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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sometimes though you can underestimate your audience. Maybe they jsut want blue teiflings. But this aesthetic is kind of overwhelmign. When Ravenloft first came out as a full setting I didn't know what I wanted twas a subdued gothic horror setting (I grew up on hammer and universal but I was happily consuming stuff like Friday the 13th, Hellraiser and Evil Dead at the time). But the book presented me with a setiting that didnt simply look like Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms , and encouraged me to read classic gothic novels. So they don't just have to spoin feed the audience things they have come to expect in every setting. What made that era of D&D special was the settings. And I think if there is anythign D&D and the new D&D audience can benefit from 2E today, it is the settings

ASorry for the typos, my Enworld is a bit screwy today

You are not going to get a stock price-driven company like Hasbro to say "you know, instead of appealing to contemporary fantasy tastes with our flagship game, we should push what their grandfathers like on them, in the hopes that some of them will come around."

If this aesthetic change really upsets people, they should play OSR games, which are much more interested in the old school aesthetic people are mourning.

Being upset that a company is going where their audience is will always be a futile exercise.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Pretty weird the market leader cannot create anything better than is back catalog and instead gets by trotting out the defiled corpses of past glory.

Major "how do you do fellow kids" energy with every retcon.

At a minimum, it feels like we should be having an Eberron-style attempt to create a new setting. It feels so strange to not see any WotC D&D settings that would obviously appeal to fans of Avatar, etc.

 

[Scribe]

At a minimum, it feels like we should be having an Eberron-style attempt to create a new setting. It feels so strange to not see any WotC D&D settings that would obviously appeal to fans of Avatar, etc.

Yep. I'm not upset they are making the Gen Z edition, I'm annoyed they are ruining "my" settings instead of making something new.

Not that anything can be done about it, but make our own or play OSR/Shadowdark/*borg games.

 

[Guest 85555]

You are not going to get a stock price-driven company like Hasbro to say "you know, instead of appealing to contemporary fantasy tastes with our flagship game, we should push what their grandfathers like on them, in the hopes that some of them will come around."

If this aesthetic change really upsets people, they should play OSR games, which are much more interested in the old school aesthetic people are mourning.

Being upset that a company is going where their audience is will always be a futile exercise.

We are just voicing our opinion because we are gamers and fans of the line. If WOTC doesn't want to listen to it, they don't listen to it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We are just voicing our opinion because we are gamers and fans of the line. If WOTC doesn't want to listen to it, they don't listen to it.

Yes, obviously.

But when you go to the doctor say "it hurts when I do this," the answer is "stop doing that."

If you want a fantasy RPG that looks and feels like the D&D versions you came up with, there has never been a better time to make that switch. There's a huge variety of well-supported OSR games out there and many of them are absolutely fantastic.

 

[Guest 85555]

Yes, obviously.

But when you go to the doctor say "it hurts when I do this," the answer is "stop doing that."

If you want a fantasy RPG that looks and feels like the D&D versions you came up with, there has never been a better time to make that switch. There's a huge variety of well-supported OSR games out there and many of them are absolutely fantastic.

Again we are just offering our criticisms and opinions. I'm not hell bent on them changing how they do things. I know where to get RPGs that fit my taste, but I like having these conversations and I do think it is broadly helpful for people to give their opinions on media (positive or negative)

I weigh in on Ravenloft because I think it is the best setting they ever designed (and they are handling it in a way that really misses its essence---at least for me). So I've been very active in discussions around it (even if I haven't been enthused by recent Ravenloft material)

 

[TiQuinn]

One can like D&D and not like the novels. Or vice versa.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Im actually surprised they haven't found some way to make a deal with Crit Role and make Exandria the flagship D&D setting.

Yeah that would require ownership stuff WotC and Crit Role doesnt want to deal with so have to stick with changing Faerun and everything else.

 

[DarkCrisis]

5E party going through the mists before heading to Strahds castle.

 

[Guest 85555]

5E party going through the mists before heading to Strahds castle.

Now that's a Ravenloft cover!