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!

 

[Stormonu]

Green dragon from the same book:
View attachment 363599

That was originally a cover for Dungeon #16, and is the green dragon Vesicant, BTW. Notable as the dragon actually used the magic items from its hoard for its own benefit (notice the wand it's carrying?)

As I recall, Dragon magazine covers often depicted dragons that didn't match the MM designs, but were "just cool".

 

[dave2008]

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."

Agreed!

I should note that I only posted the images of dragons from that book that look like the MM dragons. There are an equal number of dragons that have no resemblance to MM dragons. And some that share a resemblance if you squint, like this one (I justified it in my young mind as red dragons scales got darker as they aged, so this really a deep, deep red - not black ) :

 

[dave2008]

That was originally a cover for Dungeon #16, and is the green dragon Vesicant, BTW. Notable as the dragon actually used the magic items from its hoard for its own benefit (notice the wand it's carrying?)

As I recall, Dragon magazine covers often depicted dragons that didn't match the MM designs, but were "just cool".

Yep (until 3e at least), but Vesicant does follow the MM design pretty well.

 

[Stormonu]

A white dragon from Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980)

 

[Reynard]

A white dragon from Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980)

View attachment 363611

That looks like the MM design.

 

[Stormonu]

That looks like the MM design.

Yep, it's even by the same artist that did the MM ones (DCS - David C. Sutherland, III)

...And, who could forget this beauty from the Holmes Basic set ...

It does seem to imply that by the time the MM came out, there was some design parameters for how the monsters should look - as long as they weren't Dragon Mag covers

Next, we ought to do Orc & Goblin (& Kobolds, since they're on the cover) depictions through the ages

 

[dave2008]

Yep, it's even by the same artist that did the MM ones (DCS - David C. Sutherland, III)

...And, who could forget this beauty from the Holmes Basic set ...

View attachment 363616

It does seem to imply that by the time the MM came out, there was some design parameters for how the monsters should look - as long as they weren't Dragon Mag covers

Next, we ought to do Orc & Goblin (& Kobolds, since they're on the cover) depictions through the ages

To be fair, The Dragon was intended to cover more than D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

PS - he started as an oils painter, you can see that in how he blends his strokes. I always preferred acrylics myself, but most painters I know prefer oils (if not for the more troublesome cleanup

I prefer acrylics too. Aside from the easy cleanup they are better for small paintings. You need a big canvass for a good oil painting, then you are stuck for what to do with it.

 

[Parmandur]

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."

To be fair, that is in the Monster Manual for 5E, and several 5E Adventures feature Dragobs who use magic and magic items (particularly looking at Storm King's Thunder)

 

[Chaosmancer]

OK so looking at this one again - I think my main beef with it is that the colors are a bit too washed out / pastel for my tastes. I like the scene, though. In terms of the action being depicted, I think it works better than the 'tea time with a dragon' on the alt cover (as pretty as that one is).


EDIT: Just upped the contrast / color saturation / etc in Photoshop. This is more to my taste (although still not quite what I'd prefer):

View attachment 363453

I'll be honest, I can't spot the difference between your changes and the original.