D&D (2024) New D&D Edition's Player’s Handbook Cover Reveal

Game Informer has revealed the cover to the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

The cover features a gold dragon behind the old-school D&D characters Strongheart the paladin, Mercion the cleric, Elkhorn the dwarf fighter, and Molliver the thief. Ringlerun the wizard is absent (then again he got his showcase on one of the 1E AD&D Player's Handbooks), but a drow mage appears to have joined the party!

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I didn't even notice the red dragon until someone here mentioned it.

 

[Reynard]

Right, distinct within thwt picture, but not necessarily consistent in other images. My source for this is the artists talking in thwt one documentary, Eye of the Beholder. TSR art was the Wild West, to the end.

That is interesting. Now I want to find post MM 1977 images of various dragons and see how they compare. I don't even know what old modules have dragons in them, though, since I am a BECMI/2E kid.

 

[Parmandur]

That is interesting. Now I want to find post MM 1977 images of various dragons and see how they compare. I don't even know what old modules have dragons in them, though, since I am a BECMI/2E kid.

Look at Dragonlance stuff.

 

[Reynard]

Look at Dragonlance stuff.

yeah, and they line up witht he MM1 sketches pretty well.

ETA: Classic Covers: Dragonlance|Goodman Games

 

[Cadence]

yeah, and they line up witht he MM1 sketches pretty well.

ETA: Classic Covers: Dragonlance|Goodman Games

Now I wonder if it carried over to Dragon Magazine covers and art at all (I saw a bunch of those starting at issue 64). They're not official, but if there was something widely recognized I wonder if it would have showed up there too.

 

[dave2008]

That is interesting. Now I want to find post MM 1977 images of various dragons and see how they compare. I don't even know what old modules have dragons in them, though, since I am a BECMI/2E kid.

Look at Dragonlance stuff.

The 1e dragons and 2e dragons had fairly consistent "official" designs. And by "official" I mean the art in the MM. This design was sometimes followed in other works, other times not so much.

But Tiamat's heads in the 1e MM match the chromatic designs in the 1e MM. The 2e Monstrous Compendium dragons follow the same design as the 1e MM, with some artist stylistic differences. However, representation in all media only really became codified when WotC came on board and redesign things with 3e.

Here are the dragons from the 1e MM:

 

[Reynard]

The 1e dragons and 2e dragons had fairly consistent "official" designs. And by "official" I mean the art in the MM. This design was sometimes followed in other works, other times not so much.

But Tiamat's heads in the 1e MM match the chromatic designs in the 1e MM. The 2e Monstrous Compendium dragons follow the same design as the 1e MM, with some artist stylistic differences. However, representation in all media only really became codified when WotC came on board and redesign things with 3e.

Here are the dragons from the 1e MM:
View attachment 363569

The Dragonlance dragons follow this design paradigm, too. But what about between 1977 and 1984?

 

[dave2008]

Here are the 2e designs:

 

[dave2008]

The Dragonlance dragons follow this design paradigm, too. But what about between 1977 and 1984?

see the post below yours for 2e designs

Also, the DL dragons were specifically (by design) riffs on the MM versions. They we different than the MM versions (easy to see with the black), but internally consistent within DL. The exception to this was Easley who often strayed with his dragon designs.

As a caveat, when I speak of the designs I am mostly talking about the chromatics. Other than the gold and silver, metallic designs seemed to be less fixed in 1e (but to be honest I rarely paid attention to them).

 

[Stormonu]

A pair of mated Black Dragons from D1-2 Descent into the Depths (1978)

<EDIT> Oops! My bad - those are Wyverns!