Sithicus.
First, it's worth mentioning that I haven't read Spectre of the Black Rose, the novel that removes Soth from Ravenloft and sets up the new darklord. So I can really only talk about how it was before and after, the mechanics of the transition aren't something I know about. But I think it's fairly public knowledge that Soth was returned from Ravenloft to Dragonlance for the benefit of the latter setting rather than for the former. I vaguely remember it was a move driven by Weis and Hickman, wanting their creation back in their world. The Gazetteer talks about the 'Black Rose' as the ex-darklord rather that referring to Soth by name, even though it's happy to talk about Nuitari and Paladine, so I don't think there's a copyright issue there, or if there is, it's limited to Soth specifically rather than broader Dragonlance concepts.
The hole where Soth used to be stands out in this chapter like a pimple on someone's nose that you can't bring yourself to look away from.
I know i've been trying to avoid harping on the dodgy population numbers, but it's just so egregious here I kinda can't help myself. We're told Sithicus has a population of 4300, of which around 2% are human. Then we get a further breakdown of the human population by ethnicity, so we've got 35% Kartakan and 30% Gundarakite right down to 5% Sithican, 4% Barovian and 1% other. For those following along at home who don't have their calculators handy, that means there are 86 humans in Sithicus, of whom approximately 4.3 are native Sithican, 3.4 are Barovian, and (drumroll!) there is 0.86 humans of 'other' ethnicity. Jeez, I'm glad we spent word count clearing that up. Despite this, the chapter insists on discussing this trivially minute human population of the domain as if they're a significant demographic, rather than just utterly ignoring their existence as previous chapters have done for similarly-sized demihuman populations in other domains.
Geographically, the place is drawn interestingly and evocatively. There is an atmosphere of slow decline here, of loss and neglect and mourning. The forests that cloak most of the domain are think with massive, ancient trees that are heavy with rot, and choking thickets of bramble and thorn, but no green shoots or young saplings. There's shades of Richemulot in that the elven cities are far larger than their current population requires, and even in the occupied areas are succumbing to slow ruin, mildew creeping across the white marble, fungi sprouting between the golden paving stones, ancient arcane libraries where a king's fortune worth of tomes are illegible with mould and slime. Silken flags are matted down with cobweb, and rather than fiery prancing steeds, the elven warriors plod forth mounted on giant stag beetles. There is an air of regret and guilt in the place, a sense of things lost and squandered that can never be regained. It's even mechanically enforced, visitors get penalised on their perception and initiative rolls as they're continually assailed by their own consciences and recall their guiltiest memories obsessively.
The centre of the domain is scarred with a great chasm, miles wide and long, full of unnatural shadow. In a peak in the middle of the chasm stands the ruins of Nedragaard, Soth's keep. This is apparently all that was left after the events of Spectre of the Black Rose.
The city-dwelling elves are numerically and culturally dominant here. They fit the domain's feel perfectly, a long-lived people, heavy with lassitude and weariness, intriguing tiredly among each other and against Azrael with no hope of things ever getting better, waiting for themselves and their civilisation to die. There's still the recognisable detritus of an arrogant, beautiful Dragonlance-derived high elven society here; there's temples of Paladine (who no-one worships here any more), and the half-forgotten forms and rituals of the wizards echo Dragonlance's tripartite moon-linked magic system. It's a hell of an evocative setting and it's by far the best and most atmospheric element of the domain. There's a relatively small population of wild elves living a stone-age nomadic existence in the forest amid rumours of cannibalism, and a village full of vampiric kender (the word 'kender' is never used, and the book talks about how most halflings who enter the domain end up as one of them, but we know what they are...) that's more of an adventure site than a settlement to visit.
Nominal ruler of the place is Azrael, Soth's old dwarf werebadger offsider, and there's lot of problems with him. He's supposedly an iron-fisted tyrant and the book talks about his military and his court and his legal system and his secret police, but it's always in context of these organisations being used against the elves, who basically run their own fossilised, sclerotic society while nominally bowing to his rule. But elsewhere it talks about how his power rests on a dwindling handful of unscrupulous outsider sellswords and his own not-inconsiderable ability to murder people in the face. But who ARE these court and military of Azrael's? Are they human, elves? We hear a lot about them, but when the book talks about the actual populace of the place, it treats elven society and Sithican society as synonymous, neglecting Azrael's people entirely.
Azrael himself is a discordant note in the domain, and I think he's meant to be. This filthy chancer of a dwarf rattling around in his bone chariot ordering people around and swilling raw spirits, seeking relevance and attention through obnoxiousness and butchery, while the elves try their utmost to ignore him and get on with their glum business of lethargic decline. He's utterly unscrupulous and uncouth and out of his depth and as doomed as hell, but he's going to kill a lot of people in the meantime. I do wonder why he's never seemed to have created other werebadgers though? I'm a bit ambiguous about him - he's got story potential, but he's more of a leftover of the novels rather than a useful thematic element of the domain itself. I guess that like the rest of the domain, he looks back on a lost golden age, only his is when Soth ruled, not that he'd ever admit it to himself.
