Homaging the D&D Classics I: The Early AD&D Rules

I’ve lately been immersed in covers, as I prepare the graphical resources for Designers & Dragons Origins, my four-book series of product histories for OD&D, BD&D, and AD&D 1e. Many of those covers are classics that have been homaged and parodied many times. Following is a look at the homages to the original five AD&D 1e rulebooks, before the whole line was revamped by Jeff Easley. Lots of attention is given to the one cover of the five that’s gotten the most attention over the years.

AD&D 1e Monster Manual (1977)

AD&D 1e led off with the Monster Manual (1977), prepared well before there were rules for the game! The cover by Dave Sutherland III, TSR’s first staff artist, offers a fun division of monsters into the wilderness and the dungeons. Its first homage was for Hackmaster 4e, which was licensed from Wizards and published a whole line of products with homage covers. The Monster Manual cover homage was for the Hacklopedia Field Manual (2003). Kenzer & Company followed that up with Knights of the Dinner Table #211 (2014), which is sadly the only homage without a matching back cover, but Jolly Blackburn made it up with his homages of the other AD&D 1e core rules around the same time.

That was it until the ’20s! The first non-licensed game book homage occurred after Troll Lord Games put out the eighth printing of the Player’s Handbook for Castles & Crusades in 2021. That began a series of homage covers that reimagined the original AD&D 1e covers in a more modern style, including their Monsters & Treasure (2022). Onyx Path went further afield with Threats & Curs (2024) for Realms of Pugmire. Meanwhile, Game Honors began releasing “Your Basic Parody” books with Dwellings & Driveways: Keep on the Cul-de-Sac! (2020). Mid-Life Monster Manual (2024) was their Monster Manual parody. Though the design of the last two is obviously derived from Sutherland’s work, the weird monsters are all new.

(Did you see the new tarrasque in Troll Lord’s homage? That’s a critter that wasn’t even invented when the original Monster Manual came out!)

AD&D 1e Players Handbook (1978)

Dave Trampier, who joined TSR in 1977, painted the original cover to the AD&D 1e Players Handbook (1978). It must be the most homaged RPG cover of all time. It was also TSR who first realized the iconic power of Trampier’s cover when they parodied it to mark off the April Fool’s section of Dragon #120 (April 1987), labelling it the “Players Handbook II.” They then used the same art the next year for the cover of The Mail Order Hobby Shop Catalog (1988). Years later, when producing the revised AD&D 2e rulebooks, TSR produced a number of new full-color art pieces referencing classic art. One was an aerial view of the Players Handbook scene, which appeared in the updated Dungeon Master’s Guide (1995).

Wizards of the Coast got right into the act after they purchased TSR. Check out room #39 of L3: Deep Dwarven Delve (1999), an adventure that they had to finish up in-house because they’d accidentally ended up with an incomplete copy. The “Temple of Baalzebul” features an enormous statue with two 5,000-gp rubies and a brazier full of lemures. It was players’ first chance to officially play out the Players Handbook scene. Sadly, there’s no picture, but they offered that in Polyhedron GC#1 (1999), which reprinted the 1995 Dungeon Master’s Guide art, but alas in grayscale. Several years later, Wizards offered another close-up of the theft in their real Player’s Handbook II (2006).

Wizards became more interested in classic products in the D&D 5e era (2014-Present), so Dragon+ #13 (April 2017) featured a peeps diorama of the scene, then there was an actual Sacred Idol monster in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (2018). Afterward, Wizards offered another adventurous attack on the idol, using the new Sacred Idol monster, this time as room #25 of “The Temple of Moloch” in the charity adventure Infernal Machine Rebuild (2019). The gems are still 5,000-gp rubies, no inflation here. Jason Bradley Thompson offered some images of the dungeon (and the idol) in his magnificent cartoon map.

It took until the twenty-first century for a front-cover homage to appear from a third party. Again, Hackmaster led things off with their licensed release, this time the HackMaster Player’s Handbook (2001). It’s one of the most fun homages because it showed the scene from the AD&D 1e Players Handbook a few minutes earlier, when the adventurers were still fighting the lizard men.

