Remedial Ravenloft: Invidia

Before - Literally. Worse. Than Hitler (because this time he's also Rosemary's Baby!).
After - Game of Thrones is almost as lazy as Godwinning a Domain, but not quite, so let's extrapolate the family dynamic between Cersei Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon if there were the only nobles in a very small nation, Cersei had magical powers, and Joffrey never got poisoned.

Where it is - A nation in the midst of a civil war in the central-southern Core.

Technical Advancement - A century and a half of open revolt and the following civil war has left Invidia somewhat behind its neighbors.  Likewise its location off most major trade routes.  Similar to Barovia, Invidia has technology that is generally 100 years or so behind what is standard for the Core, though exceptions exist - Malocchio in particular likes to import the most modern and advanced firearms and cannon.
Supernatural Advancement - Witchcraft, especially hexing and cursing are widespread and common amongst Invidians, occult arts being the way that those less physically imposing protect themselves.  Tutelage is ridiculously easy to come by, and Gabrielle Aderre in particular is always looking for bright pupils who know how to hate.  She only trains girls and women, though, so men and boys have to find someone lower profile.  This will not be a problem.  Trust me.

The Land - Invidia is made up of Invidia proper and the parts of Gundarak not annexed by Barovia in the war with that nation.  The Invidian portion is dominated by pyjeve të kuqe, the crimson forest, an old-growth maple and beech forest whose leaves remain red throughout the spring and summer as well as the fall.  The portions of Gundarak are dominated by the southern Balok mountains and its foothills.  The land in the south gets noticibly drier in the east, near the border with Hazlan and swampier in the west, along the border with Sithicus.  Buildings are a mix of styles imported from Invidia's neighbors, though most buildings in Invidia proper give the impression that they might fall over in the next stiff breeze and certainly sound the part when said breezes inevitably (and often, Invidia seems to have a micro-climate prone to stormy weather) blow.  Gundarkite architecture has a little more of the Hazlani influence, but weirdly, none of the beauty, coming off more like Barovian architecture with even less charm.

The People - Invidia has the distinction of introducing the Core to the concept of spree murder.  Hardly a year goes by without someone snapping, gathering up a bushel of guns and other weapons and going about their day killing anyone and everyone they see until they are generally killed themselves, usually by someone who already had a personal grudge against them.  When we were talking about Borca and Dorvinia, I mentioned that there are people who feud more than they do.  These are the people.  Invidia is decidedly not shaking off the five generations of open revolt against its apparently ageless (now murdered) lycanthropic former lord. Their culture seems to have utterly missed out on the notion of impulse control, tempers flare, things escalate, and three generations later, whole lines wipe each other (or themselves) out.  That penchant for violence and escalation tends to propogate from the highest and broadest to the lowest and most intimate.  Intimate abuse, extramarital affairs and the resulting feuds and duels are close to social expectations.  Likewise, the propagation of occult arts means that cursing, hexing and counter-cursing are depressingly common.  Invidians are compact and athletic, women and men being quite equal in height and build (the better for them to fight one another).  Skin tone can vary, but red hair is quite common as is a flushed appearance.

Invidian Gundarakites, used to centuries of getting murdered by creatures they could not kill back, have started to get into the Invidian spirit, and retain a lot less of their Barovia-occupied cousins' sullen acceptance of circumstance.  Indeed, in a few short years, Invidian Gundarakites and Barovian Gundarakites have become entirely different people, resembling those native to the lands that have annexed theirs.

It's worth noting that outside of Invidia, Invidians tend to be, well, Invidian, but not to the extent that they are in their homeland.  You can disagree with one without him or her punching you.  Within Invidia, even the blandest Darkonese, the most besotted Kartakan or the most repressed Lamordian starts getting irritable.  Very irritable.  Very quickly.  The effect is more pronounced in the crimson forest, but also seems to take place in Gundarakite Invidia.  Invidians speak Korbi or Holló and follow the Borcan church of Ezra or a mystery cult.  Invidian Gundarakites speak Corb and have a local religion centering on an infernal cowherd of the dead you propitiate so that he keeps an close eye on his herd, lest they go wandering and trouble the living.
Wag's Eye View - Paddle faster.  I'm hearing banjos.

The Boring Stuff - Invidia doesn't have any extant written history we're aware of, so it's hard to tell what it was.  For 148 years, the land was the private hunting preserve of Bhakolis, an ageless werewolf and his pack.  The witch Gabrielle Aderre slew him and much of said pack and attempted to set up a magiocratic republic, but almost immediately gave birth to her unnaturally aging, mesmeric son Malocchio, who at age six appears to be 18 and has taken over much of Invidia proper with sights on ruling the region and killing his mother.  Gabrielle and her disciples now control Gundarakite Invidia and the northeast of the forest while Malocchio controls the remainder.  They send their personal forces against them in a slightly larger feud than the ones going on around them.  Most of the coutnry is run locally by whoever is the strongest and loudest family for as long as someone else doesn't murder them.  Trade is sporadic - there's a lot of resources in Invidia, but few settlements are organized enough to extract them and most trade routes are under Malocchio's control.  Malocchio himself has managed to garner quite a few powerful enemies.  So far only Strahd Zarovich has taken any focused action against him, dispatching forces of skeletal warriors and his progeny on raids.  Ivan Dilisnia of Dorvinia has hired adventuring clans to assassinate Malocchio as well, but none have been successful, thus far.  For his part, Malocchio has been pursuing alliances with the Archbishop of Garancia (promising to deliver Invidia to his church and lots of witches to his dungeons) and Kaiser Faulk of Falkovnia (promising to continue launching raids against the city-states while the Kaiser prepares an invasion force), and so the general consensus from Lamordia to Barovia and all Domains between is that Malocchio must die.

