Demiplane of Dread

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The Demiplane of Dread is a unique Demiplane - or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interlinked demiplanes - within the Great Wheel cosmology of Dungeons & Dragons. This is the actual "world" in which the campaign setting of Ravenloft is based, and so the name is often used when trying to describe the "Ravenloft world".

The precise origins of the Demiplane of Dread are lost to history. Its creators are enigmatic beings known only as "The Dark Powers", who maintain and defend their creation with mighty magic and jealous zeal. It's believed they have some kind of mutual non-aggression pact with the various gods of the Great Wheel, but nothing canon is ever defined. It is believed to lie where the Ethereal Plane meets the Plane of Shadow, but is able to manifest portals absolutely everywhere, even in places normally restricted to planar portals, such as Athas or the Phlogiston. Such portals usually appear as banks of fog or mist, but will adapt themselves to other sight-obscuring phenomena - and are usually one-way. Getting in is easy, but getting out? That's a whole other story. The only known reliable two-way portal in and out of the Demiplane of Dread is a doorway leading into the World Serpent Inn, whose doorway on the Demiplane's side of things changes every night. If you can't find that, you won't be able to leave unless the Dark Powers will it.

Planar Traits

The Demiplane of Dread's creators have molded the reality of this world into a new fashion, forcibly imposing the rules of Gothic Horror on the setting. There are many ways that this manifests, but some of the more overt:

• Necromancy spells are empowered and rendered more dangerous; spells like Animate Dead will call up more creatures than the caster may be able to control, whilst killing spells usually cause their victims to arise spontaneously as the undead - and often as ones quite pissed off at their killer.
• Divination spells are pretty much worthless; spells that detect moral alignment invariably fail, spells aimed at detecting monstrous species either are unreliable (Detect Undead) or flatly won't work (using True Seeing to look for natural shapechangers), spells that revolve around mental contact risk driving you mad if you accidentally use them on certain inhuman creatures, and in general you can't trust the result of divination spells because the normal awareness of when such a spell has failed doesn't occur in the Demiplane of Dead. Oh, and Scrying type spells create a visible sensory apparatus that can be used to alert your target that you're scrying on them, and even serve as a conduit for things like gaze attacks.
• Conjuration allows entities from other planes to be summoned, but they won't be able to return home when the spell expires. Obviously, quite a few of them will be very upset with their summoner because of this. Even before they figure this out, the binding aspects of conjuration spells are weaker in the Demiplane of Dread, giving summoned creatures a chance to escape its bonds the moment it arrives.
• Spells that directly interfere with the fabric of a Domain, such as manipulating weather, can often attract the attention of the resident Darklord, and who might be able to subvert or negate these same spells if they have related powers.
• Teleportation spells are restricted; you can't use magic to get past closed Domain Borders, and you certainly can't use it to get out of the Demiplane entirely.
• Curses are empowered, and even non-spellcasters can potentially lay deadly or deforming curses on people if their rage or grief is intense enough to catch the notice of the Dark Powers.
• Acts of evil can result in people slowly transforming into monsters, a process called Powers Checks. The worst of the worst can even become Darklords in turn.
• Self-willed undead like vampires can tell if their minds are being read and can choose which thoughts they will project. Depending on the circumstances, this may be a false image passing them off as human- or an up-close look at the most evil parts of their minds meant to drive the would-be mind reader insane.

Mapping the Demiplane

Geo-physically, the Demiplane of Dread consists of various bubbles of reality, ranging in size from a single room to full-fledged countries, all floating in a sea of ephemeral mist; each of these reality bubbles (called "Domains") is typically centered around a Darklord, a villain whose evil caught the eyes of the Dark Powers and so they responded by imprisoning them within the Demiplane. 3rd edition's unpublished splatbook "Van Richten's Guide to the Mists" introduced the concept of Oubliettes, which are basically prototype or abandoned Domains that don't contain a Darklord. A Domain may exist on its own (an "Island of Terror") or be physically coterminous with one or more more other domains, forming what is called a "Cluster". The largest and oldest Cluster in the Demiplane is called "The Core", and this is basically Ground Zero for the setting. Normally, one can simply walk between Domains, but most Darklords have a power called "Raising the Borders", which causes the border of their Domain to become enveloped in a magical field unique to that Darklord that prevents escape in some fashion - some are non-lethal, most will kill you if you try. A rare few can be circumvented by the right esoteric circumstances (for example, undead or constructs can safely walk through poisonous borders like that of Barovia, because they're fundamentally immune to poison), but in general this is the ultimate Railroading tool the DM has to keep you from just saying "fuck this" and leaving the domain.

