I just purchased the Domains of Dread download here and have been looking through the tome, and it has gotten me interested in embarking on a little project--reinvisioning Ravenloft in light of the new 3.x cosmological system.
First I must say I'm a huge fan of what's been done with settings like Spelljammer in its Spider Moon incarnation (introduced in Polyhedron.) The idea of taking what was once a omnisetting mish-mash of different, often painfully clashing, setting themes and breathing new life into it as a setting of its own with a fresh canvas is fascinating. I'd love to see that done with Ravenloft. At the time I thought it was cool that there was, for example, an outpost of Darksun in Ravenloft; now I can see in retrospect that the things that make Athas cool are different than the brooding gothic horror of the Demiplane of Dread. It would be nice to free it from its bonds and let it be its own thing entirely.
So what to change. Well for one, the backstory will need some love. According to the book, Ravenloft was created when Strahd made a pact with Death to get revenge on his younger brother whereupon his Domain became the first, the mists travelling from plane to plane abducting people and transporting them there. New Domains were started by many and sundry characters, as diverse as Lord Soth from Dragonlance, Vecna from Oerth, and a Sorcerer King from Darksun. For the setting to come into its own, Ravenloft needs to be its own place, perhaps fissioned off from Strahd's homeworld long ago, a section of the populace stranded within it to populate it--future Domain Lords being the result of the later generations, natives of Ravenloft, who craved and attained great power?
Another issue is faith and clerics. The convention in the game seems to have been that gods are still able to contact their clerics in Ravenloft, but for some obscure reason have pacted not to interfere, and are subject to veto by the Domain Lords. Not only is this somewhat unsatisfying as an explaination (as it removes much of the central dread of the setting (complete abandonment and isolation) but its removal seems to require the building of a whole Ravenloft pantheon to fill in the gaps of gods from other settings usually worshipped, which in itself is unattractive since the Dark Powers as embodied by the mists are supposed to be the preeminant force in the setting. I thought perhaps, what if the various "gods" and religions of Ravenloft were ruses perpetuated by the Domain Lords and the Dark Powers to create hope and faith in the populace as a means to even further break and torment them as their faith is corrupted or proved ineffectual.
The name of the game with something like this is to change the ideas as little as possible so as not to completely throw out the original setting. Change a god's name here (for example so you don't have gods from the real world, like Ra, showing up) smooth over some campaign setting specific content there (substitute some other corruptive type of magic for "Defiling"), and finally subtly rename and fudge the identities of some of the major crossover NPCs (most notably Lord Soth and Vecna).
I've heard Sword & Sorcery got the license to do Ravenloft, but that for copyright reasons they couldn't keep names of signature NPCs and settings. I'll probably look up what they've done if for no other reason than to have quasi-official (is it?) renamings.
Are domain lords powerful enough to grant spells? If this were the case you could have clerics separated from the gods of their world and only able to recieve power if they follow that which crushes the hopes of the populace. Alternatively, they could be clerics of ideals. I'm not very keen on the idea of religions turning out to be the machinations of evil beings, seems a bit over done. Separating the good their gods is a good way to go though I think. How terrifying can a world be if you have a god looking out for you? Also why couldn't gods just take their followers away from such a place if they were able to contact it anyways? A pact seems like a cop out. Good gods don't tend to pact with evil ones. Just a quick couple of thoughts because I don't know much about the settin, fill me in if I have gone way off base. Hope this helps.
First off, you may be interested to see this coming up later this year:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078693946X?v=glance
White Wolf/Sword and Sorcery lost the rights last year.
I was not a big fan of the 3rd party Ravenloft material exactly for the reasons you cited above. While I will agree that adding Dark Sun into the mix was a bit of a streach, the original inclusion of the "big three" (Greyhawk, DragonLance, and Forgotten Realms) all made sense. Furthermore, when you take the novel line into account, the strongest books, in my opinions were the "I, Strahd" books (no problem there), Vampire of the Mists (which had a Forgotten Realms protagonist), and Knight of the Black Rose (with Soth).
For some reason the Dark Powers will not allow interfereance and can somehow limit the abilities of gods to meddle in their plane. I wouldn't have them granting spells, as it is possible to make someting too hopeless and oppressive, and if the PCs learn that not only do they only have X amount of power coming from their god, they also have worshipping false gods is more of a Cthulhu-eske kind of horror, not the gothic horror that Ravenloft was built on.
On the other hand, you could argue that allowing the gods to just grant spells to their followers does two things.
