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!

 

[Reynard]

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).

Right, but I am wondering about whether the depiction of the various dragon styles in adventures between MM and DL followed the MM general themes. I don't know adventures and stuff from that era well enough to recall myself.

 

[Reynard]

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

View attachment 363591

Cool image, but definitely not in the MM style for black dragons. Out of curiosity, is D1-2 an AD&D or D&D adventure?

 

[Stormonu]

Why is it so hard to find a picture of a dragon in old 1E modules?

 

[dave2008]

Here are some blue dragons from the 2e Draconomicon:

 

[dave2008]

Red dragon from the same book:

 

[Reynard]

Why is it so hard to find a picture of a dragon in old 1E modules?

Wasn't one of the reasons DL got made at all that dragons were terribly underutilized in 1E?

 

[dave2008]

Green dragon from the same book:

 

[Stormonu]

Cool image, but definitely not in the MM style for black dragons. Out of curiosity, is D1-2 an AD&D or D&D adventure?

D1 is from 1978, so it would be OD&D, but the compilation D1-D2 was released during AD&D - I don't know if anything other than the cover art was changed when put into the compilation.

 

[dave2008]

black, white, green, and red from the same book:

 

[Reynard]

Green dragon from the same book:
View attachment 363599

What a lovely nasty surprise this would be to pull on 5E players who never knew dragons could be powerful casters in their own right. "Okay, everyone has protection from poison up, let's go."