Ravenloft Novel Coming in 2025

Penguin Random House will publish a new novel set in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Ravenloft in 2025. A listing for an untitled Ravenloft novel has recently appeared on various book retailer websites, along with Penguin Random House's official website. No author was named in the listing, but a description for the book states that it will feature the infamous Count Strahd and potentially other Domains of Dread as well. The book will have a recommended retail price of $30 and will be released in April 2025.

Penguin Random House has upped their Dungeons & Dragons novel releases in recent years, with books set in the Dragonlance, Spelljammer, and Forgotten Realms settings. While some books (such as the recently completed Dragonlance Destinies trilogy) have featured classic writers, other books have used contemporary fantasy authors and are geared more toward a mix of existing, new, and casual D&D fans. Some characters from the Fallback novels have also appeared in art slated for the 2024 Core Rulebook release. Given that we're getting more D&D novels, it seems this new line of licensed novels is a success for Penguin Random House.

You can check out the description of the new Ravenloft book below:

Journey to the Domains of Dread and face the fearsome Count Strahd von Zarovich in this upcoming official Dungeons & Dragons novel!

A group of adventurers must fight their way through a dark and twisted realm known as the Domains of Dread, where powerful darklords rule over worlds filled with supernatural horrors.

 

[Dire Bare]

Moving Soth to Ravenloft was getting him out of the corner: Post-Legends Dragonlance was pretty much forbidden territory awaiting the hoped-for return of Weis & Hickman to the setting, and AIUI, the "Dargaard Keep" adventure in DL16 more or less wrote Soth out of the setting anyway. He got to do more in Ravenloft than he had in Krynn for years prior, or even would after his much-ballyhooed return. (Soth was supposed to have a much bigger role in the pre-Weis & Hickman and apparently the original-W&H versions of the War of Souls, but the story as it finally unfolded wound up relegating him to a single chapter in Dragons of a Vanished Moon.)

While I respect those who wish Soth had remained a Dragonlance only character, I'm also a fan of his Ravenloft incarnation. I really enjoyed the Ravenloft novels focusing on Soth, and I enjoyed his realm and story.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Both are true. The novels kept TSR afloat in the short term, but killed it in the long term.

The novels were popular because they tied into a popular game, but as TSR neglected the game to focus on the novels, so the popularity of the game fell, so the popularity of the novels fell.

These days WotC are not producing novels, but they are willing to sell the license for other people to do it.

TSR's Spellfire and other cash grab card games, along with a very specific return policy from that period of time that let retailers send back unsold product for a refund are what killed it. The novels had nothing to do with it.

 

[Necropolitan]

Anyone who's a fan of Lord Soth in Ravenloft should read issue 3 of the The Worlds of Dungeons and Dragons comic. It adapts the short story The Rigors of the Game from the Tales of Ravenloft anthology and it perfectly captures his energy.

 

[Dire Bare]

TSR's Spellfire and other cash grab card games, along with a very specific return policy from that period of time that let retailers send back unsold product for a refund are what killed it. The novels had nothing to do with it.

Not true.

TSR made a lot of bad decisions regarding all sorts of stuff, novels included. Novels were also overproduced, and bookstores could rip the covers off and return just the covers for a refund. This isn't limited to the books sold by Random House and TSR, but it was a part of the mess that brought TSR down finally.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I hope this novel does well. I'd like to see more novels from all the settings get published.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

Not true.

TSR made a lot of bad decisions regarding all sorts of stuff, novels included. Novels were also overproduced, and bookstores could rip the covers off and return just the covers for a refund. This isn't limited to the books sold by Random House and TSR, but it was a part of the mess that brought TSR down finally.

When TSR started our with the Dragonlance novels, in the 80's, they specifically sold them as "trade paperbacks" which could not be "stripped" but had to be returned for credit. This not only stopped this from happening it meant that the Dragonlance novels were competing for sales numbers with books that cost two to four times as much. This was a large part of what pushed them to the top of the sales charts, which got them much more attention, and thus even higher sales. [Source = I was in charge of returns at my local [Anchorage, AK] B Dalton bookstore in the 80's and I still remember.]

In the 1980's "strip covers" as the return policy for mass market paperbacks was, from my ground's eye view at least, generally working adequately for both publishers and for bookstores. It was not until later that this started to cause problems for both of them. This is part of the reason why bookstores have so many fewer mass-market paperbacks these days.

 

[Von Ether]

From her Wikipedia "Some of her fantasy has been written under the name Lila Bowen. She has also written erotica as Ava Lovelace"

I'm suddenly a lot more interested.....

On a more serious note, I encourage people to look up the authors of media tie-in novels if you really loved their work. You will probably find more stuff you'll enjoy.

While some may think this is obvious, I had a friend who loved certain IP and wanted me to read a great book he had found in that IP. Curious, I asked him what else the writer had done. The answer back was, "I don't know and why would I care?"

 

[Von Ether]

TSR's Spellfire and other cash grab card games, along with a very specific return policy from that period of time that let retailers send back unsold product for a refund are what killed it. The novels had nothing to do with it.

Before the book stores got an three month exclusivity deal, selling the novels in the game store as the adventures were also coming out were a big draw. So the two different departments actually complimented each other.

As for the fall of TSR, that probably had more to do with the company treating the chain book stores as an ATM machine through a weird contract to produce boxed sets that lost money and then the have the chickens come home to roost afterwards.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On a more serious note, I encourage people to look up the authors of media tie-in novels if you really loved their work. You will probably find more stuff you'll enjoy.

While some may think this is obvious, I had a friend who loved certain IP and wanted me to read a great book he had found in that IP. Curious, I asked him what else the writer had done. The answer back was, "I don't know and why would I care?"

I remember the days when Alan Dean Foster wrote all of them.

 

[ChoomInCT]

What new FR novels do we have other than the Drizzt novels?

The two movie tie-in novels