My favorite tie-in fiction is the Dragonlance novels for Dungeons & Dragons.
Reading Dragons of Destiny for this summer’s reading list, I realized just how much this series influenced me as a dungeon master and storyteller. Do the tales have their flaws? Sure. The early books read like something ripped from a person’s campaign … which they were.
But the ideas in those books are so good. And so inspiring to a young dungeon master.
Knights. Wizard towers. Mage tests. Quests to forgotten parts of the world. Adventures in time and space. And mages scheming for world domination.
A lot of these elements made it into my version of Greyhawk, particularly in my college campaign and the early and middle years of the Blackrazor campaign (which was a continuation of the college game in terms of story, though not characters).
I haven’t gone back and re-read them in years; that might be a worthwhile thing to do as part of my Summer 2024 reading list.
- This post is part of the RPG a Day 2023 event. Catch up on Nuketown’s posts via the project page and learn more about the event at its community page on Facebook.
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Cover art for Dragons of Deceit, a Dragonlance novel. Credit: Penguin Random House.