Vampire of the Mists

Infobox Book |
name = Vampire of the Mists
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Christie Golden
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Ravenloft series
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = TSR
release_date = 1991
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 341 pp (first edition, paperback)
isbn = ISBN 1-56076-155-5 (first edition, paperback)
preceded_by = None
followed_by = Knight of the Black Rose

"Vampire of the Mists" is the first novel in the Ravenloft books gothic horror series. Set both in Waterdeep, a city in the Forgotten Realms world of Dungeons and Dragons, and more prominently, the Demiplane of Dread, location of the Ravenloft campaign setting.

Plot summary

The story concerns Jander Sunstar, an Elf Vampire who, despite his affliction, attempts to remain as good as possible. On at trip to Waterdeep to drink the blood of patients of a mental hospital there, Jander falls in love with an inmate who introduces herself as Anna. For about twenty years the immortal vampire visits Anna regularly, and Anna seems to be similarly ageless. Anna begins to become ill, and Jander, afraid of losing her, tries to turn her into a vampire. Anna refuses. In her last moments of life, when Jander asks her what ruined her mind, she answers "Barovia."

In a rage, Jander kills every last occupant of the asylum, and is transported to the Demiplane of Dread. There, he has his fortune told by a Vistani gypsy before befriending Count Strahd Von Zarovich. The predictions made by the fortune-teller all prove to be true later in the book, sometimes in multiple ways. After a very long period of time spent in Barovia, Jander discovers that the woman he knew as Anna was in truth Tatyana, wife of Strahd's Brother, Sergei, and the woman who drove Strahd to murder his own family. She escaped the castle as it entered the demiplane, but lost her mind in the process. Shocked, Jander bands together with a local Cleric and a young thief, to the end of killing Strahd. They fail, and Jander walks into the sunlight for his final death, only to be whisked away by the mists at the last moment.