Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd Review

Like many Ravenloft tabletop adventures, five adventurers are plucked from the realms by the mists to find themselves in Barovia. As usual, Strahd sends one of his minions to invite the newcomers to his castle to enjoy his hospitality, a.k.a. for Strahd to mess with their minds and tempt them.

The characters are:

• Rotrog: An arrogant Orc wizard apprentice
• Kah: A shy Kenku cleric from Waterdeep
• Fielle: A cheerful human artificer from Baldur’s Gate
• Alishai: A moody, hot-tempered Tiefling paladin to Selune
• Chivarion: A good-natured Drow barbarian with a hairless tressym named “Murder” as his pet.

Over the course of the novel, you discover that each one was taken when they were faced with a terrible choice or were poised to take an awful action. That sets the stage for the crux of the novel—which character(s) will succumb to either Strahd’s temptations and/or the malevolent energy of Barovia, embracing their darkest impulses.

Should You Buy It?​

I found Heir to Strahd interesting because while it presented elements of Barovia that Ravenloft players and DMs will be very familiar with, not everything was what I had expected, even though I’ve GM’d Ravenloft adventures. The spirit of Tatyana most notably was presented in a way I did not expect based on the prior information I had read.

I don’t want to explain too much about Tatyana, and how she factors into the plot because it could ruin the mystery of who falls prey to the darkness to become the titular character. I will say that I suspected the doomed character at first, then talked myself out of it, assuming it was a feint to distract from another option. A later character reveal reinforced my original suspicion, but I still thought there might be a twist to go in the another direction. There wasn’t but instead of being unsatisfying, the ending makes me eager for a sequel.

Regardless of how one feels about the mystery and certain aspects of the ending, this Ravenloft novel can be very useful for anyone thinking of DMing an adventure set in Barovia. Dawson, the author of a few Star Wars novels and several fantasy novels, not only sets the tone very well for Barovia but also shows how Strahd could be played by a DM. The audiobook in particular showcased how even a simple conversation with Strahd can be equal parts charming and sinister.

For those who like or prefer audiobooks, the narration by Ellie Gossage was very good. It’s also available in hardcover and ebook editions.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd: B+.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Ravenloft fiction line was, initially, carefully coordinated with the game material. That changed after 1993 or 1994, but initially there was a lot of coordination. And the fiction generally far, far outsold the game material. Both Vampire of the Mists and Knight of the Black Rose sold well over 150,000 copies, just in English—probably getting close to 200,000 copies each now, since they continue to sell as ebooks and audiobooks—and were translated into several languages around the world. The game material did not move anywhere close to those numbers.

Well, I have the whole line, but those were my two favorites of the novels. Knight of the Black Rose in particular has a special place in my heart, so thank you for writing it.

 

[JLowder]

The debates running throughout the thread on what Ravenloft as a setting or brand is supposed to be are not new. Not long after the boxed set was released and writers outside the original team (Bruce Nesmith, Andria Heyday, and Bill Connors in Games, and me over in the Book Department) started working on the roster of RPG supplements and fiction, there were many, many discussions about whether the line should be primarily horror-fantasy or fantasy-horror (the latter dubbed "Doveloft" by the folks who wanted the line to be the former). Each new person who came in had an opinion and influences they wanted to cite in their work. That debate is fairly common with shared worlds, really, and to be expected with Ravenloft because of the setting's roots.

As others have noted, Ravenloft is a D&D setting, not an independent world or game, and the D&D mechanisms are structured to support heroic fantasy narratives. That will always color how the stories play out as game material. Inasmuch as the older fiction moved away from that, it was being less faithful to the RPG. I am okay with that. To me, there should be room in the various D&D settings for different approaches to the material, and the fiction provides an opportunity to tell not-game stories with the IP. New narrative styles and media informed the Ravenloft (and Realms and Dragonlance and...) fiction, just as they are informing the new book. The settings will petrify if they can't allow creators to bring in new perspectives and influences.

The packaging and content of the new novel leans into the RPG identity. It looks like the current incarnation of the game. Makes sense. The more the fiction does not reflect the game, the more likely it creates a clash of expectations for the audience. That doesn't mean every RL product or story (game or fiction) has to adhere to this approach. But no one should be shocked at this option being chosen for the first new book in a while. Ideally, there will be room in the future for other styles of Ravenloft story, but that doesn't mean this approach is wrong or unfaithful to the setting.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The Ravenloft fiction line was, initially, carefully coordinated with the game material. That changed after 1993 or 1994, but initially there was a lot of coordination. And the fiction generally far, far outsold the game material. Both Vampire of the Mists and Knight of the Black Rose sold well over 150,000 copies, just in English—probably getting close to 200,000 copies each now, since they continue to sell as ebooks and audiobooks—and were translated into several languages around the world. The game material did not move anywhere close to those numbers.

