Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Exploring the Rich Lore of the Baldur's Gate Series: Non-RPG Book Recommendations?

Hello fellow Baldur's Gate enthusiasts,

I've recently fallen head over heels for the Baldur's Gate series, and I'm eager to dive deep into its lore. I should clarify upfront that I'm not a Dungeons & Dragons player, and I'm not looking for tabletop RPG books. Instead, I'm hoping to gather recommendations for novels and literature that can help me explore the lore of Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and 3.

I'm particularly interested in books that expand on the worlds, characters, and events within the games. Whether they delve into the history of the Sword Coast, the tales of iconic characters like Elminster, or any other aspect of the Baldur's Gate universe, I'm eager to know.

Please share your book recommendations, and feel free to discuss any other lore-related aspects of the games that you find intriguing.

Let's embark on this literary journey together and uncover the hidden gems of the Forgotten Realms!

Well, definitely avoid the Baldur's Gate novels - they're not highly regarded on account of just being generally terrible. When I played the original Baldur's Gate years ago I had no idea who Drizzt was but I read his novels; it's been a while but I remember those being pretty decent.

Thank you for the tip! I'll avoid the Baldur's Gate novels. Can you share the titles of the Drizzt novels you found good? I'd love to explore those and any other book recommendations related to the !Baldur's Gate / DnD universe

The Dark Elf Trilogy (Homeland, Exile, Sojourn), and The Icewind Dale Trilogy (The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halfling's Gem).

I usually play casters so I'm biased:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Counselors_%26_Kings

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magehound

Salvatore's strength is his handling of combat. When you read his books you feel like you are seeing through Drizzt eyes deciding what his sword will travel next.

Cunningham gives an outsider's view of a magic society. The hero is born a sorcerer in a land of wizards. An intuitive in a world of rationalists.

But this land was destroyed in 4e (grrrrr) and thus we never got 4th book but I think it captures part of realms nicely.

OP, I have read (and own) almost all FR novels ever written. In fact, the only few I have not (yet) read are some of the most recent ones. So if you give me some additional guidance on what kind of stories/characters you're interested in, I'd be happy to give you a list of options.

- Read everything there is from Salvatore in Drizzt saga. From start to finish - it's very light, entertaining action-adventure reading, which goes through multiple DnD ruleset iterations as time goes on and explains a lot of stuff happening in the world in general

- Erevis Kale trilogy

This will give you a good start.

Seconding Cunningham. Everything I have read of hers is pretty solid. Her Starlight and Shadows trilogy is a good alternative to Drizzt for drow-related stuff. The latter is a rather long series and quite the commitment to follow to the end.

Though as a warning, the setting was essentially rebooted in 4th edition with the spellplague, and novels set past that era (including the timeframe of BG III) are much less numerous and good ones even less so.

Yes, Ed Greenwood, R.A. Salvatore, and Elaine Cunningham are usually considered the three "core" FR novel authors. I like all three of them and their books. I then also like: Troy Denning, Jeff Grub, Paul S. Kemp (the Erevis Cale books), Douglas Niles, and Erin M. Evans (not a completely exhaustive list).

Ed Greenwood is a bit of an acquired taste. His Novels tend to tangentially veer off to do a deep examination of this or that up-till-now-irrelevant peasant, guard, priorly-empty suit of armor or that one vase on the table. In his early novels, villains tend to show up and then immediately get thwacked by *other* villains showing up at the same time, the overpowered characters escorting the plot-centric adventurers or sheer idiocy on their own part.
It can be a bit detracting from the experience when Manshoon shows up atop a Black Dragon, then gets Team Rocket'ed by Elminster, the Simbul, Larloch or whoever else as soon as he gets three syllables into a monologue.
That said, there's a lot of smart, fun and hidden humor in his later novels, but a lot of that could easily be missed by readers who mightn't know a lot about the setting or come from non-English backgrounds.
Ed's early stuff is a dysfunctional journey - He's fantastic at world building, but his focus keeps wandering. There's fun to be had, but some of the novels can easily be skipped.

The major problem you'll run into for Forgotten Realms novels nowadays though is that they're almost entirely out of print aside from the current run of Salvatore novels and the two D&D movie tie-ins.
If you can get ahold of them, though, I'll second a few of the recommendations above and point you towards the following - (In no particular order)

The Aboleth Sovereignty trilogy by Bruce R. Cordell - Warlocks and Aberrations, pacts and addiction, all sprinkled in with Cthulhu Mythos-style Eldritch Evil. The trilogy loosely references earlier books by Cordell (A standalone book from The Citadels series) but isn't required reading, though it is certainly worth picking up.

The Starlight and Shadows trilogy by Elaine Cunningham - A runaway Drow Priestess and a Rashemi Barbarian. A glimpse at Menzoberranzan, Skullport and Rasheman. Elaine is a fantastic writer who loves to explore the emotional depths of her characters and makes fun, memorable stories and locations. In the early years of Forgotten Realms novels, she was one of the 'Big Three' - Greenwood, Salvatore and Cunningham. (No slight intended for Denning or Grubb!)

