Book 25 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

As folks are probably aware from this blog, I am a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons and a longtime player. I got my start in the hobby the way a lot of people did: through reading classic sword-and-sorcery stories like Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales and wanting to play through some of that adventure myself. Thus, when I came across Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons & Dragons, edited by Peter Bebergal (2020), I had to read it!

A little background information is needed to understand the title. When the first edition of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for D&D appeared in 1979, it included an appendix, Appendix N, that was Gary Gygax’s personal list of “Educational and Inspirational Reading.” This included classic sword-and-sorcery like Howard’s Conan series, high fantasy like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, adventure novels like A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage, and stories that fall into a mix of fantasy and science fiction like Sterling Lanier’s Hiero’s Journey. This list is a treasure in and of itself, albeit one from a single person’s perspective, and others followed Gygax’s lead. For the 1981 Basic D&D set, Tom Moldvay included his own inspirational source material, and 5th edition D&D had its own list.

The book Appendix N attempts to gather together stories from Gygax’s original list, with some caveats. Many of Gygax’s original references are full novels, which can’t be included for obvious reasons, and so editor Bebergal uses short stories by the same authors that match the vibe that Gygax was drawn to. In my early 2020 edition — and there is now a revised and expanded 2024 edition — there are 17 tales altogether, along with an introduction by the editor and an afterword by publisher and editor Ann VanderMeer. All the stories are honestly gems, and for me they were not only nostalgic but a glimpse at the inspirations of Dungeons & Dragons.

So what is included? I will just mention a few highlights, some of which are famous, some of which are not.

• Jewels in the Forest, Fritz Leiber. This is the first adventure of the famed duo Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, one of the most iconic adventuring pairs in fantasy fiction. In this tale, they go on a quest to find some hidden jewels protected by a supernatural guardian — with lots of unexpected trouble along the way.
• Empire of the Necromancers, by Clark Ashton Smith. Two powerful necromancers, cast out for their sinister magic, make a home in a city of the dead in the desert and raise up its former inhabitants as their servants. But the dead are not as placid as they appear, and the necromancers will pay a horrible price.
• Turjan of Miir, by Jack Vance. A spellcaster seeks the knowledge of a legendary wizard in his efforts to learn how to create life, and runs into unexpected complications and adventure along the way. Vance’s work, where spellcasters can only memorize a finite number of spells per day that must be relearned the next, was a direct influence on D&D’s magic.
• Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard. One of the classic Conan stories (though they’re all classics)! Conan seeks to rob the tower of a powerful priest, rumored to contain a priceless gem. But what he find there is more than he ever imagined.
• Dreaming City, by Michael Moorcock. The first story of Moorcock’s Elric series, about a frail sorcerer king who gains his strength through his magical soul-sucking sword Stormbringer. In this tale, Elric gathers an army to destroy the city he once ruled and was deposed from. Elric’s worship of Chaos over Law was a major inspiration for D&D’s alignment system.
• Tower of Darkness, by David Madison. A lesser-known tale about two adventurers who opt to spend the night in an unfamiliar city where horrible things walk at night.
• Pit of Wings, by Ramsey Campbell. Campbell is one of my favorite authors of horror, and this early tale of his shows he can also write a ripping adventure yarn. Here, a warrior falls afoul of a cult and must fight to survive being sacrificed to its evil objects of worship.

Other stories appear by Lin Carter, Poul Anderson, Tanith Lee, Fred Saberhagen, H.P. Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman, Margaret St. Clair, C.L. Moore, Lord Dunsany, and Frank Brunner.

As I have said, some of the stories are famous and can be found elsewhere; others, like the stories by Madison, Lee and Campbell, are ones that I’ve only come across here. This is a great book to curl up with before bed, knocking out one or two stories a night — that’s how I read it. No Tolkien is included, clearly both due to rights difficulties and the inability to satisfyingly excerpt anything from his work. (The editor, to his credit, avoids any novel excerpts.)

The expanded edition includes stories by A. Merritt and Andre Norton, which I find intriguing, but I probably won’t pick up just because I’ve read almost everything by A. Merritt already! Lovers of classic fantasy, especially those who love great sword and sorcery adventure tales, will find Appendix N a blast.