Appendix N: Poul Anderson

 

Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions pulses in the heart of brown-box Original Dungeons and Dragons. The hero Holgier Carlsen transports to a Carolingian, fantasy world, where he leads the charge of Law against faerie and the forces of Chaos. This book has a great “party” - the beautiful Swan-May Alianora, the dwarf Hugi, and the Saracen knight, Carahue. The plot barely contains the great encounters, like a nixie and her giant-pike guardians and, deep in a mountain burrow, a troll, regenerating limbs lost in battle:

Like a huge green spider, the troll’s severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log to hook it over the bark, down it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast. The troll’s smashed head seethed and knit together. He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The waning faggot cast red light on his fangs.

From 1961, this is an Appendix N classic. For a shorter take, look for Anderson’s story, The Tale of Hauk. 

 


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