Perhaps that opened the floodgates (or perhaps it was nostalgia then brewing in the industry as D&D 3e was released). In any case, two other homages rapidly appeared. Dork Covenant (2002), the first collection of Dork Tower comic strips, was the first major take on Trampier’s Players Handbook cover that wasn’t either produced or licensed by the owner of D&D. A few years later, the cover of Dungeons and Zombies (2004), a fantasy supplement for All Flesh Must Be Eaten, offered as big of a milestone, as it brought that classic cover to a totally different RPG.

Together these three books offered the three main categories for Players Handbook homages: OSR/OGL products, comics, and indie games.

The OSR (or more widely, D&D books based on the OGL or even the D&D 4e GSL) has offered the richest ground for Trampier Players Handbook homages. Revenge of the Rat King (2006) was the first by some years. There was then a huge swarm in the early ’10s including Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips (2010), ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment (2011), Weird Adventures (2011), and The Jester Dragon’s Guide to Defects (2012). Into the Demon Idol (2013) started out as a one-page dungeon that delved inside the idol, and was later expanded into a short book (with a homage cover!).

Another glut started as far back as 2019, with Necrotic Gnome leading the way. In fact, there’s not one, but two homages for Gavin Norman’s Old-School Essentials game, one for the Advanced Fantasy Genre Rules (2019) and one for Adventure Anthology 2 (2023). The first is a little more distant, but it’s hard to argue with gem eyes and flaming braziers. The second more precisely captures the classic elements, though the thieves are still climbing the stature. The 8th printing of the Players Handbook (2021) for Castles & Crusades then appeared, and it’s what led them to homage the whole series of AD&D 1e core rules. Diapers & Daycare (2024), which is the second of Game Honors’ parodies, and The Adventurer’s Guide to Exercise (2025) are the newest in the series.

Though some of these homages are a bit distant, note how carefully they maintain recognizable features of the original, particularly the archway in front of the statue and the thief or thieves stealing an eye (two thieves in the original, but just one in many of the homages).

Two OSR homages are in the “coming soon” category. One is Labyrinth Lord 2e, which was released a review draft (2024) before the project went dormant. The other is Luke Gygax’s The Tomb of Gyzaengaxx, which is currently scheduled for release this year.

There’s a few uses even beyond RPGs and comics. Diesel La Force drew an homage poster for the stalled out D&D: A Documentary project. Shown here is a sketch, but a finished black & white copy shipped to backers in 2014 before the whole project became moribund. It shows the lizardmen battle, just like the Hackmaster cover did. More recently, the 50th anniversary Origins 2025 convention adopted a homage of Trampier’s cover as the defining artwork for their convention. It appeared on their badge, their con booklet, and presumably elsewhere.

Finally, two other gaming homages are impressive because they reduce the altar on the Player’s Handbook, and its archway, to something iconic. Rather than being full homages, they’re almost abstracts. They are: Frandor’s Keep (2010) for Hackmaster Basic and Altar #1 (2025) for Outcast Silver Raiders (and more generally for the OSR).

Over in the comics field, industry insider Knights of the Dinner Table again led the way, with #179 (2011). Rick and Morty vs Dungeons & Dragons #1 (2018) similarly had industry cred, even if the idol appeared on only two of the 24(!) variant covers (one in color, one in black & white). But the cover to SpongeBob Comics Annual-Size Super-Giant Swimtacular #5 (2017) showed that Trampier’s pic really had legs, as did the alternate cover for the fantasy comic Legend Fell #1 (2023). Finally, you couldn’t get much more appropriate than an homage cover for Fred Van Lente and Tom Fowler’s Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games (2025).

In the ’10s and the ’20s, Players Handbook homages could be found in even the indiest of games, such as Scroll of Exalts (2010) for Exalted, The Dungeon Delve (2012) Fiasco playset, Dark Hold Goblin Adventures (2016) for Savage Worlds, the No Country for Old Kobolds (2016) RPG, Advanced Lovers & Lesbians (2022) for Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and the Fermi Resolution Worldbook (2025) for GUMSHOE.