We Pulled You Right from Your Mother's Womb.  Our Temple.  Your Tomb - Bhakolis popped up in Barovia in the early days and served as the Count's henchman for a little while, along with Azalin Rex.  This relationship did not progress smoothly or end well; Bhakolis tried to kill Strahd, failed miserably, and barely escaped with his life into the mists.  As far as we know, this was where Invidia came from - nowhere.  There's no extant history before Bhakolis, and almost nothing since.  Invidia adopted the Borcan church when Borca and its church emerged from the Mists, but there's little sense of what religion preceded it - probably witchy mystery cults.  Bhakolis was similar to Azalin in that his entry to the Realm was in Barovia and the Domain he became Darklord over seems to have been created whole cloth by the realm in order to suit him.  There's generally no question that he was the Darklord before Gabrielle Aderre killed him, and the only thing that seems interesting in all of this is that, by Barovian reckoning, Invidia is barely 70 years old, rather than the over twice that Invidians claim.  Again, historical records are absent, but this 5 generations / 148 year-reign is something that most Invidians agree on, regardless of their access to information one way or another.

Gabrielle killed him, and shortly thereafter become pregnant.  Gabrielle's mother or mentor (depending on who you ask.  Don't ask Gabrielle.  She'll kill you for it) cursed her that if she was ever with a man, the child that would certainly result would be her doom.  Gabrielle has not revealed who the father was (or if there was a father in the traditional sense.  Though apparently not attracted to women, she has always steered very fucking clear of men, for the obvious reasons, a trend that has not changed since the foretold doom popped out of her), but clearly he wasn't human, because her son grew to be a young man in less than a year and became the horrid 1st grader he is today.  With mesemeric eyes.  After a few attempts to kill his mother failed, he began to build an army and has been gobbling up Invidian territory ever since (with eyes on Sithican, Kartakan, Verbrekun, Dorvinian and Barovian territory to boot).

The Darklord Could be ...Gabrielle Aderre, queen of the witches.  Gabrielle was once an idealistic revolutionary, hoping to use her powers to bring peace and stability and modernization to her homeland.  That really did not work out.  Now she hangs out in Baron Gundar's former castle and tries to fight a war with her fiendish son.  Bitter doesn't begin to cover her emotional state.  She spends most of her days training and cursing and desperately heading off attempts by Malocchio to lay seige to her castle.

...Malocchio Aderre, Ravenloft's answer to Joffrey Baratheon and Damian from The Omen rolled into one.  In a weird way, Malocchio, more than his mother, more than Bhakolis, is the personification of the realm he mostly controls - a constantly roiling temper tantrum unchecked by any self control or awareness and backed up by brute strength and mind control.  Rumor has it that Bhakolis is his father (though the moon doesn't make him any more or less a human menstrual cramp) or that his father was the demon that gave Gabrielle the power to kill Bhakolis (no evidence of that either way).  One further rumor has a little creedence in terms of sources (one of Gabrielle's older pupils) is that Gabrielle somehow made herself a bride of the land in order to gain the strength necessary to kill Bhakolis, and the pregnancy was an unintended consequence (apparently, Invidia is a man).

...Near the end of his reign, when Bhakolis' pack was dwindling, Bhakolis did something.  Either the werewolf himself or one of the witches in his employ.  Older folks remember when the forests of Invidia were only scarlet in the autumn, but at some point, they went red year round and Bhakolis was the last of his pack.  There's rumors of a weird derangement or disease that sometimes strikes isolated communities resulting in a lot of bloodshed and accounts of something that surviving victims call blood wolves.  Invidia has its share of wolves and werewolves, but those caught and questioned on the matter have turned up no further information.  Is it possible that the will of Bhakolis or his pack waas somehow dissolved into the land the Dark Powers gave him?

Thought I Heard a Rumblin', Callin' to my Name... Malocchio Aderre must die.  The city-states fear that he'll destabilize the region enough that Falkovnia will be able to invade.  Kartakas is afraid that he'll divert enough attention and be successful enough that he and Garancia will be able to roll in and divide the country.  Count Zarovich is afraid his patience with that little shit Malocchio has run the fuck out.  So far, Dorvinian assassins and Barovian vampires haven't managed to do the job.  Malocchio hates adventurers.  He's done all in his power to make Invidia inhospitable to them and really, what more reason do you need?  He's also got a thing against the traveling peoples of the Core, Sithicans and the handful of Readers that used to live in Gundarak and Invidia (now having fled elsewhere, if they could).  He also wears a crown cocked on his head like Joffrey.  Go, kick his ass.

Closing the Borders - Swirls of red leaves blow up around you, blocking vision and leading you back to the heart of the forest.  That said, it seems like more than one agency in opposition can close and open the borders, so they tend not to be closed for very long.  That said, being in the vicinity of the border when a struggle is going on is a good way to catch a curse, so beware.