D&D: The Stories That Sparked Decades Of Gaming – Prime
Have you ever wondered why you cast spells with “slots” or why dwarves are Scottish? The answers lie in the stories that inspired D&D.
When you play a game of D&D, certain “facts” seem to be self-evident. Things like elves shoot longbows and are good at hiding in nature. Dwarves wield hammers or axes, love beer, and are generally, Scottish. Meanwhile, barbarians have massive thews and little regard for the trappings of civilization, while wizards work powerful spells until they run out of magic, then they’re about as useful as a moral compass on a politician in an election year. All of this illustrates a sort of pastiche that we might just brush off as “well that’s fantasy…” and sure, it is fantasy of a sort. But it has its roots somewhere. These ideas, which many hold to be self-evident, don’t describe every branch of fantasy out there.
While we can all agree wizards and elves have their place, one only need look at the works of authors like Ursula K Le Guin or Joan Aiken to find fantasy of a very different sort–even when it features wizards and dragons. Wizards become less fragile things, instead using mastery of names to work their wiles. And that’s just a single book. Why then, does D&D feel so very D&D? Well the answer comes down to a few different stories whose DNA filtered through to make the basic building blocks of D&D. Today we’re going to take a look back at those Ur-Texts who contributed their very bones to D&D. So come back with us to the distant past, back more than sixty years to find the stories that inspired D&D.
The Dying Earth
Odds are good if you’ve ever played D&D, you’ve come up against the term “Vancian Magic.” If you’ve ever wondered what that means… here’s the series it comes from. So-called because it takes the name of the series’ author, Jack Vance, Vancian magic has been the bane of low-level wizards since 1st Edition, and is something that the designers have been working to fix throughout the editions, whether with new rulesets, player kits, or things like Cantrips that ensure you never have a boring session after casting a single, solitary magic missile.
Jack Vance is reportedly one of Gary Gygax’ favorite authors–and you can feel the influence of his work on magic-users in D&D. It’s also the reason there’s probably a lot of sci-fi sprinkled in throughout D&D.
Set in the distant future of Earth, when the sun is nearing the end of its life and the sky is lit by its fading light, the world of The Dying Earth is a post-post-post apocalyptic one, where the ruins of uncountable civilizations dot the land, littering the world with the fragments of their passage. You might find ancient technology, but to the people who lack understanding, it may as well be magic. And so you have wizards who memorize and “load” a handful of spells by studying lengthy formulas which they then activate by speaking the proper commands.
Once cast, the spell is gone from their memory and unavailable to the wizard until they have time to rest and rememorize the formula. But in one of the stories its implied that the magic here is actually technology, invented by advanced mathematics and sciences long forgotten by the people in this distant future.
Spells that require specific formula and somatic/material components to activate? That sounds like D&D’s Magic System. The trick here, though, is that Vancian magic, as most people call it, stops at the fact that magic = limited resource/spell slots. But in the Dying Earth, a big part of the challenge of it is that Wizards have other tools they can rely on, like magical relics, skills, and special talents. A big part of the action and fun of the Dying Earth series is watching wizards scrape by once they’ve spent their limited store of magic, or when they’re trying to save a spell for something that really matters–but frequently you’ll watch them trying a lot more than just stabbing someone with a dagger that does 1d4 damage, if they can even hit.
Even the spell names mirror those found in D&D. Spells are named “the Excellent Prismatic Spray” or “Phandaal’s Mantle of Stealth” which is a much cooler spell name than Pass without Trace. But D&D takes more than just the magic systems from the Dying Earth. This is also where Ioun Stones appear, though rather than just magic gemstones that sort of are around, they’re much more metal in The Dying Earth. In the Dying Earth IOUN Stones are harvested from the core of neutron stars, left shattered and fragmented by the Nothing at the edge of the universe. The dead hearts of stars is pretty awesome, as far as magic items go.
And if you’ve ever played a thief or rogue, you also owe a lot to The Dying Earth, specifically to the third book in the series, Cugel’s Saga. The series’ titular character, Cugel the Clever is a sort of ur-rogue who is curiously able to decipher magical scripts and to use certain spells–though it doesn’t always work the way he hopes, which is the whole reason that Use Magic Device ever existed in D&D in the first place.
Or consider Liane, a “bandit-troubadour” who is a vain and overconfident adventurer who is always seeking wine, women, and song, and sets out on quests to win the affections of a beautiful witch. If you’re wondering where the idea of a Bard came from, sure, you can claim storytelling traditions from real world cultures like Skalds all you like, but they also have their roots in Vance’s saga.