Was there any settings back in the TSR days where the RPG outsold the novels?

 

[JLowder]

Was there any settings back in the TSR days where the RPG outsold the novels?

From 1984 to 1994, I don't believe so.* The average Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels were selling 100,000 copies or more (and many continue to sell okay, thirty+ years later). Ben Riggs posted some hard numbers for Dark Sun, and the Prism Pentad novels each sold several times what the boxed set sold.

The fiction sales numbers generally declined in the mid-1990s through the WotC buyout, and it's possible some of the later series were not as strong as the core lines from the 80s and early 90s. But they still likely outsold the RPG products.

* On second thought, Buck Rogers might be the exception. There were releases books in the fiction line were the company printed so few, we did not even get office copies in the Book Department. I don't know about all the RPG releases from that era.

And if you consider The Tainted Sword a D&D book and compare it to the core 2E rulebooks, the fiction sold fewer copies than the core RPG books. But if you consider it a Mystara book, the fiction likely outsold the average Mystara RPG releases.

 

[Distracted DM]

The Ravenloft fiction line was, initially, carefully coordinated with the game material. That changed after 1993 or 1994, but initially there was a lot of coordination. And the fiction generally far, far outsold the game material. Both Vampire of the Mists and Knight of the Black Rose sold well over 150,000 copies, just in English—probably getting close to or passing 200,000 copies each now, since they continue to sell as ebooks and audiobooks—and were translated into several languages around the world. The game material did not move anywhere close to those numbers.

Wow, thanks for the info and thank you for writing some of my favorite DnD novels!

edit: I really pulled from the Black Rose books when I ran Ravenloft- I even adopted Azrael Dak as an NPC that came to Barovia on behalf of his master, he had tasks for the party that would upset Strahd, and my players really responded to him (I ran it as Soth still being one of the dark lords).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since you are speaking to motivation and claiming special knowledge, you really should be sharing your sources.

A level Economics. It’s the role of a business to maximise profits for it shareholders. It’s in the textbooks, it’s not a secret.

 

[JLowder]

A level Economics. It’s the role of a business to maximise profits for it shareholders. It’s in the textbooks, it’s not a secret.

So you are speculating from the outside based on A-level theory and not any real inside knowledge or actual standing to speak to motivations and goals beyond that, but assigning worst possible and most limited motivations anyway. Got it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So you are speculating from the outside based on A-level theory and not any real inside knowledge or actual standing to speak to motivations and goals beyond that, but assigning worst possible and most limited motivations anyway. Got it.

I know nothing about motivations an goals. I do know a little about business. The reason a business needs to maximise profits is because if it doesn't the shareholders get antsy and the value of the shares, and hence the business, falls. This leaves it vulnerable to hostile takeover (by people who have read the Economics textbooks) or complete collapse. Which, I think, is something similar to what happened?

 

[JLowder]

I know nothing about motivations an goals. I do know a little about business. The reason a business needs to maximise profits is because if it doesn't the shareholders get antsy and the value of the shares, and hence the business, falls. This leaves it vulnerable to hostile takeover (by people who have read the Economics textbooks) or complete collapse. Which, I think, is something similar to what happened?

Your hasty summaries about what WotC or TSR "care about" are nothing but speculation on motive, and in this case, a reduction of complex and even competing motivations of large creative operations to the most simplistic (and caustically framed) hot take. Beyond that, TSR was not a public company—privately held, no public stock. The failure was due largely to mismanagement of debt, leading to the negotiated sale to Wizards. Ben Riggs covers it in Slaying the Dragon. You should give it a look.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

TSR was not a public company—privately held, no public stock

Doesn't make a difference, investors and banks still expect a return.

Your hasty summaries about what WotC or TSR "care about" are nothing but speculation on motive

WotC and TSR are/were corporate entities, not people. They do not have "motives".

caustically framed

There is no implied criticism of your skill as a writer, or your ethics. Anyway, I'm British, so I have a genetic predisposition to sound caustic.

The failure was due largely to mismanagement of debt

Which might not have happened, had people spent more time reading Economics textbooks?

My late father was a bank manager. He was trained, in the 1960s, to assess people aiming to start businesses for loans. He said that the vast majority of people who came for the bank for business loans had no idea what they were doing, and he did everything he could to try an prevent them running up huge debts. But by the 80s, he felt that management where pressuring him to loan out money willy nilly, irrespective of the probability that it would be payed back. Thus, he was unsurprised by the banking collapse that followed. He took early retirement. Okay, that's a vaguely unrelated anecdote.