The Roots of the Game

Katherine Kurtz and the Cleric.
Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide cites a number of texts and authors as sources of inspiration for the world's first role-playing game. Among the notables designer Gary Gygax credits are Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague DeCamp and Fletcher Pratt, Jack Vance, H.P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt. In his Foreword to the Original Edition, he mentions Edgar Rice Burroughs along with R.E. Howard and Fritz Leiber. Over the decades since publication of the original game, many fans have speculated as to what role (if any) various authors played in serving as inspiration for character classes, monsters or even the alignment system which is a distinct aspect that sets D&D apart from other FRP games.

Among the mysteries often discussed is where the idea for the cleric class may have come from. It is often claimed that the fighting man (fighter in later editions) and magic user are common to many sources. The thief may resemble aspects of a Jack Vance character or one of Fritz Leiber's famous duo. The ranger - well let's just say there is at least one famous ranger in popular fantasy fiction. Clerics are not as commonly found however.

Enter Katherine Kurtz. In 1970 she published her first novel titled Deryni Rising. That was four years prior to publication of the original three little brown books. In Deryni Rising there are a number of cleric characters, some are able to work magic including "healing magic". Like many authors of fantasy fiction in a post Tolkien world, Ms. Kurtz has written her novels in trilogies and by 1974 she had published the three Deryni novels that together are known as the Chronicles of the Deryni and which lay the foundation upon which many other Deryni novels are built upon. 

I recently read the first trilogy (for the first time). I found Deryni Rising, Deryni Checkmate and High Deryni and the world of the Eleven Kingdoms and the people of Ms. Kurtz fantasies very "familiar". Her fictional kingdom of Gwynedd somewhat resembles medieval England and Wales, but it also fits into my concept of a generic fantasy which is an idea heavily influenced by 40+ years of role-playing. Did I mention that magic using clergy feature prominently!

Katherine Kurtz wrote her first three novels with no knowledge of a game that had not yet been published. I am struck by the very familiar role of a magic using fighting cleric, such as the half-Deryni Monsignor Duncan McLain, as I read those first novels. Had Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson read any of Katherine Kurtz' work prior to their imagining the first fantasy role-playing game? We may never know, but chronologically, they could have. 

The only reference to Katherine Kurtz I have found in any version of early D&D products is in the 1981 edition of Basic edited by Tom Moldvay. Near the end of the Basic volume, Mr. Moldvay lists her among his version of Appendix N which he calls Inspirational Source Material. "Kurtz, Katherine" can be found under the sub-heading of "some additional authors of fantasy fiction..." Someone was obviously reading the Deryni novels.