Short answers, pulled from the story.
Dragonlance was created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, who conceived the idea while driving from Utah to Wisconsin in 1982 for a job interview at TSR. Tracy Hickman later partnered with Margaret Weis at TSR to develop the setting into a series of novels and game modules.
The first Dragonlance novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, was published in November 1984. TSR initially planned a minimum print run of fifty thousand copies, and the novel sold through that run quickly, requiring additional printings to meet demand.
By 2008, more than 190 novels had been published in the Dragonlance franchise. The novels by Weis and Hickman alone have exceeded 22 million in sales and have been translated into more than a dozen languages including German, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Hebrew.
Dragonlance is set on the world of Krynn, with most of the action taking place on the continent of Ansalon. A second continent, Taladas, lies to the northeast and has featured in some novels. The fictional history of Krynn is divided into five ages, with most novels set in the fourth age, the Age of Despair.
In October 2020, Weis and Hickman filed a lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast for breaching a licensing agreement for a new Dragonlance novel trilogy. According to the lawsuit, the deal had been agreed in 2017 but Wizards pulled the plug in August 2020. The suit was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in December 2020, and the first novel of a new trilogy was released in August 2022.
Raistlin Majere originated at a gaming session at Hickman's apartment, where game designer Terry Phillips played the character. According to Hickman's foreword to The Soulforge, Phillips's rasping voice, sarcasm, and barely concealed power made everyone in the room both transfixed and terrified, instantly establishing Raistlin as a defining presence in the world of Krynn.