Sojourn (1991)
Sojourn is a 1991 fiction book written by R. A. Salvatore.
After a lifetime underground, Drizzt Do'Urden climbs into sunlight for the first time. The surface world is beautiful and utterly strange, and it greets a dark elf with fear and drawn swords, since his kind are known only as raiders and killers. He wanders the frontier searching for a place that will have him, earning trust one hard-won encounter at a time. Salvatore closes the Dark Elf trilogy on the theme running through all of it, that a person is what they choose to be. This volume is the bridge into the Icewind Dale adventures where the wider legend begins.
Quick answers
What is Sojourn about?
After a lifetime underground, Drizzt Do'Urden climbs into sunlight for the first time. The surface world is beautiful and utterly strange, and it greets a dark elf with fear and drawn swords, since his kind are known only as raiders and killers. He wanders the frontier searching for a place that will have him, earning trust one hard-won encounter at a time. Salvatore closes the Dark Elf trilogy on the theme running through all of it, that a person is what they choose to be. This volume is the bridge into the Icewind Dale adventures where the wider legend begins.
When was Sojourn published?
Sojourn was published in 1991.
Who made Sojourn?
Sojourn was written by R. A. Salvatore.
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Sojourn in our writing
- Companion guide: Dungeons & Dragons on the PC: From the Gold Box to Baldur's Gate 3
A few thoughts on Sojourn
The outsider earning a wary world's trust echoes The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, another monster-slayer feared for what he is rather than what he does. For the frontier-wanderer mood, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim offers the same open, unwelcoming wilds in which to make a name.
Wandering outsiders judged before they say a word
Sojourn puts Drizzt on the surface for the first time, met with drawn swords by people who only know his kind as raiders. The witcher in The Witcher 3 and its TV adaptation faces the same reflexive fear as a mutant monster-hunter, and Skyrim's dragonborn wanders into a frontier that distrusts strangers by default. Geralt's own introduction in The Last Wish sets up exactly that dynamic.
D&D CRPGs built on the same tabletop rules
Sojourn closes out the Dark Elf trilogy inside a setting lifted straight from Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks. Baldur's Gate III and II, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Pool of Radiance, Champions of Krynn, Solasta, Menzoberranzan and Dark Alliance all share that structure, a party of specialists working turn-based encounters across the Forgotten Realms and its neighboring campaign settings.
The rest of Drizzt's saga and its wider D&D multiverse
Sojourn is the bridge from the Dark Elf trilogy into the Icewind Dale books, so Homeland and Exile fill in where Drizzt started, and The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling's Gem pick up right where this one leaves off. Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Winter Night and Spring Dawning, plus the Legends trilogy, share the same tabletop-born D&D multiverse from a different corner of it.
Fellowships and ensemble fantasy across page and screen
Sojourn is fundamentally a story about one person trying to find where they belong. These ensemble stories offer the opposite comfort, Vox Machina's found family, the shifting courts of A Game of Thrones and its TV adaptation, the cursed crew of Honor Among Thieves, and the sprawling fellowship of The Fellowship of the Ring. Stranger Things, Willow and Excalibur build the same kind of found family.