiefling paladin; Kah, a skittish kenku cleric; and Fielle, a sunny human artificer.

After they barely survive a nightmarish welcome to the realm of Barovia, a carriage arrives bearing an invitation:

Fairest Friends,

I pray you accept my humble Hospitality and dine with me tonight at Castle Ravenloft. It is rare we receive Visitors, and I do so Endeavor to Make your Acquaintance. The Carriage shall bear you to the Castle safely, and I await your Arrival with Pleasure.

Your host,
Strahd von Zarovich

With no alternative, and determined to find their way home, the strangers accept the summons and travel to the forbidding manor of the mysterious count. But all is not well at Castle Ravenloft. To survive the twisted enigmas of Strahd and his haunted home, the adventurers must confront the dark secrets in their own hearts and find a way to shift from strangers to comrades—before the mists of Barovia claim them forever.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Please keep in mind it seems a lot of these people responding are very unfamiliar with how a Ravenloft campaign was played, so likely no.

Look, you could have just said "I don't understand the setting", it's ok to admit that.

You see, here is an issue - a common criticism of Ravenloft 2e campaigns that they swung too much for the "doom and gloom at all times" to the point the games would become railroads where nothing PCs can do can really affect the world. Pretty much all the Darklords became beyond repproach for vast majority of the parties until levels so late most games never reached them, and even if PCs did manage to get rid of one of them...no they didn't, we cannot allow the players to ruin the world, after all. The criticism may be exagerrated for comedy, and likely the whole view is colored by similiar issue popping in multiple games from 80's and 90's, but it is sitll valid criticism. And reacting to "the DM didn't nerf half of the party into oblivion" with "DC doesn't understand how a REAL Ravenloft campaign is played" is a very poor argument and quite condescending.

The style is gothic romance, and there is a constant style with regards to title placement that indicates they are part of the same series.

I am all for the classic Ravenloft layout. I still remember when they got rid of those atmospheric borders and shifted to a white background, without the Fabian art (not that all the early supplements had Fabian art anyways). That actually did make a difference in terms of the feel of the material (I think the line really benefited from the layout and art design)

I see an issue that you don't, that you both point out to things that are only applicable once there are more books in the series to establish a "look" of the series. If you didn't knew what Ravenloft is and that other books in the series exist, and you saw Knight of the Black Rose on the shelf, coud it tell you it's gothic horror?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why not? There is a huge overlap between gothic and steampunk, and Lamordia is explicitly a steampunk domain. Not to mention the Eberron domains.

I want to be careful here because it isn't like I dislike all the trappings associated with steam punk and I realize a lot of this may come down to definitions. For example the name eludes me but one of my favorite horror stories is an old one about a man who falls in love with an automaton woman he mistakes for a real person. I could see someone labeling it steam punk.

It is personal preference for me, and the overlap is par too the issue. It is really more that 90s to 2000s steampunk aesthetic I don't like. If we are just talking the use of technology like in the movie Frankenstein. I am fine with that. But when you have characters with all kinds of gadgets and baubles strapped to their body, and their clothing has that steam punk look, it just isn't form. So it isn't a rejection of Jules Verne or something. I wouldn't describe lamordia as steam punk to me. See it as straddling the line between the novel Frankenstein and the universal incarnations of the book. In the black box it is pretty vague but not what I would call steam punk. By DoD I believe it is labeled a renaissance domain. Still I tend to see it more like the classic frankenstein movies in that respect. And there are, I will grant, flashes of steam punk aesthetic over its history in the line.

Here is the description of the people of Lamordia from the black box for instance.

And here is their attitude towards Mordenheim and his experiments:

Granted, the line changed over time. And by the end of TSR era it seemed to be a more sophisticated place

 

[Vaalingrade]

Look, you could have just said "I don't understand the setting", it's ok to admit that.

I mustn't tell lies.

But keep keeping that gate, brah.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I see an issue that you don't, that you both point out to things that are only applicable once there are more books in the series to establish a "look" of the series. If you didn't knew what Ravenloft is and that other books in the series exist, and you saw Knight of the Black Rose on the shelf, coud it tell you it's gothic horror?

The stone castle arch with it's guttering torch are pretty gothic tropes, so I would say yes. And the font "Ravenloft" is written in is actually called Gothic.

