RavenLoft series

[TaSSaDaR]

I have recently read "I, Strahd" book, and it was very good. So now I wonder, what are the major books about RavenLoft world, and what are the names of authors?
And, if you know where to download full versions of them from the Internet, please drop a link! I will be most grateful!

Thanks.

[Rimjaw]

I'm not acquinted with Ravenloft although gamers I know who use the setting swear by it. If you read Dragonlance then check out Knight of the Black Rose because it features a crossover by Lord Soth.

[Morgeruat]

www.kargatane.com is the official ravenloft website, the book review section is very helpful, I've read alot of ravenloft books, and some I can recommend, are both I strahd books, (the 1st one, and the second one is subtitled "the war against azalin" Lord of the Necropolis (although I'd save it for last as it gives away the true nature of the dark powers and is therefore disliked by many fans of Ravenloft, and considered "unofficial" by the official website, because of this fact, the nature of the dark powers invites discussion and theory, but should never be known, even to DM's.

other works that are notably good are the Jander Sunstar book "Vampire of the mists" (another tale of Jander is in the "Realms of Infamy" forgotten realms novel.

"Knight of the Black Rose" is a good one about Soth, with enough of Lord Strahd Von Zarovich to keep it fun.

"MordenHeim" is subpar, it took me a really long time to get into the book, and the only character I could really relate to was the monster hunter, otherwise it's a below average retelling of Mary Shelly's "Frankenstien"

"Tales of Ravenloft" is a collection of short stories about ravenloft, it has some good parts, and some bad ones, but is worth reading overall.

"Spectre of the Black Rose" is a continuation of Lord Soth's (I tend to use ravenloft terms as it seems more fitting) adventures in ravenloft, a very dark tale, very good, but it leaves something to be desired, I'm not quite sure what, but it's based on an adventure where Soth finally escaped back to Krynn (in one of the possible endings)

"Dance of the Dead" is one of the best ones out there, for conveying the mood of ravenloft, and one of it's most powerful darklords (the reason his domain is not part of the main landmass in ravenloft is because he wills it to be so)

many of the gaming supplements also detail the characters in the books (champions of the mists details Gondegal the Lost King (you may remember him form the books picked up in BG1 and 2) and several of the characters from the books, "Children of the Night: Vampires" also gives game stats to Jander Sunstar, and details what happened to him after "Vampire fo the Mists"

any more specific questions I'll try to answer as I recieve them.

{edit}one more note: fantasy as a whole (and shared world books esp.) tend to lack alot of the skill and great writing prevalent in other genres, and ravenloft seems to suffer more from this than most other TSR(WotC) books, so finding something great becomes a herculean effort, but there are some fun, books out there, like I said check out the review section, some of them are quite lengthy, but are excellent for determining whether something is your style or not

[ 09-25-2002, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]