The Gaming Den

An accurate depiction of a D&D party having faced a dragon

At level 4 or 5.

That was my favorite picture from the 2e PHB. Right at the front, IRC.

Still though.

I've always wondered... who the hell are they posing for? I mean, the big ginger beardy dude is clearly looking at someone. Are there magical photographers in Greyhawk?

I mean... portraiture predates the camera... They could be posing for a painter.

They had to stand there like that for a week.

The dragon carcass reeked by the time the painter was finished.

Eh, they are probably randoms paid to pose, and the dragon and background are totally made up.

Or posing for an image to send magically. Or they have a magic item/spell that can make paintings.

I want to edit a selfie stick into that image...

They're posing for a low-level wizard getting a good enough mental picture, so he can recreate the scene with Phantasmal Force. He will then use the illusion so a painter can later paint it. The money in the box is actually payment for the services, not a dragon hoard. That little dragon wasn't carrying a box around with him in the forest.

Prak wrote:An accurate depiction of a D&D party having faced a dragon

Literally the origin for the Cleric and the Elf of CAPCOM's Tower of Doom.

My understanding is that this was an early/rejected version of the Dragonlance characters. Red robe is Raistlin, the big guy is Cameron, the guy with the warhammer is Tannis Half-Elven. I don't know where I heard that.

This image is on the cover of the dragonlance sourcebook Races of Ansalon.

Yeah, but AFAIK it was first published in the 2e PHB in '89. Which I think counts against deaddm's recollection, because Elmore's final interpretations of the DL characters were on book covers in '84, and it doesn't seem like they'd sit on that picture for five years when it could have been a Dragon magazine cover or something.

Also, that's a wretched choice for Races of Ansalon. In the context of that title it really looks like the celebration of the lynching of a naked draconian.

deaddmwalking wrote:My understanding is that this was an early/rejected version of the Dragonlance characters. Red robe is Raistlin, the big guy is Cameron, the guy with the warhammer is Tannis Half-Elven. I don't know where I heard that.

Not likely. The Dragonlance party was designed by committee, and a bunch of stuff doesn't match.
Dragons were supposed to be ancient, awe-inspiring setpieces; the evil ones were well-cared-for war assets and hunting a random wyrmling was out of the question.
The elf girl can't be Laurana, because she wasn't a Companion and never went "adventuring".
The dark-haired lady can't be Kitiara because the Companions never fought a dragon (the return of dragons is kind of the point of the setting), and she can't be Tika because Tika was a late addition designed by artists as a red-haired, semi-naked "babe".
Tanis has always been an archer; the guy in the picture looks like a cleric (who were almost absent in the setting and took some time to reappear).
Raistlin was a back-and-forth between Margaret Weis and the artists; him being young was a major point (that, and Tanis missing a shot (twice!! how scandalous!!!), was what counted for originality back in the day), the artists came up with e.g. hourglass pupils because "it'd look cool" (no, I don't know either how they expected it to be noticeable in print) and Weis had to come up with the reason.

It might not fit into any specific place in the Dragonlance canon (dragons were not a thing until after Kitiara went evil), but the three on the right are certainly easily identifiable as the Majere siblings. I find it hard to imagine that a D&D artist in '89 would achieve that by pure coincidence. The two on the left don't map to any Dragonlance characters particularly well, however.

In the context of that title it really looks like the celebration of the lynching of a naked draconian.

As opposed to the context of regular D&D, in which they are displaying the corpse of a child as a trophy? There's not really any version of this that doesn't make the party of adventurers look like some kind of psychopaths.

Also, why does the Races of Ansalon book have a cover that depicts exactly two races of Ansalon, with one of them being four out of the five playable characters in the picture? From the cover, you'd think the "Races of Ansalon" were almost entirely human with occasionally some elves.

Because Dragonlance d20 was a shitshow and preferred re-using classic art to commissioning new, shitty art.

Ancient History wrote:Because Dragonlance d20 was a shitshow and preferred re-using classic art to commissioning new, shitty art.

Fixed that for you.

Well, no... that didn't really fix it. He was talking specifically about the art production for a product in the context of that specific art piece.

Perhaps Dragonlance was also a shitshow, but that's a separate point, not a greater truth.

Even by the standards of d20 and Dragonlance, Dragonlance d20 was a shitshow. We should do an OSSR on it...

I could probably give it a go. I've been working on a sort of reboot to dragonlance anyways.

erik wrote:Well, no... that didn't really fix it. He was talking specifically about the art production for a product in the context of that specific art piece.

Perhaps Dragonlance was also a shitshow, but that's a separate point, not a greater truth.

You must be fun at parties.

I have to object, though. Dragonlance being a shitshow is perhaps the greatest truth, the singular truth from which all else follows.

DSMatticus wrote:

erik wrote:Well, no... that didn't really fix it. He was talking specifically about the art production for a product in the context of that specific art piece.

Perhaps Dragonlance was also a shitshow, but that's a separate point, not a greater truth.

You must be fun at parties.

I have to object, though. Dragonlance being a shitshow is perhaps the greatest truth, the singular truth from which all else follows.

You know it! I do feel a bit bad for over nitpicking. I’m just not at all familiar with Dragonlance and felt that the point was that the d20 take on it was exceptional.

I don’t know why it rubbed me the wrong way about that fixed it meme being used, but it sure did. That’s why took pains to clarify my objection, probably made me sound even more of a Putz.