How D&D Inspired Speak with the Dead

I took inspiration for Speak with the Dead from a lot of different places, but a big one is Dungeons & Dragons. The roleplaying game offers so much to experiment with and explore that it’s easy to come up with ideas for characters, mechanics, and settings. Playing D&D always gets my creative wheels turning.

First, let’s talk about what D&D is. According to D&D Beyond, it is:

“...a cooperative, storytelling game where you and other players take on the roles of different characters within a story. As you play, your character will make friends and enemies, fight monsters, discover loot, and complete quests.”

And no, it has nothing to do with summoning the devil (unless your character wants to summon a devil in-game, but I digress). It was originally conceived by fantasy nerds to simulate their favorite media, and was called “The Fantasy Game” by its creators during development.  Sounds pretty great, right? I think the game can be a terrific way to grease your writing skills and experiment with new ideas. It’s also a wonderful way to escape into fantasy with your friends. If you’re looking for an introduction to the game through professionally produced live-play stories, I recommend Critical Role, Dimension 20, or The Adventure Zone. Critical Role was how I first came into contact with the game. I slowly picked up on mechanics while enjoying their characters and stories.

If you’re familiar with the game, you’ll already be aware that the name of my book matches one of the spells in the game. This is the spark that the skeleton for Speak with the Dead grew from. The ‘Speak with Dead’ spell allows a character to:

“...grant a semblance of life and intelligence to a corpse within range… Until the spell ends, you can ask the corpse up to five questions. The corpse knows only what it knew in life, including the languages it knew. Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive... This spell doesn’t return the creature’s soul to its body, only its animating spirit. Thus, the corpse can’t learn new information, doesn’t comprehend anything that has happened since it died, and can’t speculate about future events.”

I created a world, and I created unique divine powers in that world, and then I asked some questions. How does divine magic differ from other magic? How does someone receive and use divine magic? What does using divine magic do to someone who isn’t divine? So, yes, you’ll find the main character talking to dead people like a character from your home game, but how they do it and what it means will be new. Readers will find little references similar to this that poke at their memories of D&D and then give a different perspective.

Similar to how I use spells for inspiration, I also use classes. D&D Beyond describes class as:

“...the primary definition of what your character can do. It’s more than a profession; it’s your character’s calling. Class shapes the way you think about the world and interact with it and your relationship with other people and powers.”

Anyone who is familiar with the game has their favorite class or classes. I’m partial to Rangers, Rogues, and Clerics, and you’ll see plenty of references to these types of people in my book. I wanted to not only explore what they might look like in my setting, but also what happens when outside forces mess with who they are. What happens when a ranger suddenly acquires divine powers? What if a rogue thief who has been masquerading as a fighter finds their past outed? A change of class will surely affect how they look at the world. Someone will have previous beliefs that they are now questioning based on this shift. It will also change how the world views them.

Something else I pulled from D&D is the idea that a person’s strengths or powers grow with them as they face trials. This is one of the foundations of the game, and a foundation of much of fantasy. Think of Gandalf from LOTR, Vin from Mistborn, and Eragon from The Inheritance Cycle. These characters grow from their hardships until, at the end of the story, they’ve reached max level 20. There are still high stakes, but they hold awesome power that their level 1 selves could only begin to imagine.

All this to say, I love D&D. There’s loads of official and homebrewed content to dig into and all of it could inspire your next idea. I highly recommend checking out a live-play or joining a game. If you’re interested in learning more or playing the game, feel free to reach out to me on socials! I’m always happy to chat.

Quick shoutout for the Tomb Raider inspired D&D content in my shop. If you’d like a Lara Croft in your game or some fun magic items, check it out! If you have suggestions for a fictional character or setting you’d like to see me make content for, throw them my way. I plan on doing some D&D content related to my characters and setting, so keep an eye out for that, too.