I really like this book. There are fantastic ideas within to act as seeds.

However. There is always a however.

I find there is a strange disconnect between the langauge of this book and the direction taken by D&D over the past few years.

This book is strangely authoritarian. Much of D&D 5e has been moving towards empowering players and DMs to make their worlds their own. The creed seems to have become "you don't need to ask for permission to change things." I am well aware that I have the capacity to disagree with the authors of this book, but there is a lot in this book saying "this is how it is. This is how you need to do it."

For example, the language surrounding dark lords. We are told that these characters are irredeemable, but having read through the book, I'm not entirely sure why some of these people are dark lords at all, let alone why they are irredeemable. Zariel seems to be a considerably worse being than most of these Dark Lords, yet she remains worthy of redemption after a century as a Archdevil. I don't understand why they put their foot down and said these characters are irredeemable. Why not put forward the idea they are irredeemable, but float a few ideas if you want them to be redeemed. I thought it would be infinitely more interesting if the characters were morally redeemable, but a prisoner of the never-ending cycle of the demiplanes-- so a redeemed dark lord, just like a killed dark lord, would be lost in the labyrnth of their mind and existance and the mists would choke even the memory of their own redemption from their minds.

A second type of weird authoritarianism is the warnings away from commiting certain alleged faux-pas. Mostly this are vaguely outlined in a way telling players how they should and shouldn't play characters. I don't think I've ever had a roleplaying book tell me how to tell stories.  It's certainly odd. More so because it is so vague that often, as I am warned to recognise and steer clear of a trope, I am left grasping for certainty what these odd warnings are warning me from. This sentence in particular baffles me "Matter-of-factly provide opportunities for everyone to be exceptional. Magical settings bear no resemblance to real-world history, and character creation rules presuppose no standard bar for heroics." Keep in mind, this text was found under the sidebar, subverting clichés. I feel like that malignance on the English language has a very clear intent in the authors mind, but damned if I can divine it. I'm not sure if they're talking about women or the disabled or ethnic minorities or people with low strength scores. It feels like someone was playing three seperate games of madlibs.

I feel like there are people who know what they mean with those types of warning, but I figure if you are the sort of person to pay attention to that sort of thing, then you probably don't need the warning. However, if one doesn't know, then one has difficulty to understand the content of the warning rendering the warning useless. So, for whom was it written? I have my suspicions that it was written so that people who already held these ideas would praise them for extolling them.

I enjoy the book, but some of the language is curious. It is in many ways the anti-Tasha's.

I'm finding the book to be generally over-written and under-edited, with astonishingly amateurish phrases like "inescapable drudgery from which death is the only escape". Some passages like yours really obfuscate their meaning or fail to make an actual point.

With regard to the Darklord thing, it's all about the setting. Zariel is redeemable only because the Baldur's Gate arc is a heroic fantasy adventure. The Darklords are irredeemable because that's an intrinsic component of Ravenloft. Just like Eberron setting doesn't exist without the Great War, Ravenloft doesn't exist in the same way without the grey despair of Darklords being trapped in the way they are.

Thats because this book is half baked, like a lot of the latest WotC products.

Van Richten's Guide is attempting to educate DMs on how to better run a type of game that takes more work and knowledge than a typical D&D epic fantasy Hero's Journey campaign.  Horror takes more effort, more work, and a stronger commitment to your themes and genre than an average slap-happy jackanapery D&D game.  Part of that is the knowledge that friendship is not, in fact, magic, redemption isn't special, and it takes more than a change of heart to stop endless cycles of madness.  Recall, the Darklords aren't 'irredeemable' because they are beyond all hope of mortal salvation.  Darklords are irredeemable because the Dark Powers actively work to keep them that way.  The book actually offers a look at what happens when a Darklord slips their leash and escapes (Darkon) or what might happen should a Darklord acquire the redemption they seek (Har'Akir).  In the first case the entire domain is crashing like a Linux desktop, and in the second case the Darklord winning their way free and gaining the final end they seek leaves their domain in chaos.

Tasha's Cauldron was all about monetizing eighteen months of UA content empowering players and DMs to go beyond the bounds of any given book and make their story their own.  Those rules don't go away because VRG is written in a more instructional/authoritative manner.  If you want the Darklords of your Domains of Dread to be redeemable?  Then make them redeemable.  it drastically lessens the impact of the horror in your horror story, but if that's the thing that will make the game truly memorable for you and your players, go for it.  Just be aware that redeeming your Darklord and giving the BBEG and the players all a happy ending instantly leeches all the horror from your story.

As for the warnings against clumsy use of outdated, offensive tropes?  Chalk those up to boilerplate.  A few of the genres of horror they discuss are well known for handling certain subjects very poorly, and a few sentences saying "don't let horror stories make you an *******" is CMA material for Wizards' legal team.  Don't let it bother you, and also take the intent to heart.  Someone mentioned a very useful little quippy phrase up in the Madness thread to keep close in mind when running a horror game - "scare, don't scar."