D&D General One Piece of Art- What D&D Art Inspired You to Love a Class?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

These two fellas… Thief Acrobat and barbarian from AD&D unearthed arcana

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've also read the books a couple of years ago, including the follow-ups, and they are brilliant. Not quite Dickens, but the language, the setting, and how the characters behave in the milieu of the time more than make up for that. The only regret I have is that my French isn't good enough to understand the nuances and that I have to read them in English. Pity, for there's always things lost in translation.

I love Dumas' stories. But my French is about as far as you can get from being good enough to read it in the original language!

 

[ilgatto]

Artist: Dave Trampier, I’d say.
Source: Gary Gygax, Players Handbook (TSR, 1979)
Class: BARD

Although I do not especially like nor dislike BARDS and have never played one, I feel STRANGELY COMPELLED to pretend I absolutely adore BARDS, so here goes.

I have loved BARDS ever since I read Phyllis Eisenstein’s Born to Exile (1978) when… I wasn’t even born yet…, which features the minstrel Alaric and may well be the first truly Fantasy novel in the classic sense of the word I ever read.

Since we’re only allowed to post one picture each – and one picture only and from some D&D source at that – and because there aren’t actually any D&D pictures that inspired me to love anything about D&D, I suppose I’ll have to go with the picture of the stringed instrument in Appendix II of the 1E Players Handbook – which I actually like.

And I’m not even pretending too much here, for it is true that this picture in combination with the magnificent names in BARDS Table I and BARDS Table II on the next page and the fact that the class was in an Appendix rather than with the other classes for reasons I didn’t understand when I first started using the PHB, actually did intrigue and mystify me no end back in the day, all of which has always made me want to play a BARD – but which I never ended up doing.

Had I been allowed to use a picture not from some D&D source to express my love for BARDS, I suppose I would have had a hard time choosing between this one, by Richard Hescox:

This one, by Justin Sweet:

An this one, by the inimitable Donato Giancola:

But alas, it is not to be.

 

[Rabulias]

These two fellas… Thief Acrobat and barbarian from AD&D unearthed arcana

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Both by Jim Roslof.

 

[DragonBelow]

First Edition Ranger was my first class and love. Some of it was from Aragorn, but most was from Tanis. This picture sealed it for me.



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Same, always thought he was the iconic ranger. However he is always stated as a fighter

 

[Bedrockgames]

Wulfgar on the cover of the Crystal Shard very much interested me in the Barbarian:

Pretty sure that is Aegis-Fang he is wielding on the cover (been a long time since I read it) but that was also a big draw for me (it looked more maneuverable and light than I had imagined that sort of weapon).

The cover for Time of the Twins definitely got me interested in the wizard:

I know it sometimes gets compared to a romance novel cover but this was actually the first Dragonlance novel I read (I read the trilogies in reverse order) and, maybe because it had time travel and they went back to an era that felt kind of ancient world to me (which was more my interest than straight medieval stuff), the story really grabbed me. Like a lot of people my age, Raistlin seemed like a very cool character at the time

 

[Blue Orange]

View attachment 279880

I know it sometimes gets compared to a romance novel cover but this was actually the first Dragonlance novel I read (I read the trilogies in reverse order) and, maybe because it had time travel and they went back to an era that felt kind of ancient world to me (which was more my interest than straight medieval stuff), the story really grabbed me. Like a lot of people my age, Raistlin seemed like a very cool character at the time

The romance novel cover makes sense IMHO...and the plot fits what happens when you actually fall for a bad boy...though Raistlin's hardly the archetype.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I started playing D&D with this:

when someone introduced me to the D&D club at school. Once I was inculcated, a trip to the local bookstore now included a walk down the Fantasy Fiction aisle. One day, I found this thing hot off the presses:

Wow, are fighters the coolest class or what???

 

[Bedrockgames]

The romance novel cover makes sense IMHO...and the plot fits what happens when you actually fall for a bad boy...though Raistlin's hardly the archetype.

One hidden gem of that era is they released that trilogy on book on tape narrated by Peter McNicol (the guy from Dragonslayer, Ghostbusters II and Ally McBeal). I think its definitely best to read the books first, but if you ever get a chance to listen to it, it is a pretty interesting performance (especially for D&D at that time) because he really gets into the characters

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The cover for Time of the Twins definitely got me interested in the wizard:

View attachment 279880

I know it sometimes gets compared to a romance novel cover but this was actually the first Dragonlance novel I read (I read the trilogies in reverse order) and, maybe because it had time travel and they went back to an era that felt kind of ancient world to me (which was more my interest than straight medieval stuff), the story really grabbed me. Like a lot of people my age, Raistlin seemed like a very cool character at the time

It's a phenomenal cover, with great composition. The way the darkness of Raistlin's robes mirror the clouds in the sky and contrasts with Crysania's dress, the way the sky is reflected in Raistlin's golden skin, and his eyes bore into you while hers look away.