Game 589: Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession (1994)

           

Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession

United States

DreamForge Intertainment (developer); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)

Released in 1994 for DOS, 1995 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 14 August 2026

     

Strahd's Possession adapts one of the most popular tabletop RPG modules of all time—so popular that even I read it, although I wasn't much of a tabletop RPG player. I loved it. Decades before pop culture decided to reformulate vampires as angsty teenagers (or, I suppose, years before, if you think it all started with The Lost Boys), the module presented an atmospheric, gothic, suspense-filled adventure with a compelling and complex villain inspired by the original "vampyr." More on him in a bit.

       

The CRPG begins with a reasonably well-animated and voiced cinematic, the narrator using a Bela Lugosi-style Hungarian accent. The PCs (as we'll discover, there are two of them) are given as knights of the benevolent Lord Dhelt of Elturel. This is in the Forgotten Realms, just up the river from Baldur's Gate. Some unspecified evil has been threatening the land, and the companions have just returned from patrol. They arrive at Lord Dhelt's chambers in the wake of an assassin's attack that has left Dhelt and his mage, Baranta Chansil, wounded. Dhelt tells the PCs that the assassin stole a holy symbol of Helm and fled to the forest. The PCs follow him to a dark forest. End of intro.

         

The aftermath of the attack.

       

The player creates two characters from the usual AD&D races, classes, and alignments, and with the usual attributes. This might be the first game in which character creation has consisted of two characters. It's a weird number. Thanks to commenters on my "Upcoming Games" posting (thanks in particular to SB and Man of Stone), I understand that up to two hirelings will be able to join the party later, that clerics and mages are particularly important, and that there are no mage hirelings in the sequel. Thus, a player who wants to bring his characters into the sequel should probably create a cleric and mage. I decided not to worry about the sequel (I'll likely create new characters). I created:

   

• Summer, a lawful good female human paladin. 
• Quill, a chaotic good male half-elf ranger.

      

The unusual character creation process is in keeping with the spirit of the module.

      

The whole character creation process is presented as a Vistani fortune teller with tarot cards "foretelling" the characters. ("Vistani" are the gypsies of the setting. The term does not appear in the original module, which used "gypsy" exclusively. The game goes back and forth.) The player chooses sex, race, etc. by picking the appropriate cards. There are 18 portrait choices for both men and women. They offer a decent selection, but some of them are clearly at odds with the 18-21 age range rolled for each character.

           

These guys are supposed to be 19?

        

The game lets you just manually set the attributes for the characters, with no pretense that you're doing it to match a favorite tabletop character. But there's hardly any reason to resort to such cheating, as random attribute rolls are generous. I only got single digits a couple of times, and I only had to roll a few times before I had all attributes but one at 15 or above. Characters start at a reasonably high level, too. They come with 35,000 experience points, enough to put both my characters at Level 5 and on the cusp of Level 6. Most other classes would start at Level 6. The experience tables in the manual suggest that characters can go up to Level 20.

    

After character creation, the game begins with the two characters in the forest. Quill makes some ranger-y tracking observations, concluding that the assassin is "a bad woodsman." After his comment, I'm able to take control.

     

The characters frequently speak up in ways consistent with their classes.

       

The interface has the same basic elements from the Eye of the Beholder series—character portraits, hand items, a GTFO cluster, a compass—though rearranged. Mercifully, it appears that divine spellcasters don't have to sacrifice a shield hand to hold their holy symbols anymore. As for the main exploration window, the game lets the player toggle between freeform, continuous movement and tile-based "step movement," which is coincidentally the same term that Realms of Arkania: Star Trail used. Is there a precursor to both games that coined this term?

     

The player can move the party with the GTFO cluster, by clicking in the exploration window itself, by using the numberpad, and by using the arrow keys. (Well, he can't turn with the arrow keys, I guess; just move forward, backwards, and side to side.) Alas, the same spirit of redundancy does not apply to anything else on the interface. Attacking is only accomplished by clicking on the weapons, casting only by clicking on the spell symbols, other options only by moving the cursor to the top of the screen to access the buttons. Clicking on the portrait accesses the inventory screen. The keyboard is only useful for moving, checking the (T)ime, and (P)ausing. [Edit: And a quick (S)ave and SHIFT-(R)estore.] Wankers.

                

Moving the cursor to top of the screen brings up the game options. Any reason ESC couldn't have done the same thing? Any reason we couldn't have avoided this entirely with (M)ap, (Q)uit, etc.?

