Read for Initiative: Dungeons and Dragons: Ravenloft: The Heir of Strahd
Article by Ed O.
Welcome back to “Read for Initiative” where I, your humble Kaiju, read the nat 20s and critical failures of the D&D canon. This time we’re looking at the brand new novel Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: The Heir of Strahd by Deliah S. Dawson. A special thank you to Random House Publishing who gave a copy of this book to “Kaiju & Gnome” in exchange for an honest review.
Before we jump into it, we need to do a flashback!
Previously on Read for Initiative!
In the land of Barovia there lies a castle in the Mists. A place of horror and terror that even the bravest of adventurers fear to tread. Its name? RAVENLOFT!!! *thunder!*
In this crypt-like fortress resides the undead Baron Strahd. A vampiric Dread Lord, he rules Barovia with an iron fist. When not slaking his thirst for blood, Strahd seeks the reincarnation of his true love, Tatyana. She is his heart’s desire, the only thing he could never possess. In life she was betrothed to his brother and in death a curse keeps her away. Nothing, and no one, will stop Strahd from gaining what he truly wants.
In P.N. Elrod’s I, Strahd we learned all about our favorite Baron’s grim history. The framing device was that Van Helsing, I mean, Van Richten found the Count, I mean, Baron’s diary. Like all diaries it was filled with his wants, his hopes, his dreams, and what boys girls he likes. Van Richten finds out Strahd’s biggest secret. Strahd isn’t the smooth operator like we thought. He’s an incel with a cape.
This newest novel featuring the Ravenloft setting uses that background, but discards the framing device. Now let me be real and vulnerable here, I don’t know anything about the Ravenloft setting outside of what happened in I, Strahd. I’ve never gotten around to playing “Curse of Strahd” with my D&D group, so I think I’m missing a lot of references in this story. There’s a lot of weird “Why is this a thing?” that never gets resolved and quite a few “winks at the camera” moments that feel like they’re referencing everyone’s favorite gags.
It all feels like this book is nothing but a bunch of inside jokes. And that’s okay. I love inside jokes! I hope to be part of one some day!
Enough session zeroing this review. Let’s get into it.
Our story begins in a misty field. Five adventurers lay knocked out, unaware of the PG-13 amount of horror that awaits them. They are awakened by a raven cawing, because if there’s one thing that Barvoia has, it’s style.
These five strangers find themselves in a place they’ve never seen with no idea how they got there. They are from all across Faerun. From Baldur’s Gate to Waterdeep. This is their “you all meet in an inn” moment and we know how that goes… They all immediately begin fighting each other and trying to leave the campaign. It’s so beautiful it would bring a tear to the eye of even the most veteran DM.
We are quickly introduced to our adventuring party. There is Fielle, an artificer who will never artifice. Chivarion, a drow barbarian who is here for a good time, not a long time and his tressym (na-na-na-na-na bat cat!) companion, Murder. Rotrog, the Orc wizard who is just the worst. Alishai the tiefling Paladin with a chip on her shoulder. Finally, to bring the needed heals to the party, we have the kenku cleric, Kah. Sadly the author decided to go with the newer version of the kenku, so Kah won’t be speaking in onomatopoeias. The coward.
Fielle sees a building in the distance and decides that’s where the DM wants them to go. She steps inside and suddenly everyone has to roll initiative! This isn’t an abandoned house! This is a zombie infested buchershop. And you know what that means? You’re right, zombie pig flaps.
The party fails miserably against such a lame excuse for an encounter. Particularly pitiful is Rotrog who accidentally sprays grease on everyone, so the fight devolves into rolling on the ground in slicked pig skin. Ewwww. Being the wizard, and thus the only character that doesn’t have intelligence as his dump stat, Rotrog recognizes a TPK when he sees it. So he bravely runs away.
At this point the DM realizes this adventuring party is going to need some hand holding, so through some contrivances everyone survives! No, they don’t go up a level. What they do get is a lesson on the Hotel California effect of the Mists: No matter how far you run you can’t ever leave.
Reunited because it feels so good, our bands of heroes leave the charnel house to find a mysterious carriage and an even more mysterious elf: Rahadin. He announces to the group that Baron Strahd invites them to Castle Ravenloft. Every player has at least one level of skepticism, so they all clock that this is a terrible idea and refuse to enter the carriage.
Since the entire story needs these “heroes” to get on the stupid carriage the DM shows them who is truly in charge. The group hears in the distance wolves. Where wolves? There wolves! Easily spooked the adventurers climb aboard the railroad… I mean, carriage. And off they go to Ravenloft!
What follows is a series of what can best be described as “DM rolls dice on the random encounter table.” You got your horror classics: mysterious dream, jumpscare monster, bathtub full of blood, creepy murder doll. Then you have a “secret compartment filled with mirrors.” You know, for variety.
Honestly, some of these might be references to the “Curse of Strahd” adventure book. In fact, I hope they are, because they’re just so weird and random. Every chapter is just one “this character has an adventure on their own” moment after another. No real cohesion or plot advancement until about three-quarters of the way through the book when the DM decides they need to go on a fetch quest to beat up not!Frankenstein.
At this point, I’m not going to spoil it any further. This is a new one, and if you want to go see how the power of friendship acquaintanceship coworkers saves the day, then you’ll have to go read it yourself. It has a satisfying end that embraces the horror movie trope of adding a question mark to the epilogue.
Who is everyone?
Fielle is the player that wants to play, but can never actually make it to the sessions. She’s got work or family things. You know, all those unimportant things people use as an excuse to avoid the incredible responsibility that is playing D&D. The DM and the other player, though, really like her as a friend and don’t want to kick her out. So instead, the DM has created a series of one-on-one sessions for her. That way her character is still involved even if she’s not present with everyone else.
Rotrog player is the new guy. This is the player that has never played a TTRPG, but he’s watched enough actual plays to know the ropes. He knows that D&D has two wizard stereotypes: insufferable, arrogant genius, and incompetent idiot. Somehow he combined them into just the worst wizard ever. The poor guy just wants to cast some spells, but he doesn’t know what any of them do. Thankfully, instead of taking a moment to read the spell descriptions in the Handbook, he has friends. They helpfully (in character so it doesn’t count as meta-gaming!) yell at him and tell him what to do.
Chivarion is just here to flirt with his friends. He didn’t realize that everyone was supposed to have a tragic backstory and now it’s too late. He’s here for a good time… And to have uncomfortably awkward conversations about boundaries!
Alishai’s player is using D&D as a substitute for therapy. She’s dealing with parent issues and religious trauma and is ready to make it everyone else’s problem! Because she’s the strongest personality at the table she’s become the team leader. Everyone will regret this.
Kah’s player just wants to make friends and roll dice. They didn’t sign up to play therapist to all these people. Can everyone please just play the game and stop trauma dumping everywhere?!
Overall, I found the book alright. It was definitely aimed to be more D&D and less novel. The story was a series of “well that just happened.” The characters become friends because that’s what’s supposed to happen by the end of a campaign. The horror, characters, and plot were all critical failures, but it passed the entertainment check. At the very least it’s good inspiration for a horror campaign.