Legend of Drizzt books in order

Reading order

R.A. Salvatore introduced Drizzt Do’Urden in The Crystal Shard in 1988, the first book of the Icewind Dale trilogy. Salvatore had written a trilogy featuring Wulfgar, a barbarian from the North, but his editor asked for a dark elf ranger as the protagonist. Drizzt emerged from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons.

The Icewind Dale trilogy established Drizzt and his companions: Bruenor Battlehammer, the dwarf king; Catti-brie, a human woman raised among dwarves; Wulfgar, a barbarian warrior; and Regis, a cunning halfling thief. They battled the wizard Akar Kessel in the first book and later fought the drow cities seeking revenge against Drizzt for leaving Menzoberranzan.

Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn tell the prequel story. Drizzt’s childhood in Menzoberranzan, where drow society worships Lolth the Spider Queen and demands constant betrayal. His father Zaknafein was the weaponmaster, secretly resistant to Lolth. Drizzt fled after refusing to participate in a ritual sacrifice. Exile covers his time on the surface, hunted by his people. Sojourn follows him to Icewind Dale, where he met the companions.

Publication order created a specific effect: readers met Drizzt already formed, then discovered his trauma, then understood why he was the way he was. Later trilogies—Legacy of the Drow, Paths of Darkness, The Hunter’s Blades, Transitions, Neverwinter Saga, Companions, and Homecoming—deal with aging, loss, and consequences. Characters die. Relationships change. Drizzt reflects on thirty years of violence and the cost of being forever between worlds, never fully at home.

Salvatore keeps writing. Drizzt remains one of fantasy’s most recognizable heroes, his face on covers, his fighting style adapted to video games like Baldur’s Gate. The scale is smaller than epic fantasy—villages and holdfasts rather than empires—but the focus on one group of friends over decades makes their losses devastating.