Appendix N Birthday: Lord Dunsany (also known as Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) by Michael Curtis Our Adventures in Fiction series is meant to take a look at the writers and creators behind the genre(s) that helped to forge not only our favorite hobby but our lives. We invite you to explore the entirety of the series on our Adventures In Fiction home page. Today is the birthday of Lord Dunsany, whose Appendix N work also directly inspired our release, DCC #97: The Queen of Elfland’s Son. Here is more information on why you should pay attention to the writing of Lord Dunsany. Some Appendix N authors directly influenced the creation of fantasy role-playing. We see concrete inspiration in the trolls borrowed from Poul Anderson or the “Vancian” magic system of D&D. Other Appendix N writers exerted a less obvious influence, providing more a sense of tone and wonder than any specific element. It can be argued, however, that one Appendix N author wielded the greatest influence on fantasy role-playing not because his works were borrowed wholesale or served to color Gygax and Arneson’s campaigns, but because he inspired numerous other Appendix N writers, impelling them to create the stories from which RPGs derive their origins. A Sidney Sime illustration from the interior of The Gods of Pegana. Few would recognize the name Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, but many more know him by his title, Lord Dunsany (pronounced Dun-SAY-ny), whose birthday we honor today. Dunsany created an impressive literary body of work over a period of fifty years, penning dozens of novels and plays and hundreds of short stories. He seems to spring from nowhere, publishing The Gods of Pegana in 1905, a print he subsidized due to his lack of literary reputation. This would be the only time he ever paid to publish his own book. The Gods of Pegana was a beautiful work of imaginative mythology, presenting the reader with a pantheon of gods hitherto unseen in the western world. With a style as archaic as the King James Bible, but with all the wonder of pastoral myths spoken in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean, The Gods of Pegana is a transformative work, one that left an indelible mark on the landscape of fantasy fiction. Much like Clark Ashton Smith, who followed in Plunkett’s wake, Lord Dunsany’s tales are more prose poetry than pulp. He evokes a sense of otherworldliness in his stories, whether he’s writing about the “sign of Mung” or the constant drumming that keeps the creator god Mana-Yood-Sushai asleep and dreaming so that the universe may continue. To read Dunsany is to fall willingly into that vague realm which lies somewhere between imagination and sleep, a place where even truly outlandish notions possess a gravity and beauty that keeps them intact in the face of logical scrutiny. The original cover for King of Elfland’s Daughter. (Illustration by Sidney Sime.) Dunsany would revisit the strange gods of Pegana in a sequel, Time and the Gods, but he had other tales to tell beyond those mythological entities. Many of his short stories straddle the line between prose poetry and sword & sorcery. “The Sword of Welleran” or “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth,” feature heroes grimly facing off against seemingly insurmountable odds. His novel, The King of Elfland’s Daughter, gives the reader a faerie tale in the literal sense, telling what happens when mortals dare to seek an Elfland bride and why wishing for magic is not always—or ever—a good idea. Even his tales set in the modern world skirt the verges of the fantastic. One of Dunsany’s more famous creations, Joseph Jorkens, a...