Now, this one's a bit of a challenge. The Carnival, as a domain, is very small, and I honestly think that its role in a larger campaign could be primarily to act as a periodic respite for the players - not quite a home base, but a way to briefly escape whatever domain they're in.
Still, it is a domain of dread, which means that it's not a good place to be, and operates on a certain nightmare logic. But it is a little different: its borders don't work the same way, and it's Isolde, not its actual Darklord, the sentient sword Nepenthe, that suffers from the domain's torments.
Thus, I think we're going to focus less on theme than on aesthetic here: the creepy, deadly carnival is a classic horror trope, with things like calliope music and clowns, which are intended to be fun and entertaining for all ages, taking on a much more sinister air (though I do think part of the appeal of these things is the vague sense of danger - there's a thrill to it).
Isolde isn't really evil at heart, so she can easily act as a friendly NPC sending people out on quests.
So, here's my pitch:
Since the release of the 2025 Monster Manual, I've been obsessed with the Haunting Revenant stat block, a vengeful spirit that possesses an entire building. Nepenthe, the actual Darklord of The Carnival, is an instrument of vengeance, so we actually do have this thematic connection.
The thing is, I don't think you should ever have a Haunting Revenant show up as just a normal monster, like a Hell House from Final Fantasy VII in that one stretch of broken freeway in Midgar. Instead, I think that you need an entire mystery built around it, and it should not be apparent that the building is a creature immediately.
So: Isolde contacts the party and tells them that something unnerving has happened: a new Funhouse has appeared on the Carnival Grounds that none of her employees recall actually putting there. This being Ravenloft, that's not entirely unprecedented, but she's seen customers enter it and no one seems to see them ever come out.
She wants the party to investigate.
Upon arriving, the Funhouse - actually a Haunting Revenant, the spirit of a clown who had worked at the Carnival back when it was under the management of Mr. Witch and Mr. Light (Van Richten's plays coy, but we find out in Wild Beyond the Witchlight that Isolde traded the Witchlight Carnival to them for this one). Bonko the Clown (I was almost going to call him Bonko the Bozo and then remembered that Bozo was just literally the name of a famous clown) had long complained about the shoddy carpentry of the stage that he performed at, but Witch and Light refused to pay to have it fixed up, and mid-performance, the proscenium arch collapsed, and a shard of wood impaled Bonko in front of a horrified audience. Bonko performed primarily for children, and his spirit was enraged by the fact that he was now a source of trauma rather than joy, and vowed with his dying thoughts to destroy the management of the carnival.
When the party arrives to see the funhouse, called "Bonko's House of Mirrors" (the name Bonko is unknown - Isolde never met the guy, so it's not a dead giveaway,) he uses the Invitation ability to draw as many members of the party in as he can.
Here, then, we actually treat the building more like a mini-dungeon. I think murderous clowns, manifestations of Bonko's rage, assault the party. We could use Performer stat blocks - probably some mix of standard Performers and Maestros, as the party will want to be at least mid-tier 2 in order to survive a fight against the revenant. I would also take a look at Space Clowns from Spelljammer as a very fitting stat block to use here. At CR 3, they can probably work quite well for a party that would ultimately be taking on a CR 10 boss monster.
Note, though, that the Haunted Zone trait is going to potentially make any combat in here harder for anyone relying on spells - it's basically a universal Counterspell that also wastes the spell slot, so encounters with the Performers/Clowns should be tuned as low-difficulty encounters, possibly even going significantly lower than the suggested XP budget.
Now, one of the challenges of using a Haunting Revenant as a dungeon is that, theoretically, the party ought to be able to attack it as soon as they realize that it's a creature. Theoretically, if no one fails the Charisma saving throw from Invitation, we might not actually get them to go inside.
That said, if they do start to attack it from the outside, it can use its Invitation ability as often as it wants.
I might even fudge it and say that they have to make it through the maze of mirrors in order to actually find a vulnerable part of the revenant (though I'd also limits its ability to attack them until they do to be fair).
I think as they make their way through the house of mirrors, the party starts to get the story of Bonko, with old black-and-white photos of his performances, and then, maybe, bizarre photos that actually depict his demise.
I think the murder-clowns might also show signs of what killed him - maybe they walk around with giant splinters of wood protruding through their heads (we could even make them undead).
How sympathetic Bonko is can be adjusted, largely by who he picks as victims. Maybe no one has actually gone in there yet if he's trying to focus his vengeance only on management and whatever goons (the party) they're employing. Indeed, the mystery might not be missing customers, but just the fact that no one seems to be able to get inside.
Either way, it should be a fun creature-as-dungeon kind of adventure, with just maybe a single combat encounter in the midst of the broader encounter with the revenant.
Next, we're going big with the vast, crumbling domain of Darkon, with its absent Darklord.
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