D&D General Most D&D Fiction That Isn't D&D Fiction


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Voadam

Legend
The Sword of Shanara by Terry Brooks and other early books in the Shanara series are very Tolkien/D&D with a group of well armed D&D demihuman types journeying around dangerous places and includes a high level magical druid adventuring patron without shapeshifting but a whole secret society thing.

The Belgariad series of novels by David Eddings was a young protagonist with huge magical potential joins a high level D&D group including a master thief, a werebear fighter, a cavalier/knight, ridiculously high level mages, etc.
 



el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
The Ethshar books by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Magic is a respectable profession, like being a carter or mason. Mages takes apprentices who only know a handful of very low-power spells to start out with. There are a dozen or more different magic systems.

I'll second these. I have adapted stuff both from "The Misenchanted Sword" and "With a Single Spell" for past campaigns.
 

Stormonu

Legend
Was there a novel or just the movie? Conan the Destroyer would be another movie where you have the mixed D&D party on a quest.
Just the movie, as far as I am aware.

The Deathstalker series would probably count as well.

[Edit] I'm shocked the Shanara series isn't in Appendix N

I should also count Fred Saberhagen's Book of Sword series. While his name is mentioned, those books came out after the first AD&D books were published.
 
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“Another Day, Another Dungeon” and “One Quest, Hold the Dragons” by Greg Costikyan are fantastic examples of a goofball party. Not surprising, given the author’s pedigree in RPG design.
 


Reynard

Legend
I feel like there is a differenc ebetween the books that are clearly inspired by D&D, and those that are overtly like "Hey, this book is about D&D!" The latter seem much more common these days, especially with the rise of not only the wide popularity of D&D but also the popularity of LitRPG.
The books I keep meaning tow rite is more of a "KODT" novel -- about the people that play D&D, and the drama that ensues that way.
 


JediSoth

Voice Over Artist & Author
Epic
My fantasy novels are all inspired by D&D, though I've taken steps to conceal the pedigree a bit. They are, in chronological order:

The Foundation of Drak-Anor: Wings of Twilight and Iron Fist of the Oroqs
These two tell the story of a city of monsters just trying to survive the groups of "heroes" who keep coming to kill them and take their stuff, when really all they want to do it just live their lives and become an accepted part of society. The first book has been described as Prachett-esque and another reader says it contains the best example of a stereotypical "jerk" paladin that she's ever read (she used another word that Eric's Grandma wouldn't approve of).

Scars of the Sundering: Malediction, Lament, and Salvation
These three see some of the characters from The Foundation of Drak-Anor go out into the wider world to deal with repercussions of things they had to do to survive when Drak-Anor was just considered a pit of evil to be eradicated. Along the way, they get involved in political schemes both in national affairs and in the Arcane University while unraveling the plot of a long-dead sorcerer to return to power.

Summer of Crows
This is a standalone novel that follows up on one of the human characters from The Foundation of Drak-Anor some 10 years after those books as she tries to put her life back together in a small mining town far, far away from the places that cause her such pain. In dealing with a chaos rift left over from the Healing of the World, she becomes heir to the legacy of the Crow Queen.

Within each series, the books should be read in order, but one can read Scars of the Sundering without having read The Foundation of Drak-Anor, and Summer of Crows can be read without having read any of the other five. You'll have a greater understanding of backstory, but I didn't want someone to see Summer of Crows and pass on it because they didn't want to read five other books first (and frankly, Summer of Crows is the best written of the bunch because it's the most recent).

Caveat: A second edition of Malediction is forthcoming; while producing the audio book, we discovered the the wrong file had been uploaded to Amazon and many of the final round of edits never made it into the book... then I discovered that final file somehow vanished. sobs So, it's being re-edited. As yet, we have not discovered the same issues in Lament or Salvation. The story won't change, but it'll just be cleaner and have better flow in places.
 

J-H

Hero
Some of the Bollywood movies have scenes that look like something a group of D&D PCs would come up with.

Best plan ever!

The party druid crashes the big ball:

Protagonist archery vs. 4e mooks? Also, the king rolls last in Initiative and took the first 2 hits before he remembered to Rage:
 

thullgrim

Adventurer
Someone up thread mentioned the The Belgaeiad but I’d also mention The Elenium as well

Honorable mention to both the Deathstalker and Hawk and Fisher by Simon R. Green.

Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
 


Kings of the Wyld
Adventuring bands are compared to Rock bands. Sounds cheesy and it is, but very entertaining.

Orconomics
The economic effects of too many looted dungeons
 

jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock
Most of Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar fantasy novels could be a D&D campaign. But, in actual fact, they're inspired by his in-house Rolemaster 2e campaigns. I emailed him in the late 90s and he corresponded with me briefly, after which he snail mailed me his house rules for using Rolemaster 2e to play in Mithgar. I never got a chance to use them (because I could only find one other person willing to play Rolemaster at the time). But I'd like to revisit the idea in AD&D 1e.
 

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