Dragons of Winter Night (1985)
Dragons of Winter Night is a 1985 fiction book written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Winter closes over Ansalon as the Companions scatter, some shepherding refugees, others hunting the artifacts that might turn the war. The dragonarmies press south, and hope narrows to two prizes: a Dragon Orb, and the lost dragonlances. Sturm Brightblade holds to a crumbling code of knighthood; Raistlin's power keeps growing, along with the unease it stirs in those closest to him. Weis and Hickman widen the canvas here, moving from a small band's flight to armies, sieges, and old orders tested. The second Chronicles volume trades discovery for the harder weight of a war already begun.
Quick answers
What is Dragons of Winter Night about?
Winter closes over Ansalon as the Companions scatter, some shepherding refugees, others hunting the artifacts that might turn the war. The dragonarmies press south, and hope narrows to two prizes: a Dragon Orb, and the lost dragonlances. Sturm Brightblade holds to a crumbling code of knighthood; Raistlin's power keeps growing, along with the unease it stirs in those closest to him. Weis and Hickman widen the canvas here, moving from a small band's flight to armies, sieges, and old orders tested. The second Chronicles volume trades discovery for the harder weight of a war already begun.
When was Dragons of Winter Night published?
Dragons of Winter Night was published in 1985.
Who made Dragons of Winter Night?
Dragons of Winter Night was written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Similar books
Dragons of Winter Night in our writing
- Companion guide: Dungeons & Dragons on the PC: From the Gold Box to Baldur's Gate 3
A few thoughts on Dragons of Winter Night
For the darkening-war turn, Dragon Age: Origins still fits, its coalition scrambling as an enemy host advances. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers matches this book's move from wandering to sieges and massed armies. And Baldur's Gate II gives Raistlin-watchers a morally slippery mage whose growing power unsettles his own companions.
D&D CRPGs with the same party-based tactics
Dragons of Winter Night scatters the Companions into sieges, refugee columns and desperate hunts for the Dragon Orb, each of them leaning on a different skill to survive. These D&D-licensed CRPGs are built on that same logic: a small mixed party working through turn-based fights where a fighter, a mage and a cleric each carry their own weight.
The Krynn saga past this middle chapter
Winter Night is the darker middle stretch of the Chronicles, war widening and old certainties cracking. Dragons of Autumn Twilight sets up what breaks here, Dragons of Spring Dawning closes it, and the Legends trilogy, Time of the Twins, War of the Twins and Test of the Twins, follows Raistlin's path once the Chronicles end. Same world, same friends, still Krynn.
The Legend of Drizzt, a lonelier corner of the same setting
Where Winter Night widens into armies and sieges, R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt keeps its D&D-built world tight around one exiled dark elf. Both sagas share the tabletop-born scaffolding of houses, factions and hard-won codes of honor, but Drizzt's fight stays personal and solitary rather than continental.
Middle chapters where a war gets darker and wider
Winter Night is the point where the Chronicles stop being a rescue mission and become a real war, sieges, refugees, and a knight's code tested past its limit. The Two Towers hits the same beat in its trilogy, and Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Honor Among Thieves, Willow and Excalibur all have a stretch where the fight widens and the cost gets heavier.