A) It makes divine caster PCs THE representative of good (if they are) in the setting, which can elicit a lot of good roleplaying, while putting a lot of pressure on them.
B) Knowing that the gods are only trickling out power to them, it does make them feel like the whole world is against them, and they only have a slim chance. If you make it that the plane itself is granting spells, it goes from a feeling like its a slim chance to win out against the dark, to feeling like they are in a trap that they can never change.
And of course, that isn't Ravenloft, that's The Legacy of Kane (sorry, had to throw that in).
First off, you may be interested to see this coming up later this year:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078693946X?v=glance
I was not a big fan of the 3rd party Ravenloft material exactly for the reasons you cited above. While I will agree that adding Dark Sun into the mix was a bit of a streach, the original inclusion of the "big three" (Greyhawk, DragonLance, and Forgotten Realms) all made sense. Furthermore, when you take the novel line into account, the strongest books, in my opinions were the "I, Strahd" books (no problem there), Vampire of the Mists (which had a Forgotten Realms protagonist), and Knight of the Black Rose (with Soth).
Actually, I felt that the Arthaus/White Wolf Ravenloft setting was the best incarnation of Ravenloft yet, and I think that it had a lot to do with not being able to use the old TSR/Wizards setting info. By not being allowed to use the old FR/Greyhawk/DL names and material in their products, Arthaus was forced to make Ravenloft a more unified setting that stands on it's own while still keeping the "patchwork" feel of previous editions. No longer was the focus on trying to escape from Ravenloft back to your home world, becuase you were probably born there and have only just begun to realize that 'something' is wrong with your reality. Take Rudolf van Richten...he is the prime example of a Ravenloft character in the Arthaus incarnation, as he was born in Ravenloft, died there, and spent his entire adult life trying to stifle the evil entities that threatened his world.
That said, I do agree with your assessment of the novel line. the I, Strahd books were the best, followed by the Soth books. And I am looking forward to WotC's Ravenloft book this fall.
But, I still feel that Arthaus' Ravenloft was much better off because they were unable to fall back on the 'prison plane' model that TSR created.
No longer was the focus on trying to escape from Ravenloft back to your home world, becuase you were probably born there and have only just begun to realize that 'something' is wrong with your reality.
Wow. You know I've always wondered--how exactly do you live in RAVENLOFT and not know something is SERIOUSLY wrong. I know they've always been really into that idea (and its found its way into most of the D20 Modern crossovers too) that somehow people just fall into some kind of fugue when supernatural stuff is around. Like the cheery Death Head Tree growing in your neighbors yard or the creepy church down the road with that new tentacle headed minister. It's bugged me in White Wolf too--the whole Hunter: the Reckoning deal that people are under some kind of stupid-spell that makes them completely oblivious to gargoyles flying around and zombies eating their co-workers in the breakroom because their minds just shut it out. Yeah.
Me. I like the idea that the peasants KNOW something is wrong. That's why they don't travel around at night--or much during the fog filled daytime either really. They know, but they're helpless. The guy in the big spooky castle on the craggy mountain is some kind of mist-spawned horror who rides the night breezes as an inky cloud of shadow and takes their firstborn children--they are just impotent against him.
As far as my proposed changes I may just check out the Sword and Sorcery version (which I initially have resisted because I figured giving Ravenloft to the Vampire guys was just going to create a lot of inbred gothy crap--but from what was posted I'm impressed). Mind you my Ravenloft ideas were never to go Cthuhlu with it, since its roots are definitely more into the classical victorian vein. In fact I think the best way to keep it feeling as it should would be to get rid of all the cluttering influences, to axe the stuff from other settings and replace it with things that blend more nicely into the creepy ambiance.
Exactly the way a party consisting of a kender bagpipe player, a half-giant gladiator, a winged minotaur cleric of Thor, and a Lantanese gnomish inventor with a flamethrower would cause it to fall flat on its face.
i too have enjoyed the ravenloft stuff from white wolf i think they did a great job.when i run it for my fellow gamers,they usually let out a 15 min rant of how their going to get korn holed,and how i must be gygaxes son.i have really loved it from the novel part.but i have my complaints about it to.one being they didnt put out any adventures out with it.another being puting certain things into ravenloft such as vecna and the dark sun thing.dark sun was grim enough without putting into ravenloft.but im sure if youll do what i have done and take what you like about ravenloft an make it youre own.youll love it.just dont listen to any of the people who game with me.they would cry and rant,an piss,an moan if i just handed over xp by the truck load.