         

My paladin starts with a broadsword, a shield, chainmail (torso armor includes boots), a plate helm, and an empty sack. My ranger comes with a longsword, leather armor and helm, wooden shield, short sword, three throwing knives, and a smaller sack. It appears there's an encumbrance limit, but I'm in no danger of meeting it yet. The manual says that the character doll can accommodate amulets, cloaks, gloves, and rings in addition to the obvious slots. None of the screens say anything about money, making me wonder if the game even has an economy.

       

The inventory screens.

       

The automap, of which I'll have more to say later, shows us in the "Forgotten Realms Forest." We're limited to a narrow lane of trees, ending in a cul-de-sac, where we meet the cornered assassin.

     

I get my first taste of combat, which has the typical real-time attacking and cooling-down of other Dungeon Master-inspired games. The assassin does a reasonable amount of damage, nearly killing Summer, before we kill him, but we simply rest and heal afterwards. I don't see any signs that there's a hunger/thirst mechanic, so resting between battles doesn't have any downside.

         

Our first battle.

         

The assassin drops Lord Dhelt's holy symbol, a parchment, something called a "withered heart of mortal ardor," and a fourth object that looks like a weapon. Summer opines that: "The stench of necromancy hangs about these foul bits," but she suggests that we gather them for study. The assassin's parchment indicates that he came from the world of Ravenloft, and that he somehow figured out that Lord Dhelt's holy symbol was in fact the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, an artifact that could destroy Strahd. He resolved to steal it ("even if it means the death of that good lord"), return to Ravenloft, destroy Strahd, and "free my people from their eternal fate." Well, now I feel bad about killing him. I guess he was more of a burglar than an assassin. But he should have asked.

      

The assassin's note.

       

I don't know what the fourth item is because the moment I pick it up, a thick fog rolls in. Weird shapes move through the fog. Three figures stand in front of us, and one reaches out his hand. Suddenly, we're in a different place and three of the four items are gone. (The parchment remains.) The automap now shows us in the "Svalich Woods" in the realm of Barovia.

     

Spooky.

        

Let's save the game at this point and learn a bit more about the land and its most famous denizen. The CRPG player first encounters Count Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of Barovia, as a triptych in the game manual—a debonair, thick-eyebrowed, slightly sinister figure. An elegant note offers "cordial greetings" and invites the party to explore the "misty, twilight dangers" of "this brutal paradise." He is speaking of Barovia specifically but also the Ravenloft campaign setting in general. Its first appearance was in 1983, in the module created by Tracy and Laura Hickman, a married couple who were looking for more story and atmosphere in their tabletop roleplaying sessions. They created it (along with several other modules) for their own roleplaying system, but Tracy ended up getting hired by TSR and brought his modules with him.

          

From my admittedly inexperienced perspective, Ravenloft is a high-quality bit of literature. I question how well it works as a D&D module specifically, but it's delightful to read. Barovia is a classic Transylvanian (fictional Transylvania, of course) region, shrouded in fog and gloom, existing in its own isolated plane of existence. Castle Ravenloft looms over the Svalich Woods, moorlands, and a pathetic town where residents huddle in terror at night, clutching holy symbols. Gypsies travel the land, dance amid giant bonfires in the evening, and tell fortunes. Wolves roam the forests, and at night the cemetery disgorges the spirits of slain adventurers, who trudge to the castle and re-enact their failure to destroy the vampire in charge of it all.

    

The 1983 module cover. Strahd sure does like standing and looking proudly at things.

         

Count Strahd has brought the party to his world, for one of four potential motives chosen at random at the beginning of the game. (There are several aspects of the session that are chosen at random using a regular deck of cards, so it was fun to see that mimicked with the gypsy at the beginning of Strahd's Possession.) Strahd isn't just some generic vampire "NPC." The module advises the dungeon master: "Strahd is supposed to be a genius; play him as one." He keeps track of the PCs' locations and acts accordingly. He charms, confuses, spies, summons allies, raises undead, drains, hides, and, if necessary, flees. His death ends the adventure, so the dungeon master "must use every power available to the vampire to keep him (and the game) going." Still, he is killable as per normal Monster Manual rules, and I have to wonder if any party ever rolled a 20 on a stake to the heart the first time they met Strahd and wrapped up the module in 15 minutes.

       

The game manual's depiction of Strahd.

