Wanna start a Dungeons and Dragons campaign but don’t have any friends to play with? You’re in luck! With this 10 fantasy books that feel like playing DnD, you don’t need friends. What are friends good for, anyway? Every DnD player knows that your party members are only in it for themselves – just a bunch of lowlife chaotic neutrals looking for their next loot score. You think that holier than thou paladin will step in to save you if doing so will offend his god? Think again. And don’t even get me started on the rogues – just take my word for it (and these authors’ words too) you’ll find a better campaign in the pages of a book.
The Blade Itself
Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself serves as a PSA against forming any sort of adventuring party whatsoever. This novel’s grimdark world is a high fantasy rat race more cutthroat than Wall Street in 1980’s. The cast is made up of characters who come in every shade of morally grey, including a nine fingered barbarian down on his luck and desperate for a win, a morally repugnant nobleman who cheats at cards and wounds in duels, and a twisted torturer who serves as a Lawful Evil poster child while working for the Inquisition. Throw a cantankerous old wizard who may or may not be a conman into the mix and you’ve got a band of murderous miscreants primed and ready for the most self-serving adventure the world has ever had the displeasure to behold.
City of Stairs
City of Stairs by a Robert Jackson Bennett serves as an urban fantasy murder mystery DnD campaign for two sleuthy players. The stage is set in Bulikov, a city that was once able to harness the powers of gods in order to conquer and enslave the world. Now a shadow of its former self, the city squats there like some kind of rotten mushroom, waiting to once again cover the forest with its sick spores. Shara Thivani has the displeasure of visiting this dark metropolis, spurred on by the agency responsible for keeping the defeated Bulikov in check. Accompanied by her assistant Sigrud, she’s tasked with solving a recent murder – one that could jeopardize and already tenuous status quo. This is a book for those would spec their stats into Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma – three things that Shara desperately needs to crack the case.
Legends and Lattes
A cozy fantasy set in a DnD inspired world, Travis Baldtree’s Legends and Lattes is the story of a battle hardened orc named Viv looking to turn over a new, nonviolent leaf. How? By starting a coffee shop, of course! The problem is, the plebeians in the city of Thune have never heard of “coffee” and aren’t keen on spending their hard-earned dosh on a beverage they don’t understand. What Viv has here is a marketing problem, but her new succubus business partner Tandri might just have the solution. As the pair turn the titular coffee spot into a booming business, they find that they begin to depend on each other for more than just the logistics – but the romantics instead. It’s a fresh brewed low stakes fantasy, poured with room left for the foam of love. Sorry, that sounded a little gross.
The Blacktongue Thief
A leading light of the grimdark genre, Christopher Buehlman is back with an all new dark fantasy epic The Blacktongue Thief. This roguish romp revolves around a sticky fingered swindler freshly graduated from thief school – and conned into student loan debt. With no government granted loan forgiveness plan in sight, Kinch Na Shannack will have to take matters (i.e. other people’s valuables) into his own hands to pay back his alma mater. His school obviously didn’t teach him how to pick a good mark, considering he chooses hardened combat veteran Galva to be his next target. Though the robbery fails and Kinch tries to split, fate sticks the pair together to face down a common enemy that could spell doom for both. It’s a chaotic neutral rogue x barbarian playthrough, the stuff DnD dreams are made of.
The Mistborn Series
Beginning with The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series reads like a treatment for high fantasy Ocean’s Eleven. After the talented street thief Vin pulls the gaze of criminal underworld liaison Kelsier, she’s recruited for the ultimate heist. The plan? Break into the palace of the tyrannical Lord Ruler and steal his precious horde of atium, a metal that serves as the crux of realm’s economy. In order to pull the job off, they’ll need to score some metal of their own first – and chow down on it. The chief sorcery in this world is Allomancy, where magic power is generated by eating metal by those with a genetic predisposition to do so. As it happens, Vin and Kelsier are both Allomancers – chaos magic DnD sorcerers who derive power from dining on the periodic table of elements. A deliciously creative spin on fantasy magic systems.
Kill Six Billion Demons
Tom Parkinson Morgan’s Kill Six Billion Demons is the story of Allison Ruth, a barista turned god-killer. After she was spirited away from her college dorm by a runaway demigod and given sacred power, Allison finds herself in Heaven. As it turns out, Heaven isn’t a place off puffy clouds and chocolate fountains, but a corpse city picked clean by spiritual riff-raff. After making friends with an angel-cop and trash-talking demon with a penchant for fanfiction, Allison is called to defeat a dark divinity who intends to shatter the multiuniverse itself. An angelic monk, a demonic wizard, a bestial barbarian, and a rebellious rogue all become Allison’s party members – and she herself turns from business major to reality-shattering warrior god incarnate.
The City of Brass
The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty is the story of Nahri, a roguish con-artist who stages sham exorcisms and palm readings to swindle Ottoman nobles out of their money. After performing what she though was a phony summoning ritual, Nahri is shocked to find that she’s conjured a very real djinn – who tells her that she hails from a long line of rulers from the mystical City of Brass. The story feels like a planar Dungeons and Dragons campaign centering around a low-level rogue/warlock who accompanies a genasi into the Elemental Plane of Fire – where there just so happens to be a City of Brass as well! Much to Nahri’s chagrin, the city’s fiery populace isn’t a fan of newcomers – but they’ll warm up to her! Or burn her alive.
The Priory of the Orange Tree
The Priory of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon reads like a classic, high stakes DnD epic – the kind that takes a dedicated party years to play through – with a few fresh twists. While lacking in dungeons, the story centers around the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons villain: a dragon. The dragon god known as The Nameless One is fated to awaken from its slumber, unless Queen Sabran of Inys can figure out a way to stop it. Lucky for her, she has a handmaiden who secretly belongs to the titular Priory – an order dedicated to stopping the big lizard’s return. The story is essentially a battle against an end-game level DnD foe like Tiamat – whose flames are combated in a “fight fire with fire” battle by slowburn sapphic love.
A Natural History of Dragons
A Natural History of Dragons reads like a DnD wizard’s journal – a catalogue of lore compiled on flying reptiles. Yet this book within a book wasn’t written by some white-bearded tower dweller, but the adventurous Lady Trent – the world’s foremost expert on dragon kind. Compiled from decades of research, A Natural History of Dragons serves as a testament to scientific discovery, and a memoir of how those discoveries were made. With equally high Intelligence and Wisdom stats, Lady Trent embarks on a quest to distinguish herself as one of the world’s brightest minds – passing every Charisma check along the way.
The Legend of Drizzt
When it comes to finding the perfect Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, sometimes it’s best to go back to the source. The Legend of Drizzt is a series of novels written by R.A. Salvatore, which take place in the official DnD world. The action revolves around a dark elf named Drizzt, who strives to shuffle off his species’ sordid reputation and become a force of good in the world. Beginning with Homeland, this 39 novel series chronicles Drizzt’s rise from social outcast to cause célèbre – a controversial hero throughout the land. He’s a rogue/ranger burning to make a difference – just like any DnD hopeful at the start of their first dice roll.
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