Gygax was such a fan of Vance that he took his name, anagrammed it just a little, and created Vecna, the archlich of D&D, a fitting choice for the god of secrets.
Three Hearts and Three Lions
D&D wouldn’t be D&D without Three Hearts and Three Lions. While The Dying Earth contributed magic and archetypes to D&D, Poul Anderson laid out the philosophical underpinnings that have people arguing “but it’s what my character would do, they’re Chaotic Neutral” to this day. If you’ve ever touched anything even close to alignment in D&D, you owe it all to this story.
That’s right, all of those alignment square memes can be traced back to this story by Poul Anderson, who inspired authors like Robert Heinlein with his larger than life adventure stories full of characters who succeed or fail spectacularly, and often both at once. Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions is one of those “other world” stories, where Holger Carlsen, a Danish Engineer, fighting for the resistance against the Nazis in World War II is shot by said Germans, and finds himself transported to a parallel universe inspired by a sort of mythic medieval period, where the forces of Chaos (which inhabit the Fae-like Middle World) fight against the forces of Law (humanity, and specifically the Holy Roman Empire and Saracens). Our hero finds all the equipment of a medieval knight waiting, including a shield emblazoned with three hearts and three lions.
On the journey to return to his home world, Carlsen joins forces with a swan maiden, a dwarf, and a wizard to go around adventuring in what we might call typical D&D fashion. But the story is defined by its conflict between Law and Chaos and those on either side–take a look at how Anderson defined it:
This business of Chaos versus Law, for example, turned out to be more than religious dogma. It was a practical fact of existence, here. He was reminded of the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency of the physical universe toward disorder and level entropy. Perhaps here, that tendency found a more… animistic… expression.
In this universe the wild folk of the Middle World might be trying to break down a corresponding painfully established order; to restore some primeval state where anything could happen. Decent humanity would, on the other hand, always want to strengthen and extend Law, safety, predictability.
Though to be sure, science had its perversions, while magic had its laws. A definite ritual was needed in either case, whether you built an airplane or a flying carpet.
Gygax would expand this to include good and evil, as well as neutrality, which we all know is basically the worst thing you can be. After all, who can tell what makes a man turn neutral? Interestingly enough, Chaos is not necessarily inherently evil, nor is Law necessarily inherently good. They both have their heroes and villains, or as the dwarf Huigin puts it:
You canna tell wha’ the Faerie folk will do next. They canna tell theirselves, nor care. They live in wildness, which is why they be o’ the dark Chaos side in this war.
AdvertisementWe’ll ha’ naught to do wi’ the wars in this uneasy land. We’ll bide our aine lives and let Heaven, Hell, Earth, and the Middle World fight it oot as they will. And when yon proud lairds ha’ laid each other oot, stiff and stark, we’ll still be here. A pox on ’em all!
Which, if you managed to read all that reveals another secret hidden origin found in D&D and pretty much all the other fantasy stories. Huigin the Dwarf talks with a Scottish brogue so thick you could cut it with a knife, or toss it, caberlike, into a conversation and send folks tumbling. Gygax, being a fan of this book, must have picked up on it and defined Dwarves with their hammer-and-axe-loving ways based on Huigin’s misadventures in the story.
And the list keeps growing. Along the way Carlsen encounters a great deal more that would inspire D&D, including much of the early monster manual. Notably he runs into a troll that regenerates fast and can only be defeated with fire or acid. That’s right, D&D’s Trolls are taken straight from this book. As is the whole basis for the Paladin Class.
As Carlsen adventures, he gains most of the class features that we associate with the Paladin in D&D. There is laying on of hands, a Holy Sword, and “protection spells” which are the inspirations for Protection from Evil, but which protected the entire party’s camp. And while there’s no specific precedent for the divine smite, it’s wrapped up in the language of Anderson’s stories.
Anderson’s take on Law and Chaos as metaphysical forces would go on to inspire our next story as well:
Elric of Melniboné
Michael Moorcock’s work, detailing the saga of Elric of Melniboné, wielder of the magic sword Stormbringer, is another one of those stories that has its fertile loam wrapped around D&D’s twisting roots. Once again, we get to a world where Law and Chaos war as cosmic forces, and everything is kept in check by “the great balance” which if it were ever upset would somehow through the entire universe into destruction.
Kind of like how Mordenkainen, cosmic meddler and wizard extraordinaire, devotes himself to utter neutrality, rather than good or evil. His whole deal is about preserving the great balance, to the point that it’s basically a religion for him.