       

I honestly don't know whether Strahd's Possession is an adaptation of the module, a sequel to it, or an unrelated game that uses the same characters and themes. I thus forced myself not to re-read too far into the module. I have a hard time believing that this particular interface will be able to evoke the unique environments and experiences that the tabletop party finds in Castle Ravenloft, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.

   

Back in the game, I start exploring the woods. Its borders are surrounded by poisonous vapors. We're attacked by a worg wolf almost immediately. Its constant dancing back and forth makes it hard to hit (or so I think at the time), but we kill it. Then we walk a few steps more and we're swarmed by more wolves and goblins (weirdly spelled "goblyn"). They seem to come out of nowhere. We suffer our first party death.

            

With an appropriately gruesome screen.

      

On a reload, we decide to head for a nearby building, killing a couple more wolves on the way but fleeing from others. The building is a roofless, abandoned hut. As we enter, Summer remarks on a poorly-concealed trap door heading down to some kind of basement. A skeleton sits slumped in a chair; a nearby note curses Strahd for the ruin he's inflicted on the land. A button on the wall opens the trap door.

  

The basement has a number of items clearly meant to help new adventurers: three Potions of Healing, a Potion of Extra Healing, a composite bow, a quiver with eight arrows, a suit of chainmail, a cleric scroll of "Raise Dead," and something called a Ba'al Verzi Dagger. (The note suggests the Ba'al Verzi are some kind of assassin's guild.) The basement also offers a safe place to rest.

       

Despite offering shelves and barrels, I'm not sure the game engine is capable of putting items in either.

           

As you might imagine from past experience with my entries, the first thing I did upon gaining control of the game was to turn off the music. At this point, I'm also considering turning off the sound. It is beyond horrible. The problem, if I understand it correctly, is that we're at the dawn of digitized recorded audio, which was ultimately a good replacement for synthesized sound, but only after developers learned how to blend it better with the environment. Here, when a monster becomes active, the game simply calls up the appropriate .wav file and blasts the player with it at full volume. There is no accounting for distance or direction, no subtlety at all. This is also true of what's supposed to be ambient sound. Every minute or so, the game decides, "Time for some chirping birds!" and WHAM, there they are in your ear. It's positively assaultive. I wish developers had just stuck with synthesized sound until they figured out how to modulate recorded audio for a 3D environment. Having said all of that, I feel I should mention that I rarely know what I'm talking about when it comes to graphics and sound, and it's entirely possible that some overlooked setting eliminates all of my criticisms.

     

The automap shows items, enemies, and NPCs. For once, I can differentiate the colors, but the size of the dots still makes it hard to interpret.

         

As we explore in east-west strips, heading south, the automap helps a bit. It fills in fast. Basically, looking in any direction is enough to fill in about 20 squares in that direction. The map shows the locations of items to pick up, creatures, and NPCs, among other things, although as you might imagine, my colorblindness makes it difficult to differentiate some of the objects. Still, the map does help lead me to a couple of piles of treasure and my first NPC. The items include stones, which the player can pick up and throw at enemies from a distance; I manage to kill a wolf trapped between two trees this way. 

        

A worg wolf attacks.

        

The first NPC is a timid-looking man cuddling a tree. The game offers full-sentence dialogue options—or, at least, full sentences. With this particular NPC, we're able to go through all of them, so they're not really "options." We ask if he needs any help, and he suggests that his son was killed. We ask where there might be a town, and he directs us to a road "a way off," which isn't much in the way of directions. When we ask who "Strahd" is, he says that he "freed the land from Old Dorian." He warns us that Strahd "applies justice with an iron hand." The voice is reasonably well-acted with an English accent, although the audio quality is poor and sounds very much like a .wav being called up from a CD rather than anything integrated with the environment.

     

These seem like "options," but we're able to ask all of them.

        

Slowly, retreating frequently to the basement to heal, we clear out most of the goblins and worg wolves on the map. Creatures seem to respawn, which is a little annoying but also relieves the burden of feeling like you have to clear all of them. I find another NPC tied up by a campfire in the southeast corner of the map. His voice acting is notably poorer than the first one. He introduces himself as Fhalken, a merchant, although the goblins have apparently stolen and eaten all of his wares.

     

Fhalken agrees to join the party. His statistics reveal him as a Level 5 chaotic good human fighter with high strength but middling everything else. His poor dexterity means a high armor class. Scattered around the fire, I find some armor and weapons, including a two-handed sword. I guess I'll keep him until someone better comes along.

     

Neither of these options feels very paladin-y.

