Anne Rice’s vampire novels were published between 1985 and 1992.
The role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade hit the shelves in 1991.
But Ravenloft rocked the AD&D world waaay back in 1983.
It is safe to place the peak of the vampire craze around ’92. So the Hickmans were almost a decade ahead of the curve. Ravenloft was like an isolated skirmish before the war.
When I am with my old gaming buddies, if I utter the name “Ravenloft,” the guys will remember the map first and foremost, and talk about that. Indeed, tabletop role-playing games’ first ever isometric map struck the imaginations of millions of AD&D players. The actual adventure – not so much.
There was a minor debate on Twitter during the pandemic: was it possible to really “fail forward” in a game of D&D? Some said no, it’s impossible. And I thought, what’s wrong with these people? Fact of the matter is, they kept looking at the whole thing on a micro scale. Of course if you roll a 1 your fighter won’t be able to carry that critical miss over to the next two rounds, but that’s not what a fail forward is. Not at all. Forget the dice. A fail forward is on a macro scale. Always.
I blame the video games mindset for that. If you die in a video game, you respawn at the beginning of the current level – it’s a fail backward, not forward. So, if you can’t fail forward in the [macro] gameplay, what’s a fail forward anyway? It must be on a micro scale then… right?
I can’t imagine how people are unable to grasp such a basic thing.
As an adventure module, Ravenloft wasn’t so good. But Tracy and Laura Hickmans redeemed themselves in 1986 with Ravenloft II.
Simply put, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill is the best fail forward in the history of D&D.
After dying in Barovia, the PCs awaken in Mordentshire. If they die in Mordentshire, perhaps they awaken again in Barovia. It’s a full-on gothic nightmare: which one is real, and which one is the dream? “Through some freakish warping of the cosmos,” even the Dungeon Master doesn’t know…
Before there was the Vampire, there was the Alchemist. Count Strahd Von Zarovich was a good man, a sage, no less, but he was deeply obsessed with the dual nature of the mortal soul. Strahd the Alchemist spent years honing his skills and refining his knowledge. Finally, he built a towering machine called the Apparatus.
This Apparatus embodies the real, literal curse of Strahd.
With his machine, the good Alchemist attempted to “purify” his own soul, but the arcane contraption ended up generating an evil twin, which is referred to as “the Creature.”
The Creature is concentrated, grade A, 100% pure evil. It seized the Apparatus and used its power to transpossess random inhabitants of Mordentshire, effectively replacing them with his own evil minions – wraiths, ghasts, gargoyles, et cetera.
That “transpossessed” gimmick really is at the heart of Ravenloft II. As they explore Mordentshire, the player characters can come across “a rather slow and oafish lad” who is also a wight, or “a charitable, kindly and forgiving woman” who is also a lich! Imagine the role-play here. This is gold.
Just like in the original Ravenloft, a standard deck of playing cards is necessary to run this adventure. This time around it’s not for a fortune-teller, though. The cards are a way for the DM to determine which townsperson has been transpossessed by which monster.
Instead of a fortune-teller, Ravenloft II gives you Doctor Germain d’Honaire, head of the Saulbridge Sanitarium, and a gifted mesmerist. The PCs can choose to be hypnotized by the good doctor in order to gain more clues – or perhaps regain lost memories of when they were in Barovia.
Opinions about Ravenloft II vary wildly. The French gamers call it a pure gem. Tom Zunder loved it, and James Maliszewski, not so much. Some bloggers are still pretty confused about it. The fact that the Alchemist looks like Strahd, bears the exact same name, and has the same title of Count, was not a big enough hint for some people, apparently. They think Ravenloft II is about an alchemist who manages to transfer Strahd into another dimension...
That Alchemist is Strahd Von Zarovich. Ravenloft II is his origin story.
The title of this adventure can be misleading. They wanted to capitalize on I6’s fame, and that’s fine. But this module can be played independently, and even if you haven’t played Ravenloft. If you choose to run it this way, and not to toggle between worlds, then it definitely has nothing to do with Castle Ravenloft. And even the titular House on Gryphon Hill isn’t really central to the story: the Apparatus is no longer there, the Alchemist no longer resides there, the Creature isn’t there, Azalin the Lich isn’t there, and there’s only a 66% chance that the all-important Rod of Rastinon is hidden on the premises.
Even the cover illustration is misleading. The Alchemist Strahd is in love with Lady Virginia, the daughter of Lord Weathermay, but the Creature does not care about her. This was a decision made by the artist
Everything of importance happens on Lord Weathermay’s vast estate, or in town. The encounters are quite tough – this is indeed for 4-6 characters, levels 8-10. A trapper, a lurker above, a band of 83 orcs, 15 ogres, 60 skeletons, 4 quasi-elemental lightnings, and a squad of 28 ghasts, just to name a few. There’s even an angry mob of villagers. Don’t kill Silas Archer, the butcher, and his wife, Violet, simply because they’re “a Mummy and a Groaning Spirit!” How do you intend to explain that to an angry mob, especially since you know that more transpossessed minions are in that mob, and possibly steering it?
Back in 1986 when I ran Ravenloft II, I remember casting Azalin the Lich in the role of mentor to the Creature. The Strahd of Mordentshire isn’t really a vampire in the classical sense. He wasn’t “turned” by another vampire. He was mechanically, alchemically expunged from the mortal body of Strahd the Alchemist. So the Creature is a newborn – only about one month old at the time of the adventure. I had seen Return of the Jedi five times just three years before, and I couldn’t help but perceive Azalin as Palpatine, and the Creature as Darth Vader. And it worked pretty well. We had fun.
Depending on your DMing skills, the adventure’s climax can be truly epic, or a huge clusterfuck of who’s who and what’s what. An out of control Apparatus transpossesses everyone at the same time, quasi-elemental lightnings flit and dance about the machine, Hellhounds and Shadow Mastiffs run wild, the player characters have to face evil, foul versions of themselves, and obviously “the vampire form (actually the Alchemist) springs towards the good Strahd (actually the Creature).”
Running such a scene can be a handful.
But don’t worry if it’s headed straight for a TPK. You can fail forward yet again and have the party awaken in Barovia, Chult, Khorvaire, Ravnica, Livyánu, or somewhere else entirely. After all, this is D&D. Sky (i.e., the Material Plane) is the limit.
“It seemed so real! The great towers of some place called Ravenloft… the misty vales and the terrible tragedy of a man who had sold his soul to unlife. Too much to drink? Och, last night! Perhaps the mutton was not quite done.”