Aaron Dembski-Bowden Game Books in Order

This page is best used as an early-career game-writing shelf rather than a traditional fiction series. Before Aaron Dembski Bowden became closely associated with Warhammer novels, he wrote for roleplaying games, and that work shows a different but very connected side of what he does well.

The two main books here, Nehwon and Trolls, are setting books. They are not novels built around a single plot. Instead, they are tools for players and game masters, the kind of books that explain a world's geography, factions, history, culture, creatures, and possibilities for adventure. In other words, they are pure worldbuilding.

That is more revealing than it may sound.

Nehwon expands the Lankhmar and RuneQuest material beyond one city into the wider world, opening up regions, political textures, social groups, and adventure routes. Trolls, more fully known as a guide to the Uz, does something similar from a different angle, digging into the culture, physiology, religion, and magic of one of fantasy gaming's more intimidating peoples. Both books ask the same practical question: if a reader wants to inhabit this world rather than just glance at it, what do they need to know?

You can see the later novelist being formed there. Bowden's fiction is often praised for making invented settings feel lived in, and game books are good training for exactly that. They force a writer to think about how institutions function, how people talk, how beliefs shape behaviour, and what details turn a backdrop into a place.

So this page is useful even if you mostly know him through Warhammer. It shows the groundwork. Expect lore-heavy material, setting texture, and a more structural kind of storytelling, where the point is less what happens next and more how a whole world hangs together. If you are curious about the craft side of his career, or just want to see where some of his instincts came from, this is a very worthwhile detour.