Personally you can go with the way you described "destructive force of nature" that the Darklord appeases or even uses. It's not like the darklords are kind people that would mind sacrificing a couple of maidens/year so that the dragon wouldn't trouble them and also the "Execution by feeding you to a dragon" is a nice deterent that lawful darklords could use.
Also for gothic horror keep in mind that romance goes with it, forbidden acts, inherited evilness and curses etc. etc.
Perhaps there's a secret extended family that appeases X dragon in Y place by feeding him virgins from the family, because of many sins commited by the family long ago. The women of the family don't know about it, there is a kind of lottery to see who's daughter goes to the dragon's maw etc.
Oh, and let's be sincere here: Baltoi the Marilith makes as good a "sleeping beast" as a dragon would make. If you want my opinion, get rid of the fiendish sleeping beast and change it with a dragon sleeping beast just this time. Change the monastery above it to a place where not-that-kind monks/clerics drop virgins to the sleeping beast to keep it sleeping and confiscate money from the nearby settlements (or the families linked to the whole thing that don't want their daughters fed up) to appease the dragon with gold. And they actually keep a bit of the money for themselves, profiting from the whole thing.
Add some romantic elements here, like a loved one that her family can't afford the price required for her to not be in the ballot for who goes into the dragon's stomach + some grizzly details ("OMG! Some of the monks seem
suspiciously half-draconic! ! ! The dragon just eats the poor girls, right?") and you're set.
Or you can go fantasy and be done with it.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
I know I did. I had the normal, dragon-hunting adventures in Ravenloft. IMC there are some not-that-big dragons around in the Core. Black dragons in the marshes of Darkon, whites on the mountains of Misery, Reds in Barovia and Hazlan, Greens in Forlorn and Sithicus etc.
I've ran more than once the traditional "Villages terrorized by dragon. Adventurers required to deal with it" and it was enjoyable.