Making of D&D book features The Lord of the Rings content that was cut from the game

The origins of Dungeons & Dragons are explored in a new book, detailing the game’s connections to The Lord of the Rings, which was the subject of a legal battle that resulted in cut and changed content.

While D&D is the grandfather of the tabletop RPG, it draws heavily from various literary sources, including Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

The connection with Middle-earth was so great that concepts from LOTR were part of the earliest versions of D&D. At one time, Hobbits, Ents, the Nazgul, and even the mighty Balrog could appear in D&D homebrew campaigns.

Unfortunately, this came to an end through legal action. D&D co-creator Gary Gygax discussed this on EN World, as the Tolkien Estate sued TSR (the original publisher of D&D), resulting in terms from The Lord of the Rings being removed from their products.

The Lord of the Rings concepts were tweaked and renamed, with Hobbits becoming Halflings, Balrog becoming Balor, and Ents becoming Treants. The concept of undead shadow warriors was spread across multiple creatures.

A new book, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons, is celebrating the game’s 50th anniversary. It explores the Middle-earth connection to D&D and features the game’s design documents penned by its creators. Here, you can see concepts like the Balrog and the Nazgul in their original form.

The Middle-earth content is present throughout the original D&D design docs, alongside other elements that would become mainstays of the game, such as creatures from Greek mythology, as well as integrating monsters from around the world, like Djinni, Mummies, and of course, Dragons.

While D&D and The Lord of the Rings were separated by their legal issues, the franchises have combined in recent years, including official 5E conversions, which highlight the differences between the two, especially regarding magic. There was even a Magic: The Gathering Middle-earth set in 2023.

Seeing famous creatures from The Lord of the Rings in the old books is fascinating, especially considering the legal issues that happened later on. The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t shy away from showing the game’s inspirations, with the Nazgul standing among the foes that the first D&D players slew in battle.