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The dark elf of Leominster

Books

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 10, 2012|By Ethan Gilsdorf

R.A. Salvatore seen in his Leominster home, a four-bedroom colonial about… (Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff )

If you’ve heard of the fantasy author R.A. Salvatore, you might expect his lair to be a faux-medieval fortress, complete with moat, turrets, and an impenetrable iron gate guarded by a stone dragon.

Yet the House of Salvatore is no castle. One of fantasy’s most popular authors - and one of Massachusetts’s best-selling scribes - lives in workaday Leominster, where he keeps the real world close at hand.

“I think I’m a pretty well-kept secret,’’ Salvatore, 52, says with a mischievous smile.

Perhaps you’ve never heard of him (he’s no mainstream phenomenon like J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin), but within the niche of fantasy and gaming, R.A. Salvatore is plenty famous. His books have sold some 17 million copies, at the rate of around a million per year. They’ve been translated into a dozen-plus languages, and 24 have become New York Times bestsellers. He’s inked a deal with Wizards of the Coast (the maker of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons) to pen six more Forgotten Realms “Neverwinter’’ books; book 2 came out in October.

Meanwhile, his influence on the fantasy marketplace is spreading beyond books. His “dark elf’’ character Drizzt Do’Urden has become iconic, featured in graphic novels and a board game. He’s been tapped by video game companies. There’s even chatter about a movie.

And yet, this author of dozens of swords-and-sorcery and science-fiction novels resides in a modest, four-bedroom colonial about a quarter-mile from his high school. The neighborhood where he grew up and once worked, the homes of his mother and two of his three grown children, and the cemetery where his father and brother are buried, are all within a short drive. He’d rather hang with his friends and family, and watch the Sox or Pats and coach his softball team than live some posh, sequestered life.

“Things don’t really impress me. Memories impress me,’’ Salvatore says with a hint of townie in his voice. “It’s not the toys, it’s the people.’’

A student of history

Painstakingly, over the last 25 years, Salvatore, a lifelong Central Massachusetts resident, has built a fantasy empire. And “R.A.’’ - which stands for “Robert Anthony’’; friends call him “Bob’’ - may not be able to eschew the spotlight forever.

“I tried to think of the people that were the best in the world at what they did,’’ Curt Schilling wrote in an e-mail, explaining why his Providence-based video game company, 38 Studios, partnered with Salvatore. The former Red Sox ace needed a detailed fantasy setting for two projects: A World of Warcraft-like online game currently called Project Copernicus (still in development), and a single-player game, called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (set to launch Feb. 7).