Vampire of the Mists
1991 novel by Christie Golden

Vampire of the Mists is the first novel in the Ravenloft books gothic horror series. Written by Christie Golden, it is set both in Waterdeep, a city in the Forgotten Realms world of Dungeons & 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 a 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 one hundred 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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vampire of the Mists” as 1991 novel by Christie Golden. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1991 novel by Christie Golden. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17029467. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vampire of the Mists” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.