Precisely why the Dark Powers collect these Darklords is unknown, and theories abound; the Demiplane of Dread has been described as a prison, a gathering place for evil, a grand study into the nature of evil, a unique kind of Hell, or even a Purgatory by various fans.

Another great mystery is the nature of its native population. Some Domains were physically taken from their homeworlds, but most are described as "copies" rather than direct abductions of land. This then leaves players wondering: are the locals actually "real", or are they merely soulless simulacra - props in the grand theater of Gothic Horror tales that the Dark Powers are conducting? Nothing concrete has ever been given.

The Core

As mentioned above, this is the "core" of Ravenloft, the sole normal-style continent where the bulk of the game focuses on. Think of it as something akin to the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms, or Ansalon in Dragonlance. The Core is made up of the following Domains.

Barovia

Cultural Level: Medieval

Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains

Motif: Blatant Dracula Knockoff

Darklord: Strahd von Zarovich

This is the oldest domain in Ravenloft, the literal heart of the Demiplane of Dread. It's ruled by Strahd, and is basically Dracula in D&D.

Borca

Cultural Level: Chivalric

Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Mountains

Motif: Poisoners, Italy under the Borgia Family

Darklord: Ivana Boritsi

Originally, Borca was ruled by the Darklord Camille Boritsi, and was half its present size, sharing borders with the near-identical domain of Dorvini. Ivana poisoned her mother because her mom seduced her boyfriend, and during the Grand Conjunction, her domain and that of Ivan Dilisnya merged together due to their great similarities.

Darkon

Cultural Level: Dark Age to Chivalric

Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills, Plains, Mountains & Swamps

Motif: Generic Dark Fantasy

Darklord: Azalin

Darkon is notable as the most overtly fantastical realm in the Demiplane of Dread, with a relatively huge population of demihumans that sees humans going from the usual 90+% population merit to only 75% as well as the greatest amount of local toleration for arcane magic.

Dementlieu

Cultural Level: Renaissance

Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains

Motif: Renaissance France/Victorian England

Darklord: Dominic D'Honaire

Though not as overtly modeled on London as the domain of Paridon, Dementlieu definitely taps into the Gothic Urban Horror motif, as is made clear by the way it is home to myriad mystical mind-manipulators and the character Alanik Ray, who is basically Sherlock Holmes if he was an elf.

Falkovnia

Cultural Level: Medieval

Landscape: Temperate Forests & Plains

Motif: Military Horror, Fascism, Urban Squalor

Darklord: Vlad Drakov

Slap together Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, paint it up in the most shit-awful and miserable stereotypes of Dark Ages Europe, and have the place be run by a man who melds Hitler with Vlad the Impaler and is so bloodthirsty they'd both be disgusted by him. Falkovnia is outright called the biggest shithole in the Demiplane of Dread.

Forlorn

Cultural Level: Iron Age

Landscape: Temperate Forests, Hills & Plains

Motif: Dreary Scotland with a dash of Brak Man Morn

Darklord: Tristen ApBlanc

A vaguely Scottish Celtic themed domain that nobody gives a shit about because there's nothing in it but killer plants, giant bugs, and goblyns. 3e tried to fix this by adding a small population of native humans, but the overall domain is still a monster-infested backwoods, so nobody fucking cares.

Hazlan

Cultural Level: Medieval

Landscape: Temperate Hills, Mountains & Plains

Motif: Dark Fantasy meets Yellow Peril

Darklord: Hazlik

Essentially a tiny sliver of Thay transplanted into the Demiplane of Dread, where a tiny minutia (the Mulan ethnicity) rules over and brutally represses a far vaster majority (the Rashemani). One of only two places so absolutely shit that The Lawgiver is actually worshipped here.

The Clusters

The Amber Wastes

Motif: Dark Fantasy Egypt

It's Gothic Horror Egypt in D&D. What more is there to say? Its constituent domains are Har'Akir, Sebua and Pharazia.

The Frozen Reaches

Motif: Dark Fantasy Russia

It's basically the frozen wintery hell that everybody imagines that Russia is transplanted into D&D. Its constituent domains are Sanguinia and Vorostokov,

The Shadowlands

Motif: Medieval Dark Fantasy

Intimately tied to a single world, the Shadowlands are made up of three domains that all tie to one lon story of corruption; Avonleigh, Nidala and Shadowborn Manor.