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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 2496959" data-attributes="member: 8461">Monte was the guy who wrote Vecna Reborn, which was, IIRC, the last Ravenloft adventure.I'm really sad to see Ravenloft die...again. I really wish we knew whether this was simply because the license is expiring, or if they're terminating it due to lack of financial success, or what. Also, it's sad that the metaplot that was being developed in the Gazetteers is probably never going to be finished now.Ravenloft has had a fairly rocky history since 3E launched. The Kargatane website was made the official Ravenloft fansite prior to 3E being released, but this was almost immediately halted by SSS licensing the setting, effectively crippling a lot of what the Kargatane was doing (it ended up killing what would have been a great free official adventure they had announced, Death Undaunted, though bits of that later surfaced in some other products).When 3E Ravenloft products debuted, they ranged from really great to really awful. Furthermore, there seemed to be some sort of struggle between the Kargatane and the people at SSS, which didn't seem to go well for anyone. Errata and web enhancements were released on the Kargatane site, and their message board for asking for clarification quickly became bogged down as the "answer guy" there rapidly became angry and disdainful of people who asked questions in the wrong format (some say that was in character, since he went by the handle of Azalin, but even taking that into account things often went too far).As it stands, this is still sad news. I'm definately buying the Ravenloft d20 products I don't already own at Gen Con.The hopeful news is that this isn't necessarily the end, at least not totally. The people at Paizo Publishing have already announced that for Dragon, every January issue will be a "Campaign Classics" issue, like back in #315. That means we'll still get tidbits of Ravenloft material (hopefully of things the d20 materials didn't already cover; #315 gave us some rather lackluster stats for Strahd).Regarding the Ravenloft IP itself...it doesn't seem inconceivable that it might be licensed again. While WotC will probably never relaunch the line, last I heard their policy about old campaign worlds was that they will license them out to third-parties, but WotC demands the right to be the publishers of the campaign setting book (which seems like a sleazy move to me, since those books are the best sellers of a campaign line, and that way WotC would be taking the lion's share of the profits). However, it strikes me as unlikely that someone else would do that if the line didn't do well under SSS...especially since another relaunch of the setting could confuse gamers about the different "versions" of Ravenloft d20.I still don't think this is the end though...somehow, some way, the mists will rise again...</blockquote>

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