Yes I wrote D&D books
My regular barista at Cardoon asked which were my D&D books--we got chatting about his game one day--and with the upcoming movie, I'm suddenly receiving more queries about those stories. The two novels are available in ebook and Audible format. The novella Cold Steel & Secrets was only published in ebook form (as far as I know). Paperbacks of the novels are long out-of-print but available in the secondary market.
So for Alex who makes a fabulous gingerbread latte and anyone else, here's the list:
The novels (bold), novella, and stories set in the Dungeons and Dragons world known as the Forgotten Realms and created by Ed Greenwood. All published by Wizards of the Coast.
City of the Dead - this was part of a 5th edition series where Ed Greenwood selected the authors and we were to each explore a different part of the newly redone Waterdeep. I said "bags the graveyard" and off I went to write about a large family who lived in Waterdeep. When I'm playing I get very curious about what NPCs (nonplayer characters) think about living in a place like Waterdeep and so, as many people have pointed out, this is an adventure without adventurers. But the very lovable Carver family have a touch of their own lively magic when it comes to Waterdeep's graveyard, the City of the Dead. This one also has an absolutely fabulous old lord of Waterdeep that I borrowed for the story with Ed's permission. I had a lot of fun with the wizard who gets mixed up with the Carver family by having him own an "earlier" version of a Waterdeep guidebook, really Volvo's guide, and constantly getting lost in the "newer" city. For the Candlekeep online crew, I tucked in a topiary dragon too, largely because it was voted the most useless monster ever invented for the game.
Cold Steel and Secrets - this novella was published in four parts as a serial adventure that was to serve as a prequel to a Neverwinter game expansion. It was only published in electronic format as far as I know. If you ever find a print copy, I'd love to see it! Because I love swashbucklers and spy stories, this is a bit of both.
Crypt of the Moaning Diamond - Technically a 4th edition story but I set it about 100 years before the then current 4th edition guides. All the action takes place beneath the walls of the "most besieged" city in the Realms, Tsurlagol (pronounced: /ˈtsɪrlɑːgoʊl/ TSIR-lah-gol). All the "Dungeons" novels in this series were supposed to be named after the place where they were set. Only we all decided Tsurlagol was an impossible name for the book, so I added the crypt beneath the city. I played D&D weekly in college, usually very late at night after I finished laying out the college newspaper, so this is my homage to dashing through a dungeon with a touch of sleep deprivation. Ivy and the Siegebreakers were so much fun to write and it's probably the first dungeon crawl with pets (the dwarf has a little white dog who DOES survive the adventure). I received so many notes about the dog that I made up a bookplate that says "No dogs were harmed during the writing of this book" and sent it out to fans.
Short stories appeared in:
Realms of the Dead - "Dusty Bones" [a prequel to City of the Dead]
Realms of Dragons II - "The Woman Who Drew Dragons" [my first D&D sale and loosely based on a Chinese fairytale]
Untold Adventures - "Dreaming of Waterdeep" [a prequel to City of the Dead]
Wizards.com - "Pigs Explode" [a prequel to Crypt of the Moaning Diamond written for an earlier version of the WOTC website. All the links seem to have exploded but if you find it, it does explain a real technique used by medieval sappers and the Siegebreakers to bring down walls!]
So for Alex who makes a fabulous gingerbread latte and anyone else, here's the list:
The novels (bold), novella, and stories set in the Dungeons and Dragons world known as the Forgotten Realms and created by Ed Greenwood. All published by Wizards of the Coast.
City of the Dead - this was part of a 5th edition series where Ed Greenwood selected the authors and we were to each explore a different part of the newly redone Waterdeep. I said "bags the graveyard" and off I went to write about a large family who lived in Waterdeep. When I'm playing I get very curious about what NPCs (nonplayer characters) think about living in a place like Waterdeep and so, as many people have pointed out, this is an adventure without adventurers. But the very lovable Carver family have a touch of their own lively magic when it comes to Waterdeep's graveyard, the City of the Dead. This one also has an absolutely fabulous old lord of Waterdeep that I borrowed for the story with Ed's permission. I had a lot of fun with the wizard who gets mixed up with the Carver family by having him own an "earlier" version of a Waterdeep guidebook, really Volvo's guide, and constantly getting lost in the "newer" city. For the Candlekeep online crew, I tucked in a topiary dragon too, largely because it was voted the most useless monster ever invented for the game.
Cold Steel and Secrets - this novella was published in four parts as a serial adventure that was to serve as a prequel to a Neverwinter game expansion. It was only published in electronic format as far as I know. If you ever find a print copy, I'd love to see it! Because I love swashbucklers and spy stories, this is a bit of both.
Crypt of the Moaning Diamond - Technically a 4th edition story but I set it about 100 years before the then current 4th edition guides. All the action takes place beneath the walls of the "most besieged" city in the Realms, Tsurlagol (pronounced: /ˈtsɪrlɑːgoʊl/ TSIR-lah-gol). All the "Dungeons" novels in this series were supposed to be named after the place where they were set. Only we all decided Tsurlagol was an impossible name for the book, so I added the crypt beneath the city. I played D&D weekly in college, usually very late at night after I finished laying out the college newspaper, so this is my homage to dashing through a dungeon with a touch of sleep deprivation. Ivy and the Siegebreakers were so much fun to write and it's probably the first dungeon crawl with pets (the dwarf has a little white dog who DOES survive the adventure). I received so many notes about the dog that I made up a bookplate that says "No dogs were harmed during the writing of this book" and sent it out to fans.
Short stories appeared in:
Realms of the Dead - "Dusty Bones" [a prequel to City of the Dead]
Realms of Dragons II - "The Woman Who Drew Dragons" [my first D&D sale and loosely based on a Chinese fairytale]
Untold Adventures - "Dreaming of Waterdeep" [a prequel to City of the Dead]
Wizards.com - "Pigs Explode" [a prequel to Crypt of the Moaning Diamond written for an earlier version of the WOTC website. All the links seem to have exploded but if you find it, it does explain a real technique used by medieval sappers and the Siegebreakers to bring down walls!]
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