A new category has appeared recently: board games. The rulebook for AEG’s Meeples & Monsters (2022) has another Players Handbook homage, and it even integrates the characters from the box cover, which is a nice touch. (We’ll see lots more linked covers like that in the Basic D&D artwork in the next article in this series.)

Three final book covers might be called “variations on a theme”, but they have enough similarities that they seem likely to have been influenced by Trampier. The cover of Gods of Glorantha (1985) depicts an idol of the Lunar goddess Yara Aranis, H2: The Mines of Bloodstone (1987) features an idol to Orcus, and the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook (2014) reveals a horrific idol of Tsathoggua. The inclusion of pillars (replacing the archway of the original), braziers, fire, and even a thief trying to steal Yara Aranis’ belly-button gem all suggest that homages were intentional.

This article has focused almost entirely on front covers, but a few other piece are notable because of their age. To the left is a cartoon by Will McLean, a freelance cartoonist who started out submitting to The Dragon and was commissioned to draw several cartoons for the Dungeon Masters Guide too, which is where this one appeared. It turned the sacred idol into a mouse, demonstrating that way back in 1979, TSR (or at least McLean) already recognized its power. To the right is the back cover of The Howling Tower (1979), the second Arduin Grimoire adventure. Like McLean’s mouse, it’s not a precise match, but the artistic elements again suggest it’s a purposeful homage to Dave Trampier’s original, and likely the first such by a third party: it’s by Erol Otus before he went to work for TSR in 1979!

Also of note that same year is Dave Trampier’s own artwork for TSR’s first Dungeon Masters Screen (1979), which was originally designed as the backglass of a pinball machine! It’s not exactly a homage, but it definitely references his Players Handbook work and may even be a sequel: the idol is now eye-less and lizard men arc marching against a human castle in revenge. The GameMaster’s Shield (2002) for HackMaster 4e parodies it. (Note also the adventurers around the treasure chest in each GM screen; we’ll return to them when we look at parodies of Trampier’s interior artwork.)

There have been many other homages, including dioramas, prints, computer wallpaper, more computer wallpaper, ink-wash drawings, a Magic: The Gathering card called “Faithless Looting”, and more. This article focuses mainly on covers so as not to go on forever!

AD&D 1e Dungeon Masters Guide (1979)

The last of the core AD&D 1e rulebooks was the Dungeon Masters Guide, with cover again by Sutherland. This is the famous City of Brass cover, which showed adventurers fighting an efreet on the front cover and offered a glimpse of the much-storied city on the back. Kenzer & Company offered not one by two homages for HackMaster. The HackMaster 4e GameMaster’s Guide (2001) depicted the battle a few second later, as the wizard’s spell has gone off and the warrior has been slain. Sir Robilar’s City of Brass (2003) then turned back the hands of time, to before the female warrior’s capture by the efreet.

Wizards of the Coast themselves referenced the original with their Dungeon Master’s Guide II (2005), a match for their D&D 3.5e Player’s Handbook II. But then it was back to the OSR. Necromancer Games homaged Sutherland’s work for their own City of Brass (2007), but they cleverly combined the two covers, placing the battle more clearly in the city itself. The obligatory Knights of the Dinner Table homage was in issue #185 (March 2012), which made it a surprisingly late entry

Frog God Games revamped Necromancer’s City of Brass for 5e (2019), but in doing so they evolved the artwork away from the original; it’s barely recognizable as an homage. As usual, Troll Lord Games then offered their own take with their Castle Keepers Guide, in its fourth printing (2023).

AD&D 1e Deities & Demigods (1980)

Gary Gygax often said that Deities & Demigods (1980) was a core book too, as it gave crucial information on the religions of Dungeons & Dragons. Its cover was illustrated by Erol Otus, who replaced Dave Trampier as a TSR staff artist following Trampier’s departure in late 1978. But Erol Otus had actually debuted in TSR’s publications a few years earlier, courtesy of Dragon magazine, where he sent in a full-color remorhaz that appeared in The Dragon #2 (August 1976), followed by an ankheg for The Dragon #5 (March 1977). When given the opportunity, he moved from Berkeley, California to Wisconsin in 1979 and worked at TSR through 1981. His three most famous covers were likely the B/X Basic and Expert Sets (1981), which are covered in the next article in this series, and the cover for Deities & Demigods (1980). His work tended to look like some of the best psychedelic artwork of the ’60s and ’70s.

