Series - Dragontales

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Language:	English
Publisher:	Signet -- United States
Categories:	Complexity Level : Basic (No Game System) Format : Paperback Genre : Fantasy Genre : Romance Target Age Group : Teenagers Writing Style : Present Tense Writing Style : Second Person
Translated Into:	Dragontales (Spanish) Sortilèges (French)

These fantasy adventures are a bit longer than average for basic-style gamebooks, being about two hundred pages in length. There is little explicit continuity between the books, but they do take place in the same fantasy world. An interesting characteristic of the series is that the odd-numbered books feature white covers and female protagonists while the even-numbered ones have black covers and male protagonists. Many of the adventures feature a romantic element in addition to the usual fantasy heroics.

Some books from the series were later reissued first as the paperback Dragon Pathways and then as the e-book Dragon Roads.

Gamebooks

1. Sword Daughter's Quest
2. Runesword!
3. Challenge of the Pegasus Grail
4. The Towers of Rexor
5. The Unicorn Crown
6. Black Dragon's Curse
7. Spellbound
8. The Dungeons of Dregnor
9. Aphrodite's Mirror
10. Hall of the Gargoyle King
11. Maiden of Greenwold
12. Storm Rider
13. Pledge of Peril
14. Secret of the Sphinx

Related Documents

Structure Diagram

Dragontales # 3 Structure Diagram
Thanks to criver for contributing this map. The DOT source file is also available.

Notes from the contributor: You'll find instructions how to visualize it in the playground of graphviz. There are comments in the DOT file that are spoilery, but they do not show up in the graphics. Finally, one of the nodes is called unknown and marked by a "?" node - this is because the scan from which I read this book was missing a large part of section 31, so I don't know whether it merges with some other section or whether it ends there.

Related Links

Emily Drake [archived page]
This page was the official site for Dragontales author Rhondi Vilott, who now writes non-interactive fantasy novels under a pseudonym.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040924172919/http://www.magickers.com/ (last verified: 2004-06-09)

User Comments

This series follows in the footsteps of Endless Quest, in that you play a named and developed young character and almost all of the books are set in a recognisable D&D-style world. However, it is a bit closer to the cartoon D&D world, with elements of Alice of Wonderland thrown in.

The most interesting aspect is that the series alternates between male protagonists (in the even-numbered, black-covered books) and female (odd-numbered, white-covered books). Most books, particularly the female led ones, tend to have romantic elements, similar to the Heartquest books.

I haven't read all of them, but they vary in quality from good to not so good. They all tend to exist in this fantasy setting without the variety of settings offered in Endless Quest. Not until the final book, Secret of the Sphinx, does the author have the really interesting idea of a time-travelling, historical and mythological setting, making it a pity that it was the final book in the series.

Overall, it's a decent substitute for the old school Endless Quest books.

--Kveto

These books do seem beefier than the usual CYOA fare.

--Naniyue