Dragonlance is a pivotal moment in the history of TSR and marked it the company’s first foray into creating a multimedia property. I’ll be looking at the novels, art and the first source book this week (I’d dive into the modules, but I don’t have the whole set yet – if you’ve got dupes, lemme know and maybe we can trade something).

Dragonlance was conceived as a series of module (which eventually became DL1–14, sort of) that detailed one large tale of an epic war between the forces of good and evil. A marked shift from tournament style modules, Dragonlance was to have pre-generated characters and an intricate plot. The story was the point, not the loot or the levels or the hacking and slashing.

A series of companion novels were part of the plan, though the design team didn’t appreciate the hired author. Two members of the design team – Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis – eventually supplanted him, penning Dragons of Autumn Twilight in 1984. The novel coincides roughly with the first two modules, though some events differ. What no one could have predicted at the time was that Dragons of Autumn Twilight was to become the cornerstone of a massively successful publishing phenomenon.

Autumn Twilight starts with sort of the D&D equivalent of The Big Chill – a bunch of friends reuniting in a tavern (no one is dead, though…yet). Events spiral out of control almost immediately, with a war starting and a group of religious folks looking to pave the way for the return of the old gods. It ends with a dungeon crawl, a slave uprising and a black dragon. Good stuff.

Dragonlance was a huge reading phase for me. I devoured nearly all the books from the late 80s and early 90s, culminating with the Verminaard novel. They struck me as urgent and dark and violent and more than a little sad – there was tragedy in the air from the very first chapters. I suspect they would seem thin to me now, a melodramatic by-the-numbers novelized D&D sessions. But maybe not? Probably not worth the risk of ruining all those fond memories.