The books tell of the journey and coming-of-age of Garion the stableboy (later known as Belgarion). Garion is accompanied by his guardian Polgara, and the ancient wizard/sorcerer Belgarath and a number of other important characters.
Each book's title combines a chess related term with fantasy term, it has been suggested that the series as a whole forms an analogy to a game of chess.
The follow-up series to the Belgariad is The Malloreon, and Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara the Sorceress, and The Rivan Codex are also related titles.