Appendix Demon Lord
Last week, on Twitter, I was asked if I was ever going to talk about Shadow of the Demon Lord’s “Appendix N.” For those of you not in the know, Appendix N comes from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons’ 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, which listed all the works that influenced the game’s design. The books Gary Gygax included ranged from the familiar to the obscure, making it difficult to track many of them down. Reading them, I found, gave me insight into not only the mood and tone Gygax was chasing with D&D, but also provided explanations for why things worked they way they did in the game. I know I wasn’t alone in digging into the books during my stint as a designer on the 5th edition’s design team and we sought to recapture much of atmosphere those books imparted on game.
Like D&D, books had a great influence on Shadow of the Demon Lord. Since you asked, here’s a list of the books that affected the game’s design and continue to influence stuff I create for it. My list is nowhere near exhaustive; I’m always finding things that tickle my brain tongue and I am sure I forgot a few things too. Some of the books might seem surprising, having nothing to do with a Demon Lord lurching out from the space between realities to visit death and destruction to all living things. But influences are influences. To keep with the Appendix N theme, I’m going to leave off music, video games, and other RPGs, though they are important too. Finally, I’m arranging them by author first and then what I think were key works.
Abbey, Lynn and Asprin, Robert. Thieves’ World
Abercrombie, Joe. Shattered Sea series. Red Country, Best Served Cold, The Heroes, The First Law series
Ahmed, Saladin. Throne of the Crescent Moon
Anderson, Poul. The Broken Sword, Three Hearts Three Lions
Bakker, R. Scott. The Prince of Nothing series
Ballard, J. G. The Crystal World
Barker, Clive. The Books of Blood, The Thief of Always
Bear, Elizabeth. Eternal Sky series
Belliars, John. The Face in the Frost
Bester, Alfred. The Stars my Destination
Carter, Lin (ed.) Flashing Swords
Chambers, Robert. The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories
Clarke, Susanna. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Cook, Glen. Instrumentalities of the Night series, The Black Company series
Crowley, John. Little, Big
Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose, Baudolino, The Island of the Day Before
Erikson, Steven. The Malazan Book of the Fallen series
Esslemont, Ian C. Malazan Empire series
Farland, David. Runelords series
Feist, Raymond. Faerie Tale, The Serpentwar Saga
Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere, American Gods
Howard, Robert E. The Complete Chronicles of Conan, the Solomon Kane series
Jones, J.V. Sword of Shadows series, Book of Words series
King, Stephen. The Dark Tower series, The Eyes of the Dragon
King, Stephen and Straub, Peter. The Talisman
King, William. Gotrek & Felix series
Lebbon, Tim. Echo City
Lee, Tannith. Night’s Master
Leiber, Fritz. Lankhmar series
Lovecraft, H.P. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
Lynch, Scott. Gentleman Bastard series
Machen, Arthur. The White People and Other Weird Stories
Martin, George R.R. A Song of Ice and Fire series
Miéville, China. Bas-Lag series
Miller Jr., Walter M A Canticle for Leibowitz
Moorcock, Michael. The Elric series.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Damned
Powers, Tim. Hide Me Among the Graves, The Anubis Gates
Pratchett, Terry. Discworld series
Pullman, Philip. His Dark Materials series
Rothfuss, Patrick. The Kingkiller Chronicle series
Shae, Michael. The Incomplete Nifft
Smith, Clark Ashton. The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith
Strahan, Jonathan ed. Swords & Dark Magic
Williams, Tad. Bobby Dollar series (especially Happy Hour in Hell), Shadowmarch series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
Wolfe, Gene. The Books of the New Sun series
Zelazny, Roger. Lord of Light
