Over the last six months or so, I have been reading a lot of older novels written in the Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the Forgotten Realms campaign setting populated by characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster the Mage. Why I have been reading these primarily stems from the fact that the Rime of the Frostmaiden and Legacy of the Crystal Shard modules references events that took place in The Crystal Shard as well as other books. "The Crystal Shard" is part 1 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but The Dark Elf Trilogy is a prequel to the Icewind Dale Trilogy so I decided to read those books first even though they were written after the Icewind Dale Trilogy; that is just the way my brain works most of the time. So while I was waiting for "The Halfling's Gem," the third book in the Icewind Dale Trilogy to become available through my local library, I checked out Elminster: The Making of a Mage being the first book in the Elminster Trilogy and written by Ed Greenwood who created the Forgotten Realms campaign setting circa 1979. I later found out, while looking up information about R.A. Salvatore's writing of the Icewind Dale Trilogy, that he had originally had his story take place in the Moonshae Isles thinking that that was all there was to Faerun because the only novels to exist in the Forgotten Realms was Moonshae Trilogy.
So my reading list for the next couple of months (possibly the rest of the year?) looks as follows:
- The Halfling's Gem - Icewind Dale Trilogy Book 3 - The Legend of Drizzt Book 6
- Elminster - The Making of a Mage
- Darkwater on Moonshae - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 1
- Black Wizards - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 2
- Darkwell - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 3
- Elminster in Myth Drannor
- The Temptation of Elminster
- Elminster in Hell
- Elminster's Daughter
There will likely be other Drizzt books interspersed with books from the Legacy of the Drow series between the Elminster books since those are not a specific trilogy. Pentalogy? But then since the module Legacy of the Crystal Shard, which proceeds the events in Rime of the Frostmaiden, deals with the events of The Second Sundering, there is that book series too. Hmm.
All of this brings me to a couple of points.
Apparently, I am drawn to books that are trilogies, or possibly that the kinds of stories that I am drawn to, end up being ones that are written as trilogies. It mostly ends up being that I find out about a particular story, character, or event that I want background information on, and that story ends up being a trilogy. I guess publishers also like trilogies?
I love history, which is probably why I found myself drawn to reading books that were referenced in a module that I may not end up reading for another year. In the Forgotten Realms universe, there was an event called the Spellplague which I have heard about, but always as something that happened in the past. I know that it has to do with the Goddess of Magic Mystra being assassinated by the God of Lies, Cyric, but I have never read anything about that event and the events leading up to and after the Spellplague seem very interesting. Which is one of the reasons that led me to start reading the Elminster books as they deal heavily with Mystra and I felt like I wanted to know that character before she was killed off. I want to have a baseline for this world that was chock full of magic and then what it was like when magic just ceased to be a thing for a decade. That, to me, is just a buck wild concept, that a world where magic seems so fundamental to the game and the story, that it no longer exists was a thing. Now I want to see if there were any official D&D campaigns that took place during The Wailing Years that would allow players to play as a Wizard/Mage without the ability to cast magic.
The second is that I enjoy reading about stories that take place within a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. I have been playing D&D off and on now for 30 years and am fairly familiar with high fantasy tropes along with mechanics for at least the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th editions. I find it entertaining to read a book where I can imagine the story being played out as a tabletop game, where if a character tries to attack a Bugbear and the Bugbear just stands there unaffected, I can imagine that the player rolled a 10 on their attack roll and probably only has a +3 to hit against the Bugbear's AC of 5 (this is 2E, in the days of THAC0, where a lower AC is better). I also enjoy reading stories that take place in locations that I have visited in a video game, which in turn is why I like playing video games that take place in a D&D campaign setting if I have played that setting in a tabletop game.
Since I have been unable to play D&D on a regular basis, the last time being around autumn 2020, these books scratch that itch of either playing as a PC or the DM. It is not an itch that any fantasy series can fulfill, although I am also rereading The Lord of the Rings, because I like hearing about locations like Neverwinter Wood, Candlekeep, and the Spine of the World that I am familiar with.
Why do I feel I have written all of this to justify reading 30-year-old fantasy novels based on a tabletop role-playing game?
P.S. Around the time I was introduced to D&D from Dellanos, I remember borrowing some books of his that were Dungeons & Dragons based, but I cannot remember anything specific about the stories. I know one book had a Black Dragon acid-spitting on a cloth/leather-clad person who likely had a shield up, and at least another book that probably also had a dragon on the cover. It would not surprise me if Dellanos still had those books because I know I too have kept most of my 2nd edition Ravenloft books.
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