LoreReads
Novels and comics filling the gaps around Corvo, Emily, Daud and Billie
Arkane Studios' Dishonored games are first-person stealth adventures set in the Empire of the Isles, a world run on whale oil where a being called the Outsider gives his mark to a chosen few. You play Corvo Attano, framed for the Empress's murder in plague-ridden Dunwall, then Daud, the assassin who actually killed her, then Emily or Corvo fifteen years later in sunny Karnaca, and finally Billie Lurk.
The books are official tie-ins from Titan and Dark Horse. Adam Christopher wrote three novels: one bridging the two main games, one following Daud while Dishonored 2 plays out, and one following Billie after Death of the Outsider. Two short comic collections cover Corvo and Emily just before and after Dishonored 2, and The Dunwall Archives collects the first game's in-world documents.
None of them is needed to follow the games. If you're between the two main games, start with The Corroded Man. If you've finished Dishonored 2, The Return of Daud is the one to read before Billie's game.
Play the games in release order, with the two Daud DLCs straight after the first game. They run alongside it and make more sense once you know Corvo's side. The Dunwall Archives fits there too if you want the first game's world in print. The Corroded Man and The Wyrmwood Deceit come next, since they're set in the years just before Dishonored 2 and set up Emily and Corvo for it. After Dishonored 2, read The Peeress and the Price, then The Return of Daud, which leads into Death of the Outsider. The Veiled Terror waits until the end.
Corvo Attano, bodyguard to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, comes home to Dunwall from a voyage abroad just in time to see her murdered and her daughter Emily taken. Framed for the killing, he's broken out of prison by a group of Loyalists and visited by the Outsider, who marks him with strange powers. Each mission is a target you can kill, spare or slip past, and the plague-ridden city reacts to how much chaos you leave behind.
After finishing the main story
Daud, master of the Whalers and the assassin who killed Empress Jessamine, can't shake what he's done. The Outsider gives him a single name, Delilah, and Daud sets out across Dunwall to learn who she is, from a whale slaughterhouse to the Legal District. It plays like the main game, but with Daud's own powers, including calling in his assassins to help.
Daud's hunt for Delilah continues. To reach Brigmore Manor, the witches' estate outside Dunwall, he needs a ship and a way in, which means breaking someone out of Coldridge Prison and working through the gang war in Drapers Ward. It's the second half of Daud's story and picks up right where The Knife of Dunwall stops.
A hardcover collection of writing from Dunwall in the time of the rat plague, the kind of letters, journals and book excerpts you find scattered through Dishonored, presented as if they'd been gathered from the city itself. Artwork that wasn't released before runs alongside the documents.
If you read every note and book in Dishonored, much of this will be familiar, since it collects the game's in-world texts with art that didn't make it into the game. The value is having it in one place, where it reads as a history of Dunwall, the Abbey of the Everyman, whaling and the plague instead of fragments picked up between missions. It's a book to browse rather than a story, and it doesn't touch the later games.
Shortly before Dishonored 2, Emily Kaldwin is a young empress who slips out at night to practice the skills Corvo has been teaching her. Then a shrouded figure turns up in Dunwall with powers like the ones Daud once had, and Emily and Corvo have to find out who it is before something far worse happens. Flashbacks fill in the years of her training.
This is the bridge between the two main games. You meet Emily as a restless young empress learning Corvo's trade in secret, which explains why she's so capable at the start of Dishonored 2, and the flashbacks show their training across the fifteen-year gap. The plot leans on the first game's cast and on Daud's powers. It's built a lot like a game, with powers, missions and a boss, and some readers find that flat on the page. Still, it's the best look you'll get at Emily and Corvo between the games.
Two years before Dishonored 2, Corvo Attano is Royal Protector to the young Empress Emily and Dunwall's spymaster. While putting new City Watch recruits through their paces he meets officer Martha Cottings, and the two of them get pulled into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the city's criminal underworld.
A short Corvo story from the quiet years between the games. You see him doing the job he was framed out of in the first game, running Dunwall's security instead of hiding in its sewers, and you get a look at the city once the plague has passed. It collects a four-issue series, so it's an evening's read. It doesn't add much the games need, but if you miss older Corvo it's a pleasant side case.
Fifteen years after the first game, Emily Kaldwin rules from Dunwall with Corvo still at her side. On the anniversary of her mother's death, Delilah Copperspoon arrives claiming the throne, and only one of the two gets away. You choose to play as Emily or Corvo and sail south to Karnaca, the Serkonan city where Corvo grew up, to find out where Delilah's power comes from.
Set in Dunwall after Dishonored 2, with the city still unsettled by Delilah's coup. Emily Kaldwin and Corvo Attano look into a string of murders in the capital, while the politician Archibald Wainwright pushes back against Emily over who should really rule Gristol.
A small look at Emily after Dishonored 2, dealing with the political mess Delilah's coup left behind. Archibald Wainwright is a new face, and the murder case gives Emily and Corvo something to work on together. It's short and reads like a side mission, so don't expect it to change how you see the game, and it has nothing to do with Death of the Outsider. Pick it up if you want a little more of Emily as a ruler.
On the night Delilah Copperspoon seizes the throne and Emily Kaldwin flees Dunwall, an older Daud is watching, the Outsider's mark still burning on his hand. He's back in the city hunting for a weapon said to be able to kill the Outsider, and the search takes him across the Isles, where old enemies have been waiting for him and new ones aren't hard to make.
Daud's own story in the years between The Brigmore Witches and Death of the Outsider. You see what became of the Knife of Dunwall after the first game, and you follow his search for a way to kill the Outsider, the plan that drives Billie's game. If you liked playing Daud in the DLC, this is the book for you. It's also the one to pick if you only read one novel before Death of the Outsider.
Billie Lurk, once Daud's second in command among the Whalers, goes looking for her old mentor in Karnaca. What the two of them want is to kill the Outsider, the being whose mark has shaped the Empire's history. It's a shorter, more focused standalone game than Dishonored 2, with no chaos system and a new set of powers built around Billie.
Some time after Death of the Outsider, rifts into the Void have started opening across the Isles, from Tyvia to Serkonos, and they threaten to tear the world apart. Billie Lurk, a former assassin, smuggler and bounty hunter, goes looking for what's causing them, which takes her to a city cut in half by a rift and to a kingdom recovering from civil war.
The only story set after Death of the Outsider, and the last word so far on Billie Lurk and on what that game's ending did to the Void. Billie's past comes back into it, so it works best if her game is fresh in your mind. It also goes farther from Dunwall and Karnaca than the other books, into parts of the Isles the games only mention. Save it for last, because it gives away how Death of the Outsider ends.
Last reviewed October 11, 2026