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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 5806147" data-attributes="member: 8461">It's worth noting that the influence of Lord of the Rings on the development of D&D is actually a lot more minimal than most people think it is. Gary took advantage of what was, at the time, a resurgence of popularity in LotR when he created D&D. That's why the game has elves, dwarves, halflings (hobbits), treants (ents), and a few others that are clearly inspired by Tolkien.The rest of the game draws inspiration from a wide range of pulp stories, including Conan, Elric, John Carter, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, and many others. Hence the famous "Appendix N" in the back of the 1E DMG, listing some of the most influential books.But to bring it back around to the topic, there is no clear literary precedent for the arcane/divine magic divide in any of the books that Gary drew inspiration from. The cleric, as a class, is largely inspired by the old Hammer horror films. The actual clerical spellcasting, however, is - as others have pointed out - mostly built off of Biblical accounts of religious miracles.Arcane magic, by contrast, tends to be modeled off of the works of Jack Vance (of the Dying Earth series, and other stories) in terms of how its utilized, with the effects coming from a wider range of stories.EDIT: This is slightly off-topic, but there's a good article on the Biblical influences of early D&D <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/12/implicit-christianity-of-early-gaming.html" target="_blank">over here</a>.</blockquote>

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