Soth's burning eyes mark it out as horror rather than romance.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I see an issue that you don't, that you both point out to things that are only applicable once there are more books in the series to establish a "look" of the series. If you didn't knew what Ravenloft is and that other books in the series exist, and you saw Knight of the Black Rose on the shelf, coud it tell you it's gothic horror?

Knight of the Black Rose was my introduction to the setting. So I really didn't know about the whole gothic horror thing going in. I came to the setting by way of Dragonlance. What I did know was it looked brooding and sinister, and Soth was such a dark and terrifying character that it had my interest as a horror fan. The other issue was, I was simply not as into fantasy as a lot of my other D&D friends. I read plenty of that stuff, but my interest was always more on the horror side of things. So I bought the book having heard of Ravenloft and being sold by the cover that taking the plunge into it looked promising.

But none of this is to say consistency of the line wasn't important. Or that the gothic mood struck on that cover and subsequent covers weren't vital. And even though I didn't have the language for it at the time, that is the mood the cover evoked for me (it is dark, clearly horror, but has a romantic and atmospheric quality to it).

The look of the line was one of the things that helped establish its atmosphere. Knight of the Black Rose was very consistent with the gothic horror mood and theme; and consistent with the line (it is an early book but my memory is Black Box and Feast of Goblyns were already out, as was Vampire of the Mist.) Vampire of the Mist came out the same year as Knight of the Black Rose so I could be wrong on that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The stone castle arch with it's guttering torch are pretty gothic tropes, so I would say yes. And the font "Ravenloft" is written in is actually called Gothic.

Soth's burning eyes mark it out as horror rather than romance.

There is a scene with a ghostly knight in the Castle of Otranto, that takes place in a castle. I may be hazy on the details, but I would agree very in keeping with the genre. Moody landscape that instills awe and gothic architecture are part of the genre.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I dunno. I'm 56, and by the 90s I was grown up and battling depression, so grimdark was the last thing I needed.

That is fair. I would tell someone to play in a setting they don't like or makes them uncomfortable. I mean some people can't watch horror movies for this reason and it is a perfectly reasonable opinion. But do keep in mind, plenty of people who are depressed also resonate with dark stories, gothic settings and songs in minor keys. So I think this sort of thing will vary a lot from individual to individual

 

[Bedrockgames]

But you could always have a warforged with a human skin stitched over it's mechanical parts. It's easy enough to refluff appearances, and that seems pretty horrific to me.

I guess my thinking is a dizzying variety of golem already exist in Ravenloft so it would be easier to fold any concept like that into this. I certainly would be very reluctant to have players be war forged (but again that is just personal preference)

 

[Remathilis]

They varied. Some of the writers were actual writers who had successful lines of novels and knew how to writer, some were less experienced or had most of their experience writing for TSR. And of course, no one is saying these books were Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or the House of Seven Gables. They were novels written to help breathe some life into a campaign setting. And that often came with mandates the writers had to adhere to. I always thought Knight of the Black Rose was very well done. And I remembered really enjoying Tapestry of Dark Souls as well. This led me to read the rest of Bergstrom's books (she also wrote the novel Mina: The Dracula Story Continues, and she had a whole line of vampire novels). I, Strahd was also quite good. Heart of Midnight is another I recall being good. It has been a long time since I have read many of these. So I can't vouch for the quality of them all. I do remember Bergstrom being a good writer. And I recently re-read the first sections of Knight of the Black Rose, and that is really well done in my opinion. Knight of the Black Rose is a good example because that is essentially a monster rally book (which I think shows Ravenloft can do sinister horror in a way that still veers into fun, without having the strutting quality of that new cover)). Again, they are TSR novels. They are written with a certain aim. But at the least you can say they are in keeping with the tone and feel of Ravenloft

And then there was Lord of Necropolis and The Enemy Within ...

 

[Bedrockgames]

And then there was Lord of Necropolis and The Enemy Within ...

I am not saying they were all winners lol. I am just saying there were some good books in the line and writers with talent. I honestly don't remember Enemy Within enough to even evaluate it right now. I do recall feeling like they didn't need to do books like that since Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is already a masterpiece. The book on Mordenheim was also kind of weird for that reason. I like having the "Not Doctor Frankenstein" characters in the setting. Not sure they needed novels. In Knight of the Black Rose I thought Strahd's presence worked because of the monster rally angle