The Erevis Cale and the Twilight War trilogies by Paul S. Kemp - A reformed thief and assassin forced back into action when the adopted nobles he's been butlering for are threatened. He is pulled into larger and larger plots as a chesspiece on the board between Mask, God of Thieves and Shar, Goddess of Darkness as the Sea of Fallen Stars and then all of Sembia are threatened.
Kemp writes fantastically fun characters and stories, his villains are entertaining, motivated and relatable - But most importantly, this guy gets *evil*.

If you enjoy Sembia or want further context on some of the recurring characters, there's a seven book series called Sembia: Gateway to the Realms, which each focus on an individual member of the Uskevran household, with the first book being an anthology to sample each author's writing style and character focus. It isn't required reading for the Erevis Cale books, but does give further backstory and establishes characters that appear in The Twilight War.

The Rage of Dragons, The Haunted Lands and The Brotherhood of the Gryphon series by Richard Lee Byers.
The Rage of Dragons is a fantastic trilogy that, unsurprisingly, heavily focuses upon dragons in the Realms. Dragons, cults thereof and the adventurers who try to stop both. What happens when dragons all across the realms start succumbing to madness and are reduced from intelligent beings to beasts of instinct and rage?
The Haunted Lands focuses on Thay, the Red Wizards and the dismantling of their government and the supremacy of the lich Szass Tam. Where the Rage of Dragons has a focus on dragons, Byers was handed the monster manual supplements and told "Do Undead!"
Vampires, Liches and worse are showcased while you're introduced to Pre-Spellplague Thay - Already a kind of shitty place - and see it plummit into necromantic autocracy.
The Brotherhood of the Gryphon picks up after the latter, mercenaries who were present in both prior trilogies struggling to find coin and safety in the aftermath. There are strong elements of found-family, juggling loyalties, the struggles of diplomacy and the capriciousness of a God-King gone senile.

There's not a lot I can say for Salvatore that hasn't already been said. Though if you're going to start anywhere, do so with Homeland. The Crystal Shard was published first but became book four in the Legend of Drizzt novels.

Honorable mentions though for Thomas M. Reid's Scions of Arrabar trilogy, Erin M. Evans' The Brimstone Angels, anything by Jaleigh Johnson, Lisa Smedman and newcomer E.K Johnston

For all of the above recommendations, though, I hate to say it... but steer clear of the Baldur's Gate novelizations.

Agreed on Greenwood and, well, everything else that has been said. Greenwood's adventures and supplements are better than his novels. I really like the Volo guides. And if you read them you will realize that Larian did Volo a disservice.

Wait on Greenwood and then find some of the Volo guides before getting into a novel.

I like The lore surrounding Avernus, Tieflings and cosmology of DnD

I like The lore surrounding Avernus, Tieflings and cosmology of DnD

I'm not much of a reader but I did pick up one forgotten realms book, The Legend of Drizzt 25th Anniversary Edition Book 1: Homeland/Exile/Sojourn which I'm pretty sure is the first three made into one book.

Good stuff

Well, Going back to my recommendations above - Erin M. Evans' Brimstone Angels series (Six books in total, One is part of the 5th Edition reboot series 'The Sundering') focuses heavily on a pair of Tiefling sisters as they navigate their place in the world, an infernal pact and the attention of many, many powerful beings in the Hells.
While not specifically dealing with Avernus, Malbolge is a recurring backdrop as Glasya, Archduchess of the Sixth Hell and daughter of Asmodeus, is a constantly lurking power.
The series varies in theme, focusing on telling a story about coming of age, responsibility and the weight of power.
The only reason I didn't give it a lengthy write up and praise above was that when I was typing everything up, I had a headache and wanted to lay down.

Elsewise, for a Faerun-grounded Planar journey, you're in an bit of an awkward spot.
There's three series that immediately come to mind, but they have the 'baggage' of being sequels.

So - First, there's the War of the Spider Queen. A six book series in which many of the authors mentioned above each took a single novel and had to weave the narrative towards a conclusive end. Some characters suffer for their interpretations under different authors, others flourish - But all the same, it could be considered a full adventure campaign with drow characters, starting grounded with visiting other Drow cities in the Underdark before moving into the Abyss itself to try to learn why Lolth has gone silent.

Two spin-off series come from the conclusion of War of the Spider Queen - The Lady Penitent Trilogy, by Lisa Smedman, which explores elements of the Drow Pantheon as Lolth attempts to kill off her divine children and consolidate power over the fate of all drow and their very souls.

The other, The Empyrean Odyssey trilogy, by Thomas M. Reid, follows Aliiza, a half-fiend who was involved in the War of the Spider Queen, as she tries to escape Kaanyr Vhok, the lord of the Scoured Legion. Her escape will take her to the House of the Triad in Celestia, one of the heavenly Planes in the D&D Cosmology, wherein she's given the opportunity to fight against her nature and try to find redemption.

Lady Penitent trilogy is fantastic! I highly recommend it.

High Quality BG3 tie-in novels? Yes please! Especially if the audiobooks are read by the voice talent from the game? Or, if that's not possible - Sean Barrett, Toby Longworth, Jamie Glover, Steven Pacey, Indira Varma, Katherine Parkinson, Jessica Whittaker or Adjoa Andoh (I will stop now).

Would buy them all if they were great quality. Do Want.