at his root, selfish. The tale is timeless and has nothing to do with some of the recent and harmful versions of glittering romance that vampires have appeared in". Strahd is included in the Barovia section of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021), a campaign setting book which is focused on the various Domains of Dread. However, his stat block from Curse of Strahd (2016) is not reprinted in this book. Fictional character biography A man of noble birth, Strahd spent much of his life serving causes of goodness and law, most notably as a warrior and leader of armies. Years of such service took their toll upon him however, and by the time he reached middle age, Strahd came to believe he had squandered his life and his youth. With this dark mood upon him, he came to conquer the region known as Barovia, and assumed lordship there, taking as his residence the pre-existing castle known as Ravenloft. From this position of power and security, he called for members of his family "long unseated from their ancestral thrones" to join him, including a younger brother named Sergei. Some time after this reunion, the Count himself fell in love with a young Barovian woman, Tatyana, though she rejected his affections in favor of the younger Sergei. Filled with despair and jealousy, and brooding a growing hatred for Sergei, Strahd sought magical means to restore his youth. In a moment of desperate frustration, he "made a pact with death - a pact of blood." On the day of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding, Strahd murdered his brother and confessed his love to Tatyana, but overcome with grief, she fled from him, hurling herself to her death from the balcony of Castle Ravenloft. Strahd himself was shot down by the arrows of the castle guard. Even so, he did not die, but went on to rule the land of Barovia as a vampire. Immediately afterward, the Mists of Ravenloft drew Strahd to the Demiplane of Dread. Strahd's backstory was further refined for such that he unwittingly became a vampire as a result of a pact between himself and an unknown entity (Strahd claims it to be Death). Strahd has ruled his domain for the longest of any darklord, and as such his knowledge of the workings of Ravenloft are without equal. When Strahd chooses to close the borders of his lands, poisonous mists