       

Two western exits lead to the Old Svalich Road South. It's not so much a "road" as a "corridor" that extends pretty far to both the north and the south. I don't know whether the vine-covered walls on either side are really supposed to be walls or whether they're supposed to suggest that the foliage is too dense in that direction. Either way, here are the encounters we face:

 

• As we arrive, we see a skeleton tied to a post. A note pinned to it reads: "If you walk my land, then heed my laws. A WARNING to those who defy my will!" It is signed by Strahd von Zarovich. This is repeated multiple times on multiple skeletons in this area.

       

Is there some place where we can find out what those laws are?

      

• As we come to a narrowing in the corridor, Quill suggests it would be a good place for an ambush by bandits. "Remember who warned you when some ignorant thief comes screaming at us from the trees," he says. We thus remember when, a few seconds later, three ignorant thieves come screaming at us from the trees. We kill two of them, and as we're about to kill the third, he surrenders and begs for mercy, promising to never undertake thievery again. He says that further up the road, a stone with an arrow will point the way to the bandit camp.

• We meet a Vistani traveler who tells us that the nearest town is the Village of Barovia to the north. He claims that although Strahd rules from the shadows, "he is the lord, the land, and the law, a friend to the Vistani and a just ruler." He says that the Vistani have a potion that will allow passage through the poisonous mist, but we have no gold to buy it. He says that when we do have the gold, we can find him at the Blood o' the Vine tavern in Barovia.

     

I don't know, man. Just rulers don't usually leave notes on skeletons.

        

• We find the bandit's stone marker but can't figure out how to get into the camp at first. We figure it out after we enlist Velika (below). Clicking around on a wall causes a secret door to open into a grove with multiple bandits and skeletal bats. There are a lot of weapons and armor in this area. Quill gets poisoned, which I don't notice until I've already saved. I should have made that cleric.

      

Have you never played a CRPG before?

    

• We run into a cheerful woman named Velika. She's out for adventure and happily joins our party. She's a Level 4/4/5 chaotic good half-elf fighter/mage/thief. She wears robes and carries a longsword. Her spellbook has "Magic Missile," "Shield," "Agannazer's Scorcher" (the first time I've seen this spell), "Improved Identify," and "Ice Knife." 

       

The spell memorization screen.

        

• Those annoying bursts of sound I told you about include, in this area, peals of laughter that come out of nowhere. I realize the developers are trying for a spooky horror setting, but this is just like someone constantly sticking a wet finger in your ear.

• A northern gate leads, as the Vistani promised, to the Village of Barovia. 

   

Some miscellaneous observations:

    

• A lot of the items marked as treasures on the automap turn out to be rocks. I get all excited for nothing.

       

Well, that's disappointing.

        

• Repeatedly throwing the same missile weapon at an enemy hung up on a tree seems to be a consistently useful strategy in this game.

      

His attack range is shorter than my "reach and pick up the dagger I just threw" range.

        

• At first, I was annoyed at enemies constantly moving in combat, but it doesn't seem to matter. My attacks hit enemies even when they're not on the visible screen. However:

• The attack buttons are annoyingly far apart. Luckily, the player can also attack by clicking on the enemy (if he can keep the enemy on the visible screen), which cycles attacks by the four characters. How hard would it have been to just map this to the "A" key? 

• Time is given as "R.S.T.," which I assume is "Ravenloft Standard Time." An hour passes in about a minute real-time. Ambient light peaks at 13:00, then starts dimming, reaching its darkest at around 01:00. Even at its darkest, it isn't really "dark," and yet I still prefer it lighter.

• The manual says that the order of the characters doesn't matter unless they're indoors, at which point the two leftmost characters become the front rank and the two rightmost characters are the rear. No enemies seemed to attack the two new characters, though, even when we were outdoors. Their rank position didn't seem to stop the characters from being able to attack. I don't know whether that will change when we move indoors.

        

Coming up next.

          

I don't finish exploring the Old Svalich Road this session. Quill's poison keeps sapping his hit points, and I'm wasting healing potions bumping his health back up. So we head to the gate to Barovia, hoping to find healing (or a cleric party member) there. The game's a mixed bag so far, about as fun as one of the first two Eye of the Beholder games, perhaps—but a bit too early to judge.

  

Time so far: 3 hours 

    

****

      

Next entry in this series 

   

Further reading:    

• My "Index of Games by Lineage" has both all licensed Dungeons & Dragons games and all Dungeon Master clones. 
• The original Ravenloft module. 

08/31/2026