Dragons of Autumn Twilight is a fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, based on a Dungeons & Dragons game session. Written in 1984, Dragons of Autumn Twilight was the first Dragonlance novel, and first in the Chronicles trilogy, which, along with the Dragonlance Legends trilogy, are generally regarded as the core novels of the Dragonlance world. The Chronicles trilogy came about because the designers wanted novels to tell the story of the game world they were creating, something to which TSR only reluctantly agreed. Dragons of Autumn Twilight details the meeting of the Companions and the early days of The War of the Lance. This novel corresponds with the first two Dragonlance game modules, DL1 Dragons of Despair and DL2 Dragons of Flame, but the novel has a different ending from the modules. The novel introduces many of the characters that are the subject of many other novels and short stories.
The title Dragons of Autumn Twilight follows a pattern with the other novels in the series, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning, as they all start with Dragons, followed by a series of seasons, Autumn, Winter, and Spring, as well as a series of time, Twilight, Night, and Dawning.