Drizzt Do’urden is Dungeons & Dragons‘ original mysterious hero and a bit of a cult smash amongst D&D fans. He’s a classic ‘stranger in a strange land’ type, who escaped his cruel and strange society in order to do good in the world, and one of the reasons he’s so beloved is because this drow elf ticks all the ‘classic hero’ tropes we all love.
Though he currently doesn’t have his own motion picture, given the success of Honor Among Thieves, it’s probably just a matter of time. Drizzt does have almost 40 novels written about his adventures, and that’s not counting the tie-in adventures, miniatures, video games and other merch that has popped up over the years.
The Dungeons & Dragons The Legend Of Drizzt Visual Dictionary does pretty much what it says on the cover. It’s a lavish coffee table book that is absolutely rammed with pictures and lore from The Legend of Drizzt series of stories. It opens with an introduction from the character’s creator, R.A. Salvatore, but the bulk of the book is written by Michael Witwer, whose credits include the excellent D&D cookbook Heroes Feast. He’s a steady hand who loves this sort of lore, and the book is written with a sense of fannish glee and devotion that really makes it a pleasure to read.
The book dives straight in with a full-spread description of Drizzt himself, and the first chapter explains who he is and how he came to be. It also gets a full timeline and a page devoted to Guenhwyvar, his magical panther. The book goes on to explore the rest of the series. We meet his friends and allies, the places he’s been to and so on. Each is fully illustrated and in lavish detail. There’s a handy guide to the various monsters and enemies he’s encountered across the long series, and again, these are all clearly explained and illustrated. This book contains no game rules; it’s just a guide to a pop-culture icon and their world.
What makes this jolly interesting is Drizzt is also a hero of The Forgotten Realms and has pretty much traipsed across most of that world, so we get a guide to the Forgotten Realms as well. This makes it a sort of handy sourcebook for anyone interested in The Forgotten Realms, especially if you developed an interest after watching the movie. We get information on everywhere, from Never Winter to Ice Wind Dale, from the Underdark to Baldur’s Gate.
This is 200 pages of sheer D&D nerd joy. Stick this on your coffee table and show the world how much you like fantasy adventure, or better yet, use it as a jumping-off point to create your own D&D adventures.