Otus’ cover for Deities & Demigods is gorgeous not just for its artwork, but for its conceit. It shows two priests battling as avatars of their gods, who appear in the sky overhead. A new take by Mark Kidwell for Hackmaster‘s Gawds & Demi-Gawds (2003) may be the only explicit homage. However, Otus himself offered a close variation of the theme for the second printing of the Old-School Essentials Classic Game Set (2022). There’s still a warrior fighting a snake-like entity, but the orientation has been reversed: they’re now denizens on a game board overseen by a demonic game master.

Jeff Easley also offered his own take on the idea for AD&D 2e’s Legends & Lore (1990), but he’s said that he’s never used other artists’ works as reference, so it’s not a specific homage.

AD&D 1e Fiend Folio (1981)

The Fiend Folio (1981) was produced by TSR UK, with the support of artists who offered a more European esthetic. The cover artist is Emmanuel, whose work appears in a few British gaming products of the era including White Dwarf and The Citadel of Chaos (1983). The artwork was commissioned by Ian Livingstone, when Games Workshop was still in charge of the project in the late ’70s, and Livingstone still proudly displays the original artwork on his wall. Emmanuel’s magnificent depiction of a githyanki is probably a major factor in their popularity.

Although the product hasn’t been precisely homaged, the influence of the artwork on the githyanki’s next cover apperances, in OP1: Tales of the Outer Planes (1987) and Polyhedron #159 (July 2003) is obvious. It must be exhausting always waving those huge swords over your head. (The Tales of the Outer Planes cover might actually have been intended for a Fiend Folio reprint, as it’s by Jeff Easley, who produced the new covers for the other four early AD&D books.) The Friend or Foe Folio (2022) offers another example of referencing the art without specifically homaging it.

Most recently, Planescape star artist Tony DiTerlizzi more precisely mimicked the pose for the alternative cover of Morte’s Planar Parade, one of the three books in Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse (2023). It was part of a much larger piece of art used for the alternative-art GM’s screen.

The cover for Tales of the Outer Planes was also inexplicably used by TSR as the cover to The Goblin’s Lair (1992), which as the name suggests is about goblins, not githyanki.

The Replacements (1983, 2012)

In 1983, TSR revamped their D&D trade dress and also redid the covers of all of their hardcovers to date except the Fiend Folio, with the intent of better appealing to the mass-market and making their games more family-friendly. The new covers by Jeff Easley were perhaps more technically proficient but lost the indie style that had defined early D&D. (More on these and other Jeff Easley art in a future article!)

Many, many years later, in 2012, Wizards of the Coast was scrambling for D&D releases after they abruptly cancelled D&D 4e (2008-2012). One of the results was the “premium reprints” (2012-2013), a series of reprints of classic books, including the AD&D 1e core rulebooks. Wizards went back to the original artwork, not the Easley updates, but excerpted just a tiny bit of each piece of art.

The Action Figures (2023-Present)

Though this article is focused on cover artwork, the Super7 action figures have to be mentioned because they’ve focused so heavily on recreating details from D&D covers. The efreeti from the Dungeon Masters Guide and the githyanki from the Fiend Folio were part of Dungeons & Dragons ReAction Wave 1 (2023) and their Sacred Statue from the Players Handbook was part of Dungeons & Dragons ReAction Wave 3 (2024). All minis also appeared in “glow” versions for ReAction Wave 4 (2024).

Several latter-day miniatures have also carefully adopted art from classic sources. Wizkids’ 50th Anniversary Icons of the Realms set (2024) Includes numerous purposeful art homages, including again the sacred statue (called “eidolon 1e”) and the efreet (called “efreet 1e”). WizKids also produced statues of the efreeti and the githyanki for their Replicas of the Realms line. There have also been a number of miniatures recreating the internal art from the Monster Manual, including a seven-part series called D&D Classic Collection: Monsters (2023-2025) from WizKids. (There are likely many more.)

