Dragonlance Dragonlance books to read for Dungeons and Dragons

Morrus · Dec 20, 2020

If you’re new to DL, @darjr, I wouldn’t worry about all those books. Just grab the Chronicles trilogy. You don’t need to know about the hundreds of other books. They’re the EU novels to the Chronicles’ original Star Wars trilogy!

el-remmen · Dec 20, 2020

Morrus said:
They’re the EU novels

I spent entirely too long trying to figure out how they were the "European Union" novels!

Dire Bare · Dec 20, 2020

The 1d4chan Dragonlance page is pretty good too and gives a decent overview of the setting, the core stories, and the core adventure modules. But, be warned, the language gets a bit salty and snarky.

Morrus · Dec 20, 2020

el-remmen said:
I spent entirely too long trying to figure out how they were the "European Union" novels!

Wait, they’re not?!?

Dire Bare · Dec 20, 2020

Morrus said:
If you’re new to DL, @darjr, I wouldn’t worry about all those books. Just grab the Chronicles trilogy. You don’t need to know about the hundreds of other books. They’re the EU novels to the Chronicles’ original Star Wars trilogy!

I certainly wouldn't recommend working through all 150+ DL novels, but . . . .

There are some good stories in there beyond the Chronicles and Legends trilogy. Which is the point of this thread, right? Which ones are worth reading, and which ones should you avoid?

cbwjm · Dec 20, 2020

For the RPG books, I like the 2nd edition tales of the lance box set. It has a good overview of Ansalon and the races and classes of the world. For the various monsters, it even included their ability scores, something that I don't think other products really did in 2e so it lets you update to 5e and take out some of the guesswork on which draconian is the strongest, etc.

The 3rd edition campaign book is also useful because it goes over primal sorcery and the power of the heart (essentially celestial sorcerers) and you might find some prestige classes that provide more crunch to convert to subclasses.

For the novels, I think the main ones I'd suggest having a read of are the Chronicles trilogy, Dragonlance Legends, I also enjoyed Dragons of a summer Flame and later the war of souls trilogy. Been plenty of others I've read, looking up the novels brings back a few memories of them.

Marc_C · Dec 20, 2020

The two trilogies. The Legend of Huma is a very good read too. it describes the events of a legend often mentioned in the first trilogy.

I really enjoyed Weasel's Luck, by Michael Williams. It's peripheral. Not required.

doctorbadwolf · Dec 22, 2020

dave2008 said:
Outside Chronicles I was going to recommend Legend of Huma and Kaz the Minotaur too!

Yeah, after the Heroes and them, Palin and Dalamar are my favorite DL characters, but I can’t think of any book with them I’d highly recommend.

jgsugden · Dec 23, 2020

A warning ... Chronicles is written for a younger audience, and is a bit dated. It is not high literature - not by a long shot. I picked up my copy of it a few years back and started to reread it - and put it back down pretty darn quickly.

Morrus · Dec 23, 2020

jgsugden said:
A warning ... Chronicles is written for a younger audience, and is a bit dated. It is not high literature - not by a long shot. I picked up my copy of it a few years back and started to reread it - and put it back down pretty darn quickly.

D&D novels are all pretty kid-friendly. I read the Chronicles when I was 10 or something.