Inza the darklord is one I think I'd need to read Spectre to get to know. She's the daughter of Magda from the first Ravenloft Soth novel (all we know about her father is that he was murdered way back when Duke Gundar was a thing, before I found the one line about that I was wondering if they were setting Inza up to be another child of the Gentleman Caller), and she's evil because she's evil and she likes doing evil all day, with a bit of a break for some evil before afternoon evil tea. She murdered her mother, and plotted with Azrael to overthrow Soth and then betrayed him, and it's all a bit confusing, and there was an Invidian invasion of Sithicus involved, and she ended up a cursed shadow-creature tied to the shadows of the great chasm and the realm's new darklord once Soth returned to Ansalon (or got blown to nothingness, as far as the Sithicans know). Maybe I need to read the novel, but Inza comes across as motiveless and uninteresting, and even the writers of this book seem to have thrown up their hands in confusion about what to do with her, they've got her enjoying 'tempting the weak to evil and punishing those who do good and selfless things', which is eye-rolly and basically a complete cop-out surrender as far as I'm concerned, but I guess they had to work with the hand that Spectre of the Black Rose dealt them.
There's a small band of resistance fighters here, opposing Inza, comprised of (I think) the remnants of Magda's Vistani band plus a few hangers-on. One of them is a stone giant - anyone know if he's a native or whether he came from another world via the mists? There's very few giants in Ravenloft at all, and no other stone giants as far as I know. Also noteworthy - Nabon the giant seems to have been adopted or inducted into the Wanderers, which is, if you look at it the right way, a very rare pre-5e example of Vistani-dom being a bestowed quality rather than a genetic thing. So there's that - a canonical precedent for Vistani to be an association or profession rather than a Romani stereotype...
There's no way to get around it, Sithicus needs Soth. Even if he spends most of his time in his castle staring into his magic mirrors, it needs him. The place's whole theme of regret and decline and being paralysed in one's own memory even as it blurs and cracks around the edges is all Soth. His curse was to be forever stuck in his own past, living through the might-have-beens and chewing over his own resentments and failures forever even as the rest of the world moved on and past and forget who he had ever even been. This is Sithicus, it's a Alzheimer's domain, where there's no future to look forward to and the past is the only thing that's real and even the past can't be relied on because your memory and guilt will lie to you about it. Inza is a nothing darklord who has nothing to do with the themes of the domain. If I'd have been designing Sithicus I'd have fought hard for the new darklord to be a shadow or reflection of Soth from one of his magic mirrors, adding an extra layer of unreliability to his own memories as he fought against the suspicion that he wasn't real and the recollections he was cursed with weren't even his. And maybe one night a month under Nuitari, Sithicus could be whole again, the forests verdant and sun-dappled, the elven cities bustling and elegant, as Lord Soth, Knight of the Rose, rode forth with his companions ... but it's all a collective hallucination or memory, spawned from Soth's broken mirrors, as he runs through his resentments again in his mind, trying to ensure that This Time everyone else (who were responsible for what went wrong, of course...), get it right and things work out as he'd planned.
As an adventure site - it's usable, but the big attraction for me is the atmosphere that just drips off the page. There's not really many plot hooks or things to do here, unless you get tangled up with Azrael (which you almost certainly will). Sithicus is a domain still putting itself back together after a novel happened to it, not a domain designed for gaming in. Metaplot roadkill. You'll basically have to do the work yourself. Any elf-related plot could lead here, given this is the elf capital of the Core basically, and the fact there's actual arcane libraries (debased as they are) operating publicly here could attract wizards and researchers from everywhere if they knew about it or needed to hunt up one clue to a greater mystery. Mind the Mending cantrip in 5e though, all those precious rotting tomes and fungus-encrusted spellbooks might not be tragically lost for much longer once PCs arrive. The big Sithicus Quest is to ... help the Wanderers overthrow Inza I guess, but it's really hard to care about anything to do with her. As a part of a wider living campaign setting, I do like it. It's such a vivid horror take on your standard high-fantasy elven society. The horror of old age, when you're an elf and your geriatric years might last centuries, is a really nice angle. It'd be a fascinating place to travel through, the guilt effect of the domain gives you the chance for some interesting character moments. Have to admit though - I would have put a dragon here. An ancient, hoary, wicked red (hell, make IT the darklord if you really can't use anything even vaguely Sothlike...). Because there really should be one in the Dragonlance domain, and there is legitimate horror potential in a dragon that Ravenloft leaves largely untouched.
Random PC generator gave us paladin, which is an odd one for Sithicus. But a paladin of the Ancients could fit well into Sithican elven society - a gesture towards remembered nobility, a dedication to ancient lost things, and a tie to the brambly forests of the domain. So our PC wears a combination of rough-tanned furs with the patched remains of once-fine elven travelling gear, while the workmanship of her sword and circlet are a reminder of what could once be made, but is now forgotten. Do lightly armoured Dex-based finesse-weapon paladins function ok in 5e? I've never tried...
Paladins have had a mixed time in Ravenloft historically - in Domains of Dread there were no native paladins at all, and if you wanted to play a paladin your PC had to be sucked in via the mists from Faerun or somewhere. And half their spells and abilities were nerfed to hell to avoid spoiling mystery plots, and their paladin mounts were usually evil. In 3e things weren't much better for them. I suspect none of this will be the case in 5e - if they're going to support playing a frigging half-vampire warlock with a fiend pact and an imp familiar in Ravenloft, then I can't see them waggling their finger sternly at the concept of a paladin.
Next we start Gazetteer V with Nova Vaasa.
