The Tome of Lies!

July is coming to a close and with it, the Appendix N Jam 2026 over at itch.io hosted by Dank Dungeons.

What is Appendix N you ask?  Well, it’s Gary Gygax’s list of “Inspirational and Educational Reading” found on page 224 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (TSR, 1979).

While writers and creators of every generation have their own particular literary influences, D&D is unique in that Gygax actually took the time to write out a fairly comprehensive list of the particular stories that influenced his version of fantasy, what appears in the earliest iterations of Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn’t just Tolkien, though the Professor’s work certainly informed some of what came to be the first fantasy RPG. It was largely something gritty and dark. It was horror, the unknown, and the weird. It was swords and sorcery. John Carter and Conan. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Corwin and Elric and the strangeness of Lovecraft for good measure.

If you haven’t started on the list of authors and stories, now is a good time. Goodman Games has done a great series of articles on their site about Appendix N and the authors featured with their Adventures in Fiction.

The Appendix N Jam is a yearly game jam that deals out randomly determined made up Appendix N book titles and asks that those wishing to participate write an adventure based upon that title of no more than four A5 pages.

Well, your Grumpy Dungeon Masters decided to participate this year and created a depth crawl adventure for level 4-6 characters for Shadowdark that you can download for free here.