Appendix N: Weird Tales From the Roots of Dungeons and Dragons

An anthology of fantastical tales that inspired the creation of the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

An anthology of fantastical tales that inspired the creation of the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Edited by Peter Bebergal, this lovingly-assembled revised and expanded edition of Appendix N adds a new foreword by Arthur C. Clarke award-winning novelist Adrian Tchaikovsky, tales by A. Merritt and Andre Norton, a dark fantasy comic by Gardner Fox & John Giunta, and illustrations by revered master of the weird, Virgil Finlay, and Escape The Dark Castle’s Alex Crispin.

Drawing upon the original list of \”inspirational reading\” provided by Gary Gygax in the first Dungeon Master’s Guide, published in 1979, as well as hobbyist magazines and related periodicals that helped to define the modern role-playing game, Appendix N offers a collection of short fiction and resonant fragments that reveal the literary influences that shaped Dungeons & Dragons, the world’s most popular RPG. The stories in Appendix N contextualize the ambitious lyrical excursions that helped set the adventurous tone and dank, dungeon-crawling atmospheres of fantasy roleplay as we know it today.

This new edition, published on the occasion of D&D’s 50th anniversary, includes fascinating new stories, a comprehensive introduction, and a new foreword.

Includes work by Poul Anderson, Frank Brunner, Ramsey Campbell, Lin Carter, Lord Dunsany, Gardner Fox & John Giunta, Robert E. Howard, Tanith Lee, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, David Madison, A. Merritt, Michael Moorcock, C. L. Moore, Andre Norton, Fred Saberhagen, Clark Ashton Smith, Margaret St. Clair, Jack Vance, Manly Wade Wellman

Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Imprint: Strange Attractor Press/MIT
Publication date: 17/12/2024