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RAVENLOFT: HEIR OF STRAHD: Deliliah S. Dawson Dungeons and Dragons Horror to the Page

    By. Flarewolf

                                                                                      

Five complete strangers find themselves brought together by some unknown force and have to learn to be a team to save the day. Sounds like the start to most table top role playing games but this is actually a book! In RAVENLOFT: HEIR OF STRAHD, we follow along as an unlikely group of adventurers try to piece together the mysteries of why they were brought to Barovia, how do they get home, and why does the ruler of this new land, Strahd Von Zarovich, seem so interested in them. 

 

Delilah S Dawson has put out a lot of fantasy stories, writing her own stories as well as using a lot of different IPs. Now she’s put out her first Dungeons and Dragons Novel. She is known for many works including the Blud series of steampunk paranormal romance, the Shadow series of weird West novels, the Star Wars tie in stories Stars Wars: The Perfect Weapon, Scorched, and Star Wars: Phasma as well as many other young adult novels. She known for embracing difficult yet important themes such as gender, self worth, and identity while treating this subject with sensitivity and realism. While dealing with these types of subjects, she is also skilled with comedy as she has shown in the Tales of Pell series that she worked on with Kevin Hearne (Imagine if Monty Python played a DnD game where the DM never says no).

 

In HEIR OF STRAHD, the party consists of Fielle, a human artificer who works at her family’s inn, Kah, a shy but caring Kenku cleric, Rotrog, a studied and proud Orc wizard, Alishai, the quick to anger Tiefling paladin, and Chivarion, the suave Drow Barbarian who is accompanied by a hairless tressym (Magical cat with wings) named Murder. As someone who has played DnD for years, It was nice to see some new class and race combinations and get away from the usual and almost cliche combinations of Orc barbarians and Drow Rangers. For a long time the different races in DND came with very specific bonuses for different stats so you saw a lot of the same kind of party make ups in games and stories. The elf was always good with a bow or was a caster while your front line fighters were always someone bulky like an orc or a dwarf. Back in 2020 Wizards of the Coast dropped that idea and let you apply points how you wanted them and in the new 2024 rules that has changed again. All of this makes you able to build your character exactly how you want them. Maybe you like dragonborn but you wanted to make your character a wizard and not use the +2 to strength, now you don’t have to. It makes for much more interesting characters who still have the most optimized stats (if you’re into that sort of thing). DnD is about making your own story so you should have the freedom to make a character as interesting (or uninteresting) as you want.

                                                 

 

As for the villain, Strahd...I’ve run and played in multiple DnD games featuring this classic BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). He’s been around since 1983 and has made an appearance in every edition of DnD. His realm of Barovia is a combination of everything you'd expect from horror stories ranging from zombies to witches to werewolves to ghosts and of course vampires. The dark powers that control this realm work in mysterious ways and never let their goals be known to anyone. All they aim to do is make everyone suffer.

 

In HEIR OF STRAHD, our ragtag group of heroes find themselves in the middle of a strange land with no idea how they got there or who anyone else is. They all come from far away places but were dragged to this land just as they were about to do something that could potentially alter their lives. After deciding to stick together, they explore the run down area that they found themselves in and are drawn into a fight with some horrifying pig skin zombies, that I will definitely use if I ever run Curse of Strahd again. This fight lets them see that while not all of them are the strongest fighters, they do discover that as a group they can survive. That is a lesson that  they will need when Strahd, the lord of Barovia, invites them to his castle and one by one starts to size up each of his guests. What is he looking for in each of them? Is he the gracious host that he claims to be or does he have darker designs for his guests. You’ll have to read HEIR OF STRAHD to find out. Be prepared for a wild ride of mystery, humor, and plenty of nods to DnD lore and mechanics. Just remember, If a mysterious carriage with no horses appears out of nowhere beckoning you to enter, maybe think twice before stepping inside.