Neither Fish Nor Fowl

What do you get if you produce a cover meant to reference both Dave Trampier’s Players Handbook and Dave Sutherland’s Dungeon Masters Guide? It might look something like Dungeon Crawl Classics #47: Tears of the Genie (2007) from Goodman Games.

Versioning Notes & Credits

v1.2.9 (6/25/25). Added the Origins 2025 cover thanks to suggestions by multiple people. Added Diesel’s Player’s Handbook sketch.

v1.2.8 (6/12/25). Added “Faithless Looting” link. Added Friend or Foe Folio thanks to Ronald Miguel. Added potential link between Tales of the Outer Planes and the Fiend Folio, also as Ronald’s suggestion.

v1.2.7 (6/9/25). Added Frandor’s Keep for DMG. Added Morte’s Planar Parade thanks to @vonaether.bsky.social‬.

v1.2.6 (6/7/25). Added Tears of the Genie.

v1.2.5 (6/6/25). Added in Deities & Demigods and Fiend Folio to have a complete set of the original books. Removed Easley covers for use in the third article in this series. Added githyanki to action figures too.

v1.2.2. (6/2/25). Added The Tomb of Gyzaengaxx per Ronald Miguel on Facebook. Finally added the mouse cartoon I’ve been wanting to for a while. Dug up Knights of the Dinner Table homages for Monster Manual and Dungeon Masters Guide. Added the HackMaster GM’s Shield after a reminder from Nick Smith at Facebook.

v1.2.1 (6/1/25). Added action figures & mention of miniatures. Added Meeples & Monsters. Added Warriors of Waterdeep computer wallpaper courtesy of @chirographum.bsky.social‬.

v1.2.0 (5/30/25). Corrected provenance of Polyhedron #GC1 cover.

v1.1.9 (5/27/25). Added the two OSE books, thanks again to Nick Smith.

v1.1.8 (5/26/25). Thanks to Ronald Miguel at Facebook, added Polyhedron #GC1 and Altar #1.

v1.1.7 (5/24/25). Added Dungeon Master’s Guide II.

v1.1.6 (5/24/25). Added Fermi Resolution Worldbook courtesy of Ronald Miguel at Facebook.

v1.1.5 (5/23/25). Added Gamemasters, Legend Fell #1, and Labyrinth Lord 2e.

v1.1.3 (5/17/25). Added the Hacklopedia Field Manual courtesy of ‪@lizardky.bsky.social‬. I knew there should be a HackMaster homage, but couldn’t find it because it was their 10th(!) monster book. That led me to Sir Robilar’s City of Brass, which I also added.

v1.1.2 (5/17/25). Added usage in Infernal Machine Rebuild thanks to ‪@ofnadwy.bsky.social‬.

v1.1.1 (5/16/25). Added Game Honors books at suggestion of Nick Smith.

v1.1.0 (5/16/25). Tons of new idol references thanks to Nick Smith at Facebook, including The Adventurer’s Guide to Exercise, ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Dark Hold Goblin Adventures, The Dungeon Delve, The Howling Tower, Into the Demon Idol, The Jeser Dragon’s Guide to Defects, Sly Flourish’s DM Tips, Weird Adventures, plus SpongeBob Comics and Rick and Morty. Information about L3: Deep Dwarven Delve added thanks to Ryan Dancey. Inclusion of Dragon+ #13 and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes courtesy of RPG Sandbox’s #demon idol tag. H2: Mines of Bloodstone added thanks to oldschoolfrp’s similar tag. (Check out both tags for even more miscellaneous non-covers!) Went ahead and added the Dragon #120 image too, even though it’s the same one as the Hobby Shop catalog.

v1.0.2 (5/14/25). Threats & Curs added thanks to @vonaether.bsky.social. New section made for all the premium handbooks.

v1.0.1 (5/12/25). Gods of Glorantha and Investigator Handbook added courtesy of Jörg Baumgartner and Josh Sykes on Facebook.

v1.0.0 (5/12/25). Initial release. Many of the original Players Handbook references courtesy of a fun reddit thread.