Riverwind

Riverwind

Goldmoon and Riverwind. Illustration by Keith Parkinson.
First appearance	Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984)
Created by	Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Game information
Homeland	Que Shu
Gender	Male
Race	Nomad
Class	Barbarian
Alias	Riverwind of the Que Shu

Riverwind (also known as Riverwind of the Que Shu tribe or Riverwind of the Que Shu) is a fictional character from the Dragonlance series of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game supplements and novels, created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and published by TSR (and later by Wizards of the Coast).

Riverwind made his first public appearance in the first novel of the original Chronicles Trilogy, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, in 1984. However, the character's proper creation was during a tabletop role-playing game session where Tracy and Laura Hickman, Margaret Weis and Terry Phillips, between others, developed the basic storyline of Dragonlance.

Throughout the series, Riverwind became a well known character and, in 14 years, authors made him the protagonist in two novels, Riverwind the Plainsman (1990) and Spirit of the Wind (1998).

Patrick Lucien Price, author of the "Bertrem's essay on numerology" short story, published in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home (1987), describes Riverwind as a character that demands change, seeks variety and new opportunities to develop himself, also a natural leader of men and generous, impressionable, a humanitarian.

Few facts are given about the early life of the character itself, a shepherd living just outside the village of Que Shu, a barbarian settlement in Ansalon, in the fictional world of Krynn. Laura Hickman and Kate Novak detail, in the short story "Heart of Goldmoon" published in the Love and War (1987) recompilation, Riverwind's faith in the ancient gods and especially in Mishakal, goddess of healing, although the common belief in the tribe was that the high priestess's ancestors become gods. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman give a reason in the short story "True Knight", published in The Cataclysm (1992) recompilation, as Riverwind's family is not a native from the Que Shu tribe, but instead his ancestors, Michael, a cleric of Mishakal, and Nikol, daughter of a knight, travelled to the plains shortly after the Cataclysm, the event in which the gods threw a fiery mountain to punish Krynn arrogance, and kept practicing their religion.