Elric is melancholy and wields a powerful magic sword. His actions are over-the-top, expansive stories that feature entire fleets of undead magic-imbued ships, and confrontation with powerful forces. The patrons of Elric’s world once famously showed up in D&D’s Deities & Demigods, though that led to some small legal disputes that eventually got them pulled.
People who have played through White Plume Mountain will also recognize the origins of the magic sword Blackrazor in Elric’s Stormbringer.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
It doesn’t get more D&D than Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Fritz Leiber’s most famous duo, and stars of the adventures of Lankhmar, a fantasy city so well developed–and so integral to D&D that they once turned it into a setting all its own right.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are basically D&D players. They capture the heart of PCs to a tee. Let’s start with an example taken straight out of Swords and Deviltry, which has Fafhrd strapping fireworks to his skis in order to rocket across a dangerous jump. And that’s their first collection of stories. There are almost fifty years of stories much like that one. Lieber had his fantasy pair, who frequently quip to bartenders and delve into dark humour when other characters are delivering flowery speeches, adventure across the world. They encounter were-rats and ghouls (and end up dating both of them), so there’s another D&D trope. Take a look at Fafhrd and his friend PC-ing it up:
As they were anchoring in Ilthmar harbor, the Black Treasurer literally fell apart like a joke-box, starboard side parting from larboard like two quarters of a split melon, while the mast and cabin, weighted by the keel, sank speedily as a rock.
Fafhrd and Mouser saved only the clothes they were in, their swords, dirk, and ax. And it was well they hung onto the latter, for while swimming ashore they were attacked by a school of sharks, and each man had to defend himself and comrade while swimming encumbered. Ilthmarts lining the quays and moles cheered the heroes and the sharks impartially, or rather as to how they had laid their money, the odds being mostly three-to-one against both heroes surviving, with various shorter odds on the big man, the little man, or one or the other turning the trick.
Ilthmarts are a somewhat heartless people and much given to gambling. Besides, they welcome sharks into their harbor, since it makes for an easy way of disposing of common criminals, robbed and drunken strangers, slaves grown senile or otherwise useless, and also assures that the shark-god’s chosen victims will always be spectacularly received.
When Fafhrd and the Mouser finally staggered ashore panting, they were cheered by such Ilthmarts as had won money on them. A larger number were busy booing the sharks.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve also fought a sword-wielding octopus. The stories blend humor and fantasy and sort of a brazenness to brew the perfect recipe for adventure. These stories feel like what D&D is trying to get at. And it makes sense, these stories revolve around companions having adventures. With Fafhrd we see a Conan-esque hero: a northern barbarian as skilled with a sword as he is a song, while his companion, the Mouser, is a much more slight hero and thief, dual-wielding sword and main-gauche, and the occasional bit of magic.
These two rogues are ruthless and cynical and prone to spending their fortunes before they can truly amass any great wealth–but that is just more motivation to keep them adventuring. The two are sellswords, and frequently head out in search of gold, establishing a pattern that DMs still rely on to this day.
It’s little wonder that they would inform the attitudes of the typical players. Gygax was clearly trying to emulate their misadventures, right down to thieves’ guilds sending assassins after characters who thieve without a license. While they don’t necessarily leave their mark on any of D&D’s rules, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser define the spirit of the game in ways we still feel today.
So the next time you find yourself running up against some of the things that “everyone” takes for granted in D&D, you’ll find yourself better armed. The list goes on. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose heroic characters influenced many of the authors on this list, including Leiber. Or the superheroics of Gardner Fox, whose contributions to Comics merit a whole separate article in their own right, but whose book Kothar of the Magic Sword, which in another author’s hand would be little more than a Conan ripoff, sets up melodramatic conflicts and experience points based on gold pieces found, and, if you believe apocryphal accounts, the very idea of a Lich as a “living-dead wizard.” And if you’ve ever taken sheltered in a pocket dimension, then Kothar’s adventures with the Helix from Beyond are to blame/thank.
And all that’s just the 1st edition of the game. As they say, good DMs borrow, great DMs steal. Over the editions, other books have doubtless come along and influenced D&D, or in later editions, like 3rd and 4th, you can feel the effect that video games have had on RPGs, which is ironic, considering that most of those games were just as likely shaped by D&D as anything else. All of which shows, when you’re playing D&D, wear your influences on your sleeve. Don’t be afraid to show your work, and be inspired by the works all around you. That’s what’ll shape the future of D&D for years to come.
What are your favorite D&D influences? Let us know in the comments!
