The duo eventually caught the attention of D&D's original publishers. However, the Hickmans kept being asked about their 'Ravenloft game', and so the Ravenloft name stuck. They play-tested it with a group of players every Halloween for five years on their own game system with the adventure titled Vampyr. When the Hickmans began work on Ravenloft, they felt the vampire archetype had become overused, trite, and mundane, and decided to create a frightening version of the creature for the module. So he and his wife set out to create a vampire villain with fleshed-out motivations and history'. It didn't make sense to why a creature like a vampire was just sitting around in a random dungeon with oozes, goblins, and zombies.

Back in First Edition, the game was less of a storytelling game. Strahd von Zarovich was created by the Hickmans 'after Tracy returned home from a disappointing session of D&D. In 1978, Tracy and Laura Hickman wrote adventures that would eventually be published as the Dungeon & Dragons modules Pharaoh and Ravenloft. Other Ravenloft Domains and Darklords were eventually added in various AD&D 2nd edition (and then later in 3rd edition) products establishing a core continent attached around Barovia which could be traveled to by others if their respective lords allowed entering or leaving their borders while some Domains remained isolated in the mists and were referred to as Islands. As a physical manifestation of that plane, lands, monsters and even people were created out of the mysterious mists, and the realm acted as a prison where one could enter or be transported, but means of escape were few. As originally established in the Ravenloft: Realm of Terror boxed set known as 'the Black Box' released in 1990, the Ravenloft campaign setting was located in the Ethereal Plane. How Count von Zarovich became the darklord of Barovia was detailed in the novel I, Strahd: The Memoirs of a Vampire. Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire in the original AD&D Ravenloft I6 module 1983, became the first Darklord, both ruler and prisoner of his own personal domain of Barovia. Each domain is tailored to and mystically ruled by a being called a Darklord who is forever trapped and surrounded by magical mists surrounding the domain. It is an alternate time-space existence known as a pocket dimension or demiplane, called the Demiplane of Dread, which consists of a collection of land pieces called ' domains', brought together by a mysterious force known only as the Dark Powers. Ravenloft is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st and 2nd Editions.

Ravenloft map of the core