D&D General [Ravenloft] A Post-Strahd Land of Mists

[Libertad]

It's no secret that Strahd von Zarovich is Ravenloft's most iconic villain. But just about every Edition features adventures centering around his death, with 3rd and 5th at the end of short campaigns. In some cases there are bittersweet and even happy endings, where the dread count's pall over Barovia fades, and the realm either exits from the Demiplane of Dread or finds itself with a better future.

This thread is for those who ran and played in Ravenloft campaigns, where such adventures were past canon and the current PCs were veterans of that tale or merely a new set of adventurers aware of prior events. What came of the land of Barovia? How did the defeat of the first and one of the most powerful Darklords affect the land and surrounding domains?

 

[Voadam]

I haven't fully locked down the cannon for my 5e homebrew world Carrion Crown gothic horror adventures but one possibility is this type of history scenario.

I run a mashup campaign using elements from a bunch of settings including Ptolus and Golarion and the campaign was set in the cursed Ustalav province of the Holy Lothian Empire. Ustalav is a gothic horror nation setting from Paizo and the Carrion Crown is a gothic horror themed adventure path set there.

In the course of the adventure PCs were using the narrative elements of the 2e Van Richten's guide out of copies they recovered in game. Ravenloft was at one point the past of my Ustalav. Whether Barovia still existed as a hidden and lost county of Ustalav remained to be seen and was a possibility I was considering.

Strahd having been killed and the demiplane core being broken with parts ending up in my world's Ustalav with big curse impact on the land is a fun alternative concept and provides a possibility for why the land there is cursed.

 

[Faolyn]

In my perpetual rewrite of CoS, I plan on having Inajira take the place of the random arcanoloth in the Amber Temple and, in disguise, try to enlist the PCs help. I figure he'd make a great substitute Dark Lord, should the PCs actually kill Strahd, if only because he really doesn't want to be tied to Barovia.