Douglas Niles

American writer & game designer

Douglas Niles (born December 1, 1954, in Brookfield, Wisconsin) is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, the Star Frontiers space opera setting and the Top Secret S/I espionage role playing game.

Niles was born in Brookfield, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, and his family moved to Nashotah, a small town to the north, when he was twelve years old. Niles developed an interest in heroic fantasy, as well as wargaming, and began writing short stories and making short films in high school. Niles attended the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, where he majored in speech and minored in English. While there, he met Chris Schroeder, whom he married three years later. Niles worked on the Battlesystem Supplement, Star Frontiers modules SF4 Mission to Alcazzar and SFKH1 Dramune Run, Indiana Jones module IJ2 Raiders of the Lost Ark, the World War II Game, the Sirocco Strategy Game (with Zeb Cook), and the Endless Quest books EQ #26 Tarzan and the Well of Slaves and Super EQ #3 Escape From Castle Quarras for TSR. Niles authored the rulebook Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986). He contributed nine novels to the Forgotten Realms line, including the Moonshae trilogy and two further trilogies in the Forgotten Realms. He has won both the H. G. Wells award and the Origins award for his work in developing adventure games. In 1990, he left TSR to write fantasy fiction. Niles has written two World War II alternate history novels, Fox on the Rhine and Fox at the Front (co authored with Michael Dobson). Released in hardcover by Forge, a division of TOR, "Fox" has been both a main selection of the Military Book Club and a Featured selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. Niles and Dobson also later wrote the World War II alternate history novel MacArthur's War. Niles has created two fantasy worlds in books published by Ace Fantasy. The Watershed Trilogy (A Breach in the Watershed, Darkenheight, The War of Three Waters) was completed in the late 1990s, and it features a continent divided by mountains into three distinct basins: watersheds of pure, normal water; of magical liquid (Aura); and of vile, poisonous Darkblood. Circle at Center, Worldfall, and The Goddess Worldweaver form the Seven Circles Trilogy, which details a cosmos in which historical characters from Earth can be drawn into the realms of magic, through sorcery both deadly and erotic. Niles has designed dozens of games for TSR, Inc. and SPI, including award winning boardgames based on Tom Clancy's novels The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, and has also created numerous historical military boardgames, including the massive games European Theatre of Operations and Pacific Theatre of Operations.

Niles resides in Delavan, in the Wisconsin countryside, with his wife Christine and his son David. His daughter, Allison, served overseas as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His hobbies include hiking, bicycling, playing the guitar, and spending time with his friends and family.