To the Grave and Back

As the twentieth century dawned, the horror genre moved on. The Gothic tradition gave way to the weird tales of authors like H. P. Lovecraft, who retained a Gothic aura of decay while creating fearsome alien entities, reflecting a society humbled by scientific discovery and the inhumanity of the Great War. Vampires, ghosts, and werewolves were soon dismissed as threadbare cliches.

But they always come back. A few decades passed, and then the Gothic tradition burst back into the world, like Mr. Hyde too long repressed. With each Gothic revival, new writers twisted the old archetypes, applying the anxieties of their age. Every era has a disease that can walk in a vampire's shoes; every generation has seen the cautionary tales of Frankenstein and Moreau come one step closer to reality.

The Gothic genre refuses to lie quiet in the grave. Its horrors — vampires, madmen, ghosts — continue to resonate within us because they are us.

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"Ravenloft Campaign Setting, 3rd edition", Andrew Cermak, John W. Mangrum, Andrew Wyatt, s. 7