Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd Cover, Synopsis Revealed

More details about next year's D&D novel has been revealed.

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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.

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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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
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.
The folks at Critical Role know what they've got and I think there's almost zero chance that Hasbro would purchase it at the price that would be asked.
 

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Remathilis

Legend
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.
Have you seen the past 20 years of media? The sequels, requels, and prequels that litter Hollywood, gaming and music? Every company of moderate or larger is so risk adverse that all they have is defiled corpses to sell. The same two dozen media properties recycled endlessly. It's absolutely not weird, it's what people are buying.
 

Scribe

Legend
Have you seen the past 20 years of media? The sequels, requels, and prequels that litter Hollywood, gaming and music? Every company of moderate or larger is so risk adverse that all they have is defiled corpses to sell. The same two dozen media properties recycled endlessly. It's absolutely not weird, it's what people are buying.

I mean how sad is that? A company with no meaningful competition, access to more capital to anyone in the space, and anyone looking to make their name would jump at the chance to work for them.

"We cannot do better than 25+ years ago, we peaked."

Sad.
 


Dire Bare

Legend
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.
"Your" setting? Whatever.

Classic D&D settings from the 70s, 80s, and 90s don't belong to "you". Plenty of us who grew up on these settings are perfectly happy with the changes. Myself, for one.

"Ruining"? Nah. Improving.

If WotC did start releasing newer settings and ignoring older settings, cranky fans would complain about that too.

I suspect that the number of old-timer fans upset with WotC "ruining" classic settings is a small . . . but loud . . . subset of old-timer fans.
 


Kurotowa

Legend
But ... but the characters apart from the token human are an orc, a tiefling, and a drow! That's DARK and EDGY!
The thing is, they're all playing against type. The orc is a Wizard, the tiefling is a Paladin, and the drow is a Barbarian. Even the kenku is a Cleric, which isn't their stereotype. There's a deliberate choice, and rather different than the old days.
 


You wouldn't say the same if Jane Volturi appeared wearing a black hood and with (adult) Dakota Fanning's face.

My theory is the group is going to survive because the intention is these to appear in a second novel (maybe in Darkon). And maybe some touch of dark comedy were added.

If they wanted to publish something more focused toward true horror, then they would it would be a compilation of short stories with a lower survival rating of characters.

* Now I am thinking in the movie "Ready or not", in certain way it had got its own Ravenloft vibes. The 2022 movie "The invitation" and 2015 "Crimson Peak" (maybe this was closest to classic old-school gothic horror). The TV show "From" also has got its special touch.
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
"Your" setting? Whatever.

Classic D&D settings from the 70s, 80s, and 90s don't belong to "you". Plenty of us who grew up on these settings are perfectly happy with the changes. Myself, for one.

"Ruining"? Nah. Improving.

If WotC did start releasing newer settings and ignoring older settings, cranky fans would complain about that too.

I suspect that the number of old-timer fans upset with WotC "ruining" classic settings is a small . . . but loud . . . subset of old-timer fans.

I don't claim any ownership of the setting. But I think fans are allowed to critique these things and I would agree with the poster that the setting has been getting worse under WOTC (though in fairness I wasn't a huge fan of how S&SS handled it during d20 either---there it just felt to WoD to me). I did like Curse of Strahd. It wasn't how I like to do Ravenloft, but that was a well done take in my opinion. But from Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft to this, I just don't think the changes they made were for the better (and they think in many instances they undermine what worked about the setting for me). Of course, if you find it an improvement, then that is fair. I am not saying my opinion matters more. But I also am not going to lie and say I love these changes or that I love the way they are handling it (especially when I see a cover like this: and art always mattered a lot in Ravenloft....I am even critical of the art and look of the line in the late 90s when I think it started to have problems a)
 

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