Oh yes, this is where the cool people live. At the moment, The Dungeons and Dragon module The Curse of Strahd is one of the most famous campaigns made possible by the collaboration between a famous adventure setting originally published in 1983, multiple campaigns and associated novels, and perhaps most importantly, robust community support in making the story more coherent. Ravenloft and the lands of Barovia have stoked the imagination of people for decades. Nowhere is this more evident than dungeon synth records inspired by the campaign setting in a time when it the world was still inaccessible to most except for the most learned of the fandom.

Corvus Neblus has released two EPs. Strahd’s Possession Chapter I in 1999 with a followup Chapter II in 2001. Both releases provide a soundtrack to the world of Ravenloft made at a time when the gothic setting was used in multiple related media. Chapter I was packaged with not only an introduction about the main character, the half elf fighter/mage Nebulus, but also came with a character sheet with ability scores. These facts might lead to the creator of Corvus Neblus using an actual game of Dungeons and Dragons as inspiration for a dungeon synth album or just an adventure setting as a ready made world for a story. Whatever the case, Strahd’s Possession is an early example of escapism made into a world of sound with the entirety of the two releases made into backdrops for a gothic pageant.

Corvus Neblus is better known as Alexandros Antoniou also the participant in black metal projects such as Macabre Omen and Lvcifyre. Alexandros Antoniou’s work in these bands has created a separate reputation with his dark ambient and dungeon synth projects intended as hidden gems for those traveling deep within the mines of records. Strahd’s Possession is a monument for those looking at the origins and tracing the history of dungeon synth from the 1990’s to 2010s. Here is a set of releases which would be on Bandcamp in 2022 but instead is an obscure artifact from a well known black metal musician. The care and calculation heard in the first chapter mixed with the shoehorned dialogue in the second chapter is both fascinating as well as amusing.