Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, the proper return to Ravenloft as a campaign setting for 5th Edition, was released on May 18, 2021, seeing a reimagining of the setting with established domains getting revamped and new ones introduced. The setting and some of the characters are also mentioned in the 5e manuals, and an expanded Updated Re-release of the original I6 campaign titled Curse of Strahd was released on March 15, 2016. Plans to publish a fourth edition version of the setting were cancelled, but a number of Domains of Dread were introduced to 4e's default setting, thus integrating Ravenloft into fourth edition's core. They updated it for 3.5 with 2003's Ravenloft Player's Handbook. The setting was licensed for 3e to White Wolf, who released supplements through their Arthaus imprint, starting with 2001's Ravenloft hardcover. In 1997, the hardcover Domains of Dread updated both setting and rules, and was the first version to include rules for the demiplane's natives. The Ravenloft Campaign Setting boxed set (the Red Box), released in 1994, revised and updated the setting to include developments in the metaplot. It was turned into a full-fledged campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition in 1990 with the publication of Ravenloft: Realm of Terror (nicknamed the Black Box). It received a sequel, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill (I10), in 1986. Ravenloft began as the sixth adventure in the 'I' series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition adventure modules, published in 1983, where a party of adventurers end up in and around the eponymous castle. Lovecraft, Pinocchio, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Shakespeare's Macbeth, and the historical Borgia family among many others comprise only a few examples. Many of the individual domains of Ravenloft, along with their inhabitants, are directly inspired by classic horror and Gothic literature, infamous historical figures, and twisted versions of Fairy Tales and other stories.

The name 'Ravenloft' is actually the name of the castle which looms over the Land of Barovia, one of the most famous dark dominions of the setting. The enigmatic Dark Powers have cobbled together a patchwork land of diverse kingdoms, each hiding their own foul secrets and held in thrall by a hideously corrupt being-its darklord-for whom each domain is both a sovereign territory and a prison. The events take place in a pocket dimension called the 'Land of Mists'. Ravenloft is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game, invoking themes of Gothic Horror and Dark Fantasy.

Ravenloft map of the core