This is fan fiction. It is not authorized, acknowledged or even probably known to Wizards of the Coast or Turbine, the owners of D&D and DDO. I did send a link to the novel recruiter person at Wizards of the Coast but never heard a thing back, so I will take that as we-don't-care-if-you-write-it-but-we-aren't-interested-in-it-officially.

This is a novel that attempts to give readers some sense of story to the quests that make up the massively multiplayer online role playing game of Dungeons and Dragons Online. (And the online game is based on the pen and paper game of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Eberron.) Why write a book about a game? Because the game is about storytelling and fantasy. But it's hard to actually follow the story in the game itself.

My whole family plays DDO. When I was finally convinced to give it a shot more than a year after the menfolk of the house had started, I was hooked pretty fast. I started out trying to "understand" the story but quickly got lost in the overall gameplay mindset of achieving objectives, leveling up and collecting loot. (Yay, lootz!)

When my son and I entered Lordsmarch Plaza for the quests there... he did something unusual. Instead of racing to get all the quests bestowed and zerg through them, he looked around. He talked to the people in the courtyard. He questioned why they were there and what were they doing. He asked what I thought about these characters being here... and I realized I didn't know but I wanted to! When my stepson started playing, he spent a lot of time wandering the enclaves and finding things I'd never bothered to look at. They were having fun and it had nothing to do with gaining XP or awesome gear.

I started asking myself, what is the story here? Why are we in this situation and who are we helping? The more I looked, the more frustrated I became. Even the story arcs don't explain much beyond the basics of the objectives.

But this world, this digital place... is truly amazing. It has incredible places and interesting people. It has a rich history from the pen and paper game. Of course there are stories! DnD is all about storytelling with a little math thrown in. Of course DDO has a story... it's just gotten lost in the rampage to kill everything and steal their stuff.

So, I sat down to write the story. I did my research on lost pages of the DDO site that only exist in the archives now, to try and understand what the original game developers had in mind. I studied the base world of Eberron. I went through every quest and thought about how each would fit in an epic storyline (if it did at all) and I created some characters to take us through the story that is the Moon Breaker.

Warning: This story does not follow strict cannon for DnD or DDO. It simply cannot. There are too many published discrepancies between DnD and DDO and even within DDO itself there are contradictions. Published information on Eberron contradicts itself. In the end, Eberron creator Keith Baker has pretty much said you can interpret Eberron however it works for you, and that's what I've done. So, if you want to post how this or that isn't right feel free but I do not subscribe to a specific reference as the one true definition of Eberron or its historic events.

This has been a collaborative effort. Although I'm the one actually typing it out, the story comes from DDO itself, the Eberron backstory, my two sons who have built characters, taken screenshots and done fact checking and my amazingly wonderful, creative husband who helped me develop a story that makes sense of it all. I hope.

Sources and Reference:

DDOWiki
DDO Compendium: Ask a Loremaster
The Grand History of Eberron
Eberron Wiki
Jhonen Olain's Eberron Journal
MMODB Bestiary
Eberron Lore and History on Eberron Unlimited
Wizards of the Coast's City of Stormreach
Wikipedia on Eberron
Wizards of the Coast- Eberron Phases and Calendar
A Warforged in Eberron Ok, so this isn't really a reference but I enjoyed this blog/book by someone who identifies himself only as Charles. If you are interested in other aspects of Eberron, check it out. Not a children's book though.