That is probably more of an accurate description. It was just more the surprise of seeing how much of a challenge Ravenloft was, and also me not understanding as a reader how tied to the land Strahd was. Really made me curious about it. I remember devouring the black box after I read Knight of the Black Rose. It was the thing that turned me from wanting more bog standard fantasy as a gamer and seeing the potential in a more horror infused world.
That was the intent, on both fronts.
Soth was used to rolling over everyone and everything and found Strahd was both powerful and tied to his domain in ways that made him more than a standard vampire lord. (In the novel, that material is an attempt to translate the game mechanics into fiction without the sound of the dice overwhelming the story.) Strand would have been in for a similar shock had he ever confronted Soth in Sithicus. Soth and Strahd share a tendency toward monomania, which makes them both susceptible to manipulation. Strahd saw that similarity between them, which he weaponizes, even if he cannot fully recognize and deal with his own flaws.
Lack of self-awareness and a predilection to mistake their (broken) worldview for The Truth are among the most interesting things to explore with villains in fiction--for me, at least. That's the core of the Cyric material I wrote for
Tantras and the entirity of
Prince of Lies, too. In
Knight, the theme of perspective is foregrounded early on, overtly with Caradoc and his broken neck causing him to see the world in a new way; less directly toward the start of the book, where we see Soth's point of view on a battle shown in the original Margaret and Tracy novels. For anyone who has read the original version of the battle, they know Soth's assumptions about the Heroes of the Lance and their actions are simply wrong. But Soth can't imagine another perspective. He exists too much inside his scorched helmet for that.
Anyway, that was the intent. And the comments suggest at least some of that came though. Very happy to hear it!
On the books and the game, for me as the initial Ravenloft series fiction editor, the goal was to publish good fiction with a strong authorial voice, which also showcased the setting and characters. The books should stand alone as good fiction, good stories (which can be a common weakness in some game-related fiction), but ideally encourage people to look at the RPG material, too. The company had done fiction-game crossovers before, of course, but with projects such as Avatar, Empires, the initial Ravenloft line, and Dark Sun (all of which I edited), my goal from 1989 to 1992/3 was more deliberate cross-department collaboration, often with the game material and the novels--along with licensed comics, miniatures, etc--all being created at the same time. That was new ground and quite a creative challenge pre-Internet.
The early Ravenloft fiction line was coordinated with Bruce Nesmith, Andria Hayday, and Bill Connors on the game side. I was reviewing the early game material as it was being designed, too, and contributing my own domain to
Darklords, so it was very much a cross-department effort. It's only been in the last five years or so, with sales numbers Ben Riggs uncovered for his book about TSR,
Slaying the Dragon, that I realized how much the fiction outsold the RPG material (by more than 100,000 copies, for the initial novels, just in English). We were hoping the fiction would reach a wider audience, including non-gamers, and that some would give the setting a try.
Again, that was intent, and the comments suggest it worked as intended for some readers.
In any case, thanks for the kinds words about the books and the line. While far from perfect, we got at least some of what we